House-Church Networks-An Overview (Part 3)

We continue with our survey of the major independent house-church networks.

THE ANHUI-BASED NETWORKS

There seems to be less information available about the two large Anhui-based networks, even in Chinese. David Aikman, for example, scarcely mentions them in his otherwise illuminating description of the major rural networks in his book Jesus in Beijing.

The Lixin and Yingshang networks take their names from two rural counties in northwest Anhui. Lixin is in Haozhou Municipality and Yingshang in Fuyang Municipality. The China Inland Mission planted vigorous churches in this area prior to 1949. Today the entire area is one of rapid church growth as is attested by government researchers. In Haozhou city the number of Protestants has doubled in the decade 1990-1999 from 20,000 to 40,000. In Fuyang in just one year (1997-1998) the number of Christians jumped from 252,471 to 273,187—and these appear to be only those meeting in registered churches. Large numbers of house churches have been operating in Anhui for many years, and two networks in particular have developed national groupings.

LIXIN NETWORK

This was founded around 1980 and claims faster growth than the other main networks over the last decade. It claims that its present national membership may be 4-5 million. (Even if this is exaggerated, the numbers are still impressive.) In 2004 this movement had 24 rural one-year Bible training schools. The first graduates were in 2002. They use standard evangelical textbooks by Jia Yuming and others from overseas, and eschew extreme teaching, whether ultra-charismatic or fundamentalist. This network has already sent out nearly 100 evangelists to 22 different ethnic minorities, mainly in the southwest. In 2003-2004 they claimed that only a quarter of their schools were self-supporting. However, they are conservative in their theology and more cautious than some other networks in seeking overseas support.

YINGSHANG NETWORK

This group was founded in Anhui in 1978 and claims at present about 20,000 congregations and 4-5 million followers across China. (Taking the lower figure this would mean an average of 200 people per congregation, which is possible.) The main leader is Brother Yu who is over 40 years old. Most of their expansion has been in southeast China. The main focus of this church is urban missions, as many rural Christians in Anhui have already moved to the cities in search of work. However, they also conduct outreach to national minorities and are preparing for foreign mission. In 2004 this network had fifty basic one-year Bible training schools based in the countryside. Over the next few years they want to add a number of new schools including one for outreach to minorities, three schools to train for urban outreach (including migrants), two English-language schools and a music and worship school. In 2003-2004 they had the largest percentage of fully-funded indigenous Bible schools, which placed them in a healthier position than most of the other groups which seemed heavily reliant on foreign funding.

WENZHOU NETWORKS

Wenzhou, the “Jerusalem of China,” is in the southeast part of the coastal province of Zhejiang. There are officially 700,000 adult believers in the TSPM churches out of a population of 7 million. This means there are as many Protestant Christians in Wenzhou as there were in the whole of China pre-1949! There are over 2,000 legally registered churches open in the Greater Wenzhou municipality. The Wenzhou people are great traders in such goods as footwear, leather jackets and clothing. They travel all over China and the Christians spread the gospel and set up their own fellowships wherever they go. Many of the Chinese churches in Europe, especially in France, Spain and Italy, have been set up largely by Wenzhou believers many years ago. They are also active in Russia and Eastern Europe.

There are several large Wenzhou networks. Some leaders have traveled overseas and appealed for funds for “Back to Jerusalem” and other projects. However, actual leaders still in Wenzhou have stated firmly that they do not need overseas funding as their fellowships are quite able to raise significant funds for evangelism. (Many members are well-off entrepreneurs.) This is important: if the actual leaders within China are saying they do not need to rely on foreign funding, why are others who have left China for some years still raising large sums? The biblical principle of self-support of the indigenous local church is at grave risk. Wenzhou leaders confirm they are only in the initial stages of considering taking up the BTJ challenge.

Overseas, some have claimed that the Wenzhou house-church networks could number 12 million. Even though their evangelists and businessmen have traveled all over China setting up new fellowships this is probably an estimate on the high side.

The Wenzhou leaders are better educated and probably more theologically literate as well as being more engaged in business and society than the rural-based groups. In recent years, some younger leaders have accepted Reformed theology particularly through the influence of the popular Southeast Asian pastor Stephen Tong, and have challenged the teaching of some older leaders on the perseverance of the saints and other doctrines. With their international connections, churches in Wenzhou seem to have embraced a wide variety of doctrine and worship-styles from Hong Kong, Taiwan and further overseas. Young people’s work and Sunday schools are flourishing in many areas. A brief government crackdown a few years ago when some house-church worship and training centers were demolished seems to have had no long-term effect on the growth of the church.

* * * * *

GOVERNMENT GIVES PRIORITY TO RURAL AREAS

China’s Communist Party-controlled parliament, the National People’s Congress, held its annual meeting on March 5. Premier Wen Jiabao opened the meeting and focused attention on the need to narrow the gap between the largely urban elite and the 800 million rural poor. The aim is to build a “new socialist countryside” and slow down the massive migration of poor peasants to the cities by making agriculture a paying proposition. US$5.2 billion will be poured into rural schools, hospitals and farm subsidies.

The Premier predicted that China’s breakneck economic growth will slow this year from 9.9 percent to “only” 8 percent (still far higher than most other countries). More money will be plowed into scientific research and the public defense budget will rise by nearly 15 percent to US$35 billion. Most observers, however, believe the real figure spent on the military is far higher.

China is paying a steep price for its high-speed economic development. Already 60 percent of its water has been poisoned by toxic and industrial waste. According to the World Bank, 8-10 percent of its annual GDP (which means billions of US$) is wasted by money diverted to huge medical bills incurred by people sick because of various kinds of pollution, or to repairing massive damage to the environment. Experts worry that China’s development is also highly inefficient: for every extra point of GDP gained, China spends three times as much energy as in the USA, and nine times the amount used in Japan for the same economic progress. Some even fear at this rate China could monopolize and even exhaust world oil and mineral supplies.

Premier Wen failed to mention any hint of political reform. China’s progress is impeded by a mammoth and often corrupt bureaucracy. To produce US$1 million increase in GDP, China needs to employ 39 civil servants, whereas the United States only needs 2.3 officials.

Although the added spending on rural infrastructure is to be welcomed, some experts even in China believe pouring money at the problem will fail to defuse the mounting anger of many farmers over chronic poverty, corruption, and illegal seizure of their land for development by large companies and local officials. China’s chief economist for the State Council Development Research Center predicted that the reforms “will fail because the real priority should be building a sound legal framework” to protect the rights of the poor and the long-suffering farmers. As if to emphasize his point, over 12,000 police were mobilized to patrol central Beijing during the Congress to prevent demonstrations by angry petitioners coming to Beijing in desperation to draw attention to their plight.

(Sources: China Youth Daily, AsiaNews, china.infodoc@online.be , Irish Examiner, March 4-8, 2006)

Correction: In the April 2006 GCM, we reported that in China today children under 15 who had lost one parent now number as many as 76,000. This figure relates only to children who lost one parent to AIDs.

Copyright 2006 OMF International