[103] On 6 January 2015, David Ferguson published on the People's Daily the satirical news Merry Christmas, 100 million Chinese! Statistics published in: Katharina Wenzel-Teuber, David Strait. Such Chinese Protestants as the liberals David Z. T. Yui, head of the Chinese National YMCA, and Y. T. Wu (Wu Yaozong), Wu Leichuan, T. C. Chao, and the theologically more conservative Chen Chonggui responded by developing social programs and theologies that devoted themselves to strengthening the Chinese nation. Alessandro Valignano, the new regional manager ("Visitor") of the order, came to Macau in 1578–1579 and established St. Paul's College to begin training the missionaries in the language and culture of the Chinese. Protestant Christianity is booming in China, Our house-price forecast expects the global rally to lose steam, Joe Biden hopes to stop American multinationals booking huge profits abroad. But since Mr Xi came to power in 2012, the government has tightened its control of religious groups in an effort to eliminate possible sources of dissent or secession. Antonio, one of these two Christian Chinese, accompanied St. Francis Xavier, co-founder of the Jesuits, when he decided to start missionary work in China. The mandarins claim to power lay in the knowledge of the Chinese classics—all government officials had to pass extremely difficult tests on Confucianism. We Manchus have Tiao Tchin. Chinese authorities raided or closed down hundreds of Protestant house churches in 2019, including Rock Church in Henan Province and Shouwang Church in Beijing. Government authorities limit proselytism, particularly by foreigners and unregistered religious groups, but permit proselytism in state-approved religious venues and private settings. Kaiyi Chen, "Missionaries and the early development of nursing in China. The other survey was conducted by professor Liu Zhongyu of the East China Normal University of Shanghai. Patrick Fuliang Shan, "Triumph after Catastrophe: Church, State and Society in Post-Boxer China, 1900–1937". Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said he is 'appalled' at the ongoing persecution of Christians.One of the countries clamping down is China. [23][27][28] Tournon's policies, confirmed by Clement's 1715 bull Ex Illa Die..., led to the swift collapse of all of the missions across China,[27] with the last Jesuits—obliged to maintain allegiance to the papal rulings—finally being expelled after 1721. Granted, things used to be much worse than they are in 2017. [98] These characteristics are confirmed by the findings of the Yu Tao survey of 2008, which also found that Protestantism has the lowest proportion of believers who are at the same time members of the Communist Party of China in comparison to other religions,[90] and by the China Family Panel Studies' survey of 2012. The Qing government permitted Christian missionaries to enter and proselytize in Tibetan lands, in order to weaken the power of the Tibetan Buddhist lamas, who refused to give allegiance to the Chinese. The Christian apologist Arnobius (died c. AD 330) claimed in his work Against the Heathen: Book II, that Christianity had reached the land of Seres (an old Roman name for northern China) saying "For the deeds can be reckoned up and numbered which have been done in India, among the Seres, Persians, and Medes; in Arabia, Egypt, in Asia, Syria; among the Galatians, Parthians, Phrygians; in Achaia, Macedonia, Epirus; in all islands and provinces on which the rising and setting sun shines; in Rome herself, finally, the mistress of the world, in which, although men are busied with the practices introduced by king Numa, and the superstitious observances of antiquity, they have nevertheless hastened to give up their fathers' mode of life, and attach themselves to Christian truth. While the Chinese Communist Party was hostile to religion in general, it did not seek to systematically destroy religion as long as the religious organizations were willing to submit to the direction of the Chinese state. Christianity is exploding in China! [116] During the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, three American Christian protesters were deported from China after a demonstration at Tiananmen Square,[117][118] and eight Dutch Christians were stopped after attempting to sing in chorus. Communism is an ideology founded out of the writings of European agitators. Despite restrictive authorities, the Chinese Church continues to grow. The Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church, and the Protestant Three-Self Church and China Christian Council, are the three centralised and government-approved Christian institutions which regulate all local Christian gatherings, all of which are required to be registered under their auspices. The 13th century saw the Mongol-established Yuan dynasty in China. The compiler of these figures, Paul Hattaway, indicates that his figures are his own estimate, based on more than 2,000 published sources such as Internet reports, journals, and books, as well as interviews with house church leaders. In practice, however, the Vatican and the Chinese State have been, at least unofficially, accommodating each other for some time. This has involved "destroying crosses, burning bibles, shutting churches and ordering followers to sign papers renouncing their faith," actions taken against "so-called underground or house churches that defy government restrictions. [68] In 1992 the government began a campaign to shut down all of the unregistered meetings. Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, the first graduate of this College and the Founder of Modern China, graduated in 1892. [75] Congregations of the Little Flock or the True Jesus Church tend to be uncooperative towards the Three-Self Church as to their principle it represents not only a tool of the government but also a different Christian tradition.[75]. [86] There is often significant overlap between the membership of registered and unregistered Christian bodies, as a large number of people attend both registered and unregistered churches. 'Heavenly Lord religion'); and Eastern Orthodox Christians (Chinese: 東正教/东正教; pinyin: Dōng zhèng jiào; lit. The Lord of Heaven is Heaven itself. Government-approved versions of traditional faiths have been promoted, and those seen as foreign and threatening have been repressed. Surveys on religion in China conducted in the years 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2011 by the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) of the. 140 years of Protestant missionary work began with Robert Morrison, arriving in Macau on 4 September 1807. [68] Bibles were destroyed, churches and homes were looted, and Christians were subjected to humiliation. [83] In the same year, there are 53,000 Three-Self churches and meeting places and 21 Three-Self theological seminaries. [68] Though still predominantly Buddhist and animistic, the region of Guangxi was first visited in 1877 by Protestant missionary Edward Fishe of the China Inland Mission. The introduction of the Franciscans and other orders of missionaries, however, led to a long-running controversy over Chinese customs and names for God. During the Cultural Revolution believers were arrested and imprisoned and sometimes tortured for their faith. They instead prefer to refer to it as "Church of the East", a term which encompasses the various forms of early Christianity in Asia.[15]. As early as 1546, two Chinese boys became enrolled into the Jesuits' St. Paul's College in Goa, the capital of Portuguese India. The Tibetan lamas were alarmed by Catholic missionaries converting natives to Roman Catholicism. Chinese scholars of religion have reported that a large portion of the members of the networks of house or unregistered churches, and of their pastors, belong to the Koreans of China. This transformation can be traced to the Unequal Treaties which forced the Chinese government to admit Western missionaries into the interior of the country, the excitement caused by the 1859 awakening of faith in Britain. Although a number of factors—the vast Chinese population and the characteristic Chinese approach to religion among others—contribute to a difficulty to obtain empirical data on the number of Christians in China, a series of surveys have been conducted and published by different agencies. In 1894, male medical missionaries constituted 14 percent of all missionaries; women doctors were four percent. With the Portuguese establishing an enclave on Zhongshan Island's Macau Peninsula, Jesuits established a base nearby on Green Island (now the SAR's "Ilha Verde" neighborhood). In large cities with international links such as Beijing, foreign visitors have established Christian communities which meet in public establishments such as hotels and, sometimes, local churches. Karel Pieters noted that some Christian gravestones are dated from the Song and Liao dynasties, implying that some Christians remained in China.[17]. [102] Christopher Marsh (2011) too has been critical of these overestimations. In China, Yakuf grew up Muslim, but converted to Christianity nearly 20 years ago after meeting a Christian Uyghur who became his good friend. Rapid church growth is reported to have taken place among the Zhuang people in the early 1990s. [109] Wine making vineyards were left behind by them.