Protestantism in China: A Dilemma for the Party-State (original) (raw)

Protestantism and the State in China

This paper examines the relationship between the Chinese state and Protestantism. It demonstrates that it varies widely from place to place; moreover, the actual relationship between individual churches and the local authorities that are supposed to govern them paints a quite different picture from that implied by the laws and regulations. The paper also argues that the state faces a dilemma: On one hand it feels threatened by the appearance of autonomous organizations such as unregis-tered churches, while on the other it values the contributions they make to society and recognizes that subjecting them to the Three-Self Patriotic Movement and China Christian Council would require a good deal of force and be very socially disruptive.

Bypassing the Party-State? The Implications of Urban Protestant Growth in China

http://www.merics.org/en/merics-analysis/analyseschina-monitor/merics-china-monitor-no-30.html Protestantism has grown rapidly in China over the past 30 years. There are now an estimated 50 million or more believers. By 2030 China could overtake the United States as the country with the world’s largest Christian population, with over 200 million predicted adherents. In recent years, Protestantism has flourished amongst educated urbanites in particular. Phil Entwistle found out that it is a perception of a moral crisis in the Chinese society that pushes urbanites to search for alternative sources of meaning, comfort and community beyond those offered by mainstream society or the party-state. Protestantism has become a viable alternative, especially for young Chinese. How does the Chinese party-state deal with this unprecedented growth of what they perceived to be a foreign religion? Although most Protestants are not politically active, there is concern about a movement that draws its moral compass from a source outside the reach of the party-state. As Entwistle points out, the party-state has taken an ambivalent attitude. Discreet religious and social activities are mostly tolerated; on the other hand Christian involvement in political activism may raise suspicions, which sometimes leads to repressive actions like church demolitions, and crackdowns on freedom of worship. Whether the rise of Protestantism in China results in confrontation or peaceful co-existence will largely depend on the way the Communist party chooses to deal with the phenomenon: Will it further antagonize the Protestant community via political repression, or will it attempt to reduce tensions by allowing believers to contribute actively to societal renewal? Either way, the party-state cannot afford to ignore the development. Protestantism, formerly brought into the country by missionaries, has long since become an indigenised religion with its own particular Chinese characteristics.

Old Pastor and Local Bureaucrats: Recasting Church-State Relations in Contemporary China

Modern China, 2019

In examining the relationships between a state-recognized Protestant pastor and local bureaucrats, this article argues that church leaders in contemporary China are strategic in enhancing interactions with the local state as a way to produce greater space for religious activities. In contrast to the idea that the Three-Self church structure simply functions as a state-governing apparatus, this study suggests that closer connection to the state can, at times, result in less official oversight. State approval of Three-Self churches offers legitimacy to registered congregations and their leaders, but equally important is that by endorsing such groups, the state is encouraging dialogue, even negotiations between authorities and the church at local levels.

Governance and Christianity in the PRC

Governance and Democracy in the Asia-Pacific, 2020

When the PRC Party/State came to power in 1949 the government set out to insert itself and apply its own goals of governance to every niche in the economy and society. One such niche was religion. Rather than immediately trying to stamp out religion, as might be expected from its officially atheistic ideology, it adopted the policy inherited from the Kuomintang government it had just defeated of recognizing five religions, Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism 1 and declaring traditional folk worship as superstition. It then sought to control religion by establishing state bodies to manage each of the five recognized communities. However, its governance of religion, in particular Protestantism, has been uneven and sometimes turbulent and tense, uneven because local enforcement has varied from place to place, turbulent and tense because what is and is not acceptable can suddenly change. This paper will examine the PRC treatment of Protestantism as a governance issue. Governance, as defined by the UN, is 'the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented (or not implemented).' Good governance requires 'fair legal frameworks that are enforced impartially [through] an independent judiciary and an impartial and incorruptible police force,' and that the government must follow the rule of law and be transparent and accountable (UNESCAP). To this, Kaufman, Kraay and Mastruzzi add freedom of expression and association as criteria for good governance (2010). However, in the PRC, while the constitution guarantees freedom of religious belief, religious practice is subject to regulations that members claim interfere with beliefs; local governments can take action against individual churches while very similar churches are left alone elsewhere; and a province can engage in a concerted effort to dishonour Christianity's most sacred symbol, the cross, in an effort to reduce its public presence. Such actions cause uncertainly and tensions in the Protestant community, which is growing rapidly and some say will surpass the number of members of the CCP if it has not done so already. This could bode ill for a harmonious, stable society.

