China

China is full of surprises and contradictions. Preaching by foreigners is not allowed by law, but, despite this, legal ways to spread the truth do exist. Just over a year ago our ecclesia in Chichester, England, needed an additional contact to speed up our translations into Chinese. Introductions from the young Chinese lady we found have led to the formation of a small but interested group in China, close to the home of the first of our Chinese translators to be baptised.

Conditions vary locally

It is important to understand that it is quite impossible to generalist about conditions throughout mainland China. Christians in certain villages may have a great deal of freedom to control their own affairs, while in adjacent areas, others cannot freely associate together. So it is always essential to obtain precise local knowledge. We should not allow negative generalizations to obscure the real potential for the Truth in China. Sensational press and Internet reports build up negative impressions which cannot be universally applied, while some denominations seem to write articles as if they hope that bigger problems will generate larger donations.

Government and house churches

Once it is accepted that the following information applies to at least one area of China, and probably to others, but not by any means to all, we may proceed to divide most churches into two significant groups: Government churches, which are permitted at least in some areas, and small unofficial “house” churches, which are not legal. These house churches meet in varying degrees of secrecy, and have learned to be very circumspect in some matters in order to survive. Membership of individual house churches is literally limited by the size of the living room, and tolerated to differing degrees in different areas.

The big obstacle from our perspective is that foreigners are not allowed to preach unless sanctioned by those controlling government churches. Of course, no one is officially allowed to speak in a house church anyway, but non-Chinese will always be significantly more conspicuous within China. Inevitably, foreign groups will attract more attention than foreign individuals. However, freedom of belief is certainly tolerated in some areas at least and there is every reason to suppose that an ecclesia meeting in a house could survive in parts of China today.

Working through locals

Any Chinese who are not local would be classified as foreign speakers. This means that in the longer term, at least some Chinese who accept the truth could have opportunities to preach quite legally in their own locality.

This is encouraging. Several of our present discussion group are church leaders, or at least involved with church organisation. Before I left in the middle of November, one was enthusiastically expounding our views on Daniel’s image in Mandarin to a church group for me. I met some leaders who are happy to meet around an open Bible. Fellowship issues are not as important as in the West and members of both house and government churches regard each other as brothers and sisters. This familiarity meant that I quickly learned to keep out of the way on Sundays, preferring to miss opportunities to talk rather than risk giving offence.

A house church at which foreigners speak risks being closed. Members would be prevented from attending future meetings, even after the foreigner had left. In other words, control tends to be limited to prevention, but like traffic regulations, the policy can be enforced. Therefore, Chinese Christians exercise great care to ensure that they form associations only with those they trust, and just as importantly, those they can also trust to be discreet. An isolated ecclesia could not disperse and be absorbed into new groups in the way that house churches can.

How Chichester became involved

Chichester ecclesia became involved with China some years ago after meeting a young Chinese lady who was staying in England. At that time, hardly any of the truth’s literature was available in Chinese and we gladly accepted her offer to help us with translations so that she would have something to take home to her family. The first books to be translated were “Creation, Evolution and Science” and “Bible Basics.” Later we added “Exploring the Bible” to the list, and all of these are now available for download in Simplified Chinese from www.ek2b.org/library.

Completing the three books took several years and several other translators, but produced many other benefits. Our first translator was baptised in London before returning to China, and was for several years the only Chinese Christadelphian living in mainland China. A second of our translators was baptised in China on my last visit. Two other recent baptisms have taken the current total to four Chinese brethren and sisters living in mainland China, in the space of about as many years.

All the contacts which form the discussion group described above were introduced by our latest translator, a Chinese Christian girl with excellent English. She lives close to our first sister, and her family members are very involved with local churches. When she gave up a week’s holiday to work on “Exploring the Bible” and refused payment, we did not hesitate to invite her to England for six months so we could teach her the truth and complete “Bible Basics.” Although she was only able to stay for three months, she was able to form a good understanding of our beliefs and completed the first three books for us.

She is now employed full-time by Chichester meeting as translator and interpreter. Our next project will be “Wrested Scriptures,” which we urgently require because no experienced brethren are available there to support those young in the truth. Without this particular translator, our knowledge of the opportunities in China would have been far poorer. With hindsight, the “coincidences” that brought us together suggest to me at least that this opportunity was guided by our Heavenly Father.

Please join us in seeking a continued blessing on our work, and also that our brethren, sisters and contacts may be safely guided though all the potential difficulties that they face in China.