I have deliberately blurred the featured image to preserve the anonymity of the people in this photo. Worshippers may be arrested without warning in the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) and the persecution they are experiencing is getting worse than it has been in the past. For this reason, it is difficult to know with any degree of certainty how many Christians there are in China, today.
CHRISTIANITY COMES TO CHINA
As far as we can tell, Christianity first arrived in China during the Tang Dynasty, in the seventh century AD. Missionaries likely traveled the Silk Road to arrive in China, and shortly after arrival, priests were permitted to build churches for Christian worship. For many centuries, converts were hard won, but when the Jesuits arrived in the sixteenth century, the Church became more established.
Eventually, following the Reformation, protestant missionaries arrived and by the end of the nineteenth century, the Church was doing well. Yet, there were periods of bloodshed, such as during the Boxer Rebellion. Also, Christians and Christian missionaries were caught between the factions during the Opium Wars. The Church tried its best to remain neutral, but it forbid its users from using opium, so there was a perceived bias. In other instances, some rulers restricted Christianity, believing it to be a form of superstition or foreign intrigue. One area that missionaries did do well in was the constructing of hospitals and schools in China.
MAO ZEDONG
When Mao Zedong came to power in 1949, his view of Christianity was shaped particularly by Marxist ideology. Yet, Mao saw certain moral and ethical virtues in Christianity along with a broad, public approval of the Christian religion and he saw it was to his advantage to co-opt or merge Christianity with the Chinese brand of Communism (what Marx would call Socialism.) However, during the decade-long Cultural Revolution, Christians were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and their Bibles destroyed, their homes confiscated. But now, Mao has been dead for almost half a century. What has happened is that over the past six years, there has been an increased government interest in controlling the Church, as President Xi consolidates power.
Under communism, there were/are three official and heavily supervised Christian denominations: the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the China Christian Council, and the Protestant Three-Self Patriotic Movement. The official, PRC approved churches in China are akin to the German Evangelical Churches (Reichskirche) during World War II. As with China, today, Hitler wanted to bring organized religion in line with his National Socialism agenda (e.g., racial purity, Lebensraum, etc.)
CONTROL OF RELIGION IS PARAMOUNT
Yet, there were German dissidents, both Catholic priests and Protestant pastors who were wary of Nazis schemes and they resisted the Nazis agenda or (in the case of Lutherans), established their own Confessing Church. These were martrys such as Titus Brandsma, Giuseppe Girotti, Paul Schneider and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Today, the alternative to one of the three Christian organizations regulated by the PRC are home (jiating jiaohui 家庭教会) or underground churches, which are routinely persecuted. The few independent Catholic churches as well as Protestant churches are suffering likewise. And, not only are established churches being raided and church officials (pastors, priests, deacons, etc.) being detained, but home or house churches are carefully watched as well. For example, during 2024:
“Persecution of Protestant house church Christians intensified. The government continued its nationwide crackdown on house churches, detaining, arresting, and sentencing independent Protestants on security and criminal charges. Authorities tortured Christians held in secret detention centers and prisons. Authorities in Henan Province required Protestants to register on a government ‘smart-religion’ app to attend worship services.”
Hitler, likewise incarcerated the clergy in concentration camps, particularly at Dachau. Many were killed by lethal injection, starved to death, or unceremoniously hung in the case of Bonhoeffer.
The situation between the PRC central government and the churches became worse in 2018, and today
“the authorities have ordered the removal of crosses from churches [and] replaced images of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary with pictures of President Xi Jinping.”
SINICIZATION
China, which has liberalized its marketplace and travel abroad to a large degree seems intent on persecuting the Christian Church in their home county. As a communist country, China is officially an atheist state. More and more local authorities are feeling pressure to crack down on religious expression in support of a policy known as Sinicization (漢化.) According to the Annual Report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom which is published by the federal government:
“Sinicization requires groups to follow the CCP’s Marxist interpretation of religion, including by altering religious scriptures and doctrines to conform to that interpretation.
Some of the areas in Chinese society subject to Sinicization include values and lifestyles, religion and philosophy, education, politics and law. Sinicization is a very ancient custom used to create a sort of national identity in China as strange religions and foreign customs compete for dominance on the mainland. General secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and (current) President of China Xi Jinping vowed to “fully implement the Party’s basic policy on religious affairs, insist on the Sinicization of Chinese religions, and provide active guidance for religion and socialism to coexist.” Thus, if there are any “troublesome” Bible verses that seem to go against socialism (communism) as defined and practiced in the People’s Republic, the central government is free to censor these Scriptural passages or alter them as they see fit. While the central government in Beijing is very circumspect in implementing this doctrine, it is done nevertheless at the local levels, doubtlessly under duress.
