FROM THE PRESIDENT, David Coffey
EVERYTHING YOU SAY ABOUT CHINA IS TRUE SOMEWHERE IN CHINA
It was a privilege to visit China and follow in the steps of each BWA president since the early 1980s who
has made an official visit. Our gracious hosts, the China Christian Council, have been represented at every
BWA congress since 1985 and they are planning to be at the Hawai´i congress. The comment I heard from an
informed source prior to my visit was – “Everything you say about China is true somewhere in China.”
So is the church in China growing?
Yes – there has been phenomenal church growth during the last 30 years. The official figure provided by the
government states that there are 16 million believers meeting in 7,000 registered church buildings with 25,000
meeting places. This figure of 16 million does not include believers in unregistered churches.
Is there full religious freedom in China today?
Not as we would understand religious liberty following a Western model of freedom of religion. There are
strict government regulations for churches. If believers choose not to register their church on conscience
grounds they are classified by the government as law breakers. Recent history tells us Christians will always
differ in how they approach the requirements of a communist government. According to their conscience
they will either bear their witness with discretion and register, or with valor they will dissent. We raised with
government representatives the possibility of a figure of more than 100 million believers in China, which would
take into account the reportedly large numbers of believers in unregistered churches, but were unable to
receive confirmation of this figure from any official source.
Is the Bible freely available in China?
Yes it is. Our visit to the impressive new premises of the Amity Printing Press in Nanjing was an inspiring
experience.
Each month, the company produces one million copies of the Scriptures, with versions in various languages
including eight Chinese minority languages and sets of a Braille version of the Bible. Amity printed 100,000
copies of Chinese-English bilingual versions of the Four Gospels for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. By May
2009 more than 65 million Bibles had come off their production lines. More than 20 million Bibles have been
produced for the international market with exports to more than 70 countries.
Is the church in China able to evangelize?
We encountered remarkable testimonies of how people come to faith in Jesus Christ. We heard reports
of the visit of Franklin Graham in October 2009 when he preached to 10,000 people at the Bethel Church
Baoding and at the conclusion of the service 1,000 responded to his invitation to give their lives to Christ. In
recent years the Christmas festival is recognized in China as a commercial opportunity and many churches
tell the Christmas story at special services which appeal to the community. The pastor of Hangzhou Chong
Yi Christian Church, with 6,000 members, told me they had recorded 3,279 professions of faith during their
Christmas services in 2009.
Is the church persecuted and do people go to prison for their faith?
There is sufficient evidence that in some specific provinces there is harassment of congregations and arrest
of unregistered church leaders. The BWA delegation sought clarification of the unregistered church as there
had been reports in Western newspapers of the unregistered congregation at Shanghai Wanbang church being
evicted from its building in December 2009, and a pastoral leader from Xinjiang province who had been given
a prison sentence for “providing state secrets to overseas organizations.” (See Supporting Chinese Christians
article by Mervyn Thomas in the Guardian newspaper, Friday, December 18, 2009). We specifically asked
our Christian hosts if we could meet with unregistered church leaders but they asked us not to convene any
“unscheduled meetings,” and since we did not want to bring them into conflict with the state authorities, we felt
we had to honor their request.
What can we say about China?
We can celebrate the advances in religious freedom in China.
We can applaud the affirmations of China’s Communist Party that religious believers have an important role
to play in the development of society.
We can thank God for the courage and vibrancy of the church in China.
We can pray that Chinese Christians will have full freedom to exercise their faith in Christ and for the release of
unjustly imprisoned Chinese believers.
We can pray for God to bless China and make it a country of love, justice, freedom and prosperity.

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