Currently, of the approximately 1.3 billion Chinese citizens, 16 million are members of the Christian Church, an increase from 700,000 Christians in 1949. The Protestant Christian Church in China is post-denominational, with all Protestant Churches united as one Church and not separated by denomination. The Church is united under the auspices of the China Christian Council (CCC). As post-denominational, the Christian Church in China developed an independent way of celebrating Christianity without the influence of outside religious organizations. Post-denominational also means that instead of dividing Christians into denominations, the Christian Church is them under one organization.

A Rebirth
Vice Chairman Deng explained, “Before, we belonged to different denominations, but now we are post-denominational and we can work together.” This system functions well, he explained, because the members of the Church “use mutual respect” for the different viewpoints and traditions of the various former denominational groups. The Church uses the term post-denominational, not non-denominational, in recognition of the different religious heritages of Protestants in China. Church services, he explained, can vary greatly, with a mix of high and low church rituals, different methods of baptism and other traditions.

TSPM works with the CCC to ensure the Christian Church in China continues to support the Chinese government and its policies and to create an independent Church for the Chinese people under the principles of “self-government, self-support and self-propagation.”

The current openness and rebirth of Chinese Christianity started in 1980, when the CCC sent a letter throughout China announcing to Christians that churches would be reopened throughout the country, one by one, and regular worship would resume, marking the end of the religious repression of the Cultural Revolution. Under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, a new era of openness in the realms of religion, foreign relations and economics began.

Bishop K. H. Ting, one of the most distinguished members of the Christian community in China, explained that it was quite hard to be a Christian starting in the 1950s and through the Cultural Revolution. He said that in all journal articles on religion during the 1950s, there was mention of the fact that religion was an opiate to the masses. Also, during the Cultural Revolution, guards confiscated Bibles from people’s homes, and Bishop Ting went several years without possessing a Bible.

Bishop Ting explained that the situation today within China is very different. “The atmosphere is much more relaxed,” he said, and the government has been working very hard during the last six years to revise state policies and thinking vis-à-vis religions. One example of this change is that government officials meet monthly with religious leaders, including Bishop Ting, to discuss policy towards religion, frankly talking about the achievements and failures of government policies.

One main reason for the reversal in government action, Bishop Ting explained, is that forcing people to atheism was not achieving the main objective of the Communist Party, which was Chinese unity. Instead, they realized, religions such as Christianity unite Chinese in ways that atheism cannot. The Communist Party has been working diligently towards “improving the well being of all,” Bishop Ting said, and it has become much more important that a united front is strengthened as opposed to a society proscribed to atheism. Now, more and more churches are being opened and Buddhist temples and statues are being built.

Tremendous growth is one characteristic of the Protestant Church in China. The official count has the number of members at 16 million, a remarkable increase from the total of 700,000 in 1949. Church services throughout the country attract 700 to 800 worshippers per Sunday service. One student at Nanjing Union Theological Seminary tried to explain the Church’s vitality: “Young people feel they need religion and search for life’s direction. They need to be healed and comforted, and God’s Holy Spirit works in their hearts.”

An important factor in the life of all religions in China today is the government, which has a bureau for handling religious affairs, called the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA). Ye Xiao Wen, Director-General of SARA, explained that the Chinese government respects and protects the freedom of religious belief. He added that it was important that religious leaders “adapt the religions to the socialist society in China.” He mentioned that the government recently added an amendment to the Constitution of China for the protection of human rights. Representatives from official religious organizations meet with SARA officials on a monthly basis to discuss the government’s policies towards religion and their successes and failures. The government still must give permission to print materials (secular or religious), build churches and invite foreign religious leaders. Such permissions have not been difficult to obtain for printing Bibles and other religious materials.

Social Services
The China Christian Church is focusing now a great deal on social service, Vice Chairman Deng explained. While the government is working hard to improve the living standards of the Chinese, the Church has become actively involved in the social welfare of society as well with the recently developed Social Service Department of the CCC, headed by Vice Chairman Deng. Among these ministries are improving education, providing free medical service, creating housing for the elderly and funding sanitation projects in rural areas. In addition, the department is working with local churches to get them involved in the projects. Vice Chairman Deng explained that as churches were reopened at the end of the Cultural Revolution, the main goal was refurbishing and constructing churches and religious buildings for Church use. Now that this goal has been met, work and funds can be concentrated on social services.

