Growth of Christianity in China

In front of the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

The current atheist population mostly resides in East Asia (particularly China) and in secular Europe/Australia among whites. See: Western atheism and race

On November 1, 2014, an article in The Economist entitled Cracks in the atheist edifice declared:

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Officials are untroubled by the clash between the city’s famously freewheeling capitalism and the Communist Party’s ideology, yet still see religion and its symbols as affronts to the party’s atheism... Yang Fenggang of Purdue University, in Indiana, says the Christian church in China has grown by an average of 10% a year since 1980. He reckons that on current trends there will be 250m Christians by around 2030, making China’s Christian population the largest in the world. Mr. Yang says this speed of growth is similar to that seen in fourth-century Rome just before the conversion of Constantine, which paved the way for Christianity to become the religion of his empire.

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On April 19, 2014 The Telegraph published a story on the growth of Christianity in China which stated:

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The number of Christians in Communist China is growing so steadily that it by 2030 it could have more churchgoers than America.... Officially, the People's Republic of China is an atheist country but that is changing fast as many of its 1.3 billion citizens seek meaning and spiritual comfort that neither communism nor capitalism seem to have supplied. Christian congregations in particular have skyrocketed since churches began reopening when Chairman Mao's death in 1976 signalled the end of the Cultural Revolution. Less than four decades later, some believe China is now poised to become not just the world's number one economy but also its most numerous Christian nation.... China's Protestant community, which had just one million members in 1949, has already overtaken those of countries more commonly associated with an evangelical boom. In 2010 there were more than 58 million Protestants in China compared to 40 million in Brazil and 36 million in South Africa, according to the Pew Research Centre's Forum on Religion and Public Life. Prof Yang, a leading expert on religion in China, believes that number will swell to around 160 million by 2025. That would likely put China ahead even of the United States, which had around 159 million Protestants in 2010 but whose congregations are in decline. By 2030, China's total Christian population, including Catholics, would exceed 247 million, placing it above Mexico, Brazil and the United States as the largest Christian congregation in the world, he predicted. "Mao thought he could eliminate religion. He thought he had accomplished this," Prof Yang said. "It's ironic – they didn't. They actually failed completely."

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A January 2011 news article entitled Third Church' China's New Face of Christianity indicated:

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Christianity in China began decades ago in the countryside, but today, a dramatic shift is happening. Young professionals in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai are changing the face of Chinese Christianity, as faith moves from rural to more urban areas. On a recent Wednesday evening, a group of men and women in their late 20s met in an apartment not too far from the city center to discuss how to thrive in their rapidly changing nation. Those who attended are members of China's new privileged class -- highly educated, cosmopolitan, middle or even upper class of urban professionals. And they're all Christians. "We've never had it so good in China today," Jia Li Tian, a member of the group, told CBN News. "But there's more to life that just money and materialism."... Although Christianity continues to grow in China's countryside, experts say it's in big cities like Beijing where the church is growing fastest. "Whereas the rural church was not able to have an impact on society as a whole, the 'Third Church' in the cities is able to do that because they are comprised of leaders who can have an impact," Peter explained. "[They are] businessmen, government officials, professors, leaders in engineering, every aspect of life... The Chinese government has always maintained a tight grip on religion. Torture, arrests, imprisonment, and beatings of Christians are still practiced in the country. But in recent years, authorities have made positive overtures towards house church leaders -- especially those in urban areas.

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See also

• Global atheism

• Growth of evangelical Protestantism in Europe

• Collapse of atheism in the former Soviet Union

External links

• Cracks in the atheist edifice, The Economist, November 1, 2014
• Panel Looks at Christianity's Rapid Growth in China Despite Persecution - Christian Post, June 4, 2014
• China’s Exploding Christian Population Still Facing Persecution, National Review, April 22, 2014
• Significant Growth in Numbers of Chinese Christians, Gospel Herald, September 13, 2013

Videos:

• China Chafes at Christianity's Growth - The New York Times, June 1, 2014
• In China, Christianity Growing Fast - Voice of America, September. 12, 2014
• Experience the Underground Churches of Chinese Christians- Bread for China, April 22, 2014