After 30 years of repression, Christianity rises again in China
> At a sunrise service on the Great Wall this Easter, and in the cathedrals and churches of Peking, thousands of Christians celebrate the Resurrection.
> In downtown Shanghai, a standing-room-only congregation of 800 packs the handsome brick Church of Abundant Grace. After a resounding rendition in Chinese of the hymn Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, worshipers listen as Pastor Li Wentsai exhorts them to "abide in Jesus"continually, not just on Sundays. The church is one of five Protestant churches in Shanghai, and more than 100 nationwide, that have just been reopened.
> It is Christmas Eve 1980 in the fishing and manufacturing city of Wuxi. As in 40 other Roman Catholic parishes in China, the local church is being rededicated after having been shut down for more than a decade. But because Chinese Catholics have been cut off from liturgical changes brought about by the Second Vatican Council, the crowd of 3,000 parishioners celebrates the Mass in Latin. The ceremony ends outside in true Chinese style with a crackling flare of fireworks lighting up the night sky.
> A peddler who lives in a rural area of Henan province claims that at each of three baptizing ceremonies in his commune over the past year, "300 to 400 people became Christians." The man belongs to a loose network of "house churches," which are growing rapidly, especially in farm villages.
> At the Nanjing Theological Seminary young men and women sit in freshly repainted classrooms, learning the basics of Protestantism—along with English and some other secular subjects. The seminary reopened in March, with 47 students selected from 500 applicants. It is the first school allowed to train clergy since 1966. That year Mao Tse-tung's Red Guards not only closed the place and arrested the faculty but wrecked the chapel and destroyed four-fifths of the books in the seminary's library.
Even three years ago, such scenes would have been inconceivable. But today Christianity and other religious faiths in China are coming into the open again as a result of the Communist regime's decision to begin honoring a constitutional guarantee of freedom to worship. At the height of Mao's Cultural Revolution, 1966-67, virtually every religious institution and house of worship was suppressed. It was one of the most systematic attempts ever mounted to expunge religion from the life of a nation.
Tens of millions—perhaps hundreds of millions—of Chinese adhere to the ancient faiths of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, which are cultural as well as spiritual forces. Islam has been deeply entrenched for centuries. Though China has been a special preoccupation of U.S. and European missionaries since the late 19th century, less than 1% of China's 1 billion people are Christians today.