Image:  Chinese Christians Worshiping God

Al Jazeera (of all places) has an excellent article describing the growth of Christianity in China.  According to the article, a human rights group is reporting that the number of Christians in China has increased 100-fold.  The group believes that the number of Christians in China is between 80 million to 130 million active Christians.  Many of them are members of the so-called house churches.

Below are two excerpts from the article:

Some [Chinese leaders] believe that Christianity could help fill a moral void in an increasingly self-centred, materialistic and corrupt society, as well as helping to meet the demand for social services.

“Immorality, especially sexual immorality, greed and corruption are soaring in China,” says William Jeynes, a professor of education at California State University and a non-resident scholar at Baylor University. “The government acknowledges this. One Chinese government leader was even quoted as saying ‘China has lost its soul.’ Immorality in China is out of control and many in the government believe that Christianity might be the nation’s best hope to establish morality.”

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“Similarly, many Chinese believers see the current economic decline of the US and Europe, as a direct result of the decline of serious adherence to the Christian faith in these countries. The Chinese believe that as a result what arose was greed on Wall Street, government corruption, and greed among many people causing them to buy homes that they could not afford. China hopes that by embracing Christianity and learning from both the past success and the present failures of the US and Europe, it will be able to prosper rather than fall as a result of immorality produced by secularism.”

Read the article in its entirety here.

In a previous post, I wrote about the Chinese Christians’ plan to evangelize the Muslim world.  If Chinese Christians continue to grow in number, they will be able to do the kind of missionary work that American Christians are unable to do.

Let us pray for our Christian brothers and sisters in China.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Technorati Tags: China, Chinese Christianity