The State of the Church in China
And What the American Church Needs to Learn
You can listen to the audio narration of this article here.
Introduction:
In the past year, numerous pastors and congregants from Britain, Canada, America, and Australia have been arrested for various offenses, including holding services, quoting the Bible on homosexuality, and simply singing outdoors. This has forced many Christians to realize that the Western church is not immune from persecution. But this is not a new realization for many brothers across the world. In fact, Christians in China are suffering full-fledged persecution right now and have been for decades. And that's what we want to focus on today: Christian persecution in China, and specific lessons we can learn from it.
The CCP’s Tactics of Control and Persecution:
Christianity has been unstable in China ever since the first missionaries arrived in the 7th century; it had periods of growth and suppression until establishing a more permanent presence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.1 However, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) rose to power and put an end to the growth by seizing control of the church. After a gradual increase of Mao Zedong’s totalitarian power, in which all religious practices were banned during the Chinese Cultural revolution (c. 1966-1976), Christianity began to experience a resurgence during the early 1980’s which is still occurring to this day. Unfortunately, however, with an increase in Christian presence has come an increase in Christian persecution under current Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
While China is officially an atheist state, the CCP recognizes five religions: Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Islam. For churches to legally operate they need to be registered with the Chinese government, specifically the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA). Eleanor Albert, a journalist for the Council on Foreign Relations notes that SARA “...manages all aspects of religious life, including religious leadership appointments, selection of clergy, and interpretation of doctrine.” She also mentions that “[in order to] ...register as a state-sanctioned Christian organization, religious leaders must receive training to ‘adapt’ doctrine to government and CCP thinking.”2 This is the first way in which the CCP ensures churches stay within their bounds. By controlling the training and ordination processes of church clergy, the communist party can “...cultivate ‘patriotic’ religious leaders who can teach believers to ‘love the country’ and ‘protect the leadership of the Communist Party.’”3
But controlling the clergy is simply a means to an end, that being to manage the beliefs of the larger Christian population. For example:
In 1998, top TSPM leader Bishop Ding Guangxun launched the Theological Construction Movement. He advocated “diluting” the traditional doctrine of “justification by faith” with an emphasis on being a “law-abiding, good citizen,” essentially encouraging Chinese Protestants to obey party-state authority over religious authority.4
The TSPM stands for the “Three-Self Patriotic Movement” which is currently one of the largest government controlled Protestant bodies in China
This ideological control is a precursor of more severe physical control. The party actively seeks out non-state-controlled religious activities such as unsanctioned Bible studies and disbands them through raids. They also turn off water and electricity in buildings housing unsanctioned church practices (sound familiar?) and in more severe cases demolish said buildings. These raids and demolitions usually target unregistered believers (a group we’ll learn about more later) to incentivize them to register, and the CCP has begun targeting registered churches as well. Anyone opposing the CCP can be subject to various forms of detention and sometimes even torture:
Most detained Christians are subject to relatively short periods in custody, ranging from several hours of interrogation to administrative detention of up to 15 days. This is particularly true for ordinary congregants who make up the majority of detained Christians. However, each year a number of mainstream Protestants and Catholics are placed in long-term custody, “disappeared,” or sentenced to prison.5
The Resistance:
So who are the “unregistered” believers referenced above? According to the latest statistics from SARA in 2014, China had 29 million Protestants and 5.7 million Catholics living in the country. However, those numbers include only those who are registered. It is believed that there are just as many unregistered believers in China, which would increase the number to approximately 58 million Protestants and 12 million Catholics.6 It is hard to pinpoint an exact number because unregistered believers aren't exactly eager to volunteer that information. Since they face the brunt of CCP persecution efforts, they have to find other means of worship. A common get-around is worshipping outside. When unregistered church congregations are driven out of their buildings through raids or demolition, they commonly resort to hosting services and prayer time in public plazas and parks. Unfortunately the party closes this outdoor “loophole” through multiple rounds of arrests, after which congregants retreat to smaller secret home gatherings like those of the early church during Roman persecution.7
Evasion is a necessity for unregistered Christians in China, but they also use various tactics to resist. For example, some smaller churches have prevented the demolition of their buildings and confiscation of large crosses by holding hands and creating a human wall.8 However, larger groups performing the same tactics don’t have as much luck because they pose more of a threat to the party. Petitions are occasionally written to officials, and while generally ignored, they provide valuable information to the outside world as to the extent of the persecution. In some instances, Chinese Catholics will boycott ceremonies involving bishops that have not received papal approval.9
Implications for America:
It is encouraging to see believers take action against their sinful regime in obedience to God and stand firm in their faith. As we pray for our Chinese brethren, what can we learn from them? The first thing to learn is that persecution really can get that bad here in America. Though we've long experienced a reprieve, the same unregenerate, God-hating hearts residing in Chinese authorities reside in many of our own. This is why we should attempt to put Christians in power whenever possible. History shows that sympathetic local officials can be an effective shield against persecution.
China has and continues to ban books, and U.S. companies such as Target and Amazon are already clamping down on the distribution of books with right wing and Christian themes. The Internet makes it easier to self-publish and circulate books, but China extensively censors the Web as well. Similarly, leftist American tech companies have censored right wingers and Christians for years now and continue to get more aggressive, thus making it imperative for us to learn how to circumvent the censorship. Lastly, it is important for our local churches to come up with contingency plans should we face more severe persecution. Churches should have answers to questions such as: What will happen if our tax-exempt status is revoked? Whose houses can we use should we be driven out of our buildings? Who will temporarily lead the flock should our pastor(s) be arrested? How will we stay in communication if we can't use standard phones (as the phone companies record all calls and texts, and the government can review these records)? Hopefully these preparations won't be needed, but all the same, it's best to have them.
Conclusion:
We are feeling the tremors of what our Chinese brothers experience on a daily basis. Thus, we need to begin making preparations for persecution now. We ought to be praying that God would give us the faithfulness and courage of our Chinese brothers, and that we would receive persecution as the blessing it is:
Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
(Matthew 5:11-12.) God bless.
Cook, Sarah. The Battle for China’s Spirit: Religious Revival, Repression, and Resistance under Xi Jinping. E-book, Freedom House Special Report, 2017.
Albert, Eleanor. “Christianity in China.” Council on Foreign Relations, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/christianity-china?amp. Accessed 2 June 2021.
Carsten Vala, “Pathways to the Pulpit: Leadership Training in ‘Patriotic’ and Unregistered Chinese Protestant Churches,” Making Religion, Making the State: The Politics of Religion in Modern China, ed. Yoshiko Ashiwa and David L. Wang (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009).
Cook, loc. cit.
Ibid., 54
Ibid., 45
Ibid., 58
Ibid.