"Jesus in China" A clip from the PBS series
that gives some basic information

Number of Chinese Christians in China:

The statistics regarding the number of Chinese Christians a part of the House Church Movement are inconsistent and difficult to obtain. Even mere estimates are nearly impossible to assess especially due to the secret and hidden nature of house church gatherings (Lambert 2003, 7). In 1998 a report issued by leaders of nine major house church networks claimed that there were 10 million Christians in the Three-Self churches and 80 million in house churches. But after considering the many various statistics and estimates made by church leadership, government officials, and researchers, Tony Lambert concludes that in order to gather accurate and reliable statistics regarding the number of Christians in China that worship in both registered and unregistered churches, a statistical survey of all cities, counties, and rural districts must be taken (Lambert 2003, 10). This would prove to be a very difficult task and until Chinese House churches become more public institutions, mere estimates will be the only source.

"The Basic Viewpoint and Policy on the Religious Question During Our Country's Socialist Period"

"Religion will eventually disappear from human history. But it will disappear naturally only through the long-term development of Socialism and Communism, when all objective requirements are met."

The stated goal of the Chinese Communist Party is a Marxist Socialism that would create a society in which religion is unneeded and irrelevant. In its ideology, the elimination of class struggles and oppression paves the way for a society void of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Daoism, Catholicism, and any other alternative forms of religious expression and belief. The Party is strictly atheist and requires its 70 million Party members to adhere to an atheistic set of beliefs and lifestyle. In regards to the remainder of the 1.6 billion people living in the borders of China, the Party emphatically maintains a policy of "freedom of religious belief," a phrase that has been ambiguously interpreted and questionably upheld by the Chinese government. Their policy reduces issues of religious faith and belief to individual decisions and private matters.

In order to provide its people with an environment suitable for practicing their individual faiths under the leadership of the Communist Party, they have created several "patriotic religious organizations."

"The basic task of these patriotic religious organizations is to assist the Party and the government to implement the policy of freedom of religious belief, to help the broad mass of religious believers and persons in religious circles to continually raise their patriotic and Socialist consciousness, to represent the lawful rights and interest of religious circles, to organize normal religious activities, and to manage religious affairs well. All patriotic religious organizations should follow the Party’s and government’s leadership."

The Three-Self Patriotic Movement is one of these organizations that governs the religious activities of all Protestant denominations and faiths. But due to the political nature of the Party's influence in the function of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, many Christians in China refuse to submit to register themselves under the authority of this Communist-led organization and instead take part in the faith activities of the house churches (MacInnis 1989, 8-26).

• Believe that God is alive and active in China.
• Believe in the Holy Spirit and miracles.
• To be a Christian is to sacrifice (going against their culture, costs, need to dedicate and commit).
• Christians do not necessarily have services on Sundays.
• Christians do not necessarily realize the restrictions in their country. (Outsiders usually think that Chinese Christians know the restrictions they are facing in the country.) Their knowledge, e.g. church history in China, is limited.

• Christianity is Western. Why should I believe in a Western religion?
• Need to adhere to their ancestral religion as a respect to the elders in the family.
• Only the needy, the poor, the weak will become Christians.

• Constantly under persecution
• Meet in underground, unexposed, remote condition
• Members are peasants or uneducated
• Mission means Back to Jerusalem Movement

1. Rent another premise. Strength: the whole group can continue to meet together. Weakness: sometimes the new place is so far away that some Christians stop coming to the church.
2. Break up into small groups that meet at homes. Strength: provide stable meeting place. Weakness: house churches become small and weak, scarce resources.
3. Buy a premise under the personal name of one of the member. Strength: a stable meeting place. Weakness: expensive, may have dispute over whose name to be under. (Brother Liu: from Mainland China, now resides in California)

1. Overseas churches shall not see Chinese House Church as always un-cooperative and passive in dealing with registration of their churches. Actually, some house churches are very active in seeking registration with the government. Many hope to be registered separately from the official Three Self Patriotic Movement (Riley).
   
