Survey Reveals Multiplication of House Churches in China

Government grants permission to build two official churches in Beijing.

by Xu Mei

NANJING, China, February 9 (Compass) -- It’s official -- house churches are multiplying in Beijing and the Chinese government can do very little to stop them.

Last year, the communist controlled Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB) conducted a survey of Christians in Beijing. According to a house church leader there, various leaders of China’s state-controlled Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) helped conduct the survey. RAB officials asked them to poll their house church contacts to gather information.

The survey concluded that there are at least 3,000 unregistered house churches in the city. Most are small fellowships with an average of 20 members. Larger groups of 60 to 70 members also exist, along with some groups of over 100 members in the suburbs and villages surrounding Beijing.

There could be as many as 90,000 unregistered house church Christians in Beijing, according to the survey. Add to that figure the 30,000 Protestant believers attending the eight large registered TSPM churches and various registered meeting points in Beijing, and the number of Protestant Christians in the Beijing municipality totals 120,000.

That indicates that Protestant Christians form 0.87 percent of Beijing’s population of 13.2 million, a ratio similar to that of other large Chinese cities.

The statistic also shows that the cutting edge for evangelism in China today is urban outreach to the millions of city-dwellers and migrants pouring in from the countryside in search of work.

In the summer of 2002, the RAB pushed through stiff new regulations for the control of religion in Beijing. The draft was turned down twice by the Beijing People’s Congress before eventually passing.

The new regulations call for draconian fines of up to 50,000 RMB ($6,250) for religious believers who run illegal house churches or training schools, or publish uncensored religious literature.

However, according to a key house church source, the proliferation of house churches has made the new rules virtually unenforceable. Many students, graduates and business people have set up their own fellowships which are financially independent and totally self-supporting.

Meanwhile, Beijing Christians remain cautious. The government survey asked very detailed questions about house church activities and contact with foreigners. The poll also covered details of membership. For example, the ratio of men to women in most house churches was found to be three males to every seven females.

A house church leader interviewed by Compass Direct said that the authorities are still nervous about groups of over 100 believers and often crack down on those fellowships. Because of this, most house churches divide into smaller groups when numbers reach 70.

The government and the TSPM church are well aware of the growth and have taken action. In 2001, Mr. Hua Qian, a spokesman for the RAB, announced that two new official churches would be built in the Chaoyang and Fengtai districts of the city.

A report in the China Daily on June 21, 2001, quoted Hua as saying that, “The rapid growth of Protestants has made the existing churches very crowded.” Some observers believe the provision of two new TSPM churches was a move to encourage house church Christians to attend official services.

A February report in the China Daily predicted that the two 16,000 square-feet churches would be completed by late December 2004.

Observers in China believe the construction may be linked to the government’s desire for favorable international opinion in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

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Copyright 2004 Compass Direct

5:06:55 PM    

Chinese Communist Party Divided Over Religious Reform

Party conservatives bitterly oppose liberalizing policy.

by Xu Mei

NANJING, China, February 10 (Compass) -- In recent years, the religious policies of the Chinese Communist Party have drifted further from social reality, reflecting the dogmatism of the Maoist era rather than the dynamic growth in religion across China. The party has struggled to deal with the awkward fact that religion, far from withering away as predicted by classical Marxist thought, continues to flourish in a socialist society.

Hardliners called for the abolition and complete suppression of religion during the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, whereas pragmatists advocated a softer approach of managing and manipulating religion by rallying believers behind Communist party goals.

Today the cumbersome structure of religious control through the Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB) and the various “patriotic” religious associations such as the Three Self Patriotic Movement and the China Christian Council appear to have become counter-productive.

According to sources in Beijing, tensions have surfaced between the United Front Work Department (UFWD), responsible for the overall control of religious policy, and the RAB. The UFWD is more willing to take a liberal approach, giving rise to China’s new “open door” policies and respecting the rights of religious believers.

In particular, the UFWD is willing to allow Christian house churches to register directly with the government, therefore bypassing the official Three Self Patriotic Movement. Three Self churches are regarded with suspicion by many Chinese Christians, who see them as a tool of the Communist Party. For this reason, most house churches refuse to register under the Three Self umbrella.

However, the RAB, which has a vested interest in maintaining strict ideological control of religion, bitterly opposes the more liberal suggestions of the UFWD. As the new government of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao struggles to create a power-base and identity separate from the looming presence of former President Jiang Zemin, religious policy seems to be on hold and major reforms are unlikely.

This was reflected in an article published in the Communist Party mouthpiece, People’s Daily, in November 2003. The author, a Marxist academic, insisted that religion was only an “illusory reflection” of society. He added that the party was adamantly opposed to all theistic beliefs and wedded to atheism.

He also said religion and science were fundamentally opposed, and that “religion will ultimately die out.” The masses still must be “liberated from the oppression of religion.”

Applauding the Communist Party’s religious policies, the writer grudgingly admitted that the persecution suffered by religious followers during the Cultural Revolution was “something of an exception.” This understates the persecution endured by millions of religious adherents during that era.

The article labeled both Protestantism and Catholicism as tools used “for the invasion of China.” The writer attacked missionary work in China, both past and present, as “an anti-communist bulwark and the advance guard of capitalism.”

The article praised the repressive policies of Jiang Zemin, in particular, his dogma that the party must “actively guide religion to mutually adapt with socialist society.”

The names of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, China’s present top leadership, were conspicuously absent -- a signal that Jiang Zemin’s repressive and conservative policies on religion still hold sway, at least among Party diehards.

Hu Jintao stated at the recent Politburo meeting on January 16 - 17 that unless the Communist Party undertakes serious reforms in line with reality, it could disappear from this stage of history.

So it seems any true reform of religious policies will remain at a standstill, at least until the tension between conservative and progressive members of the Communist Party is resolved.

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Copyright 2004 Compass Direct

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