View source for Christianity in China

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{{Christianity by country}}

[[Christianity]] has been present in [[China]] since the early medieval period, and became a significant presence in the country during the [[early modern era]]. The [[Church of the East]] appeared in China in the 7th century, during the [[Tang dynasty]]. [[Catholic Church in China|Catholicism]] was one of the religions patronized by the emperors of the [[Mongol]]-led [[Yuan dynasty]], but it did not take root in China until its [[Jesuit missions in China|reintroduction by the Jesuits]] during the 16th century.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lgS-j2m_0TEC|title=A New History of Christianity in China|last=Bays|first=Daniel H.|author-link=Daniel H. Bays|date=2011-06-09|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-1-4443-4284-0|pages=7–15, 18–21|language=en}}</ref> Beginning in the early 19th century, [[Protestant missions in China]] attracted small but influential followings, and independent Chinese churches were also established.

Accurate data on Chinese Christians is difficult to access.<ref name=Hackett>{{cite journal|last1=Hackett|first1=Conrad|last2=Tong|first2=Yunping|year=2025|title=The Growth of Christianity in China May Have Come to an End|journal=Socius|volume=11|doi=10.1177/23780231241310469|issn=2378-0231|doi-access=free}}</ref> There were some 4 million before 1949 (3 million Catholics and 1 million Protestants).<ref>Miller, 2006. pp. 185–186</ref> The number of Chinese Christians had increased significantly since the easing of restrictions on religious activities during the [[Chinese economic reform|economic reforms]] of the late 1970s.<ref name=Hackett/> In 2018, the Chinese government declared that there are over 44 million Christians (38 million Protestants & 6 million Catholics) in China.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.scio.gov.cn/zfbps/ndhf/37884/Document/1626520/1626520.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180508020010/http://www.scio.gov.cn/zfbps/ndhf/37884/Document/1626520/1626520.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=2018-05-08|title=《中國保障宗教信仰自由的政策和實踐》白皮書（全文）|date=2018-04-03|access-date=2024-05-26}}</ref> On the other hand, some international Christian organizations estimate that there are tens of millions more, who choose not to publicly identify as such.<ref name="Wieland, 2013. p. 3"/> These estimations are controversial because the organizations which make them are often accused of deliberately inflating them.<ref name=Hackett/><ref name="Wieland, 2013. p. 3">Wielander 2013, p. 3</ref><ref name="auto">Marsh, 2011. p. 232</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Ferguson |first=David |date=2015-01-06 |title=Merry Christmas, 100 million Chinese! |url=http://en.people.cn/n/2015/0106/c98649-8832100.html |website=[[People's Daily]]}}</ref>

For most of Chinese imperial history, religious practice was tightly controlled by the state. The [[People's Republic of China]] also heavily regulates religion, and has increasingly implemented a policy of [[sinicization]] of Christianity since 2018.<ref name=":2" /> Chinese people over the age of 18 are only allowed to join Christian groups that are registered with one of three state-controlled bodies, either the [[Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association]], the [[China Christian Council]], or the Protestant [[Three-Self Patriotic Movement]].<ref>{{cite book|first=Patrick |last=Johnstone |year=2001 | title=Operation World |publisher=Paternoster |location=London |page=165}}</ref> However, many Chinese Christians are members of informal networks and [[underground church]]es, often known as [[House church (China)|house churches]]. These began to proliferate during the 1950s when many Christians rejected the state-controlled bodies.<ref>Goossaert, Vincent and David A. Palmer. ''The Religious Question in Modern China.'' Chicago: The University of Chicago Press (2011), pp. 380–387.</ref> Members of house churches represent diverse theological traditions, and have been described as representing a "silent majority" of Chinese Christians.<ref>Hunter, Alan and Kim-Kwong Chan. ''Protestantism in Contemporary China.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1993), p. 178.</ref>

== Terminology ==
{{Further|Chinese names for the God of Abrahamic religions}}

There are various names used for the Abrahamic God in the [[Chinese language]], the most prevalent of them is "[[Shangdi]]" ({{zhi|c=上帝|l=Highest Emperor}}), commonly used by both Protestants and non-Christians, and "{{transliteration|zh|Tianzhu}}" ({{zhi|c=天主|l=Lord of Heaven}}), commonly used by Catholics. The word "Shen" ({{lang|zh|神}}), which is also used by Chinese Protestants, may also refer to deities or the generative powers of nature in the context of [[Chinese traditional religion]]. In addition, Christians have historically adopted terms from the [[Chinese classics]] as references to God, such as 'Ruler' ({{zhi|c=主宰|p=Zhǔzǎi}}) and 'Creator' ({{zhi|c=造物主|p=Zàowùzhǔ}}).

Chinese terms for Christian denominations include "Protestantism" ({{zhi|c=基督教新教|p=Jīdū jiào xīn jiào|l=New Christian religion}}), "Catholicism" ({{zhi|c=天主教|p=Tiānzhǔ jiào|l=Heavenly Lord religion}}), and "[[Chinese Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodoxy]]" ({{zhi|t=東正教|s=东正教|p=Dōng zhèng jiào}}). [[Eastern Orthodoxy|Orthodox Christianity]] as a whole is referred to as {{zhp|p=Zhèng jiào|c=正教}}. Christians in China are referred to as {{zhl|c=基督徒|p=Jīdū tú|l=Christ followers}} or {{zhl|c=基督教徒|p=Jīdū jiào tú|l=Christ religion followers}}.

==History==
{{Too many sections|section|date=February 2025}}
=== Pre-modern history ===
{{See also|Thomas the Apostle#Possible visit to China}}
The significant lack of evidence of Christianity's existence in China between the 3rd century and the 7th century can likely be attributed to the barriers which were placed in Persia by the [[Sassanids]] and the closure of the trade route in [[Turkestan]].{{Citation needed|date=February 2023}}{{Explain|reason=More historical context, please|date=March 2023}}

Both events prevented Christians from staying in contact with their mother church, the Syriac [[Antiochian]] Church, thereby halting the   spread of Christianity until the reign of [[Emperor Taizong of Tang]] (627–649). Taizong, who had studied the Christian Scriptures which were given to him by the [[Assyrian people|Assyrian]] missionary [[Alopen]], realized "their propriety and truth and specifically ordered their preaching and transmission."<ref>[[Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity]], Vol. I. pp.500–501</ref>

{{Blockquote
|text=His virtues have been made manifest to you, and that unheard-of power over things, whether that which was openly exercised by Him or that which was used over the whole world by those who proclaimed Him: it has subdued the fires of passion, and caused races, and peoples, and nations most diverse in character to hasten with one accord to accept the same faith. For the deeds can be reckoned up and numbered which have been done in India, among the Seres [China], Persians, and Medes; in Arabia, Egypt, in Asia, Syria; among the Galatians, Parthians, Phrygians; in Achaia, Macedonia, Epirus; in all islands and provinces on which the rising and setting sun shines.
|author=[[Arnobius]] of Sicca
|title="Against the Heathen, Book II"
}}

[[File:Nestorians-1-.jpg|thumb|The [[Xi'an Stele]] was erected in 781, and documents 150 years of early Christian history in China.<ref name="hill-108">Hill, Henry, ed (1988). ''Light from the East: A Symposium on the Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Churches''. Toronto, Canada. pp. 108–109</ref> It includes texts both in [[Chinese language|Chinese]] and in [[Syriac language|Syriac]].]][[File:Mogao Christian painting (original version).jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|A [[Mogao Christian painting|9th-century silk painting depicting a saint]], probably Jesus Christ]]
[[File:Yang Wengshe 1314.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Christian tombstone from [[Quanzhou]] with a [['Phags-pa]] inscription dated 1314.]]

==== Early period ====
{{See also|Church of the East in China}}

The Christian apologist [[Arnobius]] (died {{circa|330}}) claimed in his work ''Against the Heathen: Book II'', that Christianity had reached the land of "[[Serica]]"—an ancient Roman name for northern China.<ref>Cordier, Henri (1908-10-01). "[https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03669a.htm The Church in China]". ''[[The Catholic Encyclopedia]]''. Vol. 3. New York: The Encyclopedia Press, Inc.</ref> However, to date, there is little to no archaeological evidence or knowledge about the pre-Church of the East classical Chinese and/or Tocharian church.

Two (possibly Church of the East) monks were preaching [[Christianity in India]] in the 6th century before they [[Smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire|smuggled silkworm eggs from China to the Byzantine Empire]].<ref name="Clare1899">{{cite book|author=Israel Smith Clare|title=Library of Universal History: Containing a Record of the Human Race from the Earliest Historical Period to the Present Time; Embracing a General Survey of the Progress of Mankind in National and Social Life, Civil Government, Religion, Literature, Science and Art ...|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UnM-AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA1231|year=1899|page=1231}}</ref>

The first documentation of Christianity entering China was written on the 8th-century [[Xi'an Stele]]. The stele records that Christians reached the Tang capital of [[Xi'an]] in 635, and were allowed to establish places of worship and to propagate their faith. The leader of the Christian travellers was [[Alopen]],<ref>{{cite book|title=Jingjiao: the Church of the East in China and Central Asia|editor=Malek, Roman |editor2=Hofrichter, Peter |year=2006|isbn=978-3-8050-0534-0|publisher=Steyler Verlagsbuchhandlung GmbH| chapter=Remnants of Christianity from Chinese Central Asia in Medieval ages|author=Ding, Wang}}</ref> and his meeting with Emperor Taizong was the most influential development in Chinese Christian history yet, leading to the spread of the religion to a much greater extent than ever before.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Olsen |first=Ted |title=Did Apostles Go to China? |url=https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/october7/19.14.html |access-date=2023-03-02 |website=[[Christianity Today]] |date=7 October 2002 |language=en}}</ref> Seven Chinese Christian texts survived from that period, edited in 2025.<ref>{{cite book|title=Le christianisme chinois du haut Moyen Âge|author=Balmont, Alexis |year=2025|isbn=978-2204168694|publisher=Éditions du Cerf}}</ref>

Some modern scholars question whether [[Nestorianism]] is the proper term for the Christianity that was practised in China, since it did not adhere to what was preached by [[Nestorius]]. They instead prefer to refer to it as "[[Church of the East in China|Church of the East]]", a term which encompasses the various forms of early Christianity in Asia.<ref>{{cite book|title=Jingjiao: the Church of the East in China and Central Asia|editor=Malek, Roman |editor2=Hofrichter, Peter |year=2006|isbn=978-3-8050-0534-0|publisher=Steyler Verlagsbuchhandlung GmbH| chapter=Preface|author=Hofrichter, Peter L.}}</ref>

Despite inaccuracies by Tang historians regarding Christian history and doctrine,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chua |first=Amy |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/123079516 |title=Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance–and Why They Fall |publisher=[[Doubleday (publisher)|Doubleday]] |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-385-51284-8 |edition=1st |location=New York|pages=79 |oclc=123079516 |author-link=Amy Chua}}</ref> there was a significant community of scholars who translated the [[Old Testament|Old]] and [[New Testament]]s into [[Literary Chinese]], and understood them fully.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Fang |first=Serene |date=June 2008 |title=A Brief History of Christianity In China |url=https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/china_705/history/china.html |access-date=2023-03-02 |website=[[Frontline (American TV program)|FRONTLINE]]/World |publisher=[[PBS]]}}</ref>

In 845, at the height of the [[Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution]], [[Emperor Wuzong of Tang]] decreed that [[Buddhism]], Christianity, and [[Zoroastrianism]] be banned, and their very considerable assets forfeited to the state.

In 986 a monk reported to the [[Patriarch of the East]]:<ref>{{cite book| last=Keung| title=Ching Feng| page=9}}</ref>
<blockquote>Christianity is extinct in China; the native Christians have perished in one way or another; the church has been destroyed and there is only one Christian left in the land.</blockquote>

Karel Pieters noted that some Christian gravestones are dated from the [[Song dynasty|Song]] and [[Liao dynasty|Liao]] dynasties (ca. 900s to 1200s), implying that some Christians remained in China in these eras.<ref>{{cite book| last=Halbertsma| title=Early Christian Remains of Inner Mongolia| page=79}}</ref>

====Medieval period====
[[File:Chinese Martyrs of 1307 Katowice Panewniki.jpg|thumb|150px|Painting of Chinese Martyrs of 1307, Chapel of the Martyrs of Nepi in Katowice Panewniki]]
[[File:Museum für Indische Kunst Dahlem Berlin Mai 2006 061.jpg|thumb|150px|"[[Murals from the Christian temple at Qocho|Procession on Palm Sunday]]", in a 7th- or 8th-century wall painting from a Church of the East church in Tang China]]
{{Main|Christianity among the Mongols}}
Christianity was a major influence in the [[Mongol Empire]], as several Mongol tribes were primarily Church of the East Christian, and many of the wives of [[Genghis Khan]]'s descendants were Christian. Contacts with Western Christendom also began in this time period, via envoys from the [[papacy]] to the capital of the [[Yuan dynasty]] in [[Khanbaliq]] (present-day Beijing).

Church of the East Christianity was well established in China, as is attested by the monks [[Rabban Bar Sauma]] and [[Rabban Marcos]], both of which had made a famous pilgrimage to the West, visiting many Church of the East communities along the way. Marcos was elected as Patriarch of the Church of the East, and Bar Sauma went as far as visiting the courts of Europe in 1287–1288, where he told Western monarchs about Christianity among the Mongols.

