The Next Cradle of Christianity

(guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 June 2012)

In the past three decades, as China’s economy has flourished and personal freedoms have increased, religions of all forms have started to thrive.

Yet instead of joining officially sanctioned churches, the Chinese have been flocking to unofficial houses of worship – the so-called house churches, with up to 100 million members. While technically illegal, the house churches have been largely tolerated in recent years thanks to relaxed control and the government’s realisation that religion can be a moral force to be reckoned with.

The statistics are hard to come by but Protestantism is generally regarded as the fastest growing religion in China. Before China’s reforms and opening up, there were only 2 million Christians but the figure has increased 40- to 50-fold in the past three decades. According to Frank Lee, a Chinese academic who has studied the development of so-called  house churches in China, there are currently 20 million registered with the Three-Self Church (my italics), whereas the house churches boast 10 million Catholics and up to 70 million Protestants. Others put the figures even higher. Farmers and migrant workers make up the bulk.

The house church fits the bill (among poor China’s migrant workers). Each congregation is an independent social organisation, providing a badly needed infrastructure and services for the members. In some poorer areas, the churches even offer basic medical care and education. Members stay clear of the official church, or the “big church” as they call it, because they believe that the true religion should be free from politics.

China’s communist party has been struggling as it tries to balance making use of religion as a moral force with its habitual inclination to control it. Unfortunately, the party’s fear of any independent organisation wins out often. Shouwang, a large house church in Beijing with 1,000 members, attempted to establish its own venue in 2010 but failed. More disturbing was the sentencing of a house church pastor in Shandong province to a labour camp for supposedly illegal gatherings.

Instead of curtailing the growth of house churches, the Chinese authorities should accept the religious movement as a positive force. The tugs and pulls of modern life tend to leave any nation’s people searching for a spiritual outlet.

(guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 June 2012)

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