Carsten T. Vala is Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Loyola University Maryland. He published a book on the rise and fall of public house churches like Beijing Shouwang church in 2017 (The Politics of Protestant Churches and the Party-State in China: God Above Party?), and has written a number of articles on church-state relations, Protestants and patriotism, the Bible hand-copying movement, Protestant seminary politics, and other issues in China.
What the latest plan for Protestant leadership in the TSPM and CCC tells us is that Xi Jinping continues to attract or compel Christians to align themselves with traditional Chinese culture and, as important, with the Chinese Communist Party’s agenda.
Under Xi…steps toward liberalization have ended and even reversed…. Xi has removed term limits on his rule, called upon the media to serve the party, arrested outspoken lawyers and feminists, and renewed pressure on house and official churches; all sectors…have fallen under the CCP’s oversight and control.
The winter 2022 issue of ChinaSource Quarterly offers perspectives like a plane dropping from thirty thousand feet to ground level, as they shift from high-level and mildly optimistic…to close up, personal, and much more pessimistic. Together, they offer helpful insight on what’s happening in China after ten years of…political leadership by Xi Jinping.
What can we learn from the recent conference on religious work? A comparison with the 2018 conference helps tease out key points.
Vala addresses the history of TSPM churches and the distinction between them and house churches. He looks at their relationship over past years and describes what is happening with both today.
The author helps us to understand the workings of the religious affairs bureaucracy first by following the story of an aspiring pastor, then by viewing them historically. The Chinese Protestant Three-Self Patriotic Movement Association, China Christian Council, Religious Affairs Bureau and United Front Work Department are all discussed along with how they interact, lines of authority and the role of guanxi.