In 1294, [[Franciscan]] friars from Europe initiated mission work in China. For about a century they worked in parallel with the Church of the East Christians. The Franciscan mission disappeared from 1368, as the [[Ming dynasty]] set out to eject all foreign influences.{{Citation needed|date=August 2018}}

The Chinese called Muslims, Jews, and Christians starting in the Yuan dynasty{{Explain|reason=What does ancient times mean here?|date=March 2023}} by the same name, "''Hui Hui''" (''Hwuy-hwuy''). Christians were called "''Hwuy'' who abstain from animals without the cloven foot", Muslims were called "''Hwuy'' who abstain from pork", Jews were called "''Hwuy'' who extract the sinews". "''Hwuy-tsze''" (''Hui zi'') or "''Hwuy-hwuy''" (''Hui Hui'') is presently used almost exclusively for Muslims, but Jews were still called "''Lan Maou Hwuy tsze''" (''Lan Mao Hui zi'') which means "Blue-cap Hui zi". At Kaifeng, Jews were called "''Teaou-kin-keaou''", "extract-sinew religion". Jews and Muslims in China shared the same name for synagogue and mosque, which were both called "''Tsing-chin sze''" (''Qingzhen si''), "temple of purity and truth", the name dated to the thirteenth century. The synagogue and mosques were also known as "''Le-pae sze''" (''Libai si''). A tablet indicated that Judaism was once known as "''Yih-tsze-lo-nee-keaou''" (Israelitish religion) and synagogues known as "''Yih-tsze lo née leen''" (Israelitish temple), but it faded out of use.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=04kdAAAAMAAJ|title=Chinese and Japanese repository of facts and events in science, history and art, relating to Eastern Asia, Volume 1|year=1863|publisher=s.n.|page=18|access-date=2011-07-06}}</ref>

It was also reported that competition with the Catholic Church and Islam were also factors in causing Church of the East Christianity to disappear in China; Catholics also considered the Church of the East as heretical,<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6wEMAAAAYAAJ|title=The Chinese repository, Volume 13|year=1844|publisher=Printed for the proprietors|page=475|access-date=2011-05-08}}</ref> speaking of "controversies with the emissaries of [...] Rome, and the progress of Mohammedanism, sapped the foundations of their ancient churches."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6wEMAAAAYAAJ|title=The Chinese repository, Volume 13|year=1844|publisher=Printed for the proprietors|page=474|access-date=2011-05-08}}</ref>

Kublai Khan doubled down on anti-Muslim anti-Halal slaughter laws under pressure from Christians like [[Isa Kelemechi]] who served in Kublai's court, according to [[Rashid-al-Din Hamadani|Rashid al-Din]].<ref>{{cite thesis |last= Ning|first=Ya  |date=2021 |title=Courtly Encounters along the Silk Roads: Diplomats, Diplomatic Gifts and Symbolic Competitions in the Mongol Eurasia |url=https://edit.elte.hu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10831/62586/1%20PhD%20dissertation_%20NING%20Ya.pdf?sequence=1 |degree= DOCTORAL DISSERTATION |pages=150–2 }}</ref> Isa Kelemechi was also instrumental in reinforcing anti-Muslim prohibitions in the Mongol realms, such as prohibiting [[halal]] slaughter and [[circumcision]], and, according to Rashid al-Din encouraged denunciation of Muslims.<ref name="Foltz">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=czVRPa7GxrUC&pg=PA125 | title=Religions of the Silk Road: Overland Trade and Cultural Exchange p.125''ff''| author=Richard Foltz | publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] | date=2000 | isbn=0-312-23338-8 }}</ref> Isa Kelemechi also showed to Khubilai the Muslim precept of "Kill the polytheists, all of them", raising the suspicion of the Mongols towards Muslims.<ref name="Foltz"/> According to Rashid al-Din, as a result "most Muslims left Khitai".<ref name="Foltz"/>

[[File:Athanasii Kircheri... China monumentis (1667) "Frontispicio" (22629197626).jpg|thumb|left|The [[Book frontispiece|frontispiece]] of [[Athanasius Kircher]]'s 1667 ''[[China Illustrata]]'', depicting [[Francis Xavier]] and [[Ignatius of Loyola]] adoring the [[Christogram#IHS|monogram of Christ]] in [[Heaven]] while [[Johann Adam Schall von Bell]] and [[Matteo Ricci]] labor on the [[Jesuit missions to China]]]]

==== Jesuit missions in China ====
{{Main|Jesuit China missions}}
{{See also|Chinese rites controversy}}
By the 16th century, there is no reliable information about any practising Christians remaining in China. Fairly soon after the establishment of the direct European maritime contact with China in 1513 and the creation of the [[Society of Jesus]] in 1540, at least some Chinese become involved with the Jesuit effort. As early as 1546, two Chinese boys became enrolled into the Jesuits' [[Saint Paul's College, Goa|St. Paul's College]] in [[Portuguese Goa|Goa]], the capital of [[Portuguese India]]. Antonio, one of these two Christian Chinese, accompanied [[Francis Xavier|St. Francis Xavier]], co-founder of the Jesuits, when he decided to start missionary work in China. However, Xavier was not able to find a way to enter the Chinese mainland and died in 1552 on [[Shangchuan Island]] off the coast of [[Guangdong]].

With the [[Portuguese Empire]] establishing an enclave on [[Zhongshan Island]]'s Macao Peninsula, Jesuits established a base nearby on Green Island (now [[Macao]]'s [[Ilha Verde]] neighborhood). [[Alessandro Valignano]], the new regional manager ("Visitor") of the order, came to Macao in 1578–1579 and established [[St. Paul's College, Macau|St. Paul's College]] to begin training the missionaries in Chinese language and culture. He requested assistance from the orders' members in Goa in bringing over suitably talented linguists to staff the college and begin the mission in earnest.

[[File:Paradigma XV Provinciarum et CLV Urbium Capitalium Sinensis Imperij.jpg|thumb|right|200px|A map of the 200-odd Jesuit churches and missions established across China at the time of [[Philippe Couplet]] & al.'s 1687 ''Confucius, Philosopher of the Chinese''.]]
In 1582, Jesuits once again initiated mission work inside China, introducing Western science, [[History of mathematics#Renaissance|mathematics]], [[History of astronomy#Renaissance period|astronomy]], and [[History of cartography#Early modern cartography|cartography]]. Missionaries such as [[Matteo Ricci]] and [[Johann Adam Schall von Bell]] wrote Chinese catechisms<ref>{{citation |last=Ricci |first=Matteo |author-link=Matteo Ricci |title=''《天主實義》 [''Tiānzhŭ Shíyì, The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven'']'' |url=http://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&res=324860 |date=1603 }}. {{in lang|zh}}</ref> and made influential converts like [[Xu Guangqi]], establishing Christian settlements throughout the country and becoming close to the imperial court, particularly its [[Ministry of Rites]], which oversaw official [[Chinese astronomy|astronomy]] and [[Chinese astrology|astrology]]. Ricci and others including [[Michele Ruggieri]], [[Philippe Couplet]], and [[Francois Noel (missionary)|François Noël]] undertook a century-long effort in translating the Chinese classics into Latin and spreading knowledge of Chinese culture and history in Europe, influencing the developing Enlightenment.
The Jesuits also promoted phenomena of artistic hybridization in China, such as Chinese Christian cloisonné productions.<ref>[https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/12/1103 Parada López de Corselas, M.; Vela-Rodrigo, A.A. Cultural Hybridization in Christian China: The Art of Cloisonné at The Service of God. Religions 2021, 12, 1103. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12121103]</ref>

The introduction of the [[Franciscan Order|Franciscans]] (the first round of Catholic Church clergy to have come during this era)<ref>{{Cite web |last=Avgerinos |date=June 1998 |title=How the Christian Denominations Came to in China |url=http://www.cs.ust.hk/faculty/dimitris/metro/JUN98.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220921174822/https://orthodox.cn/localchurch/jingjiao/9806avgerinos_en.htm |archive-date=2022-09-21 |series=In a June 1998 issue of The Censer |publisher=[[Eastern Orthodox Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia]]}}</ref> and other orders of missionaries, however, led to [[Chinese rites controversy|a long-running controversy]] over Chinese customs and names for God. The Jesuits, the secularized [[scholar-bureaucrats]], and eventually the [[Kangxi Emperor]] himself maintained that the [[Chinese veneration of ancestors]] and Confucius were respectful but non-religious rituals compatible with Christian doctrine; other orders pointed to the beliefs of the common people of China to show that it was impermissible [[idolatry]] and that the common Chinese names for God confused the Creator with His creation. Acting on the complaint of the [[Charles Maigrot|Bishop of Fujian]],<ref name=meingrot>{{citation |last=Von Collani |first=Claudia |contribution=Biography of Charles Maigrot MEP |editor=Elart von Collani |display-editors=0 |location=Würzburg |publisher=Stochastikon |title=Stochastikon Encyclopedia |url=http://encyclopedia.stochastikon.com/ |date=2009 |access-date=2018-01-02 |archive-date=2020-02-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200207051527/http://encyclopedia.stochastikon.com/ |url-status=dead }}.</ref><ref>{{citation |last=Liščák |first=Vladimir |title=Anthropologia Integra |volume=6 |date=2015 |issue=2 |contribution=François Noël and His Latin Translations of Confucian Classical Books Published in Prague in 1711 |pages=45–8 |contribution-url=https://www.academia.edu/19749487/Fran%C3%A7ois_No%C3%ABl_1651_1729_and_his_Latin_translations_of_Confucian_Classical_books_published_in_Prague_in_1711 }}.</ref> [[Pope Clement XI]] finally ended the dispute with [[Chinese rites controversy#Pope Clement XI's decree|a decisive ban]] in 1704;<ref>{{citation |last=Rule |first=Paul |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dw9gYo4Pk0MC |series=''Leuven Chinese Studies'', Vol. XIV |title=The History of the Relations between the Low Countries and China in the Qing Era |editor-last=Vande Walle |editor-first=Willy F. |editor-link=Willy Vande Walle |editor2=Noël Golvers |display-editors=0 |publisher=Leuven University Press |location=Leuven |date=2003 |contribution=François Noël, SJ, and the Chinese Rites Controversy |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=Dw9gYo4Pk0MC&pg=PA152 152] |contribution-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dw9gYo4Pk0MC&pg=PA137 |isbn=978-90-5867-315-2 }}.</ref> his legate [[Charles-Thomas Maillard De Tournon]] issued [[Latae sententiae|summary and automatic excommunication]] of any Christian permitting Confucian rituals as soon as word reached him in 1707.<ref>Ott, Michael (1913), "[https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15001a.htm Charles-Thomas Maillard de Tournon]", [[Catholic Encyclopedia|The Catholic Encyclopedia]], Vol. 15, New York: The Encyclopedia Press.</ref> By that time, however, Tournon and Bishop Maigrot had displayed such extreme ignorance in questioning before the throne that the Kangxi Emperor mandated the expulsion of Christian missionaries unable to abide by the terms of Ricci's Chinese catechism.<ref name=meingrot/><ref name=heycharby>{{citation |last=Charbonnier |first=Jean-Pierre |title=Christians in China: AD 600 to 2000 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5yUzntxTZioC |publisher=Ignatius Press |location=San Francisco |editor-last=Couve de Murville |editor-first=Maurice Noël Léon |editor-link=Maurice Noël Léon Couve de Murville |date=2007 |pages=256–62 |isbn=978-0-89870-916-2 }}.</ref><ref>{{citation |last=Seah |first=Audrey |editor-last=Clark |editor-first=Anthony E. |display-editors=0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sOEzDwAAQBAJ |title=China's Christianity: From Missionary to Indigenous Church |publisher=Koninklijke Brill |location=Leiden |date=2017 |contribution=The 1670 Chinese Missal: A Struggle for Indigenization amidst the Chinese Rites Controversy |page=115 |series=Studies in Christian Mission |isbn=978-90-04-34560-7 }}.</ref> Tournon's policies, confirmed by Clement's 1715 [[papal bull|bull]] {{lang|la|Ex illa die}} led to the swift collapse of all of the missions across China,<ref name=heycharby/> with the last Jesuits—[[Fourth vow|obliged]] to maintain allegiance to the papal rulings—finally being expelled after 1721.<ref>{{citation |year=1994 |editor-last=Mungello |editor-first=David E. |editor-link=David E. Mungello |title=The Chinese Rites Controversy: Its History and Meaning |series=''Monumenta Serica'' Monograph Series |volume=33 |location=[[Nettetal, Germany|Nettetal]] |publisher=Steyler Verlag |isbn=978-3-8050-0348-3 }}.</ref> It was not until 1939 that the Catholic Church revisited its stance, with [[Pope Pius XII]] permitting some forms of Chinese customs. The [[Second Vatican Council]] later confirmed the new policy.

===17th to 18th centuries===
Further waves of missionaries came to China during the [[Qing dynasty]] (1644–1911) as a result of contact with foreign powers. [[Russian Orthodoxy]] was introduced in 1715 and Protestants began entering China in 1807.

