Intense Protestant missionary activity, most of it from America and Britain, began [in Wenzhou] in the late nineteenth century. Wenzhou now has the largest percentage of Christians in the country\u201d\u201destimated at 15%. No wonder it has been called a \u201cChristian Jerusalem\u201d\u009d! What is particularly interesting is that the Christian community, most of it Protestant, has a large number of successful business people, known locally as \u201cboss Christians\u201d\u009d. Some of them expressed the opinion in a study that Protestantism would become the majority religion in China, and that this would not only be good for the economy but would help China become a great power (a prospect they welcomed). Until now, there have been relaxed relations between the Christian churches and the local power structure (state and party).<\/p>\n
Christianity in China has exploded in numbers in recent decades. The phrase \u201cChristianity fever\u201d\u009d was used to describe this. I generally rely on two demographers of religion, Todd Johnson and Brian Grim. In their book The World\u2019s Religions in Figures (2013), they estimate the total number of Christians in China at 67 million (about 5% of the country\u2019s population). There are other estimates, the highest, by the World Christian Data Base (an Evangelical outfit), at 108 million (about 8%). This may be wishful thinking. Official Chinese government figures are much lower (possibly wishful thinking too, as is typical of all statistics released by authoritarian governments). Johnson and Grim estimate that the total of Protestants is 58 million (4.3 of the country\u2019s population), with Catholics far behind at 9 million (0.7%). I would think that the Protestants are mainly Evangelical, many of them Pentecostal\/charismatic. All these estimates include both churches that have been officially registered by the government, and those that have not. The distinction is important: The latter category of Christians (often referred to as belonging to \u201cunderground\u201d\u009d or \u201chouse\u201d\u009d churches\u201d\u201drather a misnomer, as some of them are very much \u201cabove ground\u201d\u009d and worshipping in large buildings). However, even if tolerated by local authorities, the members of unregistered churches are very hard to count. I would therefore guess that totals of Christians including both categories are under-estimated.<\/p>\n
Just what happened in Wenzhou? And what does it mean beyond that charming little town of nine million people?<\/p>\n