[110]. [85] When it opens it will operate by appointment only for Chinese members, excluding tourists. In the seven provinces in which Protestant missionaries had already been working, there were an estimated 204 million people with only 91 workers, while there were eleven other provinces in inland China with a population estimated at 197 million, for whom absolutely nothing had been attempted. [44] Besides the London Missionary Society, and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, there were missionaries affiliated with Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, and Wesleyans. The Big Swords relentlessly crushed the bandits, but the bandits converted to the Catholic Church, because it made them legally immune to prosecution under the protection of the foreigners. [119][unreliable source? In 1535, Portuguese traders obtained the rights to anchor ships in Macau's harbours and to carry out trading activities, though not the right to stay onshore. He died the same year. This 43.5 million figure excludes the Christian children of Three Self church Christians because the Chinese government forbids baptism until 18 years of age. The Franciscan mission disappeared from 1368, as the Ming dynasty set out to eject all foreign influences. Its graduates include Dr. Lee Sun Chau. Religions in China began to recover after the economic reforms of the 1970s. Terms for Christianity in Chinese include: "Protestantism" (Chinese: 基督教新教; pinyin: Jīdū jiào xīn jiào; lit. Taylor (Plymouth Brethren) arrived in China in 1854. [108] Macau prospered as a port but was the target of repeated failed attempts by the Dutch to conquer it in the 17th century. While some bishops who joined the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church in its early years have been condemned and even excommunicated, the entire organization has never been declared schismatic by the Vatican and, at present, its bishops are even invited to church synods like other Catholic leaders. In 2014 Xia Baolong, the Communist Party chief in Zhejiang, a coastal province, oversaw a campaign to remove more than 1,500 crosses from places of worship in the province. Christian missionaries and their schools, under the protection of the Western powers, went on to play a major role in the Westernization of China in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Taiping rebellion was eventually put down by the Qing army aided by French and British forces. In 1582, Jesuits once again initiated mission work inside China, introducing Western science, mathematics, astronomy, and cartography. In this period the Chinese Christian churches and organizations had their first experience with autonomy from the Western structures of the missionary church organizations. [121] [122], Popularity and indigenous growth (1900–1925), Era of national and social change: the war against Japan and the Chinese Civil War (1925–1949), Since 1949: Communist government on the mainland, Official organizations—the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church and the Chinese Protestant Church. [38] Some hoped that the Chinese government would discriminate between Protestantism and the Catholic Church, since the law was directed at Rome, but after Protestant missionaries in 1835– 36 gave Christian books to Chinese, the Daoguang Emperor demanded to know who were the "traitorous natives in Canton who had supplied them with books".[38]. was the largest mission agency in China and it is estimated that Taylor was responsible for more people being converted to Christianity than at any other time since The days of the apostles. A Christian spiritual revival has grown in recent decades. Christianity first reached China in the 7th century AD, brought by Nestorian Eastern Syriac believers. Acting on the complaint of the Bishop of Fujian,[23][24] Pope Clement XI finally ended the dispute with a decisive ban in 1704;[25] his legate Charles-Thomas Maillard De Tournon issued summary and automatic excommunication of any Christian permitting Confucian rituals as soon as word reached him in 1707. [4], Although its history in China is not as ancient as Taoism, Mahayana Buddhism or Confucianism, Christianity, through various ways, has been present in China since at least the 7th century and has gained significant influence during the last 200 years. For hundreds of thousands of Uighur Muslims in the western province of Xinjiang, this has meant detention, “re-education” and forced secularisation. In 986 a monk reported to the Patriarch of the East:[16]. However, Xavier was not able to find a way to enter the Chinese mainland and died in 1552 on Shangchuan Island off the coast of Guangdong. Indeed, an unknown number of party members go to church as well as local committee meetings. One of them was conducted by the Protestant missionary Werner Bürklin, founder of "China Partner", an international Christian organisation, and his team of 7,409 surveyors in every province and municipality of China. The practice of religion continues to be tightly controlled by government authorities. The members of the underground Roman Catholic Church in China, those who do not belong to the official Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church and are faithful to the Vatican and the Pope, remain theoretically subject to persecution today. The way was prepared for the creation of the Church of Christ in China, a unified non-denominational church. Fairly soon after the establishment of the direct European maritime contact with China (1513) and the creation of the Society of Jesus (1540), at least some Chinese become involved with the Jesuit effort. Amid wars, natural calamities, and social turmoil, the number of Christians