ABSTRACT
Although Christians vary significantly in their commitment to political activism, there is no denying that China’s estimated 80 million Protestants and Catholics form the largest subset of its expanding civil society. The Chinese Communist Party’s no-holds-barred suppression of religions deemed to be carriers of the anti-socialist ideas of the West has resulted in destroyed churches, maimed religious schools and the detention of thousands of pastors and believers. After describing in detail President Xi Jinping’s harsh policies toward Christianity, when compared with the relatively tolerant credos of ex-Presidents Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, we examine how worshippers are coping with the stringent new order of the “sinicization” of Christianity. Also analyzed are proposals by Christian leaders and scholars that church personnel spend more resources building bridges to other sectors of the civil society, including rights attorneys and liberal intellectuals. As the church is increasingly thrust into the public sphere, the battle line is clearly drawn between a party-state bent on subjugating the disciples of God on the one hand and, on the other, cowed but freshly awakened congregations committed to not only safeguarding their religious rights but also rendering the quasi-dictatorial regime more accountable to the people.
