This is a fascinating story. Some believe the growth of ‘third-kind” churches in China, composed largely of young urban professionals, will play an increasingly significant role in the evolution of the Chinese church and its impact on senior levels of Chinese society. May it be so. Meanwhile, all is not rosy. China Aid keeps the world up-to-date on the persecution and hardship that Christians endure in many parts of China. Special attention needs to be paid to the kidnap and torture of Christian human rights attorney Gao Zhisheng and the Uyghur Christian convert from Islam Alimujiang Yimiti, now serving an outrageous and unjust 15 year prison sentence. I previously wrote about him here. For more details click here and here.
Seasoned China watcher, David Aikman, for many years Time magazine's Beijing bureau chief and author of Jesus in Beijing, was interviewed Dec. 27, 2010 by Compassion Radio. A Dec. 28, 2010 interview with Bob Fu, a student participant in the 1989 Tinnamen Square uprising and founder of the human rights organization, China Aid Association, can be heard here. Both interviews provide current updates on the situation in China.
Readers might find the book, Chinese Intellectuals and the Gospel (edited by Samuel Ling and Stacey Bieler) of interest. Regarding the Chinese Communist government's common hostile attitude towards Christianity, it should be noted that it refused permission for 200 invited Chinese Christian leaders to attend the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism held in Cape Town, South Africa last October.
Update 1/6/11 - Elizabeth Kendall produced a tremendously valuable and comprehensive report on Christianity in China on September 29, 2010. It remains a "must-read" analysis.