China's Christians Form Unique Body
Episcopal News Service. January 7, 1988 [88002]
Richard Henshaw, Jr.
BEIJING, China(DPS, Jan 7) -- The Protestant church in China today is rooted in the principles of the Three-Self movement: selfgovernment, self-support, and self-propagation. This body includes all Chinese Christians who are not Roman Catholics.
As early as the 1870's, something like the concept of the ThreeSelf movement was advanced as the way to save Christianity in China from traditionalist elements in the country that saw it as alien and dangerous. Christianity has always been viewed as a threat to China's traditional Confucian ethos. The Three-Self principles are indigenous to Chinese Christians and adapted to suit the Marxist sensibilities of the New China. Roland Allen, whose widely heralded ideas on the church and mission have much in common with three-self principles, was an influential missionary in Shandong Province many decades before the first Three-Self Innovating Committees were founded in 1950.
In 1958, a year after the Great Leap Forward, China's first concerted effort to reorganize the country's social structure and economy, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) was born and all denominational distinctions among Protestants were eliminated at least nominally, thereby launching the world's first national, ecumenically-based Protestant church body.
The post-denominational church in China has been described by some as evangelical in theology, congregationalist in forms of worship, and Presbyterian in structure. But while there are elements of truth in this analysis, such labels in fact fail to acknowledge the often subtle characteristics that one finds upon closer inspection.
An important change that is occurring today as the church moves into a new phase of mission and ministry is that the denominational traditions of older Christians are tolerated and even accommodated in many quarters. One church in Beijing, for example, now offers communion services in five different traditions: Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, Seventh-Day Adventist (on Saturdays), and Little Flock (an indigenous group of the "Yeller" type). At the Huadong Seminary in Shanghai, an Episcopal Holy Communion Service is held in the chapel once every month. In some of the more liturgically oriented congregations, communion is taken regularly to homebound and sick parishioners.
At the same time, it is important to the development of the church in China that nowadays an entire generation is growing up knowing nothing but an ecumenical, post-denominational church.
The church in China is described by one China Christian Council (CCC) Standing Committee member as "God and Marxism living together." Christians in China do not become Communists -- the Party is officially atheistic -- but most applaud the accomplishments of the socialist era, and, now that the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76 and its aftermath are over, the Party has come to recognize the positive contributions of China's small Christian community.
There are a little over four million Protestant Christians known to church officials, as against an estimated 700,000 when the People's Republic was founded in 1949. Of these figures, which are somewhat controversial, the president of the China Christian Council, Bishop K.H. Ting, says: "There are some abroad who like to say that the number of Protestants in China is now 30 or 50 or even 100 million. This assertion has much to do with their aversion to New China, to Three-Self Movement, and their need to raise funds for their own purposes. What I have to say is simply that we who work in China have not found conversion to be so easy, that we have good cause to thank God for an increase in the number of Protestants in 37 years at least twice as fast as the growth of the Chinese population, and that figures must be given carefully and responsibly and only on the basis of facts."
The four million Protestants worship in some four thousand churches and 17,000 meeting points, the latter usually in private homes. Yet, there are only a few hundred pastors, and their average age is over fifty. This results in a "highly laicized form of Christianity," as Ting calls it. Ordained ministry is much encouraged, but the necessity for a large Protestant-like lay leadership is well understood, especially in the vast countryside.
In the cities, there is usually one newly established congregation for each administrative district. Each province then has its own Christian Council and Three-Self Patriotic Movement committee, which have considerable autonomy in their own jurisdiction. The provincial council and committee report to the China Christian Council/Three-Self Patriotic Committee, and they, in turn, meet collectively every few years as the National Christian Conference.
The national and regional Christian Councils function as internal governing units, which oversee the administration of the church under their jurisdiction. The national and regional Three-Self Patriotic Movement committees relate to the government and the government relates to the church through them. They play a largely educational role. Many church leaders hold positions in both because of the chronic shortage of experienced leaders, although the Standing Committees of the two bodies must be different. All persons in each of these bodies are active believers, whose primary function is to advance the faith and spread the message of the gospels in the context of the political reality.
At the governmental level, there is a Bureau of Religious Affairs, whose task is described as ensuring the freedom of religion that is "guaranteed" by the Chinese constitution. The Bureau is divided into working sections for Muslim, Buddhist, Protestant, and Catholic "minorities" in the country, and is staffed in the main by non-believing Party members. As far as can be determined, there is little interference by the Bureau in the life of the Church.
