This article is Part 5 of a seven-part series adapted from a lecture delivered at Harvard Law School on May 1, 2025, at the Program on Biblical Law and Christian Legal Studies. Reproduced with permission from Dr. Ruth Okediji, faculty director.
In Part 4, I traced two currents within Protestantism in China and how Chinese leaders moved beyond imported categories to build a church that was truly Chinese. Here, I sketch the national story after 1949. The shorthand is familiar but instructive: periods of hard line, periods of soft line, and consistent center–local variation. What matters most is not only the dates, but the habits Christians learned for living between lines.
1949–1976: The Hard Line
The new state comprehensively reorganized social and institutional life. Religious activities were tightly managed; organizations were restructured; and during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), churches and religious expression suffered profoundly. Many observers predicted that Christianity would vanish.
It did not. In family rooms and small circles, Scripture was remembered, prayer continued, and quiet fellowship endured. Public visibility diminished, but the grammar of faith—worship, repentance, mutual care—survived. This season taught Chinese believers how to endure without visibility.
1978 Onward: Opening and “Christianity Fever”
Reform and opening brought managed space. Venues reopened; study and exchange resumed; urban fellowships and congregations became more visible. Interest in Christianity’s intellectual and moral resources widened—what many later called a “Christianity Fever.” Scholars read, translated, and taught; seekers gathered; congregations developed small groups, basic counseling, family ministries, and forms of neighbor love that fit within the realities of the time.
“Breathing room” never meant uniform favor or fixed guarantees. It meant enough space for worship, learning, and service—provided communities were prudent about scale, language, and ties.
Center–Local Dynamics
Across decades, one reality recurs: policy and practice are not identical. Central documents set tone and limits; provincial and city-level implementation varies. In one place, a congregation may find room for modest social service or public teaching; in another, similar activity draws scrutiny. Administrative seasons shift; local officials—facing differing pressures—interpret boundaries differently.
Reading both the center and the local became essential wisdom. Panic at headlines and entitlement in calm seasons both misread the situation. The habit Christians learned was simple: build when you can; simplify when you must.
Intellectual Engagement and Visible Communities
As universities reopened and publishing expanded, a stream of intellectual engagement emerged. Some explored Christian thought as a resource for ethics, law, education, and culture; others moved from study to confession. Translations multiplied. Within urban life, new fellowships formed among students and professionals; congregations experimented with practical ministries for families, migrants, children, and the elderly. The visibility of Christians in education, medicine, and workplaces increased, even when formal space remained bounded—especially after China’s entry into the WTO (2001) accelerated exchanges and expectations.
Periodic Tightening
Seasons of tightening arrived from time to time: regulatory adjustments, closer attention to data and venues, heightened sensitivity around foreign links, and efforts to align practice with policy. None of this erased what had been learned in the open years—habits of small-group life, leadership formation, translation, and mercy. But it did require communities to scale prudently and to cultivate quiet credibility rather than prominence.
Lessons This Era Taught
- Live between lines. “Wise as serpents and innocent as doves” is not a slogan; it is survival wisdom. Plan for multiple scenarios; be ready to gather smaller, decentralize ministries, or pivot to household care when needed.
- Form resilient disciples. Catechesis, Scripture, prayer, and accountable small groups endure. So do practices that strengthen ordinary vocations—marriage, parenting, work, friendship. Where these are strong, communities bend without breaking.
- Read long arcs. Panic is poor analysis; nostalgia is poor strategy. Rather than straight-line prediction, watch the cycles and invest in people and institutions that outlast them: teachers, translators and editors, counselors and caregivers, networks of mutual help.
- Keep the city in view. Even within limits, bless neighbors—tutoring, eldercare, mercy, professional fellowship—without presuming cultural control. Small obedience builds trust.
Why This Matters Looking Ahead
Post-1978 experience trained Chinese Christians to live with a paradox I have named elsewhere: everything you can say about China and the Chinese church—the opposite can also be true. Openness and caution. Growth and restraint. Opportunity and loss. The way forward is not to choose one side of the paradox but to practice watchfulness without despair and prudence without paralysis.
Next in the series (Part 6): The West reconsidered—public turns in the United States, a contested “evangelical” label, deconstruction, and the rise of compassionate practice.
