It was a privilege to visit China recently and follow in the steps of each Baptist World Alliance president since the early 1980s, who has made an official visit. Our gracious hosts, the China Christian Council, have been represented at every BWA Congress since 1985 and they are planning to be at the Hawai´i Congress this summer. The comment I heard from an informed source prior to my visit was: “Everything you say about China is true somewhere in China.”
So is the church in China growing?
Yes; there has been phenomenal church growth during the last 30 years. The official figure provided by the government states that there are 16 million believers meeting in 7,000 registered church buildings with 25,000 meeting places. This figure of 16 million does not include believers in unregistered churches.
Is there full religious freedom in China today?
David Coffey
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Not as we would understand religious liberty following a Western model of freedom of religion. There are strict government regulations for churches. If believers choose not to register their church on conscience grounds they are classified by the government as lawbreakers. Recent history tells us Christians will always differ in how they approach the requirements of a communist government. According to their conscience they will either bear their witness with discretion and register, or with valor they will dissent. We raised with government representatives the possibility of a figure of more than 100 million believers in China, which would take into account the reportedly large numbers of believers in unregistered churches. But were unable to receive confirmation of this figure from any official source.
Is the Bible freely available in China?
Yes it is. Our visit to the impressive new premises of the Amity Printing Press in Nanjing was an inspiring experience. Each month, the company produces a million copies of the Scriptures, with versions in various languages including eight Chinese minority languages and sets of a Braille version of the Bible. Amity printed 100,000 copies of Chinese-English bilingual versions of the four Gospels for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. By May 2009 more than 68 million Bibles had come off their production lines. More than 20 million Bibles have been produced for the international market, with exports to more than 70 countries.
Is the church in China able to evangelize?
We encountered remarkable testimonies of how people come to faith in Jesus Christ. We heard reports of the visit of Franklin Graham in October 2009 when he preached to 10,000 people at the Bethel Church in Baoding and, at the conclusion of the service, 1,000 responded to his invitation to give their lives to Christ. In recent years the Christmas festival has begun to be recognized in China as a commercial opportunity and many churches tell the Christmas story at special services which appeal to the community. The pastor of Hangzhou Chong Yi Christian Church, with 6,000 members, told me they had recorded 3,279 professions of faith during their Christmas services in 2009.
Is the church persecuted and do people go to prison for their faith?
There is sufficient evidence that in some specific provinces there is harassment of congregations and arrest of unregistered church leaders. The BWA delegation sought clarification of the unregistered church, as there had been reports in Western newspapers of the unregistered congregation at Shanghai Wanbang Church being evicted from its building in December 2009, and a pastoral leader from Xinjiang province who had been given a prison sentence for “providing state secrets to overseas organizations.” (For more information, see this Dec. 18 article from the British newspaper The Guardian). We specifically asked our Christian hosts if we could meet with unregistered church leaders, but they asked us not to convene any “unscheduled meetings” — and since we did not want to bring them into conflict with the state authorities, we felt we had to honor their request.
What can we say about China?
We can celebrate the advances in religious freedom in China.
We can applaud the affirmations of China’s Communist Party that religious believers have an important role to play in the development of society.
We can thank God for the courage and vibrancy of the church in China.
We can pray that Chinese Christians will have full freedom to exercise their faith in Christ and for the release of unjustly imprisoned Chinese believers.
We can pray for God to bless China and make it a country of love, justice, freedom and prosperity.
David Coffey, a longtime pastor and denominational executive in the Baptist Union of Great Britain, will complete a five-year term as president of the Baptist World Alliance this summer. This article was distributed by Associated Baptist Press.