[The following material is from O Timothy magazine, Volume 5, Issue 5, 1988. David W. Cloud, Editor. This material cannot be placed on BBS or Internet sites without express permission from the author. O Timothy is a monthly magazine. Annual subscription is US$20 FOR THE UNITED STATES. Send to Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org. FOR CANADA the subscription is $20 Canadian. The Way of Life Internet web site is http://www.wayoflife.org/ .]

New churches are opening every week!" "Thousands are attending the church services!" "There is a new religious freedom in Red China!" These glowing reports are given by tourists and delegates of the China Christian Council.

Now Billy Graham is scheduled to make a trip to Red China this year. Perhaps he too will praise the religious freedom there like he did in Russia in 1982.

Having heard these reports, I decided to visit churches and individual Christians in Red China to find out if they really have religious freedom. From September 10-19, 1985, I traveled and heard first-hand accounts about the State or Three-Self churches, and the "underground," or "house churches."

To understand the present situation in China, some background information is necessary. The "three-self" slogan ("self-supporting, self-governing, self-propagating"), originally coined in 1851 by Henry Venn, founder of the Church Missionary Society, described a policy adopted by mission groups to build indigenous churches on the mission field. However, in 1950 the "three-self" slogan became political. The Chinese church was to dissociate itself from all "imperialist" association and to submit itself to the direction of the Communist Party.

The Communist government organized the Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB) to control religion. In 1951 the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) was organized under the control of the RAB to direct the affairs of the Protestant Church. All churches were to be brought under the control of the TSPM. and detailed files were kept on all church leaders and their activities. By 1958 the churches were firmly under the government's control Christian leaders who refused to submit to the TSPM were publicly accused and sentenced to prison...

In some provinces there are tens of thousands of believers who have only 25 or 30 Bibles among them. I was told that many Christians are reluctant to buy a Bible from the TSPM because they must sign their name and address to acquire one...

I visited the seminary in Nanjing. The government has just built a new dormitory and is building a new dining hall and classrooms. "Political awareness" is one of the conditions of entry into the seminary, and some of the applicants have been rejected for lacking this qualification. I noticed that their curriculum included a class on the TSPM (its history and philosophy) and a class on patriotism (the teachings of Mao).

At the Shanghai Conference in 1981 it was stated, "To be anti-TSPM is to be anti-government, for religion must be organized and under control." It is evident that the government controls the TSPM and that the TSPM seeks to control all the churches in China. They designate what buildings can be used for church services, which pastors can preach, and what areas can be traveled to spread religion. The TSPM has recently called on the Public Security Bureau to close the meetings of the house churches, arrest the house church leaders, and arrest traveling evangelists.

The clergy in the Three-Self churches are all on the government payroll, and their salaries are much higher than the average wage earner in China. A pastor of a Three-Self church told me that in some places their sermons have to be shown first to the government authorities before they can be preached, and in other places the authorities visit their churches to see who attends and to check on what is said.

A majority of the Christians are in the house churches. They meet in homes, in fields, or on the mountainsides. Their meetings include the reading of Scriptures, singing (mostly Scripture set to music), and praying. If a preacher is present, they listen to a sermon.

House church meetings are held at different times each week to avoid detection. If they are discovered, the leaders are arrested ad the Christians are persecuted. For instance, Christians are not given job promotions, and their children are deprived of higher education opportunities. Nevertheless, Christians in the homes that I visited told me of revival among the house churches in Shandung and Henan provinces, where it is reported that thousands are turning to the Lord.

Is there really religious freedom in Red China? China's Communist leaders, in the midst of a new program of modernization, want the outside world to believe that there is religious freedom. The fourth revised Constitution (1982) says, "The state protects legitimate religious activities." Also that year the chief of the RAB said, "To respect and protect freedom of religious belief has always been China's attitude to religion and the government is determined to enforce this policy until religion dies out naturally." However, the Communists seem determined to stamp out Christianity through control and suppression. What I saw with my own eyes confirmed what the Christians in Red China told me -- there is no religious freedom. (Faith For The Family, April 1986, pages 6,7; Gary Hart is a church planter and a teacher at the Orient Fundamental Bible College in Taichung, Taiwan)