Religion: Church in China

Lord's Prayer in Classical Chinese

(Image from Wikipedia)

For those interested in this sort of thing, an interesting article by Rob Moll, "Great Leap Forward," appears in the past week's online Christianity Today about the present status of Christianity in China.

The most surprising thing is the estimated number of Christians, even in estimates cited by government officials:

The dazzling growth of Christianity inside China began in the late 1970s at the end of the Cultural Revolution. During that period, up to 7 million people died from widespread violence and famine.

At that time, there were an estimated 3 million Catholics and Protestants in China. Three decades later, estimates of the number of Christians vary widely, anywhere from 54 million to 130 million, the higher number representing a 43-fold increase, which would be one of the largest growth spurts in the history of Christianity.

Scholars have debated for decades about the number of Christians in China. But the new estimates both come from government sources. The higher number of 130 million reportedly comes from Ye Xiaowen, the head of China's State Administration of Religious Affairs. According to reliable reports, he used the 130 million head count at two government briefings in 2006. Bob Fu of China Aid Association has cited 130 million as a credible estimate. Other experts believe any statistic reporting over 100 million Christians is not credible.

That Ye Xiaowen, head of China's State Administration of Religious Affairs, would cite 130 million Christians renders the number credible, albeit with a couple of caveats, namely: (1) how would he know, and (2) are the reports really reliable?

I recall looking into this issue of Christian growth in China back around 2003, when the higher estimate of the number of Christians was between 80 and 100 million. Most of the reasoning behind those estimates looked like guesswork to me. The number of Christians, even if 'merely' 54 million, still looks fairly impressive, given the base of 3 million in the late 1970s, for the increase would amount to about 50 million in around 30 years.

Also interesting is the Chinese perspective on Christianity's role in the West. As does the Muslim world, Chinese tend to see the West as 'Christian'. The fact that much of the West is strongly secular does not seem to strike them as significant, so they interpret the West's characteristics and actions as 'Christian'. The difference lies in the differing reactions of Chinese and Muslims, respectively.

Chinese look to Western power and ask, how can we attain that? They infer that it springs from a spiritual source and turn their attention to Christianity. Many, apparently, convert -- though whether from secular or spiritual motives, I won't speculate.

The Muslim world looks to Western power and asks, how can we defeat that? They also infer that it springs from a spiritual source and likewise turn their attention to Christianity. However, not many convert, for they have a long-standing conflict with 'Christendom' and a cultural hermeneutic of suspicion derived from their belief that Christians have corrupted the original, Islamic revelation brought by Jesus.

The Christianity Today article, by the way, doesn't speculate about Muslims and their resistance to Christian conversion. These musings are my own, based on my scattered readings over the years about Islam and Muslims.

Concerning the Chinese Christians, however, we have their own words from this article:

Hsu, a former television journalist for the state-sponsored CCTV, is a telling example of how a member of China's educated elite moves to Christianity.

Hsu told his story to CT over a meal at a crowded Beijing KFC. It began with his search for freedom -- politically and personally. The search led him to European history. "Westerners are not more interested in freedom than anyone else," he says. (page 3)

Yet the West has achieved and sustained a greater degree of liberty than any other culture. Hsu wondered what the West had that China didn't. "Before freedom comes, you have to have a foundation. In the West that foundation is Christianity."

Hsu's vision for a new China parallels his readings on the march of freedom in the West. From the 10th to 12th centuries, Hsu reasons, Europe developed legal studies, hospitals, and universities, all of which grew out of the church. These developments resulted in breakthroughs in human liberty, as seen in the Reformation, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment. Today, Hsu says, the church is an incubator for similar developments in China. (page 4)

Interestingly, these are the very issues about which we historians of the West debate . . . endlessly. Basically, the debate centers on a central, two-fold question: was modernity a furtherance of Medieval Christianity by other means, or was modernity a rejection of Medieval Christianity?

My own answer would be to emphasize the complexity of Modernity's relation to the Middle Ages, but for the Chinese, it seems, the overwhelming factor behind Western Modernity is Christianity. I suppose that this is partly a matter of looking in from outside.

Anyway, if this sort of thing interests you, take a look at the seven-page article -- which, of course, is journalistic, not scholarly.