Articles

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A Crisis of Christianity: Why China’s most explosive religious movement worships underground

In one of her last actions as Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice signed a statement identifying China as one of the worst violators of religious freedom in the world. Yet Christianity appears to be exploding in China, and some say that the atheist state of China may be home to more Christians than any other place in the world. According to estimates by Chinese and foreign scholars, there may be anywhere from seventy to 300 million Chinese Christians—membership eclipsing that of the Communist Party itself.1 Yet, the Chinese government only recognizes 21 million “government-approved” Christians who attend churches operated and controlled by the state’s religious body.