SHANGHAI, China — A leader of the China Christian Council — the official organization of Protestant churches in China — affirmed the group’s continuing commitment to strong ties with the Baptist General Association of Virginia during a meeting with BGAV leaders in July.
Bao Jiayuan, the CCC’s associate general secretary, held conversations at CCC headquarters in Shanghai with Jerry Jones, team leader of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board’s glocal missions and evangelism team, and Jim White, editor of the Religious Herald.
The CCC was organized in 1980 after China’s Cultural Revolution ended and some measure of freedom of worship and assembly were restored to Chinese churches. Its primary tasks are to organize the printing of Bibles and to assist the 56,000 registered Chinese Protestant churches to minister and worship. There is a separate organization for Catholic Christians.
Prior to worship at Mu'en Church in Shanghai, members read Scripture in preparation. (Photo by Jim White)
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American Christians have largely misunderstood the issue of registration, Bao believes, and it has been a topic of some misperception within China as well. Bao explains, “The [communist] revolutionary leaders said the church must be Chinese and church leaders were to help the churches relate to the new China.” Consequently, missionaries were expelled from the country and dependence on foreign financial and personnel assistance abruptly ended in 1950.
A year later, to help churches cope with the traumatic transitions they faced, an organization arose to promote making the Chinese churches indigenous as had been suggested by missionaries more than 50 years earlier. The missionaries had said the church needed to become self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating.
The newly-formed organization promoted the three “selfs” to demonstrate their commitment to end dependence on foreign influence. It came to be called the Three-Self Patriotic Movement.
“It served as a bridge between the churches and the Communist Party,” Bao recalls.
Despite the perception of many American Christians, churches were not closed following communist rule until 1966 when a 13-year period called the Cultural Revolution began. During these years, church buildings were closed or devoted to “community” uses.
Just as an organization was needed in 1950 to help make the transition and to continue providing assistance to churches, after the Cultural Revolution the CCC was formed to unite Protestant churches in a common purpose for their common benefit.
Toward that end, the CCC has led in establishing 21 seminaries throughout China where, since the mid-1980s, more than 10,000 students have received theological degrees. Half of them are women.
Eventually Bao hopes the graduates will ease a critical pastor shortage in the churches. Although churches number 56,000, they are served by only 3,700 ordained pastors, most of whom are young and one-third of whom are women. As seminary graduates gain experience and eventually become ready to assume pastorates, they will be ordained. Ordination is a local church decision but cannot proceed without the approval of the council’s local branch which meets with the candidate to determine his or her suitability to serve as a pastor. In the CCC, only pastors are ordained.
The CCC estimates that, in place of pastors, 150,000 laypersons who have received at least some theological training serve as elders.
According to estimates provided by the university-linked Social Sciences Academy, China has 23 million Christians. According to other sources, however, the number exceeds 50 million. The number is impossible to determine with confidence because there is no means of accurately reporting a total number.
“We have a vision that we will come together as the Chinese Church,” Bao, who also works with the TSPM, says. “We still have no Chinese Church, but we are on our way to uniting. Differences in belief are respected. Baptism is one difference we have and Holy Communion is another issue that we have differences of opinions about. But we respect the differences.”
Although each Chinese church is independent, and calls its own pastor, the issue of property ownership has created strains within the organization.
Holy Trinity Cathedral in Shanghai, used as a movie theater during the Cultural Revolution, has now been restored, but its use as a church is being delayed by questions of ownership. (Photo by Jim White)
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“This is a controversial issue,” Bao concedes. “In some cases the local church owns the property and in some cases it is owned by the Council.”
To illustrate the problem, he referred to the headquarters of the CCC itself. In 2004 the CCC moved to a facility formerly occupied by Holy Trinity Cathedral, which had Anglican roots. During the Cultural Revolution, it had been converted to a movie theater. After years of painstaking and costly renovations, it has been restored as a beautiful cathedral and they are finally ready to resume worship there. The brand-new custom-made rosewood pews are in place as are the organ and newly installed stained glass windows in the altar area.
But worship has been delayed because the national council and its local branch cannot agree on who owns the facility. They hope by the end of the summer to have the issue resolved.
The CCC receives its funding from voluntary contributions of churches in their budgets, from donations made by individuals and organizations, from the sale of Christian books and resources and from miscellaneous sources, a staff member reported.
The CCC is planning a four-city Bible exhibition in the United States beginning Sept. 28 in Washington, D.C. The objective is to demonstrate that China has a long history with the Bible and to underscore the commitment of the China Christian Council to partner with other groups to provide the Scriptures to the 1.4 billion people living in there.