Local church councils are also becoming involved in social service projects. The Rev. Hua Yao-Zeng heads the Shanghai Christian Council (SCC), and he explained that the ministry of the churches in Shanghai has three levels: neighborhood, city and national. Locally, churches are involved in helping the poor, visiting the elderly, providing free medical services and caring for children with leukemia. On the city level, members of churches have been involved in various forms of relief work, including with prevention services for SARS last year. On a national level, the SCC provides education and medical equipment to people living in rural provinces. In addition, doctors and pastors from these areas are invited to Shanghai to receive training.

Another important social service within the Christian Church is the Amity Foundation, a non-governmental organization that receives funding from international sources and provides social services within China. Bishop Ting is Chairman of the Board of Directors of this organization, which maintains clinics and volunteer programs and provides other services as well as maintaining two printing presses for the publication of Bibles and other religious materials.

Religious Publications
Another dated misconception among some Christians in the United States is that Bibles are not available to the Chinese. In fact, the Amity Foundation Printing Press in Nanjing has printed 32 million Bibles in Chinese since 1988. Christians in China started in earnest to print Bibles in the early 1980s, but at that time the paper was expensive and there was no printing press dedicated specifically for such publications.

The United Bible Societies held a funding drive and raised money for paper. In 1987, the current printing press was established as a joint venture with the United Bible Societies and the Amity Foundation, a non-governmental organization started by Chinese Christians. Since then, millions of Bibles have been printed, including in eight minority languages and in Braille. With two complete production lines, the printing press also now can produce other products, including Bibles for other countries, religious materials, calendars, devotional books and English-Chinese dictionaries. Peter Dean, consultant to the General Manager at the press, explained that Bibles always get first priority. He also explained that while all printed materials require permits from the government, there has never been a problem with obtaining such permits for the Bibles, and there has never been a problem receiving extended permits mid-year when production exceeded expectations. “By doing the process legally,” Dean said, “we have built up trust with the government.”

The Amity Foundation also runs the Aiji Printing Factory in Shanghai. This printing press, whose name means “Love of Christ,” produces the monthly magazine for the Christian Church as well as hundreds of thousands of hymnals and devotionals a year. Zhu Defang, Director, explained that the printing press was founded in 1994 with donations from the CCC and the International Lutheran Laymen’s League. The government helped the printing press begin its work quickly by rapidly issuing a certificate allowing printing. Also beneficial was the fact that there was a misprint on the certificate. The certificate should have noted that the Aiji press was to print church-related materials only, but these words were missing. Instead of revoking the privilege to print non-church material, the government allowed the certificate to stay as written, giving Aiji the opportunity to expand by servicing outside customers. In the beginning, printing was done in unused space in local churches on outdated machines, but the company grew quickly, in a large part due to the great demand from Chinese Christians. Another donation in 1997 allowed the printing press to relocate to a large area in Shanghai and to feature improved equipment. Since then, the number of church publications has increased dramatically.

In addition to the magazine, Tianfeng, with a monthly subscription of 50,000, the press produces 300,000 hymnals and 800,000 devotional books per year. Aiji also publishes calendars, books of sermons, religious CDs and DVDs and the Bible on tape.

“I have experienced God’s blessings to this company,” said Zhu, who has been with Aiji since its founding. She credits the good reputation of Chinese Christians in general with the success Aiji has had in attracting outside printing jobs. Last year, 55% of the printing was for Church-related publications, and 45% for outside customers.

Churches
Since 1980, Christian churches around China have been opening for worship, and currently there are 50,000 churches and meeting places throughout the country. The distinction made between churches and meeting places is churches have a pastor performing services while meeting places are run solely by lay people, even though these services might be held in church buildings. Of the 50,000 worship places, 70% have been created in the past 20 years.

One church slated for reopening is Holy Trinity Cathedral in Shanghai, a former Anglican cathedral built in 1847. The church and its surrounding buildings were taken over by the government in the past 50 years, but just in the past year the cathedral and surroundings have been turned over to the CCC. The CCC headquarters moved just weeks ago to a building next to the church. The next step for the CCC is to restore the cathedral to its original design, after which it will be open for church services.

Another important church in Shanghai is the Muen Church, the first in the city to be opened after the Cultural Revolution. Today, the church has 7,000 members and an average of 5,000 attending Sunday services. The building was taken over by the Japanese military during World War II and then by the Chinese government during the Cultural Revolution, at which time it was used as a school. Today, the church holds several services using different liturgical styles – some more like traditional Anglican practices and others more similar to evangelical church services.

