Wayne Ten Harmsel - The Registered Church in China: Flourishing in a Challenging Environment
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- Book:The Registered Church in China: Flourishing in a Challenging Environment
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This is a much-needed book that offers an important corrective to many common misunderstandings and puts a human face on those who serve in the registered church in China. Official statistics indicate there are more than thirty million members of registered churches, but little is known about their structure and how they function. Ten Harmsel, who served in and alongside registered churches in China for ten years, provides a glimpse of their inner workings. Based on conversations with pastors and leaders around the country, he allows us to hear directly about the unique challenges and opportunities they face.
Joann Pittman
Senior vice president at ChinaSource
In engaging, easy-to-understand terms, Ten Harmsel draws together the latest scholarship on church-state relations in China with his own fresh perspectives to show readers whats happening at the grassroots of Chinese Christianity today.... After reading this book, readers will come away with surprising new insights: that church leaders are satisfied in the work they do and that seeing Chinese brothers and sisters as only suffering in persecuted churches tells only a partial story. It gives any reader a birds-eye view of important changes, a close-up understanding of new tensions in the Xi Jinping era, and a helpful understanding of how to walk beside and pray for brothers and sisters in the churches that are, as he writes, a gift and blessing to all in China.
Carsten Vala
Chair of the Department of Political Science at Loyola University
Chinas registered churches are the most accessible and visible churches in the country, so it is frustrating we know so little about them. Wayne Ten Harmsel has finally provided an intimate look into these congregations. He worked with them for years, and now allows his friends and colleagues to speak for themselves. This book paints the most lifelike portrait I have read to date.
Daryl Ireland
Associate director of the Center for Global Christianity and Mission, Boston University
Wayne Ten Harmsels firsthand account and reflections on the Three-Self Churches is very enlightening. He dispels some misunderstandings about these congregations and their leaders and shows them to be largely pragmatic and evangelical in their beliefs and practice. Three-Self pastors, the author shows, focus on making the most of their opportunities to minister by finding ways to work around the restrictions imposed on them. In a climate of increasing government pressure, the registered churches make do by avoiding confrontations and focusing on personal salvation and discipleship. Ten Harmsel has traveled extensively in China and visited with more than a hundred Three-Self congregations. He offers rare glimpses into the thought and practice of these, the most public and accessible but often overlooked Chinese Christians.
Joel A. Carpenter
Nagel Institute, Calvin University
Readers of Wayne Ten Harmsels The Registered Churches in China will find it very timely. The relationship between the Chinese government and religions, especially Christianity, is undergoing changes almost as momentous as the changes of 1980, following the end of the Cultural Revolution.... The author has a wealth of on-the-ground experience with the Christian churches about which he writes.... While more has been written on the unregistered house churches, the story of the registered (legal) churches is equally important to the overall history of Protestantism in recent Chinese history. Ten Harmsels main aim in the book is to make up for this imbalance.... His ability to speak as an insider, and to have access to the other insiders whom he was able to interview for the book, makes the book uniquely valuable.... Filled with vignettes of Ten Harmsels interactions with religious people, government officials, and others he encounters in his many travels throughout China, the book has entertainment as well as historical value. Those fortunate enough to encounter it will find it a joy to read.
Christian Jochim
Professor emeritus at San Jose State University
Flourishing in a Challenging Environment
Wayne Ten Harmsel
For Pastor Du Fengying,
who made it all possible.
D uring the years I served as a missionary in China, people frequently suggested that I write a book about the experience. For a long time, I ignored them. But after my retirement, as more and more people joined in the encouragement, I could not help but consider. I knew I did not have any desire to write another standard missionary biography. At the same time, I knew that the registered churches, with whom I worked, were not receiving a fair shake from Christians both inside and outside of China. So, I decided to write a book that I hoped would shed light on these brothers and sisters and their churches.
During my years in China, I received constant help navigating the language and understanding the society and churches from Water, my first language teacher in Beijing, as well as from my colleague Lorraine Li, and friends Bao Shengjie and Ma Hongbing. The book would lack any substance were it not for the many pastors and evangelists I interviewed. The majority of these were unknown to me and yet graciously gave me their attention and their wisdom when I asked about their lives and their churches. I am especially thankful to several pastors in Beijing whom I am honored to count as friends.
This book would have been much impoverished without help from Mary Ma, Emily Brink, Joann Pittman, Christian Jochim, and Daryl Ireland, all of whom read the manuscript and made valuable suggestions. Special thanks are due to two people who went out of their way to help. Wright Doyle shepherded me through much of the pre-publication jungle, encouraging me along the way. This book would be much less interesting and harder to read without benefiting from the editorial skills of Bette Vandinther, who also encouraged me when I was down or frustrated by reminding me of the value of the book. I also need to acknowledge that any remaining mistakes or misunderstandings are mine alone.
Finally, I thank my wife, Lin Baoyu. This is more than just a clich tacked on to the end of the acknowledgements. Without her patience through years of urging me to write this book, without her constantly reminding me to get to work, without her reassurances that what I was writing was good and necessary to write, without her prayers, this book would never have come to fruition. I thank God for you!
Wayne Ten Harmsel
Grand Rapids
2020
A s 2017 faded into 2018 , a sense of foreboding hung over Christians in China. The government had issued new regulations on church activities. Among other things, the regulations came down hard on foreign involvement, home meetings, and religious activities off of church property. Such activities had always been illegal, but now the government seemed ready to enforce religious regulations as they never had before. While it is too early to tell with any certainty, the consensus among local and Western observers is that the regulations will make life and ministry more difficult, especially for unregistered churches.
When the Communist Party took over China in 1949 , they required that all religious groups be registered. For Protestant churches, that meant participating in, or as some would say, being controlled by, the Lianghui , translated as Two Councils or Two Committees. These two councils, one called The Three-Self Patriotic Movement (self-governing, self-propagating, self-supporting) and the other called The Christian Council, were officially formed in 1954 , and together became the governing bodies of the Protestant church in China.
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