Freedom of religious belief is guaranteed under the constitution of the People's Republic of China, but the degree to which this freedom is able to be exercised remains a highly controversial issue. Much scholarly attention has been given to persecuted underground groups such as Falun, but one area that remains largely unexplored is the relationship between officially registered churches and the communist government. This study investigates the history of one such official church, Moore Memorial Church in Shanghai. This church was founded by American Methodist missionaries. By the time of the 1949 revolution, it was the largest Protestant church in East Asia, running seven day a week programs. As a case study of one individual church, operating from an historical (rather than theological) perspective, this study examines the experience of people at this church against the backdrop of the turbulent politics of the Mao and Deng eras. It asks and seeks to answer questions such as: were the people at the church pleased to see the foreign missionaries leave? Were people forced to sign the so-called "Christian manifesto"? Once the church doors were closed in 1966, did worshipers go underground? Why was this particular church especially chosen to be the first re-opened in Shanghai in 1979? What explanations are there for its phenomenal growth since then? A considerable proportion of the data for this study is drawn from Chinese language sources, including interviews, personal correspondence, statistics, internal church documents and archives, many of which have never previously been published or accessed by foreign researchers. The main focus of this study is on the period from 1949 to 1989, a period in which the church experienced many ups and downs, restrictions and limitations. The Mao era, in particular, remains one of the least understood and seldom written about periods in the history of Christianity in China. This study therefore makes a significant contribution to our evolving understanding of the delicate balancing act between compromise, co-operation and compliance that categorizes church-state relations in modern China.

In the late 1970s when Mao's Cultural Revolution ushered in China's reform era, religion played a small role in the changes the country was undergoing. There were few symbols of religious observance, and the practice of religion seemed a forgotten art. Yet by the new millennium, China's government reported that more than 200 million religious believers worshiped in 85,000 authorized venues, and estimates by outside observers continue to rise. The numbers tell the story: Buddhists, as in the past, are most numerous, with more than 100 million adherents. Muslims number 18 million with the majority concentrated in the northwest region of Xinjiang. By 2000 China's Catholic population had swelled from 3 million in 1949 to more than 12 million, surpassing the number of Catholics in Ireland. Protestantism in China has grown at an even faster pace during the same period, multiplying from 1 million to at least 30 million followers. China now has the world's second-largest evangelical Christian population—behind only the United States. In addition, a host of religious and quasi-spiritual groups and sects has also sprouted up in virtually every corner of Chinese society. Religion's dramatic revival in post-Mao China has generated tensions between the ruling Communist Party state and China's increasingly diverse population of religious adherents. Such tensions are rooted in centuries-old governing practices and reflect the pressures of rapid modernization. The state's response has been a mixture of accommodation and repression, with the aim of preserving monopoly control over religious organization. Its inability to do so effectively has led to cycles of persecution of religious groups that resist the party's efforts. American concern over official acts of religious persecution has become a leading issue in U.S. policy toward China. The passage of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, which institutionalized concern over religious freedom abroad in U.S. foreign policy, cemented this issue as an item on the agenda of U.S.-China relations. God and Caesar in China examines China's religion policy, the history and growth of Catholic and Protestant churches in China, and the implications of church-state friction for relations between the United States and China, concluding with recommendations for U.S. policy. Contributors include Jason Kindopp (George Washington University), Daniel H. Bays (Calvin College), Mickey Spiegel (Human Rights Watch), Chan Kim-kwong (Hong Kong Christian Council), Jean-Paul Wiest (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Richard Madsen (University of California, San Diego), Xu Yihua (Fudan University), Liu Peng (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), and Carol Lee Hamrin (George Mason University).

