ICC Note: Here is a little history to Christianity in one part of China .

Christian churches thrive again in China

BY TIM JOHNSON

McClatchy Newspapers

12/24/06 China (Detroit Free Press) — About 140 years ago, a Methodist missionary with a flowing beard stepped aboard a sampan in coastal China and held on firmly as boatmen steered up the Min River , poling and rowing past rapids that almost splintered the vessel.

On arrival in this outpost, the missionary set up a chapel, effectively bringing Christianity to a lawless, disease-ridden corner of southern China .

For the next five decades, more Methodist missionaries followed, establishing a hospital, clinics, primary schools and numerous churches across the inland regions of coastal Fujian province. Among them were Karl and Ada Scheufler, a couple from Sandusky , Ohio , my maternal grandparents.

Not only Methodists went to Nanping. Catholic priests from Spain began arriving in 1897. By the time communists came to power in China in 1949, Methodists and Catholics were operating dozens of schools. Christians in the area numbered in the many thousand. Christianity appeared to have taken root, despite chaotic conditions.

It almost perished in the first decades under Mao Zedong, who established atheism as the national norm and expelled foreign clergy. During the decade-long Cultural Revolution, begun in 1966, mobs humiliated preachers and priests, condemning all believers.

“Church activity completely stopped in Nanping in 1966. … The pastors were detained in ox sheds. They had to wear dunce caps and signs hanging from their chests that read, ‘Cow ghost snake spirit’ ” — a popular taunt in the Cultural Revolution — “and clean the streets,” said the Rev. Sun Renfu, 43, pastor of Nanping’s Meishan Christian Church.

Despite regime, religion thrives

But religion didn’t die. While the communists still firmly control China , the government has partially relaxed its grip on religious activity.

In pockets of China , such as in Nanping, religion thrives. Groups loosely aligned with different Protestant denominations battle for the hearts of followers, operating social services such as kindergartens and retirement homes. A government-controlled Catholic Church draws new members, as does a parallel but underground Catholic Church loyal to the Vatican .

The situation mirrors what is happening in other areas of China . The seeds planted by foreign missionaries took root, surviving only barely through the early years of communism. Now Christianity is spreading again. Since the party handed back church property in 1980 and permitted religious activity, church membership is up. Today, Sun, two other pastors and three associate pastors work with 5,000 members at 26 churches around Nanping.

While Chinese law prohibits the Meishan church from affiliation with overseas denominations, Sun identifies himself as Methodist and praises Methodist missionaries who came up the Min River 140 years ago.

“They laid a good foundation for Nanping,” he said. “They brought modern education and modern medicine. … Most importantly, they brought the Gospel. In China , we have traditional culture, but we don’t have unselfish love and forgiveness. There is no element in Chinese culture of loving your enemy.”

It has been only in the past decade or so that the Protestant and Catholic churches have grown enough to return to social service work.

“With the help of other Christians, we have expanded the church,” said Yang Aijing, caretaker of the church in Xiadao. She said senior citizens lived in rooms near the church hall, the first step in creating a formal retirement home.

China still prohibits anyone younger than 18 from receiving religious training. Yet the church forges ahead, feeling its way for government resistance.

Under Chinese law, foreign missionaries are banned from religious work, but Christians can work in other jobs, such as teaching English. Some clergy, usually overseas Chinese, have arrived in Fujian from Singapore and the United States , and one worshipper said it had done the congregation good.

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