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Women are major force in China's growing Protestant churches
2003-088-4
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
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[Episcopal News Service]
Chinese Protestant churches say their membership has leapt to 14 million people, 75 per cent of their members are women, and social services are becoming a key part of their ministry. As the churches grow, they are placing more emphasis on social work and implementing sound management practices, the leaders said during a visit to Switzerland.
'One of the important characteristics of modern Chinese society is its huge transformation from tradition to modernity,' said the Rev. Mei Kang-jun, executive associate general secretary of the Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM), a body linked to the China Christian Council.
In the past, Christians in China had not wanted to be involved with society around them, said Mei, who is editor of the theological journal Tian Feng. He told ENI that the church now wanted to show that in carrying out social service activities it was proclaiming the word of God.
'Among the social service projects done by Chinese churches, there are medical clinics, nursing homes for the elderly, schooling projects for poor children and training schools for released prisoners,' Mei said at a seminar organized by the World Council of Churches in Geneva.
The WCC's Asia secretary, Mathews George, said at the seminar that 'unlike in most other Asian countries,' Christianity was introduced into China early, in AD 635, by the Nestorian missionaries. Still, from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century, China was the scene of the one of the greatest-ever efforts at mission by Western Christians.
'In spite of all these intensive efforts the number of Christians was extraordinarily small in China,' George noted. In 1949, when China became a Communist country, there were fewer than 700 000 Protestant Christians. Yet today, there are 14 million Protestants in China, says the TSPM. Formed in 1980 to promote indigenous Christianity, the TPSM worked with the CCC, grouping Protestants, after the lifting of the ban on religion, imposed from 1966 to 1979 by the Cultural Revolution.
'After several revolutions in China, the status of women has changed dramatically,' said Chen Meilin, an executive associate general secretary of the CCC, an umbrella for Protestant Christians. 'Over 75 per cent of the Christians in China are women. There are over 400 ordained women pastors in China and 98 per cent were ordained after the Cultural Revolution.'
Chen pointed out that more than one third of the teaching staff at the 18 seminaries and Bible schools in China were women. 'The fact that half of the seminary students are women is another feature of our church,' she noted. 'In recent years, we have been sending women seminary graduates abroad to further their study so that some of the women can engage in studies of feminist theology,' said Chen.
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