To better understand the recent Sanjiang church demolition and what now appears to be a coordinated effort on the part of the government to curb visibility of Christianity in the public sphere, it is also helpful to briefly consider the relationship that Christianity has with China historically.
In this article, translated from the site jidutu123.com, the author looks at the challenges of doing urban missions in China. His main point is that doing urban missions, traditionally defined as ministering to the marginalized, is difficult in China because it assumes that Christianity is already part of the mainstream of culture, something that is not true in China. He then calls on the church to look for ways to engage with society rather than standing in opposition to it. Only by doing this will Christianity gain influence in Chinese society.
According to a recent article in The Economist, over the past 25 years half a million non-governmental organizations have registered in China. Another 1.5 million social entities have not registered and are effectively functioning illegally. Many others are registered as businesses.
If you work for a foreign NGO in China and have had the feeling that it has been under a bit more scrutiny lately, it seems that you are not imagining things.
While much is written about the explosive growth of the church among the Han (dominant ethnic group in China), less is written about the spread of Christianity among the minority peoples. The article translated below is about a county in Yunnan Province that is praying and raising money to build a church.
As far as I know China's NGO sector doesn't have a theme song, but if it did it would likely be the U2 hit single "With or Without You."
The articles that caught our eye in this week's ZGBriefs Newsletter fall within two large topicsChinese language and Confucianism.
Last month we highlighted a video from the Grace to the City Convention held in Hong Kong in March, which featured the participants singing the popular Getty hymn, "In Christ Alone."
Along with the massive urbanization that has forever reshaped the social and cultural landscape of China, the church in China has itself undergone a major transformation. From a largely rural, peasant-led movement in the 1980s the church is now very much an urban phenomenon.
The church demolitions continue in Zhejiang, as does the commentary trying to make sense of it all. Two articles this week contributed to the conversation.
I am not a regular reader of Daedalus (although I probably should be), but a few weeks back I downloaded the Spring 2014 edition of the journal Daedalus onto my kindle because the cover caught my eye: "Growing Pains in a Rising China."
Jeffrey Towson and Jonathan Woetzel, both professors at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management in Beijing, claim you can understand China in an hour. An excerpt from their new book on the McKinsey and Company website says getting a handle on China is a lot less about politics and a lot more about a handful of major economic and social trends that are shaping the country's future.