The Chinese Church in the Philippines

Edited by Tony Lambert, OMF China Researcher

The Philippines consists of over 7,000 islands and now has a population of over 84 million, making it the twelfth largest country in the world in terms of population.

For a thousand years, migrants from south China have crossed the South China Sea to find a new home in the Philippines. Today they number about one million people—although many more have some Chinese blood. Most—80-90 percent—are Fujianese from southeast China. Many still speak various Chinese dialects. About 600,000 Chinese people are concentrated in Metro Manila which today has a total population of 10 million. Many are active in business, and Chinese have a pivotal role in the country’s economy.

Many Chinese children in the Philippines attend Chinese-language schools. There are about 3,300 Chinese teachers in these schools and the total number of students is over 100,000. However, many see Chinese education as in a state of decline, especially as the standard of many students’ Chinese language is poor. Many students would prefer to study English.

In a country wracked by poverty and still threatened by militant Islamic terrorism in the south, the gospel has made striking progress in recent decades. By the 1970s there were some 5,000 Protestant churches in the Philippines; but by 2004 the number had rocketed to 51,000. Now there are plans through vigorous evangelism of every level of society to double this number by 2010! OMF has 120 full-time adult missionaries working in the country and is deeply involved in enabling Filipino missionaries to engage in cross-cultural mission in many parts of the world.

The number of Chinese churches is still quite small—less than one hundred. Urban Chinese churches are enjoying growth, but some churches in Luzon and Mindanao are actually in decline. The number of older, more traditional people who speak Fujianese is shrinking; while the number of younger Chinese who speak and write English is increasing. Many of this younger generation are now in church leadership positions. Many speak Tagalog and Fujianese but they prefer to read the Bible in English.

Some Chinese churches are actively involved in serving the church in Mainland China.

(We are grateful to CCCOWE for their recent article on the Philippines, from which our article is largely drawn.)

SMOG CITY
“I live over there. I’m lucky—many of the people who live on the other side of the city die young of cancer and lung diseases from the pollution. It all depends on which way the wind usually blows!” We had climbed a hill overlooking the city of Benxi in Liaoning Province in northeast China. The young cadre was pointing out his home and the smokestacks that surrounded the city on most sides. A heavy pall of smog hung over the city.

Benxi in the past has had the unenviable reputation of being one of the most heavily polluted cities in the world. It was founded as a metallurgical center as far back as 1915 and today is China’s fifth largest steel producer. In recent years the government has spent millions of U.S. dollars to clean up the city and have considerably reduced the amount of dust and chemical pollutants in the atmosphere. However, it is still heavily polluted, mainly due to the millions of tons of coal burned by the inhabitants during the cold winters when temperatures can drop to -20 degrees celsius!

Benxi is a large city but most people overseas have never even heard of it. In 2002 the total population of the Benxi Municipality was 1,570,000 people. This includes two large Manchu self-governing (largely rural) counties totaling 600,000 people, so the population of the built-up area is 970,000. The majority are Han Chinese; however, in the greater municipality there are also 412,000 Manchus. In terms of language and culture these have largely been assimilated in recent decades, but they remain largely resistant to the gospel as does the city as a whole. As in other northeastern cities, Benxi has many workers who are unemployed, and these people are living in very straitened circumstances.

The number of Christians in Benxi has been estimated at only 13,000. Many attend the TSPM church which was re-opened in 1989 for worship, but there are also house churches. This means that Benxi, like many other cities across China, has only about one percent or less of its population Christian. Liaoning province, in which Benxi is situated, has a total population of 42,380,000 (2002) but only 600,000 adult Protestant Christians according to TSPM sources. Even allowing for house-church believers, it is likely the total number of believers in the province is only about 2-3 percent.

These figures need to be taken into account when exciting stories of revival are recounted overseas. In Henan, Anhui and some other rural areas the church has seen explosive church growth, as has the city of Wenzhou and to some extent some other cities such as Shanghai. However, urban China—which by 2010 will account for 50 percent of China’s 1.3 billion population—still remains largely unevangelized. If the church is to continue to grow and make a significant impact on China as a whole it will have to make progress in places like grimy Benxi.

WITH THE LORD—DAVID BENTLEY-TAYLOR
David Bentley-Taylor, who died on February 10, aged 90, was described in The Daily Telegraph as “one of the most influential missionaries of the last century.” One might add—“and one of the most enthusiastic!” The handsome, athletic and intelligent public schoolboy went to Oxford University with the prospects of fame. In his early days there, however, he came face to face for the first time with living biblical Christianity and responded to the claims of Jesus Christ to be his Savior and Lord. His life at once took on a new direction. In his second year he became president of OICCU (the Oxford Christian Union).

In 1938 David went to China with the China Inland Mission (CIM). He was to go on to become one of the great 20th century missionary leaders and last survivor of a remarkable group, nicknamed the “sons of the prophets” by the children at the CIM’s Chefoo school.

It was an inauspicious time to join the CIM. In 1934 two American members, John and Betty Stam, were executed by the communists, and in 1935 missionary Alfred Bosshardt was held for 18 months on Mao Zedong’s Long March.

Bentley-Taylor, meanwhile, met Chefoo’s school nurse, Jessie Moore, and they married in March 1941. For three years the couple served together in Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. They spent two years in frontline evangelism in the predominately Muslim northwest. During this time he was influenced by the teaching of Watchman Nee (Ni Duosheng), the leader of an indigenous Chinese Christian group, and for a time left the CIM to join Nee’s “Little Flock.”

In 1944, with their twin sons, they returned to Britain. In 1945 he was appointed the CIM’s men’s candidate secretary, responsible for recruiting, selecting and training new workers. As a young man of thirty among much more senior colleagues, his enthusiasm and vigor proved attractive to the generation of Christian ex-servicemen emerging from the Second World War. For eight years as the CIM’s candidate secretary, Bentley-Taylor was a great recruiter for service in China. This came to an end with the CIM’s withdrawal from the country in 1950. In 1947 he attended the birth of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) at Harvard University, in which he later played a leading role.

In 1952, posted to Indonesia, he and Jessie became the first CIM missionaries to work among non-Chinese. He soon discovered an unprecedented turning to Christ by Muslims there and threw himself wholeheartedly into the work. His friendship with a Javanese pastor and the growth of the church are told in his early books. He returned to the UK in 1962 because of Jessie’s poor health. From 1967-74 he was regional secretary for the Arab world for IFES. In 1974 he became international secretary of the new Middle East Christian Outreach.

In 1980 he retired to Herefordshire. Jessie was ill for many years and he cared for her faithfully until her death in 1993. All four of their sons became involved in Christian ministry. He later married Felicity Houghton, whom he had first met as the five-year-old daughter of a principal at Chefoo.

He authored many books including: The Prisoner Leaps, The Great Volcano and The Weathercock’s Reward (all about Indonesia), as well as biographies of Henry Martyn and Augustine. (Obituary by Ray Porter and Guy Longley, OMF)

Copyright OMF 2005