Protestantism, Political Support and Liberal Democratic Values in Urban China

Studies of Comparative Politics have long associated Protestant Christianity with liberal democracy. Protestants have been credited with promoting individualistic, egalitarian values, encouraging lay activism, agitating for religious toleration, and spreading the use of printing and education. In doing so, they unintentionally laid the foundation for the development of the public sphere, civil society, and religious toleration, all necessary for the development of liberal democracy. However, other studies have found that individual Protestants themselves do not always demonstrate liberal or democratic values, sometimes supporting authoritarian rulers and illiberal policies. This raises the question of what effect the recent rapid growth of Protestantism will have on China's politics. This paper, based on 100 in-depth interviews in Shenzhen and Beijing, focuses on Protestant believers' political values and on their attitudes towards China's political institutions. In terms of political values, Protestants were no more liberal than their demographic peers, except on the question of freedom of association. Protestants also showed similar levels of overall political tolerance to their demographic peers. However Protestant respondents were more concerned with, and positive about, democracy, which they defined primarily in liberal rather than populist terms. Protestants demonstrated more negative attitudes towards the central government, the political system and the Party. For non-Protestants, regime support was associated with positive perceptions of everyday issues such as education, healthcare, and personal living conditions, whereas for Protestants, such perceptions made little difference. In causal terms, my findings concur with those of previous scholarship in that it was primarily those dissatisfied with China's society and politics who converted to Protestantism, rather than Protestantism serving to engender contrarian sentiments. As such, Protestantism Christianity’s primary challenge to Party-state legitimacy is in what it represents: a symptom of an underlying reservoir of scepticism towards the Party-state and its attempt to legitimise its authoritarian rule based upon its performance at delivering everyday political goods.

Chinese Views on Church and State

Journal of Church & State, Vol. 53, No. 1 (Winter 2010).

China’s process of religious liberalization has certainly seen its share of ups and downs over the past three decades, with strong state reaction to groups such as the Falun Gong and the continued persecution of the house-church movement. It is, however, beyond dispute that the system as a whole has been greatly liberalized during China’s period of gaige kaifeng (reform and opening). Whereas meeting as a group of believers to read the Bible was a dangerous proposition under Mao, an ambitious group of house-church Christians in Shanxi Province recently almost got away with constructing a huge eight-story mega-church that could serve nearly 50,000 worshippers. While in the end the Chinese government did intervene and shut it down for the group’s failure to obtain the proper building permits, the penalty they will pay for such a blatant act is far from what it would have been decades ago. Indeed, such a construction project would have been stopped at the first shovel full of dirt.

Uneasy Encounters Christian Churches in Greater China

2022

The book examines the dynamic processes of the various social, political, and cultural negotiations that representatives of Christian groups engage in within authoritarian societies in Greater China, where Christianity is deemed a foreign religious system brought to China by colonial rulers. The book explores the political and social cooperation and negotiations of two particular Christian groups in their respective and distinct settings: the open sector of the Catholic Church in the communist People’s Republic on mainland China from 1945 to the present day, and the Presbyterian church of Taiwan in the Republic of China in Taiwan during the period of martial law from 1949 to 1987. Rather than simply confirm the ‘domination-resistance’ model of church–state relations, the book focuses on the various approaches adopted by religious groups during the process of negotiation. In an authoritative Chinese environment, religious specialists face two related pressures: the demands of their authoritarian rulers and social pressure requiring them to assimilate to the local culture. The book uses two case studies to support a wider theory of economic approach to religion.