ABSTRACT
In the 1990s and into the 2000s, the CCP fashioned a “patriotic” agenda that called on leading Protestants to alter core religious values and propagate them in official churches. Yet the Theological Construction Movement foundered due to grassroots opposition. It also sparked widespread criticism among unregistered church leaders, showing that leaders inside and outside official churches share similar perspectives and values and even secretively cooperate, aiding the spread of illegal groups. Further, leaders of a new type of “rising urban churches” (chengshi xinxing jiaohui) downplay official/unregistered church differences.
