China is on track to become the most Christian country in the world, with forecasters predicting the number of Christians to overtake that of America by 2030.
"By my calculations China is destined to become the largest Christian country in the world very soon," Fenggang Yang, a professor of sociology at Purdue University and author of Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule said. "It is going to be less than a generation. Not many people are prepared for this dramatic change."
There were just one million Protestants in China 1949, but numbers exploded after the end of Mao's reign and the cultural revolution in 1976, which saw churches re-opening their doors. In 2010 there were more than 58 million Protestants in China compared to 40 million in Brazil and 36 million in South Africa, and Yang believes this number will further grow. By 2030, he predicts that China's total Christian population, including Catholics, will be upwards of 247 million, ahead of Mexico, Brazil and the United States. The state will be the largest Christian congregation in the world.
Such rapid growth of Christianity in supposedly atheist China is thought to be caused by communism's and capitalism's failure in providing spiritual meaning and comfort at a time of socioeconominic turbulence. "It is a wonderful thing to be a follower of Jesus Christ. It gives us great confidence," said 40 year old Jin Hongxin, who was visiting Liushi church, Zhejiang province. "If everyone in China believed in Jesus then we would have no more need for police stations. There would be no more bad people and therefore no more crime," she said.
Liushi church is one of the most prevalent symbols of Christian China, boasting 5,000 seats (twice the capacity of Westminster Abbey in London) and a 62 metre (206 foot) crucifix. It has 2,600 regular churchgoers and carries out up to 70 baptisms each year. More Chinese citizens are now thought to attend church each Sunday across China than throughout the whole of Europe.
So what does this Christian boom mean for communist China? Shi, Liushi's preacher, implied that Christianity can work alongside the government by creating a more orderly society. "We have two motivations: one is our gospel mission and the other is serving society. Christianity can also play a role in maintaining peace and stability in society. Without God, people can do as they please," she said, describing her church as "patriotic". Yet others worry that the government will gradually lose its grip on power. There is a surveillance camera in front of the lectern in the church, so that officials can check that speakers do not preach any potentially subversive parts of the Bible.
As a result, millions worship at illegal underground "house churches", to avoid government prying. "They want the pastor to preach in a Communist way. They want to train people to practice in a Communist way," an anonymous house-preacher from north China said, discussing legal churches such as Luishi. The preacher also maintained that the government believes religion is a "sickness". Last month the government denied staging a "demolition campaign" against churches in the state's most religious areas, but the chairman of Zhejiang’s ethnic and religious affairs committee, Feng Zhili, acknowledged that the rise in Christianity had been “too excessive and too haphazard”.
Professor Yang said that the church will likely face difficulties in coming years, as the government attempts to quell the prolific rise in Christianity. "There are people in the government who are trying to control the church. I think they are making the last attempt to do that," he said.
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