Chinese house church

The Chinese house churches are house churches, which form part of the Christianity in China. You have millions of visitors. The number of members increases. Many of the house churches belong to Protestantism in China. There is an overlap between the group of Chinese house churches with the group of rebirth, the Independent Churches in China, the little flock and the Roman Catholic Church.

Background

The original traditional European-style Christianity in China suffered from a lack of Chinese clerics. In the government-approved churches were in the 1980s with about 15,000 barely priest in use as of 1949. This coincided with the house churches that put on the participation of lay people and especially women, not as a defect, these also grew during the persecution the Christian churches until 1979. Ironically, promoted the cultural Revolution, the spread of the Local churches, as many urban families were forced to send a child temporarily in the rural areas. In 1979, open religious activities no longer was banned, a variety of communities were also present in the regions. As early as 1989, officials from agencies Christianity fever ( fever Christianity ), there was, contrary to the expectations of many Christianity by no means eradicated, but especially Protestantism had significant growth rates.

The situation of the house churches in mainland China is not completely free, but has improved considerably. China is the World Watch List 2013 Open Doors at number 37 Therefore, the house churches were built as underground churches.

However, the house churches of the official Protestant church are usually supported with Bibles, hymnals and other writings, and also the social and charitable work of many of their church members will be recognized. The government wants to not only support the churches, but also control and the communities unregistered object to the lack of legal certainty in disputes with local officials. This is a common problem in China, which is currently treated to the highest party bodies. So Amnesty International estimates several thousand arrests annually. Other estimates are at nearly 1,000 arrests. With over 25 million members of house churches, these are indeed individual cases, but it can take disputes very well lead to arrests. Between the Vatican and the Chinese government, it always comes back to dispute and the Pope was not yet ready for a trip to China, yet are now 85% to 90 % of the bishops of the official " Catholic Patriotic Church in China " recognized by the Vatican and the Pope tries in recent years, to mediate between the registered and unregistered Catholics Catholics.