Freedom of religious belief is guaranteed under the constitution of the People’s Republic of China, but the degree to which this freedom is able to be exercised remains a highly controversial issue. Much scholarly attention has been given to persecuted underground groups such as Falungong, but one area that remains largely unexplored is the relationship between officially registered churches and the communist government. This study investigates the history of one such official church, Moore Memorial Church in Shanghai. This church was founded by American Methodist missionaries. By the time of the 1949 revolution, it was the largest Protestant church in East Asia, running seven day a week programs. As a case study of one individual church, operating from an historical (rather than theological) perspective, this study examines the experience of people at this church against the backdrop of the turbulent politics of the Mao and Deng eras. It asks and seeks to answer questions such as: were the people at the church pleased to see the foreign missionaries leave? Were people forced to sign the so-called “Christian manifesto”"? Once the church doors were closed in 1966, did worshippers go underground? Why was this particular church especially chosen to be the first re-opened in Shanghai in 1979? What explanations are there for its phenomenal growth since then? A considerable proportion of the data for this study is drawn from Chinese language sources, including interviews, personal correspondence, statistics, internal church documents and archives, many of which have never previously been published or accessed by foreign researchers. The main focus of this study is on the period from 1949 to 1989, a period in which the church experienced many ups and downs, restrictions and limitations. The Mao era, in particular, remains one of the least understood and seldom written about periods in the history of Christianity in China. This study therefore makes a significant contribution to our evolving understanding of the delicate balancing act between compromise, co-operation and compliance that categorises church-state relations in modern China.

The Battle for China’s Spirit is the first comprehensive analysis of its kind, focusing on seven major religious groups in China that together account for over 350 million believers: Chinese Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Tibetan Buddhism, and Falun Gong. The study examines the evolution of the Communist Party’s policies of religious control, how they are applied differently to diverse faith communities, and how citizens are responding to these policies. The study—which draws on hundreds of official documents and interviews with religious leaders, lay believers, and scholars—finds that Chinese government controls over religion have intensified since November 2012, seeping into new areas of daily life. Yet millions of religious believers defy official restrictions or engage in some form of direct protest, at times scoring significant victories. The report explores how these dynamics affect China’s overall social, political, and economic environment, while offering recommendations to both the Chinese government and international actors for how to increase the space for peaceful religious practice in a country where spirituality has been deeply embedded in its culture for millennia.

From the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist: a revelatory portrait of religion in China today, its history, the spiritual traditions of its Eastern and Western faiths, and the ways in which it is influencing China's future. Following a century of violent antireligious campaigns, China is now awash with new temples, churches, and mosques as well as cults, sects, and politicians trying to harness religion for their own ends. Driving this explosion of faith is uncertainty over what it means to be Chinese, and how to live an ethical life in a country that discarded traditional morality a century ago and is still searching for new guideposts. Ian Johnson lived for extended periods with underground church members, rural Daoists, and Buddhist pilgrims. He has distilled these experiences into a cycle of festivals, births, deaths, detentions, and struggle a great awakening of faith that is shaping the soul of the world s newest superpower. (With black-and-white illustrations throughout).

In The Registered Church in China, Wayne Ten Harmsel pulls back for Western readers the shroud of mystery surrounding Chinese registered churches. Through interviews with Chinese pastors, evangelists, and lay Christians, he provides a rare view of what it means to live in the shadow of both the government and the well-known house churches. Registered churches have received criticism from both of these sources, as well as from many churches in other countries, particularly the United States. Ten Harmsel examines the charges leveled against registered churches and presents a balanced picture of the complexity of the church situation in China. (Such complexity arises, for instance, in the registered churches' struggle to respond to new religious regulations and the controversy over Sinicization.) China has become a major center of twenty-first-century Christianity, and, despite how little is known about registered churches in the West, these congregations play a significant role in shaping Chinese Christianity today.

The Church as Safe Haven conceptualizes the rise of Chinese Christianity as a new civilizational paradigm that encouraged individuals and communities to construct a sacred order for empowerment in modern China. Once Christianity enrooted itself in Chinese society as an indigenous religion, local congregations acquired much autonomy which enabled new religious institutions to take charge of community governance. Our contributors draw on newly-released archival sources, as well as on fieldwork observations investigating what Christianity meant to Chinese believers, how native actors built their churches and faith-based associations within the pre-existing social networks, and how they appropriated Christian resources in response to the fast-changing world. This book reconstructs the narratives of ordinary Christians, and places everyday faith experience at the center. Contributors are: Christie Chui-Shan Chow, Lydia Gerber, Melissa Inouye, Diana Junio, David Jong Hyuk Kang, Lars Peter Laamann, Joseph Tse-Hei Lee, George Kam Wah Mak, John R. Stanley, R. G. Tiedemann, Man-Shun Yeung.