Your rough guide, Archbishop, to China and its Christians
by Dr Campbell Campbell-Jack, TCW:
An open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Justin Welby, who arrives in China today.
Dear Justin, You must be excited at the prospect of leaving Britain and going to China. It must be refreshing to visit a country with a flourishing church. We hope that you will return refreshed and full of ideas of how to revive a floundering church whose membership is melting away like an iceberg in the tropics.
The church in China has up to 40million ‘official’ Christians, but membership of the unofficial underground church is believed to exceed this by far. Whilst Christianity fades in the West, China is on course to become the nation with the largest Christian population by 2030.
You have expressed pleasure at the possibility of meeting the new Protestant church leaders in China ‘and to see again at first-hand the wonderful work God is doing through the church in that country’.
We are sure you will notice that there are significant differences between the Chinese church and mainstream Christianity in the UK. For some reason the Chinese don’t seem all that concerned about girl bishops, homosexual priests, transgender baptism, climate change or interfaith worship. Perhaps you could find out why.
Chinese churches, on the other hand, focus on promoting the faith. This is especially true of the persecuted underground churches which lay great stress on fidelity to Scripture, living a Christian life and evangelism.
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