The [[Yongzheng Emperor]] was firmly against Christian converts among his own [[Manchu people]]. He warned them that the Manchus must follow only the Manchu way of worshipping Heaven since different peoples [[Heaven worship|worshipped Heaven]] differently.<ref>{{cite book|year=2001|publisher=Stanford University Press|quote=In his indictment of Sunu and other Manchu nobles who had converted to Christianity, the Yongzheng emperor reminded the rest of the Manchu elite that each people had its own way of honoring Heaven and that it was incumbent upon Manchus to observe Manchu practice in this regard:|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_qtgoTIAiKUC&pg=PA240|isbn=978-0-8047-4684-7|page=240|title=The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China|edition=illustrated, reprint|first=Mark C.|last=Elliott|access-date=2012-03-02}}</ref> He stated:<ref>{{cite book|year=2001|publisher=Stanford University Press|quote=The Lord of Heaven is Heaven itself. . . . In the empire we have a temple for honoring Heaven and sacrificing to Him. We Manchus have Tiao Tchin. The first day of every year we burn incense and paper to honor Heaven. We Manchus have our own particular rites for honoring Heaven; the Mongols, Chinese, Russians, and Europeans also have their own particular rites for honoring Heaven. I have never said that he [Urcen, a son of Sunu] could not honor heaven but that everyone has his way of doing it. As a Manchu, Urcen should do it like us.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_qtgoTIAiKUC&pg=PA241|isbn=978-0-8047-4684-7|page=241|title=The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China|edition=illustrated, reprint|first=Mark C.|last=Elliott|access-date=2012-03-02}}</ref>
<blockquote>The Lord of Heaven is Heaven itself. . . . In the empire we have a temple for honoring Heaven and sacrificing to Him. We Manchus have Tiao Tchin. The first day of every year we burn incense and paper to honor Heaven. We Manchus have our own particular rites for honoring Heaven; the Mongols, Chinese, Russians, and Europeans also have their own particular rites for honoring Heaven. I have never said that he [Urcen, a son of Sun] could not honor heaven but that everyone has his way of doing it. As a Manchu, Urcen should do it like us.</blockquote>

===19th to 20th centuries===
[[File:CIM1902.jpg|thumb|200px|Stations of the [[China Inland Mission]] in 1902, with hubs in [[Zhejiang]], and between [[Gansu]], [[Shanxi]], [[Shaanxi]] and [[Henan]].]]
By the 1840s China became a major destination for Protestant missionaries from Europe and the United States.<ref>Paul A. Cohen, "Christian missions and their impact to 1900" in John King Fairbank, ed. ''The Cambridge History of China: Volume 10, Late Ch'ing 1800–1911, Part 1'' (1978)  pp 545–590.</ref> Catholic missionaries, who had been banned for a time, returned a few decades later.<ref>Kenneth S. Latourette, ''Christianity in a Revolutionary Age: volume 3: the 19th century outside Europe'' (1961) pp 431–445. For more details see Latourette, ''A History of Christian Missions in China'' (1929).</ref> It is difficult to determine an exact number, but historian [[Kathleen Lodwick]] estimates that some 50,000 foreigners served in mission work in China between 1809 and 1949, including both Protestants and Catholics.{{sfnb|Lodwick|2016|p=xv}} They encountered significant opposition from local elites, who were committed to Confucianism and resented Western ethical systems.  Missionaries were often seen as part of Western imperialism. The educated gentry were afraid for their own power. The mandarins claim to power lay in the knowledge of the Chinese classics—all government officials had to pass extremely difficult tests on Confucianism. The elite currently in power feared this might be replaced by the Bible, scientific training and Western education. Indeed, the examination system was abolished in the early 20th century by reformers who admired Western models of modernization.<ref>Paul A. Varg, "Missionaries and Relations Between the United States and China in
the Late Nineteenth Century," ''World Affairs Quarterly'' (July 1956), pp. 115–58.</ref>

The main goal was conversions, but they made relatively few. They were much more successful in setting up schools, as well as hospitals and dispensaries. They avoided Chinese politics, but were committed opponents of opium. Western governments could protect them in the treaty ports, but outside those limited areas they were at the mercy of local government officials and threats were common. They were a prime target of attack and murder by Boxers in 1900.<ref>Kathleen L. Lodwick, ''Crusaders against opium: Protestant missionaries in China, 1874–1917'' (University Press of Kentucky, 2015).</ref>

[[File:Robert Morrison 1782-1834.jpg|thumb|150px|Robert Morrison of the [[London Missionary Society]].]]

[[File:CIM Gospel Tract.jpg|thumb|150px|A [[Gospel tract]] printed by the China Inland Mission, With a strong fundamentalist approach.]]

====Protestant missions====
{{Main|Protestant missions in China}}
140 years of Protestant missionary work began with [[Robert Morrison (missionary)|Robert Morrison]], arriving in Macau on 4 September 1807.<ref name=autogenerated2>{{cite book | first = Patrick | last = Johnstone | year = 2001 | title = Operation World | publisher = Paternoster | location = London}} p.164</ref> Morrison produced a Chinese translation of the Bible. He also compiled a Chinese dictionary for the use of Westerners. The Bible translation took 12 years and the completion of the dictionary, 16 years.

====Hostile laws====
The Qing government code included a prohibition of "Wizards, Witches, and all Superstitions". The [[Jiaqing Emperor]], in 1814, added a sixth clause with reference to Christianity, modified in 1821 and printed in 1826 by the [[Daoguang Emperor]] prohibiting those who spread Christianity among Han Chinese and Manchus. Christians who would not renounce their conversion were to be sent to Muslim cities in Xinjiang, to be given as slaves to Muslim leaders and [[Baig|bey]]s.<ref name="Maclay">{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/lifeamongchines00maclgoog|title=Life among the Chinese: with characteristic sketches and incidents of missionary operations and prospects in China|author=Robert Samuel Maclay|year=1861|publisher=Carlton & Porter|pages=[https://archive.org/details/lifeamongchines00maclgoog/page/n353 336]–337|access-date=2011-07-06}}</ref> Some hoped that the Chinese government would discriminate between Protestantism and the Catholic Church, since the law was directed at Rome, but after Protestant missionaries in 1835– 36 gave Christian books to Chinese, the Daoguang Emperor demanded to know who were the "traitorous natives in Canton who had supplied them with books".<ref name="Maclay"/>

====Rapid growth after 1842====
The pace of missionary activity increased considerably after the [[First Opium War]] in 1842. Christian missionaries and their schools, under the protection of the Western powers, went on to play a major role in the westernization of China during the 19th and 20th centuries. [[Liang Fa]] worked in a printing company in Guangzhou, and came to know Robert Morrison in 1810, who translated the Bible into Chinese, and needed printing of the translation. When William Milne arrived at Guangzhou in 1813 and worked with Morrison on translation of the Bible, he also came to know Liang, who he baptized in 1816. In 1827, Liang was ordained by Morrison, and thus, he became a missionary for the [[London Missionary Society]], and the first Chinese Protestant minister and evangelist.

During the 1840s, Western missionaries promulgated Christianity in officially designated coastal [[treaty ports]] that were open to foreign trade. The [[Taiping Rebellion]] (1850–1864) originated in the influence of missionaries on its leader [[Hong Xiuquan]], who called himself the younger brother of Jesus Christ, but he was denounced as a heretic by mainstream Christian groups. Hong's revolt against the Qing government lead to the establishment of the [[Taiping Heavenly Kingdom]], and its capital was established at [[Nanjing]]. Hong attained control of significant parts of southern China, at its height, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom ruled around 30 million people. Hong's [[Theocracy|theocratic]] and militaristic regime instituted social reforms which included the strict separation of the sexes, the abolition of [[foot binding]], land socialization, the suppression of private trade, and the replacement of [[Confucianism]], [[Buddhism]] and [[Chinese folk religion]] with Hong's version of Christianity. The Taiping rebellion was eventually put down by the Qing army, which was aided by French and British forces. With an estimated death toll of between 20 and 30 million due to warfare and the resulting starvation, this civil war is considered one of history's deadliest conflicts. [[Sun Yat-sen]] and [[Mao Zedong]] viewed the Taiping as heroic revolutionaries who fought against a corrupt feudal system.<ref>John King Fairbank, ''China: A new history'' (1992) pp 206–16.</ref>

====Hospitals and schools====
Christians established [[list of Christian hospitals in China|clinics and hospitals]], and provided training for nurses. Both Catholics and Protestants founded [[list of Christian colleges in China|educational institutions]] from the primary to the university level. Some prominent Chinese universities began as religious-founded institutions. Missionaries worked to abolish practices such as foot binding, and the unjust treatment of maidservants, as well as launching charitable work and distributing food to the poor. They also opposed the [[opium]] trade and brought treatment to many who were addicted.<ref name=autogenerated6 />

Several early leaders of the [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|Republic of China]] were converts to Christianity and were influenced by its teachings, such as Sun Yat-sen.<ref>{{cite book | first = Irma Tam | last = Soong | year = 1997 | title = Sun Yat-sen's Christian Schooling in Hawai'i | publisher = The Hawaiian Journal of History, vol. 13 | location = Hawai'i}}, p. 151–178</ref>

====Expanding beyond the port cities====

[[File:HudsonTaylorin1893.jpg|thumb|Hudson Taylor (1832–1905), leader of the China Inland Mission]]
By the early 1860s, the Taiping movement was almost extinct, Protestant missions at the time were confined to five coastal cities. By the end of the century, however, the picture had vastly changed. Scores of new missionary societies had been organized, and several thousand missionaries were working in all parts of China. This transformation can be traced to the [[unequal treaties]] which forced the Chinese government to admit Western missionaries into the interior of the country, the excitement caused by the 1859 [[Great Awakening]] in Britain. A major role was played by [[Hudson Taylor]] (1832–1905). Taylor ([[Plymouth Brethren]]) arrived in China in 1854. Historian [[Kenneth Scott Latourette]] wrote that Hudson Taylor was "one of the greatest missionaries of all time, and ... one of the four or five most influential foreigners who came to China in the nineteenth century for any purpose."<ref>{{cite book|first=Ambrose|last=Mong|title=Guns and Gospels: Imperialism and Evangelism in China|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DQWyDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA100|year=2016|page=100|publisher=James Clarke & Company Limited |isbn=9780227905968}}</ref>

The [[OMF International|China Inland Mission]], based in London with a strong appeal to fundamentalist and evangelical Anglicans, was the largest mission agency in China and it is estimated that Taylor was responsible for more people being converted to Christianity than at any other time since The days of the apostles. Out of the 8,500 Protestant missionaries that were at one time at work in China, 1000 of them were from the China Inland Mission. [[Dixon Edward Hoste]], the successor to Hudson Taylor, originally expressed the self-governing principles of the [[Three-Self Church]], at the time he was articulating the goal of the China Inland Mission to establish an indigenous Chinese Church that was free from foreign control.<ref name=autogenerated6>{{cite book | first = Alvyn | last = Austin | year = 2007 | title = China's Millions: The China Inland Mission and Late Qing Society | publisher = Eerdmans | location = Grand Rapids, Michigan | isbn =978-0-8028-2975-7}}</ref>

====Social services====
In imperial-times Chinese social and religious culture, there were charitable organizations for virtually every social service: burial of the dead, care of orphans, provision of food for the hungry. The wealthiest people in every community (typically the merchants) were expected to give food, medicine, clothing, and even cash, to people in need. According to Caroline Reeves, a historian at Emmanuel College in Boston, that began to change with the arrival of American missionaries in the late 19th century. One of the reasons they gave for being there was to help the poor Chinese.

By 1865, when the China Inland Mission began, there were already thirty different Protestant groups at work in China.<ref>Spence (1991), p. 206</ref> However, the diversity of denominations represented did not equate to more missionaries on the field. In the seven provinces in which Protestant missionaries had already been working, there were an estimated 204 million people with only 91 workers, while there were eleven other provinces in inland China with a population estimated at 197 million, for which absolutely nothing had been attempted.<ref>Taylor (1865),</ref> Besides the London Missionary Society, and the [[American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions]], there were missionaries affiliated with [[Baptists]], [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterians]], [[Methodism|Methodists]], [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopalians]], and [[Wesleyanism|Wesleyans]]. Most missionaries came from England, the United States, Sweden, France, Germany, Switzerland, or the Netherlands.<ref name=autogenerated4>{{cite book | first = Jonathan D. | last = Spence | author-link = Jonathan D. Spence | year = 1991 | title = [[The Search for modern China]] | publisher = W. W. Norton & Company | isbn = 978-0-393-30780-1 | page = 206}}</ref>

====Secular books====
In addition to the publication and distribution of Christian literature and [[Bible translations into Chinese|Bibles]], the Protestant missionary movement in China furthered the dispersion of knowledge with other printed works of history and science. As the missionaries went to work among the Chinese, they established and developed schools and introduced [[medical missions in China|medical techniques from the West]].<ref name=autogenerated4 /> The mission schools were viewed with some suspicion by the traditional Chinese teachers, but they differed from the norm by offering a basic education to poor Chinese, both boys and girls, who had no hope of learning at a school before the days of the Republic of China.<ref>{{cite book | first = Jonathan D. | last = Spence | author-link = Jonathan D. Spence | year = 1991 | title = The Search for modern China | publisher = W. W. Norton & Company | isbn = 978-0-393-30780-1}}, p. 208</ref>

====Opposition====
Local affairs in China were under the control of local officials and the land-owning gentry. They led the opposition to missionary work.<ref>George E. Paulsen, "The Szechwan Riots of 1895 and American 'Missionary Diplomacy'." ''Journal of Asian Studies'' 28.2 (1969): 285–298.</ref><ref>Jean-Guy Daigle,  "Challenging the imperial order: The precarious status of local Christians in late-Qing Sichuan." ''European Journal of East Asian Studies'' (2005): 1–29.</ref>  According to historian Paul Varg:
:The Chinese hostility to the missionary was based first of all on the fact that Western Christianity was utterly strange and incomprehensible to the Chinese. There was also the opposition based on what they did understand, namely the missionary's revolutionary program. The literati sensed from the very beginning that Christianization would deprive them of their power. So intense was their hostility that few missionaries considered it worthwhile to make any effort to win them over.<ref>Paul A. Varg, "Missionaries and relations between the United States and China in the late 19th century"  '' World Affairs Quarterly'' (July 1956), pp. 115–58, quoting p 155.</ref>

