The saying, “Christianity outlives its pallbearer” is being lived out in China.
Despite constant destruction of churches, tearing down of crosses, and jailing of believers at the hands of the authoritarian Chinese government, best-selling Chinese author Yu Jie predicts that “Christianity” is China’s future.
Yu, a devout Christian and an author of over 30 books who is active in the Chinese dissident movement, wrote in an op-ed published in the August edition First Things that Christianity and the Chinese urban church movement is laying the “seedbed” for democracy to flourish in the Communist Asian nation.
Although the Chinese regime has been active in telling religious leaders that they must adapt to social order of the communist government and “merge religious doctrines with Chinese culture,” Yu argues that the Chinese government’s hostility is because the regime recognizes Christians as the biggest threat to the communist government.
At the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 Christians in China numbered half a million. Yet almost 70 years later, under the Chinese government’s harsh suppression, that population has reached more than 60 million.
And Yu says that number grows by several million each year, a phenomenon some have described as a gushing well or geyser.
At this rate, by 2030, Christians in China will exceed 200 million, surpassing the United States.