MIGHTY BIG MUSTARD SEED:

Christianity sparks China's new cultural revolution (Robert L. Moore, July 15, 2007, Orlando Sentinel)

The driving force behind these conversions is a sense of spiritual emptiness. China's new dominant ideology is not communism but consumerism, a consumerism that leaves many middle-class Chinese feeling somehow empty. It is these newly prosperous Chinese who are most strongly drawn to Christianity.

A story typical of the many I heard this summer is that of a professional woman who works for China's government-owned television network. She told me that she became interested in Christianity after getting to know an American with whom she practiced English. Later, influenced by a Chinese Christian professor at her school, she joined an underground Protestant church. He introduced her to a "sister" in his congregation whose kindness very much impressed her.

She had felt that her life was rather empty at that point. "So you get good grades," she said, "so what? So you can buy things, so what? So you have a good husband and a child, so what? Christianity offers something more in life, something of value. The people in the church are like a family to each other. They are also a source of comfort."

She had some difficulty with her parents, who were staunch Communists, but eventually they came to accept her religious conversion and even welcomed her Christian husband into the family.

China's contemporary churches come in various forms, both Catholic and Protestant, officially sanctioned and "underground." The government, for example, recognizes the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association as the official Catholic Church. But this church, with its estimated 5 million members, is dwarfed by the underground Catholic congregation, which some say includes 8 million to 10 million members. In fact, the secrecy necessary for the survival of the underground churches makes their size difficult to ascertain.

Raymond Huang, an anthropologist at People's University who has been researching China's churches, calculates that the official figures drastically underestimate church memberships. He believes that the Chinese government estimate of 20 million Protestants should be raised to 30 million or 40 million. Others, less systematic in their research methods, would put this figure even higher.