In December 1897, Wilhelm II declared his intent to seize territory in China, which triggered a "scramble for concessions" by which Britain, France, Russia and Japan also secured their own [[sphere of influence]] in China.{{sfnb|Esherick|1987|p=129–30}} After the German government took over Shandong, many Chinese feared that the foreign missionaries and possibly all Christian activities were imperialist attempts at "carving the melon", i.e., to colonize China piece by piece.{{sfnb|Esherick|1987|loc=Ch 3 "Imperialism for Christ's Sake", pp. 68–95}}

Local gentry published hate literature against the foreign missionaries. One tract featured foreign missionaries praying to crucified pigs—the Catholic term for God was ''Tianzhu'' (Heavenly Lord), in which the Chinese character "''zhu''" had the same pronunciation as the word for "pig".  The pamphlet also showed Christian clergy engaging in orgies following Sunday services and removing the placentas, breasts, and testicles from kidnapped Chinese. It concluded with repeated calls for their extermination by vigilantes and the government.<ref name=mit>{{citation |contribution-url=http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/cause_of_the_riots/cr_book_01.html |contribution="The Cause of the Riots in the Yangtse Valley" (1891): Missionary Commentary on an Illustrated Anti-Christian Chinese Pamphlet |title=Visualizing Cultures |location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=MIT |date=2014 }}{{dead link|date=August 2024}}</ref>

The [[Boxer Rebellion]] was in large part a reaction against Christianity in China. Missionaries were harassed and murdered, along with tens of thousands of converts. In 1895, the Manchu [[Yuxian (Qing dynasty)|Yuxian]], a magistrate in the province, acquired the help of the [[Big Swords Society]] in fighting against bandits. The Big Swords practices heterodox practices, however, they were not bandits and were not seen as bandits by Chinese authorities. The Big Swords relentlessly crushed the bandits, but the bandits converted to the Catholic Church, because it made them legally immune to prosecution under the protection of the foreigners. The Big Swords proceeded to attack the bandits' Catholic churches and burn them.<ref name="ThreeKeys">{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/historyinthreeke00paul|url-access=registration|title=History in three keys: the boxers as event, experience, and myth|first=Paul A.|last=Cohen|year=1997|publisher=Columbia University Press|pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyinthreeke00paul/page/19 19], 114|isbn=978-0-231-10651-1|access-date=2010-06-28}}</ref> Yuxian only executed several Big Sword leaders, but did not punish anyone else. More secret societies started emerging after this.<ref name="ThreeKeys"/>

In Pingyuan, the site of another insurrection and major religious disputes, the county magistrate noted that Chinese converts to Christianity were taking advantage of their bishop's power to file false lawsuits which, upon investigation, were found groundless.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lAxresT12ogC&pg=PA114|title=The origins of the Boxer War: a multinational study|first=Lanxin|last=Xiang|year=2003|publisher=Psychology Press|page=114|isbn=978-0-7007-1563-3|access-date=2010-06-28}}</ref>

French Catholic missionaries were active in China; they were funded by appeals in French churches for money.  The Holy Childhood Association (L'Oeuvre de la Sainte Enfance) was a Catholic charity founded in 1843 to rescue Chinese children from infanticide. It was a target of Chinese anti-Christian protests notably in the Tianjin Massacre of 1870. Rioting sparked by false rumors of the killing of babies led to the death of a French consul and provoked a diplomatic crisis.<ref>Henrietta Harrison, "'A Penny for the Little Chinese': The French Holy Childhood Association in China, 1843–1951." ''American Historical Review'' 113.1 (2008): 72–92. [https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3228646/Harrison.pdf?sequen.. online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191220060153/https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3228646/Harrison.pdf?sequen.. |date=2019-12-20 }}</ref>

====Popularity and indigenous growth (1900–1925)====
[[File:Catholic Church Cizhong Yunnan China.jpg|right|thumb|A Catholic church by the [[Lancang River]] River at Cizhong, [[Yunnan]]. It was built by French missionaries in the mid-19th century, but was burnt during the anti-foreigner movement in 1905 and rebuilt in the 1920s. The congregation is mainly [[Tibetan people|Tibetan]], but some members are of [[Han (people)|Han]], [[Nakhi people|Naxi]], [[Lisu people|Lisu]], [[Yi people|Yi]], [[Bai people|Bai]] and [[Hui people|Hui]] ethnicity.]]

Many scholars see the historical period between the Boxer Uprising and the Second Sino-Japanese War as a golden age of Chinese Christianity, as converts grew rapidly and churches were built in many regions of China.<ref>Patrick Fuliang Shan, "Triumph after Catastrophe: Church, State and Society in Post-Boxer China, 1900–1937", ''Peace and Conflict Studies'', (Fall 2009, Vol. 16, No. 2), pp. 33–50.</ref> Paul Varg argues that American missionaries worked very hard on changing China:
<blockquote>  The growth of the missionary movement in the first decades of the [20th] century wove a tie between the American church-going public and China that did not exist between the United States and any other country. The number of missionaries increased from 513 in 1890 to more than 2,000 in 1914, and by 1920 there were 8,325 Protestant missionaries in China. In 1927 there were sixteen American universities and colleges, ten professional schools of collegiate rank, four schools of theology, and six schools of medicine. These institutions represented an investment of $19 million.  By 1920, 265 Christian middle schools existed with an enrollment of 15,213. There were thousands of elementary schools; the Presbyterians alone had 383 primary schools with about 15,000 students.<ref>Paul A. Varg, "Missionaries and Relations Between the United States and China in the Late Nineteenth Century," ''World Affairs Quarterly'' (July 1956), pp. 115–58.</ref></blockquote>
Extensive fund-raising and publicity campaigns were held across the U.S. The Catholics in the United States also supported large mission operations in China.<ref>Joseph P. Ryan, "American Contributions to the Catholic Missionary Effort in China in the Twentieth Century," ''Catholic Historical Review'' 31.2 (1945): 171–180 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/25014546 online].</ref>

Following the [[1910 World Missionary Conference]] in Glasgow, Protestant missionaries energetically promoted what they called "indigenization", that is assigning the leadership of churches to local Christian leaders. The Chinese National YMCA was the first to do so. In the 1920s, a group of church leaders formed the [[National Christian Council of China]] to coordinate interdenominational activity. Among the leaders were [[Cheng Jingyi]], who was influential at the Glasgow Conference with his call for a non-denominational church. The way was prepared for the creation of the [[Church of Christ in China]], a unified non-denominational church.<ref>[[Daniel H. Bays]]. ''A New History of Christianity in China.'' (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012)., pp. 110–111.</ref>

After World War I, the [[New Culture Movement]] fostered an intellectual atmosphere that promoted Science and Democracy. Although some of the movement's leaders, such as [[Chen Duxiu]], initially expressed admiration for the role that Christianity played in building the strong nations of the West, as well as approving the emphasis on love and social service, Christianity became identified in the eyes of many young Chinese with foreign control of China. The 1923 [[Anti-Christian Movement (China)|Anti-Christian Movement]] attacked missionaries and their followers on the grounds that no religion was scientific and that the Christian church in China was a tool of the foreigners. Such Chinese Protestants as the liberals [[David Z. T. Yui]], head of the Chinese National YMCA, and [[Y. T. Wu]], [[Wu Leichuan]], [[T. C. Chao]], and the theologically more conservative [[Chen Chonggui]] responded by developing social programs and theologies that devoted themselves to strengthening the Chinese nation. [[Y. C. James Yen]], a graduate of Yale University, led [[Rural Reconstruction Movement|a program of village reform]].{{citation needed|date=December 2016}}

Several political leaders of the Republican period were Protestant Christians, including [[Sun Yat-sen]], [[Chiang Kai-shek]], [[Feng Yuxiang]], and [[Wang Zhengting]]. Leading writers include [[Lin Yutang]], who renounced his Christianity for several decades.<ref name="HamrinBieler2011">{{cite book|last=Yang|first=Rain Liu|editor=Carol Lee Hamrin|editor2=Stacey Bieler|title=Salt and Light, Volume 3: More Lives of Faith That Shaped Modern China|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HutMAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA164|year=2011|publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers|location=Eugene, OR|isbn=978-1-61097-158-4|page=164|chapter=Lin Yutang: Astride the Cultures of East and West}}</ref> His journey of faith from Christianity to Taoism and Buddhism, and back to Christianity in his later life was recorded in his book From Pagan to Christian (1959).
[[Lottie Moon]] (1840–1912), representing the Southern Baptist, was the most prominent woman missionary. Although an equality-oriented feminist who rejected male dominance, the Southern Baptists have memorialized her as a southern belle who followed traditional gender roles.<ref>Regina D. Sullivan, "Myth, Memory, and the Making of Lottie Moon," in Jonathan Daniel Wells, and Sheila R. Phipps, eds. ''Entering the fray: gender, politics, and culture in the New South'' (U of Missouri Press; 2009) pp 11–41. [https://books.google.com/books?id=8Iejkdi2ObwC excerpt]</ref>

Since the [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|Republican era]], a trend among Chinese theologians has been to indigenise the divinity of Jesus Christ by bringing Biblical teachings in line with the Confucian tradition.<ref name=":02" />{{Rp|page=186}}

====Medical missions====
Medical missions in China by the late 19th century laid the foundations for modern medicine in China. Western medical [[Mission (Christian)|missionaries]] established the first modern clinics and hospitals, provided the first training for nurses, and opened the first medical schools in China.<ref>Gerald H. Choa, ''Heal the Sick" was Their Motto: The Protestant Medical Missionaries in China'' (Chinese University Press, 1990).</ref> By 1901, China was the most popular destination for medical missionaries. The 150 foreign physicians operated 128 hospitals and 245 dispensaries, treating 1.7 million patients. In 1894, male medical missionaries constituted 14 percent of all missionaries; women doctors were four percent. Modern medical education in China started in the early 20th century at hospitals run by international missionaries.<ref>Henry Otis Dwight et al. eds., ''The Encyclopedia of Missions'' (2nd ed. 1904) p 446 [https://archive.org/details/cu31924029338187 Online]</ref> They began establishing nurse training schools in China in the late 1880s, but nursing of sick men by female nurses was rejected by local traditions, so the number of Chinese students was small until the practice became accepted in the 1930s.<ref>Kaiyi Chen,  "Missionaries and the early development of nursing in China." ''Nursing History Review'' 4 (1996): 129–149.</ref> There was also a level of distrust on the part of traditional evangelical missionaries who thought hospitals were diverting needed resources away from the primary goal of conversions.<ref>Theron Kue-Hing Young,  "A conflict of professions: the medical missionary in China, 1835–1890." ''Bulletin of the History of Medicine'' 47.3 (1973): 250–272. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/44450132 Online]</ref>

Of the 500 hospitals in China in 1931, 235 were run by Protestant missions and 10 by Catholic missions. The mission hospitals produce 61 percent of Western trained doctors, 32 percent nurses and 50 percent of medical schools. Already by 1923 China had half of the world's missionary hospital beds and half the world's missionary doctors.<ref>{{cite book|first=Gerald H.|last=Choa|title='Heal the Sick' was Their Motto: The Protestant Medical Missionaries in China|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pqnMkfsZWlYC&pg=PA112|year=1990|publisher=Chinese University Press|page=112|isbn=9789622014534}}</ref>

Due to the essential non-existence of Chinese doctors of Western medicine in China and Hong Kong, the founding of colleges of Western medicine was an important part of the medical mission.  These colleges for the training of male and female doctors were separately founded. The training of female doctors was particularly necessary, due to the reluctance of Chinese women to see male doctors.

The [[Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese]] was founded in Hong Kong by the [[London Missionary Society]] in 1887 for the training of male doctors. Sun Yat-sen the first graduate of this college and the founder of modern China, graduated in 1892. Hong Kui Wong  (黄康衢) (1876–1961) graduated in 1900 and then moved to Singapore, where he supported the [[Xinhai Revolution]] led by Sun Yat-sen.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://davidtkwong.net/ |title=Home |website=davidtkwong.net}}</ref>

The [[Hackett Medical College for Women]], the first medical college for women in China, and its affiliated hospital known as David Gregg Hospital for Women and Children (柔濟醫院), located together in Guangzhou, China, were founded by female medical missionary Mary H. Fulton (1854–1927). Fulton was sent by the Foreign Missions Board of the Presbyterian Church (USA), with the support of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn, New York, of which David Gregg was pastor. The college was dedicated in 1902 and offered a four-year medical curriculum. Its graduates include [[Lee Sun Chau]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://cnac.org/rebeccachan01.htm|title=CNAC Flight Stewardess Rebecca Chan|website=cnac.org}}</ref>

====Indigenous Christian leaders====
Indigenous Christian evangelism started in China in the late 1800s. Man-Kai Wan (1869–1927) was one of the first Chinese doctors of Western medicine in Hong Kong, the inaugural chairman of the Hong Kong Chinese Medical Association (1920–1922, forerunner of the Hong Kong Medical Association), and a secondary school classmate of Sun Yat-sen in the Government Central College (currently known as [[Queen's College, Hong Kong|Queen's College]]) in Hong Kong. Wan and Sun graduated from secondary school around 1886. Doctor Wan was also the chairman of the board of a Christian newspaper called ''Great Light Newspaper'' (大光報) that was distributed in Hong Kong and China. Sun and Wan practiced Western Medicine together in a joint clinic. The father-in-law of Wan was [[Au Fung-Chi]] (1847–1914), the secretary of the Hong Kong Department of Chinese Affairs, manager of Kwong Wah Hospital for its 1911 opening, and an elder of To Tsai Church (renamed Hop Yat Church since 1926), which was founded by the [[London Missionary Society]] in 1888 and was the church of Sun Yat-sen.<ref>http://www.cnac.org/rebeccachan_piloted_to_serve_01.pdf {{Bare URL PDF|date=March 2022}}</ref>

===National and social change: the war against Japan and the Chinese Civil War (1925–1949)===
[[File:John Sung.jpg|thumb|150px|[[John Sung]]]]
During [[World War II]], China was devastated by the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]] which countered a Japanese invasion, and by the [[Chinese Civil War]] which resulted in the separation of [[Taiwan]] from mainland China. In this period the Chinese Christian churches and organizations had their first experience with autonomy from the Western structures of the missionary church organizations. Some scholars suggest this helped lay the foundation for the independent denominations and churches of the post-war period and the eventual development of the Three-Self Church and the Catholic Patriotic Church. At the same time the intense war period hampered the rebuilding and development of the churches.