An idiosyncracy of the ecumenical church in China -- and a direct outgrowth of a state foreign policy in a country in which, by definition, all matters are politicized -- is that Protestantism and Roman Catholicism are regarded as separate religions. Although Christians themselves know this to be untrue, the central government, in its effort to rid the country of all foreign domination, refuses to recognize the Vatican's authority over the Roman Catholic Church in China. Although certain elements of the Chinese Roman Catholic community have ultimately come around to accepting this - they have made up the nucleus of the CCC/TSPM's counterpart, the Catholic Patriotic Movement - the Vatican has not yet budged after all these years, and this has long since become a bitter thorn in the side of Chinese Christianity. A second issue is the Vatican's continued recognition of the government in Taiwan.
Roman Catholics have received harsh treatment from the government as recently as last year - bishops have remained in prison well into the present era of reform -- but certain Protestant leaders are taking the lead in making a serious effort to forge links on officials levels, and privately many pastors have cordial relations with local Roman Catholic counterparts. Some Protestant members of the clergy attend Roman Catholic masses whenever they can.
In the Protestant community, meanwhile, the principle that guides all activities is that of "mutual respect." Although Three-Self leaders often refer to themselves in private conversation as being Anglican or Methodist or Presbyterian in the present tense, they are remarkably undisparaging about their colleagues' different backgrounds. This is immediately striking to the Western visitor.
CCC/TSFM churches, which have been opening across the country at a rate of scores each year as buildings have been handed back to local Christian councils following the Cultural Revolution, are invariably packed to the rafters at least twice on Sunday mornings. They also fling open their doors daily during the week for an enviable variety of Bible study groups, youth groups, women's groups, Christian education, and fellowship activities. In Shanghai, the five largest churches range in membership from 2,500 to 5,000 people.
In the countryside, where the clergy shortage is even more acute than it is in the cities, the vast majority of Protestants worship in private homes. Liturgy is, by necessity, simple. Such meeting point congregations are making themselves known to local CCC/TSPM representatives in increasing in an effort to augment their congregational life. And church officials themselves are trying to develop relationships with the meeting point groups, but the process is difficult. The clergy shortage is exacerbated by some distrust on the part of an unknown number of groups - such figures are virtually impossible to come by -- and there is an underground church of unknown size that is made up of people who cannot accept the legitimacy of a church that is in any way sanctioned by an atheistic government.
Official church leaders, however, do not hesitate to point out that they have a "uniting" church rather than a "united" one. The Rev. Wu Gao-zi, vice-president of the China Christian Council, says: "Some 'smaller' Protestant groups express an acceptance of Three-Self principals, but they don't want unity. This is an ongoing discussion."
The Rev. Shi Qi-gui, vice-chair of the Shanghai Committee of the Three-Self Movement, adds that Chinese people can be socialist and Christian. "I am!" he says. "I am no matter what critics might think...and it is important that we have the freedom to worship in house churches too."
Ting and other leaders point to six problems facing the Protestant church in China.
- The age gap between existing ordained pastors and the several hundred not yet graduated or integrated into the system is going to get worse before it gets better.
- So much time and energy is required to tend to ministry on a massive scale that little time is available for personalized, pastoral ministries for "building up of Christian spirituality."
- There are now 11 seminaries scattered throughout Chinain the south, east, north, and northeast -- each having certain provinces designated under its purview, but only one, the Jingling Union Seminary at Nanjing, has a truly full-time staff (16) and an adequate library (50,000 volumes).
- The vastness of China results in many groups of Christians meeting in homes that are "in isolation," and this inevitably creates situations in which inappropriate or even heretical doctrine is taught.
K.H. Ting: "The Peoples' Government, on all levels, has repeatedly affirmed and is doing much for the implementation of the principle of religious freedom, not because it has a high opinion of religion, but because it wishes to unite the whole people, including religious people, in the strengthening of the nation. But there is still the lingering influence of ultra-leftism which makes for lack of enthusiasm in correctly implementing religious freedom here and there in some parts of China."
Although the church is post-denominational in some sense, it is still looking to the future for a truly united structure. In the meantime, it is difficult for Protestant leaders to be patient and avoid impulsive decisions.
Problems not withstanding, the vitality and strength of the Three-Self church appears to be endless. The most promising sign of its stability has been the founding of the Amity Foundation, which serves as a Christian-based agency for the public good and modernization of China. The Amity Foundation was founded by Three-Self church leaders and administered by them. Yet, its purpose is to help build the nation, and, in so doing, it will gain credibility for the church as a positive contributor to the new society. Of note is its lack of resemblance to possibly exploitative social service agencies in the Old China, despite Amity's frequent partnership with foreign institutions. Amity represents a new confidence and boldness in Three-Self. As Ting puts it: "It is time to look at concentrating on the work of the church rather than assuring its existence."
The best evidence may be in Amity Press, which has already printed and distributed 2.8 million copies of the Bible and 700,000 copies of the new hymnal. Yet their latest contract is an order of promotional brochures - not for the seminary across town in Nanjingbut for the Shanghai Municipal Transit Authority.
The church in China may be on the verge of entering the mainstream.