The Rise of Christian China
Via Michelle Malkin, by way of Weasel Zippers and with commentary from the Asia Times, this article from the National Catholic Reporter makes a profound statement about the size of China's growing Christian population.
Perhaps the most remarkable burst of religious energy is in China's Pentecostal Christian population. At the time of the Communist takeover in 1949, there were roughly 900,000 Protestants. Today, the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, which puts out the much-consulted World Christian Database, says there are 111 million Christians in China, roughly 90 percent Protestant and mostly Pentecostal. That would make China the third-largest Christian country on earth, following only the United States and Brazil.
The Center projects that by 2050, there will be 218 million Christians in China, 16 percent of the population, enough to make China the world's second-largest Christian nation. According to the Center, there are 10,000 conversions in China every day.
Read that again. 10,000 conversions in China every day. That is more people discovering Jesus than live in my town. Every day. The revival is coming, but it's not coming here in the US it would appear.
The Asia Times article about this has some stunning facts of its own:
Four hundred million Chinese on the prosperous coast have moved from poverty to affluence in a single generation, and 10 million to 15 million new migrants come from the countryside each year, the greatest movement of people in history.
We talk in the United States about our move from a rural to an urban society, but we've got nothing on China. More people move from farms to cities in one year than there are in the entire state of Kansas.
In a few years the Christian segment of the Chinese population will have considerable political and social power in that country. They have something that we don't have. Guts. Desire. Willingness to sacrifice their own personal comfort for the gospel. This quote comes from the NCR report.
Pentecostal talk about mission, on the other hand, is very much phrased in the simple present. Most Pentecostals would obviously welcome being arrested less frequently, but in general they are not waiting for legal or political reform before carrying out aggressive evangelization programs.
They aren't just talking about it, they are doing it. And in China, it's illegal. Not so here in the US, where we have the freedom to talk about our faith, but don't because then people may not like us. We need to take a page from the Chinese Christian playbook and strive to show the kind of love and need for God that they have.
China is somewhat of a soft spot for me right now, for reasons that aren't going to be made public just yet, but we have to keep an eye out for what is happening over there. Asia is rapidly becoming a center of global power politically, economically, and spiritually. We would do well to not confine our vision to our own country.