=== Since 1949 ===
{{Further|Antireligious campaigns in China}}{{update|section|date=January 2022}}

The People's Republic of China (PRC) was declared October 1, 1949 by the [[Chinese Communist Party]] (CCP) led by [[Mao Zedong]], while the Republic of China led by the [[Kuomintang]] maintained its government on Taiwan. The historian Daniel Bays comments that it was "not surprising that this new government, like the emperors of several dynasties of the last millennium, evinced an insistence on monitoring religious life and requiring all religions, for example, to register their venues and leadership personnel with a government office."{{sfnb|Bays|2012|p= 159}} Christian missionaries left in what was described by Phyllis Thompson of the China Inland Mission as a "reluctant exodus".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Thompson |first1=Phyllis |title=China – The Reluctant Exodus |date=1979 |publisher=China Inland Mission |isbn=0340241837 |url=https://archive.org/details/chinareluctantex0000thom |access-date=28 October 2023}}</ref>

The Chinese Protestant church entered the communist era having made significant progress toward self-support and self-government. While the Chinese Communist Party was hostile to religion in general, it did not seek to systematically destroy religion as long as the religious organizations were willing to submit to the direction of the Chinese state. Many Protestants were willing to accept such accommodation and were permitted to continue religious life in China under the name "[[Three-Self Patriotic Movement]]". Catholics, on the other hand, with their allegiance to the [[Holy See]], could not submit to the Chinese state as their Protestant counterparts did, notwithstanding the willingness of the Vatican to compromise in order to remain on Chinese mainland—the papal [[nuncio]] in China did not withdraw to Taiwan like other western diplomats. Consequently, the Chinese state organized the [[Catholic Patriotic Church]] that operates without connection to the Vatican, and the Catholics who continued to acknowledge the authority of the Pope were subject to persecution.

During the [[Korean War]], the United States froze all Chinese assets in the United States and banned the transfer of funds from the United States to within the PRC.<ref name=":Li">{{Cite book |last=Li |first=Hongshan |title=Fighting on the Cultural Front: U.S.-China Relations in the Cold War |date=2024 |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |isbn=9780231207058 |location=New York, NY |doi=10.7312/li--20704 |jstor=10.7312/li--20704}}</ref>{{Rp|page=50}} Among the effects of these policies was cutting off funding for American-affiliated cultural institutions in China, including Christian colleges and religious institutions.<ref name=":Li" />{{Rp|page=50}} The PRC responded by nationalizing American-affiliated cultural institutions, including religious ones.<ref name=":Li" />{{Rp|page=50}}

During the [[Cultural Revolution]], believers were arrested and imprisoned and sometimes tortured for their faith.<ref name="autogenerated3">{{cite book |last=Johnstone |first=Patrick |title=Operation World |publisher=Paternoster |year=2001 |location=London}} p.168</ref> Bibles were destroyed, churches and homes were looted, and Christians were subjected to humiliation.<ref name="autogenerated3" /> 

==== After the Cultural Revolution ====
Religions in China began to recover after the [[Chinese economic reform|economic reforms]] of the 1970s. Beginning in 1978, Deng Xiaoping relaxed policies on the Protestant churches.<ref name=":02" />{{Rp|page=174}} In 1979, the government officially restored the Three-Self Church after thirteen years of non-existence,<ref name="autogenerated2" /> and in 1980, the [[China Christian Council]] (CCC) was formed. In the 1980s, the number of Protestants in rural China increased rapidly.<ref name=":02" />{{Rp|page=174}} The number of urban Protestants increased rapidly in the 1990s.<ref name=":02" />{{Rp|page=174}}

Several thousand Christians were known to have been imprisoned between 1983 and 1993.<ref name=autogenerated3 /> In 1992, the government began a campaign to shut-down all of the unregistered meetings. However, government implementation of restrictions since then has varied widely between regions of China, and in many areas there is greater religious liberty.<ref name=autogenerated3 />

The members of the underground Catholic Church in China, those who do not belong to the official Catholic Patriotic Church and are faithful to the [[Holy See|Vatican]], remain theoretically subject to persecution today. In practice, however, the Vatican and the Chinese State have been, at least unofficially, accommodating each other for some time. While some bishops who joined the Catholic Patriotic Church in its early years have been condemned and even excommunicated, the entire organization has never been declared schismatic by the Vatican and, at present, its bishops are even invited to church synods like other Catholic leaders. Also, many underground clergy and laymen are active in the official Patriotic Church as well. Still, there are periods of discomfort between Vatican and the Patriotic Church: [[Pope Benedict XVI]] condemned the Patriotic Catholic leaders as "persons who are not ordained, and sometimes not even baptised", who "control and make decisions concerning important ecclesial questions, including the appointment of bishops". The Chinese state indeed continues to appoint bishops and intervene in the church's policy (most notably on abortion and artificial contraception) without consulting the Vatican and punishing outspoken dissenters. In one notable case that drew international attention, [[Thaddeus Ma Daqin]], the auxiliary bishop of Shanghai, who both the Vatican and Chinese state agreed as the successor to the elderly [[Aloysius Jin Luxian]], the Patriotic Catholic bishop of Shanghai (who the Vatican also recognized as the coadjutor bishop), was arrested and imprisoned after publicly resigning from his positions in the Patriotic Church in 2012, an act which was considered a challenge to the state control over the Catholic Church in China.

A Christian spiritual revival has grown in the first decades of the twenty-first century. The Communist Party remains officially atheist, and has remained intolerant of churches outside party control.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.businessinsider.com/how-xi-jinping-is-attacking-religion-in-china-2018-11|title=Jailing Muslims, burning Bibles, and forcing monks to wave the national flag: How Xi Jinping is attacking religion in China|first=Alexandra|last=Ma|website=[[Business Insider]]|date=August 3, 2019}}</ref> Christianity has grown rapidly, reaching 67 million people, including those in unofficial churches.<ref name=Hernandez/> In recent years, however, the Communist Party has looked with distrust on organizations with international ties; it tends to associate Christianity with what it deems to be subversive Western values, and has closed churches and schools. In 2015, outspoken pastors in Hong Kong and their associates on the mainland came under close scrutiny from government officials.<ref name=Hernandez>{{cite news|author1=Javier C. Hernández |author2=Crystal Tse |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/27/world/asia/hong-kong-christian-groups-feel-new-scrutiny-from-mainland.html |title=Hong Kong Christians Draw New Scrutiny From Mainland |newspaper=New York Times |date=27 August 2015 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150831032501/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/27/world/asia/hong-kong-christian-groups-feel-new-scrutiny-from-mainland.html |archivedate=2015-08-31}}</ref>

===Contemporary People's Republic of China===
[[File:Haidian Church 2007 Xmas.jpg|thumb|[[Haidian Christian Church]] during Christmas 2007, Beijing. Haidian Church is operated by Three-Self Patriotic Movement.]]

====Subdivision of the Christian community====

=====Official organizations—the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church and the Chinese Protestant Church=====
{{Main|Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association|Lianghui (Protestantism)}}

The [[Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association]] and the Protestant [[Three-Self Patriotic Movement]] are centralised and government-sanctioned Christian institutions which regulate all local Christian gatherings, all of which are required to be registered under their auspices.

=====Unregistered churches=====
{{Main|Underground church|House church (China)}}
Many Christians hold meetings outside of the jurisdiction of the government-approved organizations and avoid registration with the government and are often illegal. While there has been continuous persecution of Chinese Christians throughout the twentieth century, particularly during the [[Cultural Revolution]], there has been increasing tolerance of unregistered churches since the late 1970s.

Catholic groups are usually known as [[underground church]]es and Protestant groups are usually known as [[House church (China)|house churches]]. The Catholic underground churches are those congregations who remain fully faithful to the Pope in Rome and refuse to register as part of the Catholic Patriotic Church. Much of the Protestant house church movement dates back to the coerced unification of all Protestant denominations in the Three-Self Church in 1958.<ref>Bays, 1999. p. 348</ref> There is often significant overlap between the membership of registered and unregistered Christian bodies, as a large number of people attend both registered and unregistered churches.<ref name="Miller, 2006. p. 185">Miller, 2006. p. 185</ref>

Local authorities continued to harass and detain bishops, including Guo Xijin and Cui Tai, who refused to join the state-affiliated Catholic association. Chinese authorities raided or closed down hundreds of Protestant house churches in 2019, including Rock Church in Henan Province and [[Shouwang Church]] and [[Beijing Zion Church|Zion Church in Beijing]], with their pastor, [[Jin Tianming]] and [[Jin Mingri]] under house arrest. The government released some of the [[Early Rain Covenant Church]] congregants who had been arrested in December 2018, but in December 2019 a court charged [[Wang Yi (pastor)|Pastor Wang Yi]] with "subversion of state power" and sentenced him to nine years imprisonment. Several local governments, including Guangzho city, offered cash bounties for individuals who informed on underground churches. In addition, authorities across the country have removed crosses from churches, banned youth under the age of 18 from participating in religious services, and replaced images of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary with pictures of [[Xi Jinping]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=April 2020 |title=Annual Report |url=https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/USCIRF%202020%20Annual%20Report_Final_42920.pdf |website=United States Commission on International Religious Freedom}}</ref>

=====Chinese Independent Churches=====
{{Main|Chinese Independent Churches}}
The Chinese Independent Churches are a group of Christian institutions that are independent from Western denominations. They were established in China in the late 19th and early 20th century, including both the [[Local churches (affiliation)|Little Flock]] or [[Church Assembly Hall (Chinese christian denomination)|Church Assembly Hall]] and [[True Jesus Church]]. In the 1940s they gathered 200,000 adherents, which was 20% to 25% of the total Christian population of that time.<ref>Bays, 1999. p. 310</ref>

Miller (2006) explains that a significant amount of the house churches or unregistered congregations and meeting points of the Protestant spectrum, that refuse to join the Three-Self Church—China Christian Council, belong to the Chinese Independent Churches.<ref name="Miller, 2006. p. 191">Miller, 2006. p. 191</ref> Congregations of the Little Flock or the True Jesus Church tend to be uncooperative towards the Three-Self Church as to their principle it represents not only a tool of the government but also a different Christian tradition.<ref name="Miller, 2006. p. 191"/>

=====Chinese Orthodox Church=====
{{Main|Chinese Orthodox Church}}
[[File:Saint Sophia Cathedral, Harbin 索非亞東正教堂 - panoramio.jpg|thumb|[[Saint Sophia Cathedral, Harbin|Saint Sophia Cathedral]] in Harbin]]
There are a small number of adherents of Russian Orthodoxy in northern China, predominantly in [[Harbin]]. The first mission was undertaken by Russians in the 17th century. Orthodox Christianity is also practiced by the small Russian minority in China. The Church operates relatively freely in Hong Kong (where the Ecumenical Patriarch has sent a metropolitan, Bishop Nikitas and the Russian Orthodox parish of St Peter and St Paul resumed its operation) and Taiwan (where archimandrite Jonah George Mourtos leads a mission church).

=====Korean Christianity=====
Chinese scholars of religion have reported that a large portion of the members of the networks of house or unregistered churches, and of their pastors, are Koreans living in China.<ref name="duihua.org">''Dui Hua'', issue 46, Winter 2012: [http://duihua.org/wp/?p=5313 ''Uncovering China's Korean Christians''].</ref> The pastors of the independent Shouwang and Zion churches in Beijing are noted for having been prosecuted by the government, and are of Korean ethnicity.<ref name="duihua.org"/> The Korean-Chinese pastors have a disproportional influence on the underground Christianity in China. Christianity has been an influential religion among the [[Korean people]] since the 19th century, and it has become the largest religion in [[South Korea]] after the [[division of Korea]] in 1945. Christianity also has a strong presence in the [[Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture]], in the [[Jilin]] province of China.<ref>Carpenter, Dulk. 2014. pp. 29–31</ref>

The Christianity of Yanbian Koreans has a patriarchal character; Korean churches are usually led by men, in contrast to Chinese churches which more often have female leadership. For instance, of the 28 registered churches of [[Yanji]], only three of which are Chinese congregations, all the Korean churches have a male pastor while all the Chinese churches have a female pastor.<ref name="Carpenter, Dulk. 2014. p. 33">Carpenter, Dulk. 2014. p. 33</ref> Also, Yanbian Korean church buildings are stylistically very similar to South Korean churches, with big spires surmounted by large red crosses.<ref name="Carpenter, Dulk. 2014. p. 33"/> Yanbian Korean churches and house churches in China have been a matter of controversy for the Chinese government because of their links to South Korean churches.<ref>Carpenter, Dulk. 2014. p. 37</ref> Many of the Korean house churches in China receive financial support and pastoral ordinations from South Korean churches, and some of them are effectively branches of South Korean churches.<ref>Carpenter, Dulk. 2014. pp. 36–37</ref> South Korean missionaries have major influence not only on Korean-Chinese churches but also the Han Chinese churches in mainland China.

