Congregations at Protestant churches across China are increasing
annually by 500,000 to 600,000, with the number of worshippers
surpassing 16 million gathering in more than 50,000 churches and
other places of worship, said Deng Fucun, vice-chairman of the
National Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the
Protestant Churches in China.
He revealed the figure at a press conference held to mark the
ending of the five-day Exhibition of Bible Ministry, staged in Hong
Kong by mainland churches. A banquet will also be hosted this
evening by Bishop Ding Guangxun, head of China's Protestant
community, in honor of the event.
The highlight of the exhibition was a copy of the Imperial
Edition of the New Testament, printed from the same plate used in
printing the one presented in 1894 to Qing dynasty (1644–1911)
Dowager Empress Cixi.
This rare copy of the Bible was auctioned during the exhibition,
the result of which will be announced at this evening's banquet.
Funds raised from the sale will be donated to the Chinese
University of Hong Kong's SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome)
research program.
Jointly hosted by the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the
Protestant Churches in China and the China Christian Council, the
exhibition was held to show Hong Kong people the development of
religious activity on the mainland.
Cao Shengjie, president of the China Christian Council, pointed
out that the rights of the Church and its followers are now
protected by law. "We are talking about the rule of law now.
Everything, including the Church's relationship with the state and
society, are governed by laws and regulations. This is conducive to
the protection of the legal rights and interests of the Church and
Protestants," she said.
Today, the central government has come to realize that religions
are not a short-lived phenomenon and it now gives ample
consideration to the views of the Church when formulating religious
policies, she said.
Cao also noted that the Chinese people have a traditional
distrust of Protestantism because of its association with
colonialism and imperialism in the past. To overcome this, the
Protestant churches had to launch the Three-Self Patriotic Movement
-- self-management, self-support and self-propagation -- in order
to remove the barrier between the Church and the people.
Deng Fucun outlined the shift in direction of the development of
Protestantism in New China.
In the first 10 years after China started its opening and reform
in the late 1970s, mainland churches focused mostly on "hardware":
reopening old church buildings and building new ones.
Since the end of that first decade, they have switched the
emphasis to the development of "software." The new focus is to
instill Chinese characteristics into Protestantism on the
mainland.
"The idea is to allow China's Protestants to interpret the Bible
according to the situation on the mainland so that they can better
understand God's will for Chinese churches," Deng explained.
Chinese churches have also been providing more social services,
such as running homes for the aged, free clinics and
orphanages.
In view of the surging number of followers, they are also trying
to train more clergy, currently numbering just 2,000, and to give
formal training to tens of thousands of lay clergy serving in
mainland churches, Deng said.
Cao said that in the future, the churches must continue to
improve their relations with society, lift their social status by
enhancing the quality of their followers and step up exchanges with
foreign churches and religious groups.
She predicted that there will be more exchanges between mainland
and Hong Kong churches and that more mainland theological students
would go to the special administrative region for training.
(China Daily August 10, 2004)