A. C. C. Team (Including Graeme Chapman) in China.

It has only been in the last couple of years that China has opened herself to the West. Those familiar with the old China comment on significant changes. The opium dens, the prostitutes, the beggars are no longer in evidence. The people are better housed and fed and industrialisation is underway. The Government has to be commended for these and other developments.

Invited by Chinese Church

While individuals touring China have visited churches and talked informally with church leaders, it has only been in the latter part of 1981 and the early months of 1982 that official delegates from South-East-Asian and Western churches have visited China at the invitation of the Chinese Church. The aim of such visits has been to acquaint overseas Christians with the style and aspirations of the Chinese Church, to establish relationships and to promote friendship. I was privileged to be part of the Australian Council of Churches delegation. Our visit resulted from two years of negotiations. Prom the Australian side, it was the fulfilment of a dream of the late Bishop Graham Delbridge with whom the matter had been raised by the Australia-China Council of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

While we visited several Roman Catholic Cathedrals, and spoke with Catholic priests, including a recently consecrated bishop, most of our contacts were with leaders of the Protestant churches, represented by the Three-Self Patriotic Movement and the China Christian Council. One of the things that stood out was the enthusiasm of the Christians whom we met. It was a restrained rather than a boisterous enthusiasm and revealed itself in the devotion of worshipping congregations and in conversational asides.

Church Buildings Handed Back

Most of the churches we visited had been reopened for little more than 18 months. The majority had been used as factories during the 10 years of the Cultural Revolution. Following the overthrow of the "Gang of Four", church buildings began to be handed back to local congregations. In next to no time, members had refurnished their sanctuaries assisted by the Government, which required those businesses that had used the buildings during the Revolution to pay back-rent to the churches and which provided material, including the wood, for new pews, for refurbishing their interiors.

Members were also thrilled to have their pastors back with them. During the revolution the pastors, many of whom had the equivalent in China of Oxford and Cambridge degrees, had been forced to work in factories or as labourers in communes. While many Christian books had been burned, those worshipping in the churches we visited, who are being fed a diet of solid biblical teaching, followed the readings and the sermon in well-thumbed Bibles and sang heartily from recently printed hymn books.

Increasing Freedom

Since the spring and summer of 1979 the churches have enjoyed increasing freedom. In October of that year, believers were told that they were free, not only to worship, to express their beliefs and to organise themselves, but also to propagate their religion. The following year it was clearly spelt out that freedom to propagate atheism could not be exercised inside religious buildings.

While we were in China a new draft constitution was published for comment, in which it was stipulated that "citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief. No organs of State, public organisations or individuals shall compel citizens to believe in religion or disbelieve in religion, nor shall they discriminate against citizens who believe, or who do not believe in religion". A number of pastors and other church leaders represent their areas in local People's Congresses and Governments. They have been elected by constituents!

About a Million and a Half

During the Cultural Revolution Christians were forced to meet in homes. These house meetings involved from 20 to 500. Many Christians, while continuing to meet in house groups, have braved exposure and now publicly worship in the reopened churches. Others are wary and some are still waiting for the reopening of churches in their areas. It is impossible to gauge how many Christians there are in China today. Conservative estimates list one and a half million. Others put the figure much higher.

I will always treasure memories of those congregations with which we worshipped. We visited a church in a commune three quarters of an hour's drive from Shanghai. The building seated 400 and was too small for the numbers. Our first Sunday in China we spent at one of the reopened churches in Nanjing The morning congregation numbered around 600. We returned in the afternoon for a baptism and communion service. 121 were baptised, which was the second such group for the year! We attended a morning prayer meeting in Beijing, a testimony time, at which about 70 were present. On the second Sunday, spent in Guang Zhou (Canton), our party divided and we visited three churches. I spoke at one, through an interpreter, to 1000 people.

Church Alive

The church in China is alive and flourishing. Its true size and strength will only become evident as more Christians gain confidence in the Government's good intentions and are willing to risk public baptism or registration. In the articles that follow I will comment briefly on the Post-denominational nature of the church and the determination of Chinese Christians to organise their own affairs in a distinctly Chinese way.