=====Heterodox sects=====
In China there are also a variety of Christian sects based on biblical teachings that are considered by the government as "[[heterodox teachings (Chinese law)|heterodox teachings]]" ({{lang-zh|s=邪教|p=xiéjiào|labels=no}}) or cults, including the [[Eastern Lightning]] and [[the Shouters]].<ref name="Doyle">Dr. G. Wright Doyle (2010). ''[http://www.globalchinacenter.org/analysis/christianity-in-china/how-dangerous-are-chinese-house-churches.php How Dangerous are Chinese House Churches] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140606205633/http://www.globalchinacenter.org/analysis/christianity-in-china/how-dangerous-are-chinese-house-churches.php |date=2014-06-06 }}''. A review of "Redeemed by Fire: The Rise of Popular Christianity in Modern China", a book of Lian Xi. Yale University Press, 2010. {{ISBN|978-0-300-12339-5}}.</ref><ref name="Thomas">Robert Murray Thomas. ''Religion in Schools: Controversies Around the World''. Praeger, 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-275-99061-9}}. p. 99, quote: «Protestantism expanded rapidly in China within the confines of the TSPM. But that movement accounted for only a portion of Chinese Protestants. Another portion was composed of believers outside the official body, members of sects not acceptable to the government—sects referred to as "house churches", because their covert meetings were usually held in members' homes. [...] The Shouters was one such groups [...] Over the last half of the twentieth century, a variety of Christian evangelical groups sprang up in China, much to the distress of the government. [...] illegal cults, which included not only the Shouters, but also Eastern Lightning, the Society of Disciples, [...] the Full Scope Church, the Spirit Sect, the New Testament Church, [...] the Lord God Sect, the Established King Church [...] and more. The Local Church is the official title of the group that became known as the Shouters because of the members' practice of stamping their feet and repeatedly yelling "O Lord Jesus" during religious services.»</ref> They primarily operate in a form similar to the "house churches",<ref name="Doyle"/><ref name="Thomas"/> small worship groups, outside of the state-sanctioned Three-Self Church, that meet in members' homes. One feature that some Christian sects with this label have in common is particular emphasis on the authority of a single leader, sometimes even [[List of people claimed to be Jesus|those claiming to be Jesus]]. In the mid-1990s, the Chinese government started to monitor these new religious movements, and officially prohibited them, with their activities moving underground.

====Religious venues and practice====
As of 2012 in China Catholicism has 6,300 churches, 116 active [[diocese]]s of which 97 under the Catholic Patriotic Church, 74 Chinese Patriotic bishops and 40 Catholic unofficial bishops, 2,150 Chinese Patriotic priests and 1,500 Catholic priests, 22 major and minor Chinese Patriotic seminaries and 10 Catholic unofficial seminaries.<ref name="Wenzel-Teuber2012"/> In the same year, there are 53,000 Three-Self churches and meeting places and 21 [[list of Protestant theological seminaries in the People's Republic of China|Three-Self theological seminaries]].<ref name="Wenzel-Teuber2012">Katharina Wenzel-Teuber. ''[http://www.china-zentrum.de/fileadmin/redaktion/RCTC_2013-3.18-43_Wenzel-Teuber_2012_Statistical_Update_on_Religions_and_Churches_in_China.pdf 2012 Statistical Update on Religions and Churches in the People's Republic of China and in Taiwan] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141231234412/http://www.china-zentrum.de/fileadmin/redaktion/RCTC_2013-3.18-43_Wenzel-Teuber_2012_Statistical_Update_on_Religions_and_Churches_in_China.pdf |date=2014-12-31 }}''. Religions & Christianity in Today's China, Vol. III, 2013, No. 3, pp. 18–43, {{ISSN|2192-9289}}</ref>

In 2010, [[The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in China]] revealed its on-going efforts to negotiate with authorities to regularize its activities in the country. The church has had expatriate members worshiping in China for a few decades previous to this, but with restrictions.<ref name="lds">{{cite press release|url=https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/church-in-talks-to-regularize-activities-in-china|title=Church in Talks to "Regularize" Activities in China|date=August 30, 2010|access-date=September 2, 2010}}</ref> On March 31, 2020, during its [[General Conference (LDS Church)|general conference]], the church announced its intent to build a [[Temple (LDS Church)|temple]] in Shanghai as a "modest multipurpose meetinghouse."<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/new-temples-april-2020-general-conference|title=Prophet Announces Eight New Temples at General Conference|date=2020-04-05|website=newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org|language=en|access-date=2020-04-06}}</ref> However, the Shanghai Municipal Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau said twice it knew nothing about these plans to build a temple, remarking that these plans were "wishful thinking, not based in reality."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Plans for an LDS temple in Shanghai may have hit an obstacle |url=https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2020/04/29/plans-an-lds-temple/ |access-date=2024-12-26 |website=The Salt Lake Tribune |language=en-US}}</ref> In 2024, an article from the Church showed that the Shanghai location had been omitted from the list of temples Church President Russell M. Nelson had announced.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-10-04 |title=What's the current status for each of the 168 temples announced by President Nelson? |url=https://www.thechurchnews.com/temples/2024/10/04/status-update-168-temples-announced-russell-m-nelson/ |access-date=2024-12-26 |website=Church News |language=en}}</ref>

==== Other movements ====
The [[Sino-Christian theology|Sino-Christian theology movement]] promotes a contextual-historicist approach to Christianity in China.<ref name=":02">{{Cite book |last=Tu |first=Hang |title=Sentimental Republic: Chinese Intellectuals and the Maoist Past |publisher=[[Harvard University Asia Center]] |year=2025 |isbn=9780674297579}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=167-168}} This movement was strongly influenced by the 1990s writings of [[Liu Xiaofeng (academic)|Liu Xiaofeng]].<ref name=":02" />{{Rp|page=168}} 

[[Cultural Christians]] in China include intellectuals who participate in the study of Christian culture and its application to China but who do not have specific church associations.<ref name=":02" />{{Rp|page=168}}

==Demographics and geography==
[[File:Huazhong University of Science and Technology - eastern zone - cafeteria and student services center - P1040921.JPG|thumb|"Merry Christmas" signs (usually only in English) are common in China during the winter holiday season, even in areas with little sign of Christian observance]]

=== Mainland China ===
[[File:Wuhan - former Methodist church, now Crown Bakery - interior - P1050063.JPG|thumb|The interior of a former Methodist church in [[Wuhan]], converted to an upscale pastry shop with a Christian-themed decor]]
Although a number of factors—the vast Chinese population and the characteristic Chinese approach to religion among others—contribute to a difficulty to obtain empirical data on the number of Christians in China, a series of surveys have been conducted and published by different agencies. Government figures only count adult baptized members of government sanctioned churches. Thus they generally do not include un-baptized persons attending Christian groups, non-adult children of Christian believers or other persons under age 18 and they generally do not take into account unregistered Christian groups.<ref name="Lambert-Tony">Lambert, Tony. ''Counting Christians in China: A Cautionary Report''. International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 2003, vol. 27, no 1, p. 6-10.</ref> There is often significant overlap between the membership of registered and unregistered Christian bodies, as a large number of people attend both registered and unregistered churches.<ref name="Miller, 2006. p. 185"/>
[[File:Tianjin Xikai cathedral interior 0720.JPG|thumb|[[St. Joseph Cathedral (Tianjin)|St. Joseph Cathedral]] in [[Tianjin]]]]
[[File:Service at Haidian Church.jpg|thumb|Inside [[Haidian Christian Church]] in Beijing]]
[[File:People singing chant.JPG|thumb|A house church in Shunyi, Beijing]]
;Official membership
As of 2023, there are approximately 44 million Chinese Christians registered with government-approved Christian groups.<ref name=":92">{{Cite book |last=Klára |first=Dubravčíková |title=Contemporary China: a New Superpower? |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-03-239508-1 |editor-last=Kironska |editor-first=Kristina |chapter=Religions, Traditions, and Values |editor-last2=Turscanyi |editor-first2=Richard Q.}}</ref>{{Rp|page=51}}
* The [[Three-Self Church]] had a membership of 20 million people as of 2012.<ref name="Wenzel-Teuber2012"/>
* The [[Catholic Patriotic Church]] had a membership of 6 million people as of 2012.<ref name="Wenzel-Teuber2012"/>

====Independent surveys====
* {{not a typo|2005/2006/2007}}: three surveys of religions in China conducted in those years by the Horizon Research Consultancy Group on a disproportionately urban and suburban sampling, found that Christians constituted between 2% and 4% of the total population.<ref>[[Pew Research Center]]'s Religion and Public Life Project: ''[http://www.pewforum.org/2008/05/01/religion-in-china-on-the-eve-of-the-2008-beijing-olympics/ Religion in China on the Eve of the 2008 Beijing Olympics]'', publishing the results of the 2005, 2006 and 2007 surveys of the Horizon Research Consultancy Group.</ref>
* 2007: two surveys were conducted that year to count the number of Christians in China. One of them was conducted by the Protestant missionary Werner Bürklin, founder of "China Partner", an international Christian organisation, and his team of 7,409 surveyors in every province and municipality of China. The other survey was conducted by professor Liu Zhongyu of the East China Normal University of Shanghai. The surveys were conducted independently and along different periods of time, but they reached the same results.<ref name=assist>Mark Ellis: [http://www.assistnews.net/STORIES/2007/s07100011.htm China Survey Reveals Fewer Christians than Some Evangelicals Want to Believe] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120104012913/http://www.assistnews.net/STORIES/2007/s07100011.htm |date=2012-01-04 }} ASSIST News Service, October 1, 2007.</ref><ref name=examiner>Mark Ellis: [http://www.christianexaminer.com/Articles/Articles%20Nov07/Art_Nov07_17.html New China survey reveals fewer Christians than most estimates] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130513115559/http://www.christianexaminer.com/Articles/Articles%20Nov07/Art_Nov07_17.html |date=2013-05-13 }} ''Christian Examiner,'' November 2007.</ref> According to the analyses, there were approximately 54 million Christians in China (≈4% of the total population), of whom 39 million were Protestants and 14 million were Catholics.<ref name=assist /><ref name=examiner />
* 2008: a survey of religions conducted in that year by Yu Tao of the [[University of Oxford]] with a survey scheme led and supervised by the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP) and the [[Peking University]], analysing the rural populations of the six provinces of [[Jiangsu]], [[Sichuan]], [[Shaanxi]], [[Jilin]], [[Hebei]] and [[Fujian]], each representing different geographic and economic regions of China, found that Christians constituted approximately 4% of the population, of whom 3.54% were Protestants and 0.49% were Catholics.<ref name="ECRAN2012">Yu Tao, University of Oxford. ''[https://www.academia.edu/4943529/A_Solo_a_Duet_or_an_Ensemble_Analysing_the_Recent_Development_of_Religious_Communities_in_Contemporary_Rural_China A Solo, a Duet, or an Ensemble? Analysing the Recent Development of Religious Communities in Contemporary Rural China]''. ECRAN – Europe-China Research and Advice Network. University of Nottingham, 2012.</ref>
* 2008–2009: a household survey conducted by the [[Chinese Academy of Social Sciences]] (CASS) counted 23 million Protestants (independent and registered) in China.<ref name="Wenzel-Teuber2012"/>
* 2010: the "Chinese Spiritual Life Survey" counted 33 million Christians (≈2% of the total population), of whom 30 million Protestants and 3 million Catholics.<ref name="CSLS2010">2010 Chinese Spiritual Life Survey conducted by Dr. Yang Fenggang, Purdue University's Center on Religion and Chinese Society. Statistics published in: Katharina Wenzel-Teuber, David Strait. ''[http://www.china-zentrum.de/fileadmin/redaktion/RCTC_2012-3.29-54_Wenzel-Teuber_Statistical_Overview_2011.pdf People's Republic of China: Religions and Churches Statistical Overview 2011] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303184353/http://www.china-zentrum.de/fileadmin/redaktion/RCTC_2012-3.29-54_Wenzel-Teuber_Statistical_Overview_2011.pdf |date=2016-03-03 }}''. Religions & Christianity in Today's China, Vol. II, 2012, No. 3, pp. 29–54, {{ISSN|2192-9289}}.</ref>
* 2011: a survey conducted by the Baylor's Empirical Study of Values in China (ESVC) found 2.5% (≈30 to 40 million) of the population of China self-identifying as Christian.<ref>Marsh, 2011. p. 231</ref>
* 2012: a survey conducted by the [[China Family Panel Studies]] (CFPS) institute, found Christians forming 2.4% of the population of Han China, or between 30 and 40 million people in absolute numbers.<ref name="CFPS2012-011-012">[[China Family Panel Studies]]'s survey of 2012. Published on: ''The World Religious Cultures'' issue 2014: 卢云峰：当代中国宗教状况报告——基于CFPS（2012）调查数据. {{Cite web |url=http://iwr.cass.cn/zjwh/201403/W020140303370398758556.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=13 December 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140809051625/http://iwr.cass.cn/zjwh/201403/W020140303370398758556.pdf |archive-date=9 August 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Of these, 1.9% were Protestants and 0.4% were Catholics.<ref name="CFPS2012-011-012"/>
* Surveys on religion in China conducted in the years 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2011 by the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) of the [[Renmin University]] found that people self-identifying as Christians were, respectively for each year, 2.1%, 2.2%, 2.1% and 2.6% of the total population.<ref name="CFPS2012p13CGSS">[[China Family Panel Studies]]'s survey of 2012. Published on: ''The World Religious Cultures'' issue 2014: 卢云峰：当代中国宗教状况报告——基于CFPS（2012）调查数据. p. 13, reporting the results of the Renmin University's Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) for the years 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2011. {{Cite web |url=http://iwr.cass.cn/zjwh/201403/W020140303370398758556.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=13 December 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140809051625/http://iwr.cass.cn/zjwh/201403/W020140303370398758556.pdf |archive-date=9 August 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

