For this post, we have translated a sermon given by Pastor Wang Yi, of Early Rain Reformed Church, one of the prominent house churches in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. In it, Pastor Wang reflects on what it means to build a church.
Last week I wrote about the Taiping Rebellion as one of two lenses through which the Chinese government looks at religious movements. The second lens is the Boxer Rebellion, another quasi-religious movement that appeared on the scene in the waning years of the 19th century.
For decades foreign NGOs trying to work in China have struggled with a lack of legal framework. Rumors have abounded about legislation that was “just around the corner,” but which never seemed to see the light of day.
Faith-based organizations have, for too long, adopted a secular business model for gauging their effectiveness. This is the conclusion of Gary Hoag, Scott Rodin and Wesley Wilmer in their short but provocative book, The Choice.
In this week’s Chinese Church Voices, we republish a post from the excellent China Partnership Blog. Last autumn China Partnership held a conference in Atlanta, centered on the topic “The Church in a Global-Local World.” Many of the speakers at the conference were church leaders from China. One of them gave a talk titled “The State of Chinese Urban Churches.” The speaker looks at the situation from three different perspectives: the Chinese value system, the political system, and the expansion of Christianity. China Partnership originally published it on their blog in February. It is reposted here in full, with permission.
I have always thought that in order to understand the Chinese Communist Party’s attitude toward (or shall we say fear of) religion, one needs to study up on two key events: The Boxer Rebellion (1900) and the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864). Both of those movements started out as quasi-religious and morphed into anti-government political movements that weakened, and eventually led to the downfall of the Qing Dynasty.
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Here at Chinese Church Voices, we often highlight articles written by Christians and posted on various websites, blogs, and/or micro-blogs. This week, however, we have translated a sermon by Pastor Chen, of the Fangshan Church in Beijing. It was delivered on February 8, 2015, and posted to the church website shortly after that. In it, Pastor Chen uses 1 Samuel 15 to remind the congregation of the importance of obedience.
As anyone who works in or deals with China on a regular basis knows, so much of life and work operates in a gray area – that space which can often be described as “neither legal nor illegal” since there are not yet laws governing the space or activity.
That has been the situation for numerous NGOs operating in China. Absent an actual law governing foreign NGOs in China, they've operated unofficially or with local blessing or registered as commercial enterprises.
Since returning to China after an absence of several years, one of the things that has most impressed me has been the increase in availability of high quality reference tools for serious Bible study in Chinese.
For the outside observer seeking to make sense of China’s religious policy, the Chinese Constitution presents quite a conundrum.
Most Three-Self churches in China conduct baptism services on Easter Sunday each year. In this translated article from the Gospel Times, the writer shares questions that the pastors at two large churches in China ask of each person being baptized.