The number of Christians in Communist China is
growing so steadily that it by 2030 it could have more churchgoers than America
It is
said to be China’s biggest church and on Easter Sunday thousands of worshippers
will flock to this Asian mega-temple to pledge their allegiance – not to the
Communist Party, but to the Cross.
The
5,000-capacity Liushi church, which boasts more than twice as many seats as
Westminster Abbey and a 206ft crucifix that can be seen for miles around,
opened last year with one theologian declaring it a “miracle that such a small
town was able to build such a grand church”.
The
£8 million building is also one of the most visible symbols of Communist
China’s breakneck conversion as it evolves into one of the largest Christian
congregations on earth.
“It is a wonderful thing to
be a follower of Jesus Christ. It gives us great confidence,” beamed Jin
Hongxin, a 40-year-old visitor who was admiring the golden cross above Liushi’s
altar in the lead up to Holy Week.
“If
everyone in China believed in Jesus then we would have no more need for police
stations. There would be no more bad people and therefore no more crime,” she
added.
Officially,
the People’s Republic of China is an atheist country but that is changing fast
as many of its 1.3 billion citizens seek meaning and spiritual comfort that
neither communism nor capitalism seem to have supplied.
Christian
congregations in particular have skyrocketed since churches began reopening
when Chairman Mao’s death in 1976 signalled the end of the Cultural Revolution.
Less
than four decades later, some believe China is now poised to become not just
the world’s number one economy but also its most numerous Christian nation.
”By my calculations China is
destined to become the largest Christian country in the world very soon,” said
Fenggang Yang, a professor of sociology at Purdue University and author of
Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule.
“It
is going to be less than a generation. Not many people are prepared for this
dramatic change.”
China’s
Protestant community, which had just one million members in 1949, has already
overtaken those of countries more commonly associated with an evangelical boom.
In 2010 there were more than 58 million Protestants in China compared to 40
million in Brazil and 36 million in South Africa, according to the Pew Research
Centre’s Forum on Religion and Public Life.
Prof Yang, a leading expert
on religion in China, believes that number will swell to around 160 million by
2025. That would likely put China ahead even of the United States, which had around 159 million Protestants
in 2010 but whose congregations are in decline.
By
2030, China’s total Christian population, including Catholics, would exceed 247
million, placing it above Mexico, Brazil and the United States as the largest
Christian congregation in the world, he predicted.