====Estimates====
* 2010: the [[Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life]] estimated over 67 million Christians in China,<ref name="pew2011">[http://www.pewforum.org/uploadedFiles/Topics/Religious_Affiliation/Christian/ChristianityAppendixC.pdf The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: "Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Christian Population – Appendix C: Methodology for China"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130717200604/http://www.pewforum.org/uploadedFiles/Topics/Religious_Affiliation/Christian/ChristianityAppendixC.pdf |date=2013-07-17 }} December 19, 2011</ref> of which 35 million "independent" Protestants, 23 million Three-Self Protestants, 9 million Catholics and 20,000 Orthodox Christians.<ref name="Wenzel-Teuber2012"/>
* 2014: scholars at a conference for the 60th anniversary of the Three-Self Church showed that China has about 23 million to 40 million Protestants, 1.7% to 2.9% of the total population.<ref name="rmrb20140805">[http://society.people.com.cn/n/2014/0805/c1008-25408758.html 中国基督教三自爱国运动委员会成立60周年纪念会举行], August, 5th 2014, People's Daily</ref> Each year, about 500,000 people are baptized as Protestants.<ref>[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-08/07/content_18262848.htm China plans establishment of Christian theology], Wang Hongyi, ''[[China Daily]]'', 2014-08-07</ref>

Protestants concentrate mainly in three regions: [[Henan]], [[Anhui]] and [[Zhejiang]].<ref name="Miller, 2006. p. 186">Miller, 2006. p. 186</ref> In these provinces the Christian population is in the millions, yet small in percentage. For instance, in Zhejiang 2.8% of the population is officially Protestant as of 1999, higher than the national average.<ref name="Miller, 2006. p. 186"/> In [[Wenzhou]], a city of Zhejiang, about one million people (approximately 11%) are Christians, the highest concentration in one city.<ref>Nanlai Cao. ''Constructing China's Jerusalem: Christians, Power and Place in the City of Wenzhou''. Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2010, 232 pp., Chapter One</ref> The Protestant population consists predominantly of illiterate or semi-illiterate people, elderly people and women.<ref name="Miller, 2006. p. 186"/> These characteristics are confirmed by the findings of the Yu Tao survey of 2008, which also found that Protestantism has the lowest proportion of believers who are at the same time members of the CCP in comparison to other religions,<ref name="ECRAN2012"/> and by the [[China Family Panel Studies]]' survey of 2012.<ref name="CFPS2012p17"/>

The province of [[Hebei]] has a concentration of Catholics and is also home to the town of [[Donglu]], site of an alleged [[Marian apparition]] and pilgrimage center. According to the Yu Tao survey of 2008, the Catholic population, though much smaller than that of the Protestants, is nevertheless younger, wealthier and better educated.<ref name="ECRAN2012"/> The survey also found that Christianity overall has a higher proportion of [[ethnic minorities in China|ethnic minority]] believers than the other religions.<ref name="ECRAN2012"/>

Controversy exists regarding the veracity of estimates published by some sources. For example, Gerda Wielander (2013) has claimed that estimates of the number of Christians in China that have been spread by Western media may have been highly inflated.<ref name="Wieland, 2013. p. 3"/> For instance, according to Asia Harvest, a US non-profit organization and "inter-denominational Christian ministry", there were 105 millions Christians in China in 2011. The compiler of these figures, Paul Hattaway, indicates that his figures are his own estimate, based on more than 2,000 published sources such as Internet reports, journals, and books, as well as interviews with house church leaders.<ref>[http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/50f946dd2.pdf China – CHN39868 – Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) – China Christian Council (CCC) – Shijiazhuang], Country Advice China, Refugee Review Tribunal, Australian Government</ref> The study points out that "owing to the difficulties of conducting such a [study] in China today – not the least of which is the sheer size of the country – there is [in the study's rough estimation] a margin of error of 20 percent."<ref name="pew2011"/> Citing one of the aforementioned surveys, Gerda Wielander says that the actual number of Christians is around 30 million.<ref name="Wieland, 2013. p. 3"/> Similarly, missionary researcher Tony Lambert has highlighted that an estimate of "one hundred million Chinese Christians" was already being spread by American Christian media in 1983, and has been further exaggerated, through a chain of misquotations, in the 2000s.<ref>Tony Lambert, ''Counting Christians in China: a cautionary report''. International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 1/1/2003, p. 1</ref> Christopher Marsh (2011) too has been critical of these overestimations.<ref name="auto"/> On 6 January 2015, David Ferguson published on the ''[[People's Daily]]'' the [[news satire|satirical news]] ''Merry Christmas, 100 million Chinese!'' criticising such type of journalism.<ref name="en.people.cn">David Ferguson. ''[http://en.people.cn/n/2015/0106/c98649-8832100.html ''Merry Christmas, 100 million Chinese!'']''. [[People's Daily]] Online, 6th January 2015. Retrieved 11-08-2015.</ref>

{| style="with:100%"
| style="width:50%" |
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Christianity by the years, CGSS surveys<ref name="CFPS2012p13CGSS"/>
|-
!rowspan="1"|Denomination
!colspan="1"|2006
!colspan="1"|2008
!colspan="1"|2010
!colspan="1"|2011
!colspan="1"|Average
|-
|Catholic||align=center|0.3%||align=center|0.1%||align=center|0.2%||align=center|0.4%||align=center|0.3%
|-
|Protestant||align=center|1.8%||align=center|2.1%||align=center|1.9%||align=center|2.2%||align=center|2.0%
|-
|'''Total Christian'''||align=center|2.1%||align=center|2.2%||align=center|2.1%||align=center|2.6%||align=center|2.3%
|}
| style="width:50%" |
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Christianity by age group, CFPS 2012<ref name="CFPS2012p17">[[China Family Panel Studies]]'s survey of 2012. Published on: ''The World Religious Cultures'' issue 2014: 卢云峰：当代中国宗教状况报告——基于CFPS（2012）调查数据. p. 17. {{Cite web |url=http://iwr.cass.cn/zjwh/201403/W020140303370398758556.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=13 December 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140809051625/http://iwr.cass.cn/zjwh/201403/W020140303370398758556.pdf |archive-date=9 August 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
|-
!rowspan="1"|Denomination
!colspan="1"|60+
!colspan="1"|50—60
!colspan="1"|40—50
!colspan="1"|30—40
!colspan="1"|30-
|-
|Catholic||align=center|0.3%||align=center|0.3%||align=center|0.6%||align=center|0.1%||align=center|0.3%
|-
|Protestant||align=center|2.6%||align=center|2.0%||align=center|1.9%||align=center|1.1%||align=center|1.2%
|-
|'''Total Christian'''||align=center|2.9%||align=center|2.3%||align=center|2.5%||align=center|1.2%||align=center|1.5%
|}
|}

====Demographics by province====
{| style="with:100%"
| style="width:60%" |
{| class="sortable wikitable"
|+ Christian population by province in 2009<ref name="Wang2015">China General Social Survey (CGSS) 2009. Results reported in: [https://baylor-ir.tdl.org/baylor-ir/bitstream/handle/2104/9326/WANG-THESIS-2015.pdf?sequence=1 Xiuhua Wang, ''Explaining Christianity in China'' (2015, p. 15)] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925123928/https://baylor-ir.tdl.org/baylor-ir/bitstream/handle/2104/9326/WANG-THESIS-2015.pdf?sequence=1 |date=September 25, 2015 }}.</ref>{{NoteTag|Data for Gansu, Guangdong, Liaoning, Henan, and Shanghai is updated according to the findings of the China Family Panel Studies of 2012.<ref name="CFPS2012-011-012" />}}
|-
! Province !! Population !! Christian % !! Christians' number
|-
| [[Beijing|Beijing Municipality]]|| 19,612,368 || 0.78% || [[Christianity In Beijin|152,976]]
|-
| [[Tianjin|Tianjin Municipality]]|| 12,938,224 || 1.51% || [[Christianity In Tianjin|195,367]]
|-
| [[Hebei|Hebei Province]]|| 71,854,202 || 3.05% || [[Christianity in Hebei|2,191,553]]
|-
| [[Shanxi|Shanxi Province]]|| 35,712,111 || 2.17% || [[Christianity in Shaanxi|774,953]]
|-
| [[Inner Mongolia|Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region]]|| 24,706,321 || 2% || [[Christianity in Inner Mongolia|494,126]]
|-
| [[Liaoning|Liaoning Province]]|| 43,746,323 || 2.2% || [[Christianity in Liaoning|962,419]]
|-
| [[Jilin|Jilin Province]]|| 27,462,297 || 2% || [[Christianity in Jilin|549,246]]
|-
| [[Heilongjiang|Heilongjiang Province]]|| 38,312,224 || 2.2% || [[Christianity in Heilongjiang|843,033]]
|-
| [[Shanghai|Shanghai Municipality]]|| 23,019,148 || 2.6% || [[Christianity in Shanghai|598,498]]
|-
| [[Jiangsu|Jiangsu Province]]|| 78,659,903 || 2.64% || [[Christianity in Jiangsu|2,076,621]]
|-
| [[Zhejiang|Zhejiang Province]]|| 54,426,891 || 2.62% || [[Christianity in Zhejiang|1,425,984]]
|-
| [[Anhui|Anhui Province]]|| 59,500,510 || 5.30% || [[Christianity in Anhui|3,153,527]]
|-
| [[Fujian|Fujian Province]]|| 36,894,216 || 3.5% || [[Christianity in Fujian|1,291,298]]
|-
| [[Jiangxi|Jiangxi Province]]|| 44,567,475 || 2.31% || [[Christianity in Jiangxi|1,029,508]]
|-
| [[Shandong|Shandong Province]]|| 95,793,065|| 1.21% || [[Christianity in Shandong|1,159,096]]
|-
| [[Henan|Henan Province]]|| 94,023,567 || 6.1% || [[Christianity in Henan|5,735,437]]
|-
| [[Hubei|Hubei Province]]|| 57,237,740 || 0.58% || [[Christianity in Hebei|331,979]]
|-
| [[Hunan|Hunan Province]]|| 65,683,722 || 0.77% || [[Christianity in Hunan|505,765]]
|-
| [[Guangdong|Guangdong Province]]|| 104,303,132 || 1% || [[Christianity in Guangdong|1,043,031]]
|-
| [[Guangxi|Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region]]|| 46,026,629 || 0.26% || [[Christianity In Guangxi|119,669]]
|-
| [[Hainan|Hainan Province]]<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wang |first=Xiuhua |title=ABSTRACT Explaining Christianity in China: Why a Foreign Religion has Taken Root in Unfertile Ground |url=https://baylor-ir.tdl.org/baylor-ir/bitstream/handle/2104/9326/WANG-THESIS-2015.pdf?sequence=1 |pages=23 |access-date=2017-06-08 |archive-date=2015-09-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925123928/https://baylor-ir.tdl.org/baylor-ir/bitstream/handle/2104/9326/WANG-THESIS-2015.pdf?sequence=1 |url-status=dead }}</ref>|| 8,671,518 || 0.48% || [[Christianity in Hainan|~41,623]]
|-
| [[Chongqing|Chongqing Municipality]]|| 28,846,170 || 1.05% || [[Christianity in Chongqing|302,885]]
|-
| [[Sichuan|Sichuan Province]]|| 80,418,200 || 0.68% || [[Christianity in Sichuan|546,844]]
|-
| [[Guizhou|Guizhou Province]]|| 34,746,468 || 0.99% || [[Christianity in Guizhou|343,990]]
|-
| [[Yunnan|Yunnan Province]]|| 45,966,239 || 1.3% || [[Christianity in Yunnan|597,561]]
|-
| [[Tibet Autonomous Region]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=China (Includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau) 2012 International Religious Freedom Report |url=https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/208434.pdf |page=20}}</ref>|| 3,002,166 || 0.23% || [[Christianity in Tibet|700]] (Catholics only)
|-
| [[Shaanxi|Shaanxi Province]]|| 37,327,378 || 1.57% || [[Catholic Church in Shaanxi|586,040]]
|-
| [[Gansu|Gansu Province]]|| 25,575,254 || 0.5% || [[Christianity in Gansu|127,876]]
|-
| [[Qinghai|Qinghai Province]]|| 5,626,722 || 0.76% || [[Christianity in Qinghai|42,763]]
|-
| [[Ningxia|Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region]]|| 6,301,350 || 1.17% || [[Christianity in Ningxia|73,726]]
|-
| [[Xinjiang|Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region]]|| 21,813,334 || 1% || [[Christianity in Xinjiang|218,133]]
|-
| [[Hong Kong|Hong Kong Special Administrative Region]]|| 7,061,200 || 11.7% || [[Christianity in Hong Kong|826,160]]
|-
| [[Macau|Macau Special Administrative Region]]|| 552,300 || 5% || [[Christianity in Macau|27,615]]
|-
| '''Total'''      || '''1,340,388,467''' || '''2.1%''' || '''28,327,679'''
|-
|}
| style="width:40%" |
[[File:Christianity in China (Chinese General Social Survey 2009).png|thumb|left|400px|Mapping of Christianity in China by province according to the surveys.]]
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+ Percentage of Christians (both registered and unregistered) by province according to the CFPS survey of 2012<ref name="CFPS2012-011-012"/>
|-
! Province
! Protestants
! Catholics
! Total Christians
|- style="text-align:center;"
| Gansu
| 0.4%
| 0.1%
| 0.5%
|- style="text-align:center;"
| Guangdong
| 0.8%
| 0.2%
| 1%
|- style="text-align:center;"
| Liaoning
| 2.1%
| 0.1%
| 2.2%
|- style="text-align:center;"
| Henan
| 5.6%
| 0.5%
| 6.1%
|- style="text-align:center;"
| Shanghai
| 1.9%
| 0.7%
| 2.6%
|- style="background:#9ff;"
! China{{NoteTag|Data for all provinces with [[Han Chinese]] majority, excluding [[Hainan]], [[Hong Kong]], [[Inner Mongolia]], [[Macau]], [[Ningxia]], [[Qinghai]], [[Tibet Autonomous Region|Tibet]] and [[Xinjiang]].}}
! 1.89%
! 0.41%
! 2.3%
|}
{| class="wikitable" style="width:400px;"
|+ Weighed proportion of Christians on the combined population of the six provinces of Jiangsu, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Jilin, Hebei and Fujian according to the Yu Tao—CCAP—[[Peking University|PU]] survey of 2008<ref name="ECRAN2012" />
|-
| Protestantism || 3.54%
|-
| Catholicism || 0.39%
|-
| '''Total Christianity''' || '''3.93%'''
|}
|}