has grown in spite of persecution and suppression. From 1966 to 1976 during the Cultural Revolution, the expression of religious life in China was effectively banned, including even the Three-Self Church. China’s constitution nominally guarantees freedom of religious belief. Sullivan, "Myth, Memory, and the Making of Lottie Moon," in Jonathan Daniel Wells, and Sheila R. Phipps, eds. Although an equality-oriented feminist who rejected male dominance, the Southern Baptists have memorialized her as a southern belle who followed traditional gender roles. Pastor Cao became a Christian in his twenties after meeting an American Christian family. The Ming dynasty decreed that Manichaeism and Christianity were illegal and heterodox, to be wiped out from China, while Islam and Judaism were legal and fit Confucian ideology. [77], The Christianity of Yanbian Koreans has a patriarchal character; Korean churches are usually led by men, in contrast to Chinese churches which more often have female leadership. [21][unreliable source?] [114][115] Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attended Palm Sunday services in Beijing in 2005. 'Eastern Orthodox religion'). Also, many underground clergy and laymen are active in the official Patriotic Church as well. The Qing government code included a prohibition of "Wizards, Witches, and all Superstitions". Catholic groups are usually known as underground churches and Protestant groups are usually known as house churches. The government released some of the Early Rain Covenant Church congregants who had been arrested in December 2018, but in December 2019 a court charged Pastor Wang Yi with “subversion of state power” and sentenced him to nine years imprisonment. Christianity in China appeared in the 7th century, during the Tang dynasty, but did not take root until it was reintroduced in the 16th century by Jesuit missionaries. The Jiaqing Emperor, in 1814, added a sixth clause with reference to Christianity, modified in 1821 and printed in 1826 by the Daoguang Emperor prohibiting those who spread Christianity among Han Chinese and Manchus. Inside China’s Jesus cult. Under Communist ideology, religion was discouraged by the state and Christian missionaries left the country in what was described by Phyllis Thompson of the China Inland Mission as a "reluctant exodus", leaving the indigenous churches to do their own administration, support, and propagation of the faith. Yes, Christianity in China is legal, and yes, churches can meet publicly under the TSPM banner. The Jesuits, the secularized mandarins, and eventually the Kangxi Emperor himself maintained that Chinese veneration of ancestors and Confucius were respectful but nonreligious rituals compatible with Christian doctrine; other orders pointed to the beliefs of the common people of China to show that it was impermissible idolatry and that the common Chinese names for God confused the Creator with His creation. The first day of every year we burn incense and paper to honor Heaven. The intensifying persecution will purify the church in China, cut the current crossover traffic between the Three Self church and the underground church, drive true Christians into the latter, reduce the freedom of foreign missionaries, and may provide renewed impetus for smuggling Bibles into and clandestine Bible printing inside China. Jews and Muslims in China shared the same name for synagogue and mosque, which were both called "Tsing-chin sze" (Qingzhen si), "temple of purity and truth", the name dated to the thirteenth century. As China continues its crackdown on religion, Christians in the Communist country are fleeing for their lives. 2014: scholars at a conference for the 60th anniversary of the Three-Self Church showed that China has about 23 million to 40 million Protestants, 1.7% to 2.9% of the total population. In imperial-times Chinese social and religious culture there were charitable organizations for virtually every social service: burial of the dead, care of orphans, provision of food for the hungry. Its three main sects all have numerous followers. In 1583, the Portuguese in Macau were permitted to form a Senate to handle various issues concerning their social and economic affairs under strict supervision of the Chinese authority, but there was no transfer of sovereignty. Missionaries were harassed and murdered, along with tens of thousands of converts. These fellowships, however, are typically restricted only to holders of non-Chinese passports. China has begun using a dystopian-type 'social credit' system to rank its citizens. In 1904, George Hunter with the China Inland Mission opened the first mission station for CIM in Xinjiang. 03/05/2021 China (International Christian Concern) – In its recent Freedom in the World report, Freedom House—a D.C.