Episcopal Press and News
History of the Church in China is a Long and Difficult One
Episcopal News Service. December 6, 2000 [2000-216_ZZ]
Elyn MacInnis, an Episcopalian from the Diocese of Rochester who has been living and working in China for 12 years, serving a small English-language parish in Beijing, teaching English on Chinese television, and helping those who seek to adopt Chinese children, Peter MacInnis, Elyn's spouse, who served five years as General Manager of the Amity Printing Press in Nanjing, and is now General Manager at Cummins' Engine Company in Chong Qing, China
The history of how Protestants in China formed their own church over the last two centuries is a long and at times difficult one.
Although Christianity was introduced to China by Roman Catholic missionaries earlier, Protestant missionaries didn't arrive until the beginning of the 19th century. The founding of the London Missionary Society in 1795 and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in 1810 launched a century and a half of intense missionary activity in China, unmatched in history.
At first the missionary presence grew slowly, largely because China was still an imperial state whose Confucian gentry resisted the implication that the West had anything to give to China. Missionaries often stirred local opposition. Then, in 1842, the Treaty of Nanjing ending the first Opium War, providing, among other things, new protections and access for foreign missionaries. A succession of treaties increasingly opened China to foreign interests, including missionary activity.
By 1869, there were 400 missionaries from more than 30 denominations in China. By 1900 there were 2,800 missionaries. The number peaked at 8,235 in 1926. Despite the impressive number, missionaries had a difficult time. Local opposition flared into violence and destruction. It took a combined Western military force of 20,000, followed by a second German expeditionary force, to put down the 1900 Boxer Rebellion, specifically directed at Chinese Christian converts and missionaries.
In spite of opposition, missionaries had a profound impact on China. They brought Western-style education and were the first to pioneer in the education of women and to establish Western medical hospitals. Single women missionaries proved to be radical role models for Chinese women. And the missionaries conveyed Western thinking and attitudes to the Chinese people.
From 1900 to 1950, China was rocked by internal upheavals that are difficult for us to imagine. Sun Yatsen's republican revolution of 1911 ended more than 2,000 years of imperial rule, but his inability to consolidate the country under the new Guomindang government led to a period dominated by local warlords. An internal split between left and right broke out into civil war in 1927, hardening into a contest between Chiang Kai Shek and the Chinese Communist Party under Mao Zedong that raged until 1949. The Japanese invaded China in 1937, fighting both sides, until the end of World War II in 1945.
Missionaries continued their work during this period, but most were forced out in 1949, closing the curtain on the single greatest missionary effort in history.
Victory left the Chinese Communist Party in control of a decimated country, desperately in need of unification and rebuilding.
Initially the West took a neutral position towards the new China. President Harry Truman said that the United States would not take sides in the civil conflict and would not provide military aid or advice to Chinese who had moved to Taiwan. The new government was prepared to enter the United Nations as the rightful representative of the Chinese people -- but China ended up solidly in the Soviet camp as a result of the Korean War, while the U.S. and its Western allies ringed China from South Korea to Indochina with military bases.
The church in China faced a number of difficult problems during this era. First, it had to learn to live with the new government. Second, because they were the product of Western missionary activity -- some of it deeply resented -- they had to cope with the stigma of being viewed as disloyal to China. This alienation became only worse as international relations hardened into a Cold War. Finally, Chinese Christians were not a single church, but reflected the work of missionaries from many different denominations and countries.
Protestant churches launched a movement in 1950 calling on Chinese Christians to be "self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating." This was the beginning of the Three Self-Movement, later the Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM). It was also a declaration of support for the efforts of the new government to unify and rebuild China. Soon Chinese Christian leaders voted to sever ties with foreign missions.
At the first National Conference of Chinese Christians in 1954, one of the TSPM's first moves was to end denominational divisions in the church. Continued efforts to push for unity were interrupted by the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966.
Chinese today often refer to the Cultural Revolution as "ten years of anarchy," a profound political upheaval that sought to purge society of all "non-revolutionary" influences and elements, triggering chaotic power struggles at all levels of society.
Religious believers of all kinds became targets. Bibles, hymnals and other religious literature disappeared. Churches and seminaries were turned into factories as believers became victims of public humiliation campaigns and were often locked up, sometimes for years. Many died in prison. Some were even convinced that Christianity in China was finished.
The death of Mao in 1976 marked the end of the Cultural Revolution, but Christians recovered slowly, beginning to emerge only in 1980.
In 1980 the TSPM met again in national conference and began the work of rebuilding a devastated church. Denominational differences were swept aside by the persecution of the Cultural Revolution. The church formed the China Christian Council (CCC) to work directly with clergy and lay leaders to reestablish churches, reclaim properties, training new leadership, printing Bibles and religious materials.
Recovery was slow. Many believers were afraid to go to the newly opened churches. Bible printing had begun on a small scale in the early 1980s, but was inadequate to replace what had been destroyed or to meet increasing demand. In 1987 the CCC, cooperating with the United Bible Societies, opened Amity Printing Company.
By the time the church met again in conference in 1992, reports were more encouraging. There were an estimated 10 million baptized Christians, and many more believers and seekers who had not yet been baptized. There were 7,000 churches, with a new one opening every two days.
Yet there were other groups of Christians not affiliated with the CCC or registered with the government -- strongly independent, indigenous expressions of faith that emerged in China during the missionary era. These groups have been almost militantly independent, taking no help or direction from foreign mission societies. Many practiced the three-self principles long before the formal movement was ever conceived. They are strongly evangelical and have always been among the most vital and authentic elements among the Chinese churches. They are not overtly anti-government, except when their convictions bring them into conflict with authorities.
There are also individual Christians who meet in private and who have never worshiped publicly despite the end of the Cultural Revolution. They are suspicious of the authorities and anyone who cooperates with them
Chinese Christians have always been divided among themselves -- divisions growing out of denominationalism, or a strong sense of separateness, or the memory of suffering or a fear of renewed persecution. Many of those divisions have been overcome or are diminishing, but others remain and are a part of the continuing struggle. Reconciliation will come with time, many Chinese are convinced, as trust grows gradually.
Some Christians outside of China continue to promote a simplistic picture of a polarized "suffering underground church" versus a "government church." Reacting to sensational news stories, they believe Chinese Christians continue to live under Cultural Revolution conditions.
China's government believes religion will eventually wither away, although its policies toward religion are more tolerant than Christians outside China might imagine. As with all government policies, implementation is not uniform, especially in more rural and impoverished areas. The Chinese Constitution guarantees the right to "freedom of religious belief," but does not allow religion to be taught to anyone under 19, nor does it allow any of the religions to evangelize.
The rapid spread of Christianity has created some problems of its own. Where enthusiasm for Christianity spreads faster than correct Christian teaching, heresies and strange amalgams of vague Christian ideas are mixed with ages-old local beliefs. Those who persist in spreading heresies are subject to arrest, as are any who promote themselves as the focus of a religious cult, because superstition is illegal. Attempts to control such activities are sometimes regarded by outsiders not familiar with the situation as a systematic policy to suppress Christianity.
The Religious Affairs Bureau is responsible for implementing policy and legislation governing religious activities, reporting to the government's United Front and ultimately to the People's Congress. Churches at the local level have access to higher levels to resolve conflicts.
Since 1980 the basic rights and needs of Christians to believe and worship have been respected, a major factor of the phenomenal growth of the Christian church.