Update 8/27/07: Chuck Colson's adds his thoughts with additional links.
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Michelle Malkin offers a really thrilling post (at least to some of us) about the growth of Christianity in China. She headlines her post "10,000 Christians a day" and writes:
Via Weasel Zippers, here’s an interesting piece of the rapid pace of conversions to Christianity in China and here’s commentary at Asia Times:
Ten thousand Chinese become Christians each day, according to a stunning report by the National Catholic Reporter’s veteran correspondent John Allen, and 200 million Chinese may comprise the world’s largest concentration of Christians by mid-century, and
the largest missionary force in history. If you read a single news article about China this year, make sure it is this one.
I suspect that even the most enthusiastic accounts err on the downside, and that Christianity will have become a Sino-centric religion two generations from now. China may be for the 21st century what Europe was during the 8th-11th centuries, and America has been during the past 200 years: the natural ground for mass evangelization. If this occurs, the world will change beyond our capacity to recognize it. Islam might defeat the western Europeans, simply by replacing their diminishing numbers with immigrants, but it will crumble beneath the challenge from the East.
An excellent related read: David Aikman’s “Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Changing the Global Balance of Power.”
Me: I strongly suggest you read the Asia times commentary in its entirety. It is full of insight and interest.
Update 8/9/07: John Derbyshire over at NRO's The Corner begs to differ saying "I think 'Spengler' should take a cold shower. He has let his imagination run away with him." Derbyshire cites statistics for Taiwan and Hong Kong, and sees a natural "ceiling" for Christians in Chinese culture at about 5 to 10%. Derbyshire concludes:
All in all, while Christianity will likely thrive in China, as it has in the rest of East Asia, my bet would be that it will hit a "ceiling" at ten percent or so of the population, then plateau.