CHINA'S HUNGRY:

In China, pews are packed: Beijing is wary as Christianity counts up to 90 million adherents. (Robert Marquand, 12/24/03, CS Monitor)

Christianity - in both the official and unofficial churches - is again gaining momentum in China, and is a source of some consternation for the party leadership. "Being Christian" is fashionable, with young people sporting crosses as a mild form of dissent, and others feeling the faith has a certain international cachet. But something more is at work. In many interviews, congregants say the deity they worship communicates, and has power in their lives, especially now when China is going through immense, jarring economic changes that upset older social contracts.

"People in China have a spiritual hunger, very much so," says an official church pastor in Xiamen, "and there is a need for that to be filled. I think this is the main reason why we continue to have larger services." [...]

Along the easy-going southeast coast, Protestant worshipers pay little attention to China's Shanghai-based official church hierarchy. They hold Bible study groups, have choir rehearsals, and gather in volunteer groups. "We have to join the [official] church, but then we do and say what we want," says a local pastor. "We preach the living God."

And so are the days of the dictatorship numbered.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 23, 2003 7:35 PM