Why China might have had the largest unknown modern Calvinist revival movement in recent history
by William Huang, MercatorNet:
A detailed look at how Chinese Christianity revived and thrived under Communism.
The persecution of underground house church Christians is a well-known fact among Christian advocacy groups and Western governments. Quite a few high-profile cases have emerged in recent years, as China under President Xi Jinping backslid greatly on religious freedom.
Cross demolitions and church razings first began in heavily Christian parts of Zhejiang province back in 2014, led by Xia Baolong, the ideologue party loyalist who now leads the Hong Kong and Macau Office in Beijing. The arrest of intellectual-turned-pastor of urban megachurch Wang Yi in 2019 attracted U.S. State Department condemnation. Several high-profile urban megachurches, which had redefined Christianity and pushed it back into the public sphere, were closed before Xi came out guns blazing.
A lot has been said and written about these courageous men and women who are now denied their right and place to worship. But very little has been written about the theology behind the revival movement which catapulted these churches into prominence, changing a previously heavily rural and Charismatic underground house church movement in the 1980s and 1990s to an ambitiously young, urban and aggressively public Christianity which became a huge threat to the Communist government.
That theology is Chinese-style “New Calvinism”.
Please right-click links to open in a new window.
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
