美國聖公會亞裔事工中文網

最新動向

Some Reflections on the China Trip

The issues discussed in all the meetings and visitations included why China needed to have a Three Self movement, the construction of Chinese Theology and Chinese Religious Policy, registered and unregistered churches, theological training, and the social business of the Church, etc.

My Reflections:

I have the following thoughts on this visit:

1.	Although the economy and the infrastructure of China are growing and improving rapidly, the citizens of China are unable to keep up, causing many societal problems.

2.	There are many young people (25-40 of age) holding high ranking offices.

3.	The educational level of people in the rural villages is still very low.

4.	In today’s China, evangelism is not the urgent issue. The problem is the lack of trained ministers and religious workers. On average, there is only one minister for every ten to thirty thousand Christians. This ratio is so large that it is impossible to conduct services to accommodate each Christian, and so, needless to say, Pastoral Care is impossible, often relying on untrained volunteers. Therefore, there is a great need for trained ministers and religious workers. For this trip, we were able to raise over $10,000 that we gave in various amounts to places we visited for the training of religious workers. This money was raised from the love of the people of San Francisco, and included $1,000 from the Diocese of California.

5.	There is no longer a need to smuggle bibles into China as more than enough bibles have been printed (30 million copies of the bible printed so far, for 17 million Christians).

6.	On the topic of religious freedoms, there is currently enough religious freedom for the Church to go about its business without government interference, unless government rules and regulations are violated. I recently received an email detailing an instance of “a Chinese house church being bulldozed into rubble by government authorities. The footage showed 200 military policemen and more than 40 vehicles taking part in the destruction of a 1,500 member church, founded over 70 years ago by Hudson Taylor. Christians gathered to peacefully protest but to no avail. A number of Chinese Christians were beaten, others arrested.” Even though this story is true, that this church was in fact closed, the email did not state the reason for this closure. There are many possible reasons for this closure (corruption by the clergy, a violation of the fire code, the building was unsafe for public meeting, doing drugs in it, etc). In my opinion, it could be that the church did not comply with regulations. We should not automatically view church closures as religious persecution. On the other hand, the government of Jangzhou Province also gave 200 acres of land to Nanjing Seminary for a new campus. Ai Chi Printing Factory was also granted a license by the government to print not only religious literature, but secular literature as well, giving them another income stream to support the church.? Aside from the preceding stories, we also heard on this trip other examples of how the government has helped the Church in various ways. I believe that in China, religious freedom does exist, and although there are boundaries, there is enough freedom for different religions to work with their people. I believe this boundary is getting bigger and bigger. As long as one does not go beyond the boundaries, one should be fine.

7.	There are currently two types of Churches in China, registered and unregistered. The requirements for registration include:
	a.	permanent site and name
	b.	regular attendance
	c.	management organization composed of adherence to relevant religion
	d.	clerical personnel for officiating religious activities, or personnel with qualifications stipulated in regulations of various religions
	e.	by laws
	f.	lawful income

	Some churches are not registered with the government because:
	a.	They are lacking in one or more of the above regulations. The most frequent reason being the lack of qualified personnel to lead and officiate. This would be the equivalent of the blind leading the blind.
	b.	They do not want to abide by the rules and regulations. They want absolute freedom which does not exist in this world.
	c.	The minister may be corrupt financially.
	d.	The minister may want to control the church totally.
	e.	The church was controlled by outside forces.
	f.	They may not trust the government due to bad experience during the Cultural Revolution.
	g.	Theological reasons - They may believe that government is secular and the Church should not be under the rules of the State.

The unregistered churches are very dangerous. The rights of the faithful may not be protected. They may be cheated by the staff of their church. Members may be easily lead astray and become heretics.

(Chinese version)