Protestantism in China
The Protestantism came in the 19th century China .
The Chinese language divides Christians into two groups, Jidu Xinjiao (Protestantism) and Tianzhu jiao (Catholicism).
number
The Three Self Movement , a campaign for the unification of all Protestant denominations in a Chinese umbrella organization and separation from foreign mission societies in financial, organizational and theological terms in 1954 and 1955, and the Chinese Christian Council , founded in 1980, see themselves as patriotic cooperation partners the government. The Three Self Movement and the Chinese Christian Council work closely together, as do the administration and spiritual leadership of the official church, its membership in 2018 is 38 million; the number of believers in Protestant house churches is estimated to be much higher.
organization
Within Protestantism, a distinction is made between (a) the churches of the patriotic three-self movement, (b) the meeting points in the area of the three-self movement, (c) semi-independent rural churches and (d) the so-called house churches.
The churches of the Three Self Movement and their meeting points are legal, public religious meeting places. What sets them apart is that the churches of the Three Self Movement have church buildings and full-time employees, while the meeting points have state-registered meeting places, these are not necessarily church buildings, but they rarely have church employees who have regular training with subsequent training have received state approval for church teaching. The churches of the Three-Self Movement are mainly found in the cities, while the meeting points are mostly in small towns, market towns or on the outskirts of the cities.
The semi-independent rural churches were almost always founded by lay people and are mostly located in remote areas of the country. Some of them are state registered, some are not. Your three-selves union relationships are very diverse and sometimes complicated. At the top of these churches there are often “natural leaders” and the services are also very free.
The so-called local churches arise for completely different reasons. They are connected by personal networks, including lay preachers, and they are characterized by a spiritual-emotional coloring of the worship service. The services of the house churches can be held in small rooms as well as in large halls, halls or even in their own church buildings. House church services are not secret.
history
Robert Morrison was the first to bring Protestantism to China in 1807, to the Portuguese and largely Catholic Macau . He made a translation of the Bible .
Most of the missionaries came from England , the United States , Sweden , France , Germany , Switzerland, or the Netherlands . Mission schools were also open to poor Chinese.
Protestant missionaries played an important role in the exchange of knowledge between the United States and China. Protestant Christians established the first hospitals in China. Some early leaders of the Chinese Republic, such as Sun Yat-sen, were influenced by Protestant teachings. In 1949 there were just over 500,000 Protestants baptized in China.
The theological doctrine of The Recovering of the Lord ( Chinese 主 的 恢復 / 主 的 恢复 , Pinyin zhǔ de huīfù , English The Lord's Recovery ), which goes back to Watchman Nee and Witness Lee , has for the local churches (based on the house churches ) and about the associated Groups like the Small Flock found worldwide distribution and thus independent aspects of Chinese theology are recognized internationally.
swell
- ^ Roman Malek: Hope and Worry. Christianity and its manifestations in the People's Republic of China. Archived from the original on January 10, 2006 ; Retrieved February 7, 2013 .