Episcopal Press and News
Chinese Christians coping with vitality and growth
Episcopal News Service. July 30, 1992 [92167]
David A. Willis
It was a slow Sunday in Shanghai. One church baptized 80 people at one of its three morning services and another 70 that afternoon. That same church baptized 6,000 new Christians last year, but by the time of our visit in June, it had already surpassed that number. (There is a vitality sweeping the church in China that is difficult for visitors to understand.)
Our group from the Diocese of Rochester visited China because of a suggestion made back in the mid-1980s that it was time for the church in the United States to foster links and friendship.
Richard Henshaw, former editor of the diocesan newspaper, was encouraged by Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning to see if the diocese could become a "window for the American Church on China." In 1987, the two of them led a small delegation to China. The following year, Browning asked Bishop William Burrill of Rochester to strengthen the bond with Bishop K.H. Ting, president of the China Christian Council, at the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops meeting in England.
The bond was further strengthened when several Chinese bishops and a pastor visited the diocese and Burrill led a return visit during Holy Week and Easter of 1990. Our group of 21 was just the latest installment in the growing relationship.
When our delegation met with Bishop Ting at the Nanjing Theological Seminary, he had just returned from a visit to North America, meeting with church leaders in New York and preaching in various Canadian cities.
Ting speaks with some assurance about the current relationship between the ruling Communist Party and the church's Three-Self Movement (self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating). "We in the church have not felt it our duty to adopt an attitude of confrontation with the government," he said. "Instead, we see the need for dialogue and discussion. It is our job to coexist with the government; we are not anti-government."
Ting's colleague, Bishop Shen Yifan, reported that the current government has a "more open attitude towards religion. They wish to modernize China, and they realize that to do that they must allow more freedom to believe."
Shen Yifan also feels that it is the duty of the church to make comments on the actions of the government "when we have feelings as to what should or should not be done. We support the government when they are right," he said.
When asked why the Chinese church is growing with such vigor, both bishops had theories. Shen Yifan said that part of it was in reaction to the repression of religion during the decade-long Cultural Revolution, which ended in 1976. While attracted by the high-sounding slogans, people were "disillusioned when the statements did not come true. Everyone has something deep within that cannot be satisfied by material things," he continued. "Our job in the church is to awaken our people."
"Human beings seek love," added Bishop Ting. "We all need love, to love and be loved. Since society does not give such love, that is our job. And if we disappoint people and fail to show them that love, they will leave us."
Leadership for the growing church continues to be a major problem. Last January the church ordained 45 clergy in a single service in Beijing, but there are only about a thousand clergy to serve a church with 6 to 7 million members. And a new congregation is established every 16 hours somewhere in China.
The average age of seminarians in China is just over 22, compared with 37 in the United States. The church is caught in a race to prepare the next round of leaders. Like the Communist Party, most of the church's leaders are older men. Bishop Ting, for example, was consecrated an Anglican bishop in 1955. The devastations of the Cultural Revolution destroyed two entire generations of potential leaders.
The role of women in the church is growing stronger. A woman from Inner Mongolia, for example, was among those ordained in January. Her home area has been opposed to women in the clergy, yet today she is running a training program for elders for the entire area.
When asked if the Chinese church might soon consecrate a woman bishop, Ting said that it was unlikely, but for reasons that are peculiar to the Chinese scene. "There are those in our church who think having bishops is a return to Anglicanism. And they are very sensitive to the restoration of any sort of denominationalism," he said. In fact, he said that he thinks that he and two other bishops are likely to be the last bishops in the Chinese church "for quite some time. I think we were named bishop as a gesture to those in our church who were once Anglicans."
The church now has 13 theological schools, with an enrollment of 800 students. The only national seminary is in Nanjing, but there are five regional seminaries plus a number of smaller seminaries around the nation to prepare lay people to support the ordained clergy.
Bishop Ting compared the young seminarians and clergy in China with the famed "barefoot doctors" that brought health care to the people. "Because our clergy are so few and so young, we rely heavily on the leadership of the elders in our churches. Our young clergy are eager -- but it takes time for them to find their place in the church."
Anyone who fails to be moved by the joyous growth of the Chinese church, their easy acceptance of the demands of evangelism, simply is ignoring the obvious. The question we frequently asked our hosts was, "How do you do it?" What seemed like an incredible accomplishment to Western eyes often puzzled the Chinese. They would reply to our questions by simply stating, "We're only behaving the way Christ taught us to behave. Other than that, we're not doing anything special."
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