Editorial reflection and analysis on issues shaping Chinese Christianity.
In a recent Christianity Today article on the wave of laws hitting foreign NGOs globally, Morgan Lee refers specifically to China when she writes, “Nearly 20 percent of the world’s population could lose access to the ministry efforts of Western Christians next year.”
Last week the World Economic Forum posted a short video titled “Where are the Largest Chinese Populations Outside of China?” Spoiler: Indonesia tops the list.
If you’re with a non-profit organization that has activities in China, the new law applies to you, regardless of whether you are actually located in China.
As urban churches in China face significant changes in the 21st century, will they effectively engage their own culture and reach out with the gospel cross-culturally?
Does the Christian church require a sympathetic national government to thrive?
In March China introduced its first-ever comprehensive domestic violence law. While celebrated as an important step toward the protection of women and children (and, occasionally men experiencing abuse) the law also raises a number of questions within the Christian community. Here lawyer and Christ-follower Cheng Pangzhi wrestles through these issues, ultimately offering hope for reconciliation of families and a call to make use of the new law in order to protect victims of violence.
A few years back I was talking with a Chinese scholar friend of mine about Islam in China. In what has to be one of the clearest examples of pragmatic religiosity I’ve encountered, he told me, “Islam has no future here because Han Chinese will never give up eating pork.”
The traditional roles of foreign Christians in China are changing.
What are the real challenges facing the church in China today?
Common sense would tell us that what stands at the core of Christianity is its theology, polity, and mission. But when we come to Christianity in China, it is Chinese Christianity’s social impact and its implications for issues such as human rights and China’s international relations, rather than its pastoral and theological developments and challenges, that have received disproportionately large attention in the Western press in the recent decades.
A look at possible responses to the new NGO law.
This month marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution, a political campaign launched by Chairman Mao. The purpose was supposedly to give a new generation the experience of revolution; however, it was actually an outcome of a power struggle between Mao and the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.