China: Open Doors, Many Adversaries
July 13, 2011
A Chinese house church meets for worship.
Two recent articles help us think about the growing impact of Christianity in China. The first article asks a simple question:
Christianity: China’s Best Bet?
Here’s a quote that shows both sides of the current dilemma:
Some experts believe that China could soon be home to the largest Christian population in the world. And the Chinese government has been surprisingly open towards Protestantism – funding the construction of churches and providing seminaries for the training of new church leaders – at least until recently.
David Aikman discusses the current situation in an article called Beijing’s Theology of Repression.
The recent crackdown on house-church Christians is the outgrowth of a Communist Party initiative launched last December, called “Operation Deterrence,” to force all house-church Christians to be incorporated with the TSPM (Three Self Patriotic Movement) or suffer persecution.
Taken together these two articles remind us that God is at work in China despite the overt pressure from the government. It reminds one of what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 16:9, “A wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.”
Open doors, many adversaries. Thus does the church go forward in China and around the world.