In Beijing, the local Christian Council has nine official churches and 700 meetings places. Beijing has 40,000 members of the Church, and services are conducted not only in Chinese but English and Korean as well. The different services also feature varying styles of worship, including some more in the tradition of the Anglican Church and others similar to the Seventh Day Adventist services. Two new church buildings are almost completed now in the city, and were built with financial help from the government. The CCC also has plans to build five more churches in the coming years to try to accommodate the growing numbers of churchgoers in the capital city.

Theological Education
There are 18 theological schools run by the CCC in China, which has produced 2,700 seminarians in the past 25 years. A number of seminarians have been women, and of the current 2000 pastors in the CCC, 400 are women. The lack of clergy and theologically educated lay leaders makes the religious schools even more important for the development of the Chinese Church.

The most important and largest seminary for the Protestant Church in China is Nanjing Union Theological Seminary, which was founded in 1911. The 192 students at the seminary come from every province in China and from different minority groups. The seminary offers bachelor and master degrees, and students can study English, Hebrew, German and Greek. Courses taught include Theology of the Old Testament, Ethics, Systematic Theology, History of Chinese Christian Thought, Feminist Theology, and Patristic Studies. After receiving a degree, in order to be ordained, the graduate must return to his/her home church to work for a few years before officially becoming a pastor.

The Church Council of Jiangsu, one of the provinces of China, established a Bible School for the 1.2 million Christians in the province that includes the city of Nanjing. Many of the church services are performed by lay leaders since the entire province has only 152 regular pastors. To increase the religious education of lay people and to present students with the opportunity of theological study, the council created the Bible School with one, two and three-year training classes at the college level. Once a student has completed the three-year course, s/he is eligible to study at the junior programs at seminaries. So far, 290 students have graduated from the Bible School program, and 120 are currently enrolled, although far more applied to study but space is very limited. The chairman of the Jiangsu Church Council, the Rev. Xinyi An, explained that at the current rate of graduation, it would take 40 years to fulfill the need for lay and ordained leaders throughout the province.

Challenges Facing the CCC
The most serious challenge facing the Church in China is the lack of educated lay and ordained leaders to serve the Church members. The number of Christians in China has increased so dramatically over the past 25 years that the limited number of schools cannot educate enough pastors and lay people to meet the need.

A major challenge to Christianity in China today, Bishop Ting explained, is lack of education of many of the followers. Nanjing Seminary, of which Bishop Ting is president, is the only Christian theological institution in China that educates theological scholars as well as pastors. One of the hopes is to send some students and professors abroad for further training. To a small extent, some of the graduate students and professors are sent to study in the United States and Canada, but this is very expensive. Currently, two staff members are studying abroad in the United States and Canada and the dean of the seminary, the Rev. Ambroise Aiming Wang, will begin this September studying for one year at Yale Divinity School and for one year at the University of Basel in Switzerland.

A serious repercussion of the lack of religious education is the susceptibility of church members and others to heretical teachings and cults. One growing cult, known as “Eastern Lightning,” has followers who believe one woman is the reincarnation of Christ. One professor at Nanjing Seminary echoed Bishop Ting’s remarks about the threat of heretical Christianity to the Church in China. “In rural areas, people are hunting for miracles.” He explained that with most cults, people are easily brought in but then are not allowed to leave, and many people do not know what true Christianity teaches, since there are so few pastors. “Lay people are willing to evangelize, but they don’t completely know Christianity,” he explained.

Another professor at the seminary explained that atheism is still a great challenge in China and that most Chinese do not believe in God. A student added, “There are also many challenges, such as globalization and secularization.”

Elder Ji Jian Hong, Chairman of TSPM, brought up another serious challenge for the Church. He explained that the theology of the Chinese Christian Church has been under reconstruction for the past five years. As a newly formed, independent Church, the Christian Church in China is trying to create religious structure and organization.

“We would like the theology to contact historical continuity based on the faith and the Bible,” he explained. “On the other hand, we want to create a Chinese theological system that God has given us to guide our Church – to satisfy God and the people in a socialist society. This is work not easy to do.”

“To worship God, you not only need emotion but liturgy,” Elder Ji said. Without regularized liturgy and sacraments, the Chinese Church finds itself without consistent standards of worship. For example, some churches have liturgies that last from 7 in the morning until 10 at night. Elder Ji mentioned three important points for reconstruction. The first is to “establish Chinese theological thinking in a changing society.” The second is to construct Church polity to better regulate liturgy and sacraments. Third, the Church “needs to do social witness and help the marginalized.”