2. Chinese house churches do not only gather behind closed doors and windows. They are not only underground churches that play hide-n-seek with the government. A new generation of house churches in the cities is in the process of opening up themselves. They are more confident to establish constructive dialogue with the government.
3. Nowadays house churches are seeking to establish a healthy church system rather than just relying on an old pastor. An organization from Hong Kong that trains house church leaders has added to their training program a course on “Church administration and system”.
4. The biggest concern of Chinese house churches is not their rights from a political point of view. House churches also see the contribution they can have on the society by concerning the poor, setting examples on the value of marriage and family….(Brother Suen: Chinese House Church Leader)
   

Although he was and is highly criticized by conservative evangelical Christians both in China and abroad, Y.T. Wu (former Chinese YMCA leader and new leader of the TSPM) may have contributed to the Church’s survival during the early years in Communist China (Gao 1996, 343). In 1950, under Wu’s leadership, the TSPM drew up the “Christian Manifesto,” which attempted to set the tone for Church-State relations for the new government. “The Christian Manifesto took as its principal theme anti-imperialism, and stressed ‘the fact that in the past imperialism has made use of Christianity,’ and the necessity to ‘purge imperialistic influences from within Christianity itself’” (Ibid, 344). While the document did not condemn Christianity as imperialistic per se, it did lament many of its imperialistic ties. Even though it scandalized many Chinese Protestant leaders, its positive tone on the future of Church-State relations in China ill-prepared Christians for the persecution that was to come (Ibid, 345).

While many countries that were subjected to Western imperialism looked to their pre-colonial past to build national pride and revive their nation in resistance to the colonial powers, (Fanon 1995, 154) China looked not to their past but to an optimistic view of the future under the rule of Communist Party leader Mao Tse Tung. The Cultural Revolution was unleashed to wipe out undesirable elements of Chinese culture. This included bourgeois, Western, imperialist, and much of the old cultural heritage of China itself including icons of the old feudal order and Chinese religions--Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. “The first and most dramatic phase of the Cultural Revolution was the explosive red guard movement of 1966-68. In a manner unprecedented in communist-ruled states, young middle school and university students were unleashed to attack cultural symbols of the old society, academic representatives of ‘bourgeois’ scholarship, and party leaders allegedly infected with revisionist ideas. In most instances, the red guard movement quickly fractured into fiercely conflicting factions…” (Esherick 2006, 19). Under the guise of patriotism, Mao unleashed the nationalistic fervor of the masses by his call to revolution.

They are not associated with any organization and certainly have no formal ties with the church outside China. The vast majority of new believers has been the result of indigenous evangelization. They are not associated with Western imperialism. Without any organizational structure, they are not bound by committee meetings, reports, and the power politics common in organized churches. They are also free from control by any national organization (Adeney 1985, 146).

Many Christians meet only with family members and close friends. Two or mature Christian families would look for a family that is just approaching Christian faith and would provide support for them. The believing community is built up with little clusters of Christian families (Ibid, 147).

They exist without buildings, set times of worship, or a paid ministry. The place of meeting is often changed from one home to another. Even the time is changed to suit the schedules of the Christians as they work at different hours. The house churches are extremely flexible (Ibid, 148).

With Jesus as the head of the body, the church places obedience to him above any other loyalty; it does not accept control by any outside organization (Ibid, 148).

The ministry is made up of people from various walks of life who spend much time going from church to church teaching and building up the faith of others. The house churches are not allowed to take up offerings for the support of full-time workers, but the Christians do contribute to those who have been called by God to exercise the ministry of the Word through these faithful visits (Ibid, 158).

Reasons for the rise of Chinese House Church in the city since 1990s:

1. 1. “Tiananmen Square Protests” prepared the hearts of many intellectuals in China to be open to the Gospel.
2. 2. A consumer product economy let Chinese realize that they have a freedom of choice.
3. 3. The effect of an increased rate of urbanization in China.
4. 4. Return of overseas graduates who become Christians when they study overseas, and are now coming back to China
   
5. to serve the Lord (Zhu n.d.).

Within the Peoples’ Republic of China there are 56 recognized people groups, ethnic groups, or nationalities. The people groups consist of Han, which is the largest single group, and 55 minority groups, which compromise seven percent of the population of China. Archaeologists and anthropologists have concluded that the Chinese have descended from four ancient ethnic groups: Yanhuang, Miaoman, Baiye, and Dongyi, making the Chinese not one distinct race but a blend of existing tribal people groups (Chao 1989, 387).