Everyday examples of the persecution of believers include:
“Two Christians from rural area of the Aksu region of Xinjiang were arrested in August 2023 for sharing faith testimonies on WeChat Moments. They were later criminally detained by local police on charges of “utilizing superstitious sects, secret societies, or cult to undermine law enforcement” and prosecuted by the local procuratorate.”
A citizen of China who wishes to discuss his faith online must apply for and be granted a license to do so. Another recent case of harassment by authorities deals with a church that was raided on September 21, 2024
“The Beijing Zion Church Haidian Branch mainly spreads the gospel to college and university students. Local police and other departments suddenly entered one Sunday, interrupting the gathering. All attendees were required to register their identity information before being allowed to leave the venue.”
Police finally took away Elder Cai Jing, lay pastor Zhou Sirui, and Wu Qiong who was in charge of the equipment. At around 11 PM that evening, Zhou Sirui’s boyfriend Sean received a phone call informing him that all three Christians had been administratively detained. His girlfriend Zhou Sirui would be detained for 15 days, and Elder Cai Jing and Wu Qiong would be detained for 14 days each.“
In one earlier episode from this summer,
“(Hohhot, Inner Mongolia – July 24, 2024) It has been reported that on July 19, 2024, at noon, preacher Zhang Jiale from Xuan’en Church in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, and his wife Ran Yilian were taken away by local police for a 12-hour summons, returning home only in the evening.
Two days earlier, on the morning of July 17, while several Christians from Xuan’en Church were studying the Bible together, they were suddenly interrupted by relevant departments including the United Front Work Department, National Security Brigade, Religious Affairs Bureau, local police station, and community management office. The officials entered the church hall, recorded the names and phone numbers of the Christians present, and ordered them to cease the gathering. The police and staff accused them of illegal assembly and demanded that they attend Three-Self churches instead. They stated that since this was the first occurrence, they would only issue a warning, but it should not happen again.”
As one more, but highly detailed example, there is the case of Zhang Zhan. You can read about her personal circumstances here.
THE LONG ARM OF THE PRC
Chinese citizens abroad (including in the U.S.) are subject to coercion and threats of physical harm. For example, two Chinese agents, Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping living in New York City targeted Christians and other religious dissidents on behalf of the government in Beijing. Read the official complaint leading to their arrest here.
There are currently almost 300,000 Chinese students in the U.S. attending college or university. They commonly report seeing countrymen photographing them or following them. Sometimes they hear from their parents who tell them a representative from the PRC is threatening them because of the action of their children abroad, according to a report in Amnesty International.
JESUS HAD A DIFFERENT REVOLUTION IN MIND
Mao Zedong was a revolutionary. Jesus was also a revolutionary, but then he was also much more than that as well. He was neither communist nor capitalist. He saw the whole, worldly system as a fallen one. It was an imperfect system manipulated by imperfect people. Thus, western politicians have as much reason to be circumspect towards Jesus as the PRC does.
We need to examine just what a revolution is. The U.S. has never had a revolution. In 1775 when shots ran out at Bunker Hill in Boston, that battle marked the start of the American War of Independence. A revolution is when there is a fundamental shift in society. In another post I mention:
“A true revolution is a radical departure from the previous norms, as Hannah Arendt would tell us. In a true revolution, even the calendar is changed. For example, the latter part of July was renamed Thermidor in the French Revolution. In the Bolshevik Revolution, people were no longer addressed as сударь сударыня (Sir/Madam) but as “Comrade.” In the Iranian Revolution, blue jeans and sleeveless tops were banned and burned in favor of the hajib, while men were forced to grow beards. In the U.S. following Yorktown, some states did not need to revise their charters for decades. People dressed the same, perhaps only replacing the buttons on their coats if they contained the Royal Seal.”
We can say the same is true for Christianity. After all, we measure historical occurrences as occurring B.C. or Before Christ or A.D. meaning After (his) Death. Saturday is the seventh day of the week or the Sabbath. Christians address each other as “brother” and “sister.” And women’s dress is usually much more modest that what we see on other women in our culture.
However, these are just outward trappings. The real change in the Christian revolution is the change that takes place in our hearts and minds.
