Evangelicals Now
<< February 2003 >>

China - a ripe harvest field

I climbed the worn steps of the former Presbyterian church in a large city in east China. As nearly every seat was taken I had to go to the highest gallery of the church.

It was the mid-week young people's meeting. It began with some rousing singing of both traditional hymns and modern choruses. Then the young pastor gave a 45-minute Bible study from the Old Testament on being sensitive to the guidance of God in every circumstance.

The young people listened attentively and many took notes. Nothing very remarkable, some would say. Except this was Communist China where every church had been closed until 23 years ago. Also, there were about 1,000 enthusiastic youth packing the church.

Far to the west I attended Sunday afternoon service at another State-supervised church. Before the service everyone got down from their seats and knelt on cushions on the floor for a half-hour prayer meeting. People prayed aloud simultaneously imploring God's anointing on the service. Many wept. After a very biblical sermon I interviewed the young pastor. He said the church had a membership of 1,200 people and every year between 100-200 new converts were baptised.

Party conference

My visit to China coincided with the 16th Communist Party Congress. China has a new leader, Mr. Hu Jintao. But former Party chief Jiang Zemin is expected to continue to control the country from behind the scenes. No one expects any major changes. China continues to race forward with breakneck economic development. But political reform is not on the agenda. The Communist Party still keeps a tight check on religious activities. In return for accepting Party supervision to varying degrees, those Christians who work within the government-controlled 'Three Self' churches are free to preach the gospel within four walls. Several city churches I visited now have Sunday schools, although these are still technically banned by the Party which views with alarm the growth of the church among young people.

The Party continues to view unregistered house churches with suspicion. New regulations call for draconian fines of as much as 50,000 RMB (about £4,000) for Christians caught holding underground Bible training classes. For many country people this is the equivalent of several years' income. The families of those fined are left destitute. Yet the house churches continue to thrive. In many cities it is not possible to have more than 10-20 people in a home-meeting without attracting the hostile attention of the ubiquitous 'Street Committees' and the police. Larger meetings are fined and broken up. Yet even this helps the further spread of the gospel as believers split up into smaller cell groups.

Attacks

Apart from persecution, the Chinese church faces attack on two other fronts: from cults and false liberal theology. Rural house churches are particularly open to infiltration by heresies. Many of their members are illiterate and leadership inexperienced. Nearly everywhere I went on this visit Christians raised the threat posed by the cult 'Lightning from the East'. This bizarre heresy preaches a female Chinese Messiah and specialises in infiltrating existing evangelical house churches. It pulled off its most spectacular coup last year (2002) when it kidnapped the entire leadership of the Chinese Gospel Fellowship. After much prayer worldwide, the leaders were released and returned home safely. Only one had been brainwashed into joining the cult. God has used this traumatic event to make many house-churches alert to the dangers posed by cults and to step-up solid Bible training of all their members.

Imposition of liberalism

If cults and heresies are the main means Satan is using to plague the house churches, the main threat to the State-registered (or 'Three Self') churches stems from a government-backed political campaign to impose liberal theology on pastors and theological students and through them on the entire church. Bishop Ding's 'theological construction' campaign attacks the authority of the Bible, the centrality of with 'justification by love' - i.e. good works. This campaign has been most thoroughgoing in east China. It is being resisted vigorously by evangelical pastors in many other areas. Ding is on record as admitting that even the State-registered church is overwhelmingly evangelical. However, he has formulated a long-term campaign to wrest the church from its evangelical moorings and steer it into the swamp of a universalist liberal theology which meshes neatly with the governments Marxist ideology. According to Ding and the new leaders of the China Christian Council and Three Self Patriotic Movement (the two government-controlled organs which control the State church) all Christian theology must be 'compatible with socialism' (i.e. Marxism). Several theological teachers, students, graduates and pastors have already been dismissed for daring to oppose Ding by openly taking a stand for evangelical truth. This is a battle for the soul of the Chinese church which must not be lost.

Joyful Christians

At the grass-roots, whether in the State church or the house churches, Christians are joyful in their simple faith in the Christ of the Bible. The State church alone sees over 500,000 new converts baptised every year and probably many more are added to the house churches. Some house churches are catching a vision for cross-cultural mission. Already some individuals and families have moved to remote parts of the country to witness to Tibetans, Muslims, Mongols and other unreached people groups. In some circles missionary work is being promoted under the slogan of 'Back to Jerusalem' which encourages evangelism to Muslims in NW China and then to Central Asia and beyond. In one church I met with enthusiastic believers from the area of Wenzhou where there has been explosive growth over the last thirty years. This small region on the SE coast of China has over 700,000 Christians meeting in over 1,000 churches. Now Christian businessmen from Wenzhou are busy spreading the Gospel all over China. I also gleaned reliable evidence that small Christian fellowships are now active in many Chinese colleges and universities. Some of these students are keenly burdened for world mission. They, together with the thousands of Chinese intellectuals who have come to Christ while studying overseas in the United States, Britain and Australia, will provide trained leadership for the Chinese church and its future outreach.

The revival of the gospel in China over the last three decades has raised up a vigorous evangelical church which, probably numbering over 50 million (compared to only 700,000 in 1949), now rivals that in the United States and will soon surpass it. In the providence of God this spiritual awakening has taken place alongside China's growing economic development, the increasing influence of the world-wide network of Overseas Chinese and the use of Mandarin Chinese as the national language of 1.3 billion people. Chinese Christians are poised to make a major impact on the world in terms of evangelism and mission.

Peter Morrison