Abrupt end to China house church visit

Non-registered churches are on the rise. Should we partner with them?

My visit to China this January didn’t turn out as expected. I had been twice, and had pleasant experiences. Not so this year.

A colleague and I were invited to teach a group of house church leaders. Enthusiastic, we went for a week of teaching, scheduled for 30 hours of presentation. Some 40 house church leaders arrived, a few travelling from as far away as 30 hours by train.

I was ninety minutes into my presentation the second day when a woman’s voice from the back of the lecture hall screamed, “Police! Police!” The students cleared their desks at once. Lecturer and translator scurried off stage.

In seconds, a squad of 15 to 20 uniformed and plain-clothes officials were inside the hall. The lead official called for cooperation as they questioned the legality of our meeting. Passports and identification cards were requested. The two teachers, two translators, and project leaders were taken for questioning each to a separate room.

I was kept in a room for two hours, mostly waiting for an English-speaking interrogator. Did I know the meeting was illegal? I answered that on a previous visit I was told that China had religious freedom. Under whose auspices had I come? Who paid my way? I did. Would I sign a statement that I would not enter the country again to teach religion without government authorization? I protested, but signed.

Then we packed our bags and headed to the airport in government vehicles for deportation. After a long wait, we were taken instead to a hotel and asked to leave within ten days.

What happened to the seminar participants? We learned from two of them that the group was held for several hours and then released.

An uneasy relationship

Several issues are raised by the incident. If churches need to be registered with the government in China, what’s the relationship of the house church movement to the registered “Three Self” movement? An abbreviation of “self-governance, self-support, and self-propogation,” the Three Self movement began in 1954 as an effort to limit foreign influence in churches, and ensure they’d be patriotic to the communist government. Pastors are appointed by officials.

Why do house church leaders not work within the registered church? One interrogator, citing Romans 13, asked a team member, “Does not your Bible call for you to obey government? Why then do you flaunt Chinese regulations?”

Many house church leaders don’t see the “official” churches as viable and refuse to register. Still, Several North American schools work with the official Three Self churches. Other Western institutions try to connect with the house churches. How might Western Christians best offer their assistance to Chinese sisters and brothers?

Passion for evangelism

The incident is a window into countries of the world where freedom of religion is not known. The vitality of house church leaders was evident. We heard of their passion for the poor, the readiness of some with well-paying jobs to go to the interior of the country and to assist, for example, in building catch water basins.

Through books and conversation we were introduced to the Back to Jerusalem movement. Decades ago, three leaders, who between them had spent 40 years in prison, reflected on what Jesus meant when in Jerusalem prior to his ascension he said, “You shall be witnesses to me beginning in Jerusalem . . . to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

“Where are the ends of the earth? ” these leaders asked. They observed that in the past twenty centuries, the sending centres for mission had shifted successively westward from Jerusalem to Europe, to North America, to Korea. They reasoned that logically China would be the next such centre. One house leader affirmed, “It is our destiny as Chinese to complete the around-the-world circle.”

The vision is becoming reality. A secular news magazine, The Week, cited an item from the Asian Times in Hong Kong last fall – “Chinese are converting to Christianity en masse. Some 10,000 Chinese accept Jesus Christ as their savior every day. That’s every day” (italics theirs).

Will there soon be a different China? In coming days, quite possibly by the operation of God’s Spirit, a very different China.

—Name withheld, professor emeritus, MB Biblical Seminary, Fresno, Cal.