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The Chinese church has experienced phenomenal growth despite four decades of religious repression and persecution. While definitive numbers are difficult to obtain, the Chinese Church Research Center (CCRC) in Hong Kong estimates the church in China has grown from about 840,000 Protestant believers in 1949 to over 60 million today. (While other experts place the number of believers much lower, all are agreed on the fact of the phenomenal growth.) Approximately 90 percent of these Christians meet in unofficial house churches scattered throughout the countrysides and cityscapes of this vast and populous nation.

From an office complex crammed amidst the teeming business world of Hong Kong's endless high-rises, Jonathan Chao tirelessly researches and ministers to the ever-developing church in the People's Republic of China, whose border lies only 25 miles from Hong Kong Island. He has demonstrated his special burden for the Chinese church through various activities: he is the founder and director of the CCRC, founder and president of the Chinese Mission Seminary in Hong Kong, and founder of China Ministries International, to mention just three of his many accomplishments. When not in Hong Kong, Chao teaches at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, and at Wheaton College in Illinois.

While Hong Kong has been an effective base for Christian missionary efforts in China for the past century, Chao anxiously anticipates July 1997, when Hong Kong—now run as a British colony—will be taken over by China, pursuant to a long-standing political agreement between Britain and China. It is unknown whether the Chinese government will allow Hong Kong Christians like Chao to enjoy their present level of religious freedom. With an eye toward this coming event, Chao spoke about the present and future state of the Christian church in China.

For the past 45 years, the Chinese government's religious policy has assured "freedom of religious belief." In reality, the Communist party would like to see religion completely dismissed from China, and official state policy has been designed to do just that. However, because this plan has been unsuccessful, China's present policy is to tolerate religion within the confines of government control. To do this, the Chinese government has set up "patriotic religious organizations." This includes, among others, the organization under which Protestant Christians are supposed to operate, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM).

These organizations are led by the Communist party of China through progovernment clergy. Believers in these religious groups meet in designated places of worship and are led by state-approved pastors. Any Christian activity outside of these government-approved organizations is illegal, and violators are subject to arrest.

Many itinerant evangelists and house-church leaders who are not licensed with the government and who engage in evangelism outside the TSPM churches are arrested and often suffer torture. Still, the house churches make up the vast majority of Christians in China today, led mostly by lay leaders who receive no salary and whose basic needs are provided by their churches.

Since the mideighties, I have visited house churches in villages in many parts of China and have conducted leadership training at these churches and at underground seminaries located in subterranean caves. I have seen all-day Sunday house-church worship services with 300 to 400 persons.

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November 13 1995, Vol. 39, No. 13