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In China, Churches Challenge the Rules
Local authorities tore down an unofficial church in a suburb of Hangzhou, China, in July after church members had nearly completed erecting their building.
(Anonymous Villager)
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"You can't speak loudly or talk to outsiders or strangers. There are plainclothes police paying close attention to the houses where Christians live," he said. "They stop people on the street, and in the middle of the night. They ask where the leaders have gone."
'It's Just a Name'
Hu Qianjie, the 32-year-old owner of a Wenzhou welding factory, is one of the growing number of independent-minded preachers at registered churches in China. The son of peddlers, he grew up in poverty and remembers Christians coming to help pray for a sick younger brother.
"I was so confused about what I was taught in school -- that socialism was good, everybody was equal, no job was better than another," he said of the search that led him to convert to Christianity when he was 17. Today, despite the fact that he leads a congregation affiliated with the official church, he makes his own views known.
"We look like we might be under the umbrella of the Three-Self church but actually it's just a name, like a sign hanging in front of your house," he said. "I don't just explain the Bible to my followers, I link it to the current situation of society."
Hu rejects the formulaic nature of official Three-Self sermons that stick strictly to the Gospel. And he is critical of early Communist Party attacks on any Western ideology, arguing that Christian cultures are better at absorbing useful lessons from other societies. "Chinese culture just expels everything that doesn't fit with its own culture," he said.
By making the church relevant to the lives of young Christians, Hu also hopes it will fill a void because the government is unable to provide moral leadership.
"We don't talk publicly about sensitive, political issues," he said. "We focus more on abortion, divorce, extramarital affairs. The Communist Party has no more standard for that, no more restrictions on that."
Zheng Datong, a Wenzhou preacher who gives sermons in both registered and unregistered churches, said churches in China are an important outlet for the middle class in Zhejiang province.
"I have many friends who are middle class and who own their own businesses," he said. "I can tell there is a need for them to do some soul-searching. People have everything now -- they have cars, they have houses -- but no peace."
Researcher Jin Ling contributed to this report.
