Christianity in Shanghai’s Rural Areas

by Tony Lambert

Christianity is booming in China’s largest metropolis. In the center of the city, there are a dozen large churches each with several thousand baptized members. Over one-third of many of these churches consist of young people.

However, the Shanghai municipality also contains a large area of countryside with many smaller towns and villages.

An interesting article appeared in the Mainland-produced magazine Zongjiao (Religion) in 2000 entitled “An Investigation into the State of Religion in Shanghai Farming Villages.” We print relevant extracts in translation dealing with the situation of Protestant Christians in this area.

“Religion has always had a good market in the rural areas, and there are at present, in the suburbs of Shanghai, about 446,000 religious believers, representing 62% of religious believers in the city as a whole. There are also 268 sites for religious activities in the area (including churches and small sites) representing 84% of the places for religious activities in Shanghai as a whole. The great majority of the people who believe in religion are in the farming villages.

“The statistics for the number of believers since 1949 are as follows:

1949 1966 1978 1999

BUDDHISM 96,000 67,000 35,000 150,000

DAOISM 20,000 14,000 14,000 55,000

CATHOLICISM 104,000 96,000 85,000 114,000

PROTESTANTS 16,000 3,000 15,000 86,000

“Eighty percent of Shanghai’s Catholics live in the farming villages, especially in the new district of Pudong. Very large numbers of Catholics can also be found among the farming people and fisherfolk in such places as Songjiang and Qingpu near the Catholic shrine of Sheshan. Some villages are wholly Catholic. Sixty-five percent of believers have come to believe in religion during the past twenty years. The most rapid increase has been in Protestant Christianity, which, during the past twenty years has grown six-fold. The ratio of the Catholics to the total population varies between 4-10%; the average ratio taking Shanghai’s suburbs as a whole is 6.3%.

“In ten [rural] districts of Shanghai, a total of 268 sites for religious activity have been opened including 74 Catholic churches, 129 Protestant churches, 50 Buddhist temples and 13 Daoist temples (or small sites in each case.)” [NOTE: this seems to show how Protestants are forging ahead in terms of growth even if overall they are still behind the number of practicing Buddhists and Catholics.]

“Currently believers under the age of 39 represent 24.1% of the total, while among Buddhists and Protestants the proportion of young people who are believers is higher still. Nearly 60% of religious believers could respect the beliefs of members of other religions, 30.7% hoped that, through their efforts, they would be able to get others to become one with them in faith. With regard to superstitious activities in the villages, most believers thought that they should be banned. Of these, Catholics (89.1%) and Protestants (86.2%) were especially antipathetic and opposed to them.

“Protestantism is the religion whose adherents are increasing faster than those of any other religion. Among its followers, the proportion of women, farming people and sick persons are highest and the caliber of believers is relatively low. In recent years, the number of believers who are young and of those with a middle-school education have steadily increased. With the amalgamation of urban and rural areas, a number of believers have moved into the region from other urban areas with the result that the composition of the membership has taken on the characteristic of being more complex and more representative of different layers of society, developments which have greatly increased the demands made on the clergy. Among the clergy themselves, the majority are middle-aged and the smallest age-group is comprised of those who are young. More than half are women and the majority were brought up by local Christians and came from farming, worker and similar origins, so their educational standard and religious calibre is not too high. The proportion who have been educated up to college level or above is 15.5%, those up to middle-school 11.6% while those who have been trained for only short periods in groups [theologically] is 57.4%. Pastors are few in number and physically feeble. Some districts do not have a pastor and some churches cannot find suitable young people to send off to be trained. They are unable to cope with the increase in numbers of believers.

“The majority of Protestants [in the rural areas of Shanghai] are poor—43.1% earn less than 300 RMB per month [about US$40]—the highest proportion [on such low wage levels] of any religion. The contributions made by the faithful to the church are relatively small, with the result that the church is short of financial resources and has difficulty in supporting itself. Some churches are dilapidated and have no money to pay for repairs, others lack funds to build churches. The salaries of most clergy are on the low side. They cannot get coverage under labor insurance and welfare schemes. People of ability do not come or do not stay [in church], and funds are not enough to have an impact on church development.

“Major questions which affect the existence of the church in the villages are, according to church officials:

- the slowness of believers’ development (47.1%)

- the lack of activity sites [i.e. church buildings] (29.4%)

- the influence of superstition (28.7%)

- inappropriateness of church teachings (2.9%)

- no problems (8.1%)

“The Protestant church is a newcomer to the religious scene in the villages. It is also a Western religion with a strongly exclusive character which may conflict with traditional rural beliefs. In some areas it has itself been driven out by traditional popular religion or superstition. Some villagers have been seduced by witches and sorcerers. Elderly family members are prevented from becoming Christians or, if already Christian, even have their source of income cut off to compel them to abandon their religion. Thus Protestant Christianity is strongly opposed to superstitious activities in the villages and would like the government to take steps to prevent the spread of such activities.

“The matter of privately set up Protestant meeting points [i.e. house churches] is one that has long awaited solution. As things stand, there are several different situations.

“Firstly, some believers are old and feeble and find it inconvenient to go to church, so meetings are held in their homes. Such people have links with the [TSPM] church and do sometimes attend [TSPM] church services.

“Secondly, there are some small sects which lay emphasis on their own characteristics, whose members do not belong to the Three-Self organization but hold their own meetings.

“Thirdly, there are house meetings led by freelance preachers who inveigle people into opposing the Three-Self organization to bolster their own authority.

“Generally speaking, most meeting points fall into the first category. They make little difference to society but the [Three Self] church does need to take notice of them and provide education and guidance. So far as the second and third categories are concerned, their numbers are not great but they are fairly stubborn and the activities of some of the preachers do have enormous capacity [for causing problems]. The scale of such meetings is on the increase, which could give rise to public provocation. Such meeting points must be assessed in accordance with the laws and regulations. Those in accordance with the law should be permitted to operate but those which contravene the law should be suppressed promptly. As for those meeting points which have already become difficult problems of long standing, finding a solution will be all the more difficult.”

This academic article provides an interesting glimpse into the grassroots activities of Christians in Shanghai’s rural villages from an official government point of view. It also confirms both the rapid growth of Christianity and the vigor of the house churches.

[With thanks to the China Study Journal, to whose August 2001 issue we referred for the translation of this article.]

Copyright OMF International