Comments by Dr. Don Snow in regards to the state of the church, both perceived and otherwise.
Disclaimer: This article may be hazardous to longstanding firmly held beliefs, particularly by Westerners
When Western media write about the Protestant church situation in China, there is a strong tendency to assume that Chinese Christians fall into one or the other of two distinct and divided camps. One camp is variously referred to as “Three-Self churches,” Christian Council churches, registered churches, official churches, or even government churches. The other camp is referred to as unregistered churches, house churches, or underground churches. Along with this neat binary division all too often comes a Manichean tendency to associate one camp with darkness and the other with light – which is which depending on the presuppositions of the observer.
When talking with people about Christianity in China, I find this binary, good guy/bad guy framework to be one of the biggest obstacles. Granted, people often need to simplify when dealing with the unfamiliar, but I find this particular framework so overly simplified that it often forces people to shoehorn a particular group of Christians into a category that doesn’t really fit them, generating more misunderstanding than insight. I feel we need to approach the task of trying to understand Christian groups in China with a somewhat more nuanced – if still over-simplified framework that has at least the five categories below.
Category 1: Churches associated with the China Christian Council (CCC) and Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM)
- They are legally registered with the government.
- They are affiliated with the CCC/TSPM, hence belong to a loose but nation-wide organization.
- These are generally urban churches with church buildings and many have professionally trained clergy.
- They make up the backbone of a nation-wide organization that has achieved much since churches were officially allowed to re-open in 1979, including
- Recovery of old church buildings and building of new churches;
- Opening of seminaries and Bible schools;
- Running of lay training courses;
- Publishing of Bibles and Christian literature;
- Sponsorship of public works of compassion, both through individual churches and through organizations such as the Amity Foundation;
- Last but not least, giving the church a public presence.
However, this part of the church community is also burdened to some extent by the legacy of excesses from the 1950s, and its officially recognized status involves it in a relationship with the government which also at times gives rise to accusations of inappropriate government influence.
Category 2: Meeting points related to the Christian Council
- These are groups which meet in homes of other non-church structures, yet are legally registered.
- They are usually led by elders rather than professionally trained clergy.
- They are often affiliated with a larger church from Category 1, above, which provides them at least occasionally with the services of professionally trained clergy.
- These are usually in cities, surrounding suburbs or towns, rather than villages.
- Some of these eventually grow to the point that they build their own church and move into Category 1.
Many Westerners are under the mistaken impression that all groups meeting in homes are unregistered, hence presumably underground. This simply isn’t so. There are many gray areas in Christian life in China, and I find discussion of this category a good place to point out that many Chinese Christians who attend registered churches or meeting points may also have contact with unregistered Christian groups. In fact, in some places division between registered and unregistered groups is minimal, and there is a fair amount of interaction and mutual support between them.
Category 3: “Semi-denominations”
This is my term for groups that have a distinct identity that distinguishes them from other Protestant Christians. Some of these groups are based on denominations that originated outside China, such as the Seventh-Day Adventists or even Methodists. Others are indigenous Chinese denominations such as the Little Flock, True Jesus Church, or Jesus Family. They relate to other Christian groups in a variety of ways.
- Even though they retain a sense of their denominational distinctiveness, they are sometimes integrated into churches that are not of their denomination, worshipping alongside Christians of other traditions.
- In other cases they hold their own separate meetings in churches that also have services held by other Christians.
- In some cases they have their own churches, i.e. churches in which most or all people attending are members of the group in question.
The reason I find it useful to stress the existence of this category has to do with the assumption that churches in China are all post-denominational. In one sense this assumption is true – many Christians in China have no sense of belonging to some denominational grouping, and the Christian Council does not recognize denominations. However, we also need to recognize that there are Christians in China who do have a sense of belonging to more distinct – and at times exclusive – groupings.
Category 4: (Defiantly) unregistered groups
These are groups that have made a clear choice not to register with the government or to associate with the CCC/TSPM – the groups often called “house churches” or “underground churches” (though these terms can be misleading). They generally have the following characteristics:
- They are usually urban rather than rural.
- They often have leaders who have been Christians a long time, hence may have a legacy of grievances against the government of TSPM reaching back to the 1950s.
- Christians in these groups are sometimes arrested by government authorities.
It is this category that accounts for most reports of persecution of Christians in China. However, more often than not, meetings of these groups are not directly interfered with, despite the fact that their gathering times and meeting places are often at best a half-kept secret.
What distinguishes these groups most is the fact that they are unwilling to register with the government or affiliate with the CCC/TSPM. There are several possible reasons for this:
- Some want to avoid the possibility of government interference or restrictions on their activities.
- Some do not want to be associated with groups of Christians who do not entirely share their theological beliefs.
- Some feel that churches should have not interaction with government at all. (This strain of thought derives in part from the teaching of Wang Mingdao, a well-known Chinese pastor through much of the 20th century.)
- Sometimes leaders of these groups have had personal conflicts with Christians in registered groups, and have dealt with the conflict by splitting off.
Category 5: Rural Christian groups
One of the fastest growing segments of church life in China is found in the countryside among Christian groups that do not fit neatly into any of the categories above. These groups:
- Are in villages in the countryside, hence often far away from organized Christian life in town and cities;
- Many consist largely of “young Christians,” people who have not been Christians more than a decade or so, and perhaps much less;
- Tend to be run by strong lay leaders, often the Christians around which the group originally formed. While these leaders may have been Christians longer than others in the group, even their Christian experience may not reach back more than a decade or so;
- Are often not “underground” – their meetings are publicly known;
- Are not registered – but not necessarily because they oppose registration. Rather, registration may be a “city” concept they know little about or which has little meaning for them;
- Likewise, while they may not be affiliated with the CCC/TSPM, they may not be opposed to such affiliation either. How much they do or do not relate to CCC/TSPM is in such matters as providing Bibles or sending clergy out for baptisms, communion, and so forth.
This is probably the category of Christians in which the most rapid growth is taking place – after all, the overwhelming majority of China’s population lives in the countryside. However, it is also the segment of church life viewed with the most concern, at least by Christians in the cities. The main problem is that even the leaders of these groups may have had relatively little formal Christian training and may not even have a very strong understanding of the Bible. The fact that they are relatively cut off from other parts of the church body makes it relatively easy for unusual ideas and practices, or even heresies, to take root (although problems with heresy are by no means confined to the countryside).
This segment of church life is sometimes lumped by outside observers together with the “defiantly unregistered” groups in Category 4, in part to support the argument that most Christians in China meet in unregistered groups. However, these rural Christians are quite different from “underground” groups in urban areas, and do not fall into the same category.
The discussion above may seem a bit dry, even academic, not least because I have tried to avoid falling into the “good guy/bad guy” mode. I would concede that there is a time and a place for Christians to make value judgments. However, I feel the first step is to understand, and that the framework proposed above may be helpful in explaining the situation of the church in China in a way that is understandable yet not overly distorted.