-based human rights watchdog group—ranked 195 countries and 15 territories on their political rights and civil liberties. Mr Doshay found that congregants showed their preference by “voting with their eyelids”: if the oration stayed within party lines, many, consistently and sometimes rather demonstratively, decided to nap. As the missionaries went to work among the Chinese, they established and developed schools and introduced medical techniques from the West. In 1979 the government officially restored the Three-Self Church after thirteen years of non-existence,[37] and in 1980 the China Christian Council (CCC) was formed. The training of female doctors was particularly necessary, due to the reluctance of Chinese women to see male doctors. Unregistered Roman Catholic clergy has faced political repression, in large part due to its avowed loyalty to the Vatican, which the Chinese government claims interferes in the country's internal affairs. The church has had expatriate members worshiping in China for a few decades previous to this, but with restrictions. . [85], Although a number of factors—the vast Chinese population and the characteristic Chinese approach to religion among others—contribute to a difficulty to obtain empirical data on the number of Christians in China, a series of surveys have been conducted and published by different agencies. "[120], In April 2020, Chinese authorities visited Christian homes in Linfen and informed welfare recipients that their benefits would be stopped unless they removed all crosses and replaced any displays of Jesus with portraits of Chairman Mao Zedong and General Secretary Xi Jinping. [79] Many of the Korean house churches in China receive financial support and pastoral ordinations from South Korean churches, and some of them are effectively branches of South Korean churches.[80]. Whereas the clergy at state-sanctioned churches are told to lecture on party-favoured topics, such as blending Christianity with secular Chinese culture, underground pastors often touch on taboo subjects, such as the existence of demons and miracles, or even worse, the importance of proselytising to friends and co-workers. Although most practice traditional Chinese religions such as Taoism, and longer-standing foreign imports such as Buddhism, Protestant Christianity is probably the fastest-growing faith, with at least 38m adherents today (about 3% of the population), up from 22m a decade ago, according to the government’s count. Out of the 8,500 Protestant missionaries that were at one time at work in China, 1000 of them were from the China Inland Mission. In addition, authorities across the country have removed crosses from churches, banned youth under the age of 18 from participating in religious services, and replaced images of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary with pictures of Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping. Thompson, Phyllis. It concluded with repeated calls for their extermination by vigilantes and the government. The Catholic Reformation facilitated an “unprecedented number of Christian missionaries coming to China in the late Ming and early Qing periods, and, more importantly, the creation within China, circa 1600-1900, of a surprising number of Christian communities; many of which proved quite resilient when the young Chinese Church was outlawed and persecuted in the eighteenth century.” [98] In Wenzhou, a city of Zhejiang, about one million people (approximately 11%) are Christians, the highest concentration in one city. The People's Republic of China (PRC) was established on the mainland country in October 1949 by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led by CCP Chairman Mao Zedong, while the Republic of China led by the Kuomintang maintained its government on the insular land of Taiwan. One of the many Bible schools assisted by Christian Aid Mission in China offers one- and two-year programs, with training primarily focused on evangelism and the cost of discipleship. Missionaries such as Matteo Ricci and Johann Adam Schall von Bell wrote Chinese catechisms[22] and made influential converts like Xu Guangqi, establishing Christian settlements throughout the country and becoming close to the imperial court, particularly its Ministry of Rites, which oversaw official astronomy and astrology. The father-in-law of Wan was Au Fung-Chi (1847–1914), the secretary of the Hong Kong Department of Chinese Affairs, manager of Kwong Wah Hospital for its 1911 opening, and an elder of To Tsai Church (renamed Hop Yat Church since 1926), which was founded by the London Missionary Society in 1888 and was the church of Sun Yat-sen.[67]. Catholics, on the other hand, with their allegiance to the Holy See, could not submit to the Chinese state as their Protestant counterparts did, notwithstanding the willingness of the Vatican to compromise in order to remain on Chinese mainland—the papal nuncio in China did not withdraw to Taiwan like other western diplomats. [73], The Chinese Independent Churches are a group of Christian institutions that are independent from Western denominations. Historically, Christians have also adopted a variety of terms from the Chinese classics as referents to God, for example Ruler (主宰) and Creator (造物主).