The homelands of many of thenational minority people groups are located along China’s borders. Historically, many of these areas were controlled or ruled by China only at times, off and on; frequently the control was tenuous, more a matter of influence than direct rule. Even in recent decades, on the eve of the Communist revolution of 1949, some of these domains were, realistically speaking, beyond the reach of the Chinese authorities. The government today asserts that these areas, such as Tibet, have “always” been part of China, but that is political rhetoric, not historical fact (Gunde 2002, 10).

Among the 55 national minorities, which number over 100 million, and inhabit areas constituting about 60 per cent of China’s territory, mainly in strategic border areas, some of these ethnic groups responded very favourably to Christianity before the communist period, such as the Hua Miao. In Christian conversion it seems that some minorities found social and psychological resources to resist domination and oppression by both the Han majority and by other minorities, and others found reinforcement for traditional cultural or religious identities. Some minorities that had substantial numbers of Christians were strikingly loyal to their faith despite persecution after 1949. There has always been a widely varying pattern in the willingness of some minority groups and the unwillingness of others to convert to Christianity. In the recent and present situation in China, the minorities who inhabit inaccessible interior areas in the south-west are being bypassed by the national movement towards modernization, and moreover are often victims of extreme poverty, drug addiction and social breakdown. Some of these groups have been very receptive to Christianity. Moreover, some county governments in these areas, in an ironic reversal of the past stance of government vis-a`-vis religion, but desperate to combat the drug problem and its dangers to public health and law and order, have actively promoted the conversion to Christianity of the afflicted peoples, and have facilitated their evangelization by Chinese Christians (Bays 2003a, 497).

* The data in the table below is from two books: Jonathan Chao, The China Mission Book (Hong Kong: Chinese Church Research Center: 1989), 141-195, and Paul Hattaway, Operation China: Introduction all the Peoples of China (Pasadena, CA: Piquant, 2000), 15-574.
* The population and the rate of Christians are based on the measure on 2000 and abbreviators are used to save space.

The minority peoples and mission

• 1874 – Chinese Christian women took their first organized stance against social inequality by forming an anti-foot-binding movement (Kwok 1996, 204).
• 1879 – Chinese women gained access to medical training at Canton Hospital. Christian women were involved in introducing new conception of the women’s body which would eventually shatter the centuries-old myths and taboos surrounding such things as menstruation, pregnancy, and childbirth (Ibid, 205).
• 1886 – Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was introduced to China. This group participated in social reform activities such as public lectures and distribution of literature on the evils of foot-binding, polygamy, prostitution, and the selling of daughters into slavery (Lewis 2004, 194).
• 1920’s – The YWCA raises the Churches social and political consciousness by drawing attention to the injustice done to women working in factories and sweatshops. “YWCA literacy classes for workers in shanghai cotton mills had the lasting effect of raising the consciousness of female workers and nurturing female leaders in the labor movement" (Kwok 1996, 206).

Description

Since the reform of the economic system and opening to foreign trade in 1978, China has transformed itself from an opponent to an advocate of globalization. In fact, most of China’s economic successes are associated with globalization. Today China is the country that sends mission throughout the world seeking best practice. It adapts not just foreign technology and foreign corporate management techniques but also a wide variety of foreign institutions and practices (e.g., French military acquisition systems and a central bank structure modeled on the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank) (Overholt 2005, 5). Among the most important of these changes are the decision to adopt the Western concept of rule of law, adoption of competition as a centrally important economic practice, and adoption of English language as virtually a second language for the educated Chinese population (Ibid, 5). Most importantly, China has sent its elite youth abroad for education in an exercise of internationalism.

Rapid Chinese globalization has required major adjustments. The economic reforms have initiated both rural-to-urban and west-to-east migration. In 1990’s, China’s urban population has been augmented by nearly 30 percent with the arrival of as many as 100 million migrant workers (Starr 1997, 87). Although the reform program achieved success, it also gave rise to several serious problems. State enterprise employment has declined by 44 million between 1995 and 2005, and manufacturing jobs have declined from over 54 million in 1994 to under 39 million today (Ibid, 6). Another difficulty was a wave of crime, corruption, and moral deterioration caused by the looser economic and political climate. In addition, there were tensions created by the widening income disparities between the rich and the poor. Nevertheless, because China has been willing to accept such adjustments, no large country in human history has ever
experienced such rapid improvements in living standards and working conditions.

Imperial China honored a rich variety of religious and philosophical traditions.