The mainland think-tank Pacific Institute for Social Sciences recently translated an article by Professor Liu Peng, titled Three Issues Concerning Chinese House Churches. This article provides and excellent overview of the history and current situation for house churches in China.
It dawned on me recently that no one has commented on a recent phenomenon: famous Chinese movie directors injecting Christian and related religious elements into contemporary Chinese movies.
Three stories caught our eye this week, two serious, and one that will make you want to don all of your winter clothes, grab your camera, and head to Harbin, China.
Mention the church in China and the conversation invariably turns toward China's religious policy, the underlying assumption being that the Chinese government is bent on suppressing Christianity. In the most recent issue of ChinaSource Quarterly we take a closer look at this question. As with most things in China, both the stated policy and the observable reality belie a complexity that makes it extremely difficult to generalize about the relationship between church and state in China.