CHINA’S REFORMING CHURCHES
Mission, polity & ministry in the next
Christendom
Edited by Bruce P. Baugus
Reformation Heritage Books.
336 pages. £12.25
ISBN 978 1 601 783 172
This book is an exciting and timely reminder as we in the West bemoan the decline of Christianity that, in fact, the gospel is spreading across the globe.
China now has at least 70 million Protestants – overwhelmingly evangelical. The recent wave of persecution and church demolitions in Zhejiang province is a response by the government to the likelihood that that number could climb to over 200 million over the next few decades.
What is less known is the amazing growth of Calvinism in recent years across China. This book is a compendium of a recent symposium held in the USA on the ministry of Reformed, and specifically Presbyterian, church development in Communist China. There are some excellent papers on ‘The Social Conditions of Ministry in China Today’, one by Brent Fulton examining the differences between the state controlled ‘Three Self’ churches and the house churches, and one on the ‘Emergence of Legal Christian Publishing in China’ which is particularly exciting in presenting the many legal opportunities within China itself to publish Reformed literature. The book as a whole needs to be read by many Western Christians whose view of the Chinese church is over 20 years out of date.
However, the thrust of the book, is, disappointingly, not the amazing growth of biblical Calvinism and the doctrines of grace in modern China (I await this with eagerness) but on the necessity to establish Presbyterian church polity in China.
Pushing Presbyterianism
There are useful historical papers on the past history of Presbyterian missions in China. However, do we really want to push for the establishment of Presbyterianism in China? In the early decades of the Chinese revival (c.1975–1990) the Chinese church, both registered and unregistered, was largely post-denominational. Now, sadly, a multitude of different doctrines, denominations and missions are proselytising. The book argues cogently that the house churches are often in disarray and stand in need of an ordered, biblical, Presbyterian system. This may be so. However, others could no doubt equally make the case for a Calvinist Baptist church polity, Calvinist Independent, or even Reformed Episcopalian, Reformed Charismatic church order, etc., etc. I must admit, as a Calvinist myself (and an admirer of the 17th-century covenanters whose experience was similar under persecution to that of many Chinese house-church Christians), that I winced when reading such headings to papers as ‘Presbyterianism in China Today’ and ‘The Future of Presbyterianism in China’. Surely an aggressive proselytisation of any one church order in China today will prove divisive.
There is also the danger of re-establishing denominational control over the Chinese church from overseas. This may particularly be a problem for some zealous American and South Korean churches, including those of a Reformed persuasion, who do much work within China.
With these important reservations, I still recommend this book as a mine of information on the young, growing church in China today. All who are pray for China and are concerned for the future of the Chinese church should read it. It is a miracle of God’s grace that there is any church surviving at all in China, let alone it becoming the largest evangelical church in the world.
