Last month we looked at the official church in China, the TSPM or Three Self Patriotic Movement’, noting that it is state registered and closely controlled by The party’; also that its birth stemmed from the period following the death of Mao.
Mao, you may recall, saw Christianity as a foreign threat to his brand of communist absolutism, criminalized it and brought it under systematic elimination. The effect of this was to make surviving Chinese Christians deadly serious about their faith – people do not die or spend 20 years in a labour camp in defence of a hobby! But a covert few bravely held to their faith, secretly meeting for Bible study and prayer in houses or in the open air, relating to one another individually and in groups with the greatest caution. Holding to a belief that was vitally precious, they accepted risk and were prepared to suffer. Many did.
When therefore Deng Xiaoping legislated to create TSPM, the official church, the unofficial Christian movement started to come out from hiding. It quickly became exuberantly alive and cautiously started to reveal an astonishing network of house churches’ that literally exploded with new converts, demonstrating both a national hunger for faith, and joy at release into new found religious freedom’. A western researcher described the emergent Christian picture as too complex to grasp – “a tangled jungle similar to spaghetti on a plate – various strands perceivable – but nothing discernibly fitting together, the whereabouts of beginnings and endings to the strands beyond guesswork’. Similarly and concurrently Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Christianity and Islam were permitted religions – Catholicism being counted separately on account of its dangerous [to The Party] subservience to Rome.
Most observers believe that there are many, many more Christians in the unregistered house churches’ than in the TSPM – perhaps an unregistered Protestant community of 25 millions and 8 million Catholics. Whatever the true figures, undeniably there are now very many millions of Chinese believers, also many excellent pastors whose past lives and willingness to suffer can remind the rest of us how high in adversity Christian demands and standards can be.
Chinese house church’ Christians preach, study and believe in the Bible. But it’s not plain sailing. As one pastor said – it didn’t matter what was your denomination during persecution but now there are many rivalries. Whilst there is fast growth, great vision and zeal, there is also misuse of statistics and power, schism and scandal, legalism and various theological peculiarities that are defended with unholy passion. Because of this and The party’s and TSPM’s determination to control, the State hasdemanded that all religious movements register. Hence unregistered Christians are sometimes persecuted. By how much? The picture varies over the whole country depending largely upon the zeal of local officials. Persecution is at a lower level than previously – security forces break up meetings, confiscate books, impose fines and imprison, beat and humiliate leaders. It happens more in regional control of the villages than the cities, countryside house church’ buildings often being destroyed.
Why do the unregistered churches stay out? There are several reasons:
– In some places the TSPM leaders, often also Party members, are so out of step with Christians on the ground that it can seem contrary to the spirit of the New Testament and sinful to come under their ministry or join their fellowship.
– Party restrictions on Christianity are, in places, restrictive and heavy handed. Better to keep heads down and away.
– Some house churches have only registered after hundreds of representations to the authorities – and then succeeded only with squeeze.
– Many – in the more complex, liberal, urban settings – are simply unaware that their Bible study group is illegal and would not believe it if so told.
– The advantages of registering are that the house church is fulfilling all righteousness’ and becoming legal, which brings with it access to the distribution of Bibles and prayer books, the opportunity to build a church – a certain freedom from the threat of persecution and a right [but heavily regulated] to make representations to district or state officials – as opposed to relatively weak local authorities.
– But there are dangers too. For example in Wenzhou house churches that had previously been persecuted were left unhindered after registration until 2000, when the authorities, knowing their targets, suddenly destroyed all 200 registered buildings. As one pastor said “we came to the surface in all good faith, but all our gains were wiped out overnight.” They had become sitting ducks.
– Sadly China also has local bullies who are happy to brand any expression of Christianity outside the registered church as cult – and there is a state directive they then use – which is to infiltrate and smash cults.
– The overall picture must therefore be of wonderful progress in the past 20 years resulting in a thriving Church in china – perhaps 60 million strong – with a numerical bias in favour of the unofficial churches rather than with the TSPM but with advantages to the latter of slightly better security and more influence. In most cases persecution is local and more that of low level intimidation and harassment, though torture and very unpleasant things still happen.
China is anxious to project an authoritative but more tolerant image to the world: Jiang Zemin, then- President, told a US congressional audience in 2002 “I am looking forward to seeing a church on one side of every village and a mosque on the other side.” It is a pious wish, yet to be fulfilled, but we can all rejoice that since Mao the Christian faith has emerged so strongly.
The Persecuted Church
Anthony Hutton