Rodney Stark and Xiuhua Wang’s new book, A Star in the East, combines data from a major study on religion in China conducted during the past decade together with keen sociological insights in order to explain the factors behind China’s phenomenal church growth.
The latest episode in the government’s attack on Christian churches in Wenzhou is the drafting of regulations outlining precise limits on the size and location of religious buildings and the size and placement of crosses.
On June 4, 2015, ChinaSource President Brent Fulton was a guest on the Connecting Faith program of My Faith Radio in the Twin Cities. Host Neil Stavem spent the hour talking with Brent about modern China and some of the unique challenges and opportunities facing the country and the church in China 26 years after the crackdown in Tiananmen Square.
According to China Aid Association’s latest annual report, religious persecution in China more than doubled last year. The increase comes as no surprise, as 2014 was marked by a wave of attacks on church buildings, particularly in the city of Wenzhou and around the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang. The general social tightening that has come to characterize President Xi Jinping’s rule contributed to the pressure on religious believers, as did heightened tensions between the regime and ethnic minorities in Western China.
Last week I attended The Gospel Coalition Conference in Orlando, FL.
Last fall the popular news magazine Phoenix Weekly carried this article on the relationship between Christianity and cults in China.
Is China’s church facing a nationwide crackdown?
Christians throughout history have seen themselves engaged in a battle that is ultimately spiritual in nature. Forces arrayed against them, political or otherwise, are physical manifestations of this unseen battle, which will ultimately conclude with the return of Christ.
One of the ways that people in China have of dealing with injustice is the administrative system known as petitioning.
The Chinese church is incredibly diverse.
When Father Ye Yaomin, a Catholic priest, returned to his parish in Foshan, Guangdong province in 1980 following years of persecution, his friends urged him to emigrate.
“China needs priests,” he replied.
If a Christian from the West were asked what the biggest Christian news story out of China was in 2014, no doubt the answer would be the campaign to demolish church crosses in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province. In fact, for many in the West, that might be the only Christian-related news story out of China they are aware of.