For Marxism-Leninism to succeed, it required a change in a person’s heart, what the Bolsheviks called the “New Soviet Man.” However, there was no transformative power behind the message. Few people in Russia were inspired by the “Hero of the Soviet Union” medal, but they would get excited over a pair of Levi’s jeans or a bar of chocolate. How bourgeois! The Bible is different. The Bible contains promises, not propaganda. These promises can be claimed by the reader, and redeemed because in Christianity there is a Redeemer. The focus in Christianity is on the individual, not on the state or the collective. Jesus is concerned with you as an individual much as he is with the United States or Croatia or China. The is why one lost lamb in the Gospel was as important to the shepherd as the entire herd. This is a God who can count the grains of sand on all the beaches in the world. He knows and has names for all of the stars in the heavens. Certainly, then He knows and cares about you.
When you commit yourself to the faith, you take the first steps of a miraculous journey that ends perhaps on the far side of the universe or in another dimension filled with love and bliss. Marx and Mao could not provide assurances like this. What did the communist have to look forward to at the end of his (her) life?
God loves China and He loves the Chinese people. There are people in the world and demons who would sow distrust among us. We need to rise above this. But this process begins with me and it begins with you. For the sake of anyone who is not a Christian, here is how to become one:
上帝爱你，并为你的人生制定了美好的计划
上帝的爱
“上帝爱世人，甚至将他的独生子赐给他们，叫一切信他的，不至灭亡，反得永生”（约翰福音3:16）。
上帝的计划
[基督说]“我来，是要叫羊（指世人）得生命，并且得的更丰盛”（约翰福音10:10）。
为什么大多数人没有体验丰盛的生命？
因为……
人是罪恶的，与上帝分离。因此，他无法认识和体验上帝的爱以及上帝对他的计划。
人是有罪的
“因为世人都犯了罪，亏缺了神的荣耀”（罗马书3:23）。
人类被创造出来是为了与神建立关系，但由于人类固有的顽固自我意志，他们选择走自己的路，与神的关系就此破裂。这种自我意志表现为主动叛逆或被动冷漠的态度，是圣经所说的罪的证据
人与神分离
“罪的工价乃是死”（与神的精神分离）（罗马书6:23).
耶稣是上帝为人类罪恶提供的唯一救赎。通过他，你可以认识和体验上帝为你的人生所制定的计划。
他替我们而死
“当我们还是罪人的时候，基督就为我们而死，上帝向我们展示了祂的爱”（罗马书5:8.)
他死而复生
“基督为我们的罪而死……他被埋葬……根据圣经，他在第三天复活……他先向彼得显现，然后向十二使徒显现。之后，他又向五百多人显现……”（哥林多前书15:3-6）
他是通往上帝的唯一道路
“耶稣对他说：‘我就是道路、真理、生命；若不藉着我，没有人能到父那里去’”（约翰福音14:6).
我们必须各自接受耶稣基督作为救主和主；然后我们才能认识和体验上帝的爱和对我们生活的计划。
我们必须接受基督
“凡接待他的，就是信他名的人，他就赐他们权柄，作上帝的儿女”（约翰福音1:12）。
我们通过信仰接受基督
“你们得救是本乎恩，也因着信；这并不是出于自己，而是上帝的恩赐，也不是出于行为;免得有人自夸”（以弗所书2:8,9).
当我们接受基督时，我们就会经历新生
(请阅读约翰福音3:1-8).
以下内容解释了如何接受基督：
你可以立即
通过信仰和祈祷
(祈祷就是与上帝交谈）
接受基督。上帝了解你的内心，他更关心你的态度而不是你的言语.
以下是建议的祈祷文：
主耶稣，我需要你。感谢你为我的罪死在十字架上。我打开我生命的大门，接受你作为我的救主和主。感谢你宽恕我的罪，赐予我永生。请掌管我生命中的宝座。让我成为你想要我成为的那种人。
这个祷告是否表达了您内心的渴望？
如果是，我邀请您现在就祈祷，基督将如他所承诺的那样进入您的生活。
如何知道基督在你生命中
你是否接受了基督进入你的生命？根据他在《启示录》3:20中的承诺，基督现在与你有什么关系？基督说他会进入你的生命。他会误导你吗？你凭什么知道上帝回应了你的祷告？（上帝本人和他的话语的可信度。
圣经承诺永生给
所有接受基督的人
“上帝赐给我们永生，这永生也在他的儿子里面。人有了上帝的儿子就有生命；没有上帝的儿子就没有生命。我写信给你们信奉上帝儿子之名的人，是要你们知道你们有永生”（约翰一书5:11-13）
要常常感谢上帝，因为基督就在你的生命中，祂永远不会离开你（希伯来书13:5）。你可以根据祂的承诺知道，基督就在你里面，从你邀请祂进入的那一刻起，你就拥有了永生。祂不会欺骗你