====Special administrations====

=====Hong Kong=====
{{Main|Christianity in Hong Kong}}
[[File:HK Mid-levels Caritas Centre 聖母無原罪主教座堂（The Hong Kong Catholic Cathedral of The Immaculate Conception interior 十字架 Nov-2010.JPG|thumb|right|[[Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (Hong Kong)|Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception]] in Hong Kong]]
Christianity has been practiced in Hong Kong since 1841. As of 2022, there were about 1.3 million Christians in Hong Kong (16% of the total population), most of them are [[Protestant]] (around 900,000) and [[Catholic Church in Hong Kong|Catholic]] (around 401,000).<ref>{{Cite web|title=Hong Kong Yearbook 2021|url=https://www.yearbook.gov.hk/2021/en/pdf/E21.pdf|publisher=Hong Kong Special Administrative Region}}</ref>

=====Macau=====
{{Main|Religion in Macau}}
[[File:StDominicsMacau.JPG|thumb|[[St. Dominic's Church (Macau)|St. Dominic's Church]] in Macau is one of the oldest (AD 1587) existing churches in China built by three Spanish [[Dominican Order|Dominican]] priests]]

As of 2010 approximately 5% of the population of [[Macau]] self-identifies as Christian, predominantly Catholic.<ref name="stats2009">Zheng, VWT; Wan, PS. ''Religious beliefs and life experiences of Macao's residents'' 澳門居民的宗教信仰與生活經驗. On: ''Modern China Studies'' by Center for Modern China, 2010, v. 17 n. 4, p. 91-126. {{ISSN|2160-0295}}. «Drawing on empirical data obtained from three consecutive territory-wide household surveys conducted in 2005, 2007, and 2009 respectively, this paper attempts to shed light on the current religious profile of Macao residents.»</ref> Catholic missionaries were the first to arrive in [[Macau]]. In 1535, Portuguese traders obtained the rights to anchor ships in Macau's harbours and to carry out trading activities, though not the right to stay onshore. Around 1552–1553, they obtained temporary permission to erect storage sheds onshore, in order to dry out goods drenched by sea water; they soon built rudimentary stone houses around the area now called Nam Van. In 1576, [[Pope Gregory XIII]] established the [[Diocese of Macau]]. In 1583, the Portuguese in Macau were permitted to form a Senate to handle various issues concerning their social and economic affairs under strict supervision of the Chinese authority, but there was no transfer of sovereignty.<ref name="Macau history in Macau encyclopedia">{{cite web|url=http://www.macaudata.com/macauweb/Encyclopedia/html/44907.htm |title=The entry "Macau history" in Macau Encyclopedia |access-date=2 January 2008 |publisher=Macau Foundation |language=zh |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071013210914/http://macaudata.com/macauweb/Encyclopedia/html/44907.htm |archive-date=13 October 2007 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Macau prospered as a port but was the target of repeated failed attempts by the [[Netherlands|Dutch]] to conquer it in the 17th century. [[Cai Gao]] was the first mainland Chinese convert of the [[Protestant missions in China 1807–1953|19th-century Protestant missions]]. He was baptized by [[Robert Morrison (missionary)|Robert Morrison]] at [[Macau]] in 1814.

====Autonomous regions====

=====Inner Mongolia=====
{{Further|Christianity in Inner Mongolia}}

=====Tibet=====
{{Further|Religion in Tibet}}
The Qing government permitted Christian missionaries to enter and proselytize in Tibetan lands, in order to weaken the power of the [[Tibetan Buddhism|Tibetan Buddhist]] lamas, who refused to give allegiance to the Chinese. The Tibetan lamas were alarmed by Catholic missionaries converting natives to Catholicism. During the 1905 Tibetan Rebellion the Tibetan Buddhist [[Gelug]] Yellow Hat sect led a Tibetan revolt, with Tibetan men being led by lamas against Chinese officials, western Christian missionaries and native Christian converts.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8pgsAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA2-PA17|title=East India (Tibet): Papers relating to Tibet <nowiki>[and Further papers ...]</nowiki>, Issues 2–4|author=Great Britain. Foreign Office, India. Foreign and Political Dept, India. Governor-General|year=1904|publisher=Printed for H. M. Stationery Off., by Darling|page=17|access-date=2011-06-28}}</ref> Wine making vineyards were left behind by them.<ref>{{cite news |last=Grover |first=Amar |date= 8 July 2016 |title=Yunnan Province, China's spectacular Shangri-La |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/travel/yunnan-province-chinas-spectacular-shangri-la/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/travel/yunnan-province-chinas-spectacular-shangri-la/ |archive-date=2022-01-12 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |newspaper=The Telegraph }}{{cbignore}}{{cite news |last=McCoy |first=Elin |date=April 19, 2016 |title= Tasting China's New, $250-a-Bottle Luxury Wine, Backed by LVMH |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-19/ao-yun-taste-testing-china-s-first-true-luxury-wine |newspaper=Bloomberg Pursuits }}{{cite news |date=Feb 11, 2016 |title=The Mekong |url=https://www.economist.com/news/essays/21689225-can-one-world-s-great-waterways-survive-its-development |newspaper=The Economist }}{{cite news |last=Steinberg |first=Jordan |date=April 22, 2016 |title=Moët Hennessy set to debut first luxury Yunnan wine |url=http://www.gokunming.com/en/blog/item/3726/mot_hennessy_set_to_debut_first_luxury_yunnan_wine |newspaper=GoKunming }}{{cite news |last=Schmitt |first=Patrick |date=June 2, 2016 |title=Moët's Chinese wine 'a logistical nightmare' |url=https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2016/06/moets-chinese-wine-a-logistical-nightmare/ |newspaper=The Drinks Business }}{{cite magazine |last=Robinson |first=Jancis |date=February 8, 2016 |title=China's Wine Promise |url=http://www.sommelierindia.com/chinas-wine-promise/ |newspaper=Sommelier India – India's Premier Wine Magazine |number=1 }}{{cite news |author=Staff |title=China now boasts more wine-making vineyards than France |url=http://globalnews.ca/news/1965127/china-now-boasts-more-wine-making-vineyards-than-france/ |newspaper=The Associated Press |location=Paris }}{{cite news |last=Scally |first= Patrick |date=April 30, 2015 |title=Moët Hennessy to debut Yunnan wine this fall |url=http://www.gokunming.com/en/blog/item/3480/mot_hennessy_to_debut_yunnan_wine_this_fall |newspaper=GoKunming }}{{cite news |last=McCoy |first=Elin |date=April 28, 2016 |title= Tasting China's new, $250-a-bottle luxury wine, backed by LVMH|url=http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Arts&Leisure&title=tasting-chinas-new-250-a-bottle-luxury-wine-backed-by-lvmh&id=126634 |newspaper=Bloomberg }}</ref>

=====Xinjiang=====
{{Further|Christianity in Xinjiang}}
[[Christianity]] is a minority religion in the [[Xinjiang]] region of the [[People's Republic of China]]. The dominant ethnic group, the [[Uyghur people|Uygur]], are predominantly [[Muslim]] and very few are known to be Christian.

In 1904, [[George W. Hunter (missionary)|George Hunter]] with the [[China Inland Mission]] opened the first mission station for CIM in [[Xinjiang]]. But already in 1892, the [[Mission Covenant Church of Sweden]] started missions in the area around [[Kashgar]], and later built mission stations, churches, hospitals and schools in [[Yarkant County|Yarkant]] and [[Yengisar]]. In the 1930s there were several hundreds of Christians among this people, but because of persecution the churches were destroyed and the believers were scattered. The missionaries were forced to leave because of ethnic and factional battles during the [[Kumul Rebellion]] in the late 1930s.<ref name="autogenerated1">{{cite book | first = Patrick | last = Johnstone | year = 2001 | title = Operation World | publisher = Paternoster | location = London}} p.167; For more on the Swedish mission in Xinjiang see John Hultvall (1981), ''[http://equmeniakyrkan.se/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Hultvall-ENG.pdf Mission and Revolution in Central Asia]''</ref>

===== Guangxi =====
Rapid church growth is reported to have taken place among the [[Zhuang people]] in the early 1990s.<ref name=autogenerated3 /> Though still predominantly Buddhist and animistic, the region of [[Guangxi]] was first visited in 1877 by Protestant missionary Edward Fishe of the [[China Inland Mission]]. He died the same year.

==Art and media==
[[Christian art]] is an important part of expressing faith for Christians, archeological sites containing [[early Christian art and architecture]] can be found throughout China and are protected by the government as Chinese antiquities.<ref name="Clarke 2013 pp. 15–48">{{cite book | last=Clarke | first=Jeremy | title=The Virgin Mary and Catholic Identities in Chinese History | chapter=Chinese Christian art during the pre-modern period | publisher=Hong Kong University Press | date=August 1, 2013 | doi=10.5790/hongkong/9789888139996.003.0001 | pages=15–48| isbn=9789888139996 }}</ref>

There is [[Christian media]] produced in China. The Christian magazine [[Tian Feng (magazine)|''Tian Feng'']] has a large reach, as do the [[academic journal]]s ''[[Chinese Theological Review]]'' and ''[[Nanjing Theological Review]]''. The Bible is translated into Chinese, such as the [[Chinese New Version]], [[Chinese Union Version]], [[Delegates' Version]], [[Studium Biblicum Version]], and [[Today's Chinese Version]]. Hymnals include ''[[Canaan Hymns]]'' and ''[[Chinese New Hymnal]]''. [[Contemporary Christian music]] is available on streaming services like [[QQ Music]].<ref name="QQ Relient K">{{cite web | title=Relient K | website=QQ音乐 | date=July 6, 2020 | url=https://y.qq.com/n/ryqq/singer/0044MvoO0W1OYi | access-date=March 5, 2023}}</ref><ref name="QQ Lecrae">{{cite web | title=Lecrae | website=QQ音乐 | date=July 6, 2020 | url=https://y.qq.com/n/ryqq/singer/003LGZQk1DlBpT | access-date=March 5, 2023}}</ref><ref name="QQ DC Talk">{{cite web | title=DC Talk | website=QQ音乐 | date=July 6, 2020 | url=https://y.qq.com/n/ryqq/singer/003ueyim2SNbpo | access-date=March 5, 2023}}</ref><ref name="QQ Veggietales">{{cite web | title=VeggieTales | website=QQ音乐 | date=April 24, 2022 | url=https://y.qq.com/n/ryqq/singer/0036ZMZx4bZkql | access-date=March 5, 2023}}</ref>

Foreign Christian media is handled differently than other forms of foreign media, as the China Film Administration and [[National Radio and Television Administration]] sees it as a distinctive expression of Christian faith. The [[Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party]] instead relegates the task of releasing and translation of foreign [[Christian film industry|Christian films]] and [[Christian literature]] to the [[State Administration for Religious Affairs]], and the various [[Catholic Patriotic Association]], [[China Christian Council]], and [[Three-Self Patriotic Movement]] denominations. Christian television series such as ''[[Superbook (1981 TV series)|Superbook]]'', ''[[The Chosen (TV series)|The Chosen]]'', and ''[[Duck Dynasty]]'' are widely available in China, and are oftentimes even dubbed into Chinese.<ref name="CBN.com">{{cite web | title=Superbook Premieres in Mandarin Chinese < Outreach | website=CBN.com | url=https://www.cbn.com/partners/outreach/SBK20_He_is_Risen_preview_party.aspx | access-date=March 5, 2023}}</ref><ref name="Foust 2021">{{cite web | last=Foust | first=Michael | title='The Chosen' Expands to 90 Languages: 'We Won't Stop' Until 'Jesus Comes,' Producer Says | website=ChristianHeadlines.com | date=August 20, 2021 | url=https://www.christianheadlines.com/blog/the-chosen-expands-to-90-languages-we-wont-stop-until-jesus-comes-producer-says.html | access-date=March 5, 2023}}</ref><ref name="网易 2013">{{cite web | title=一周美剧收视：《鸭子王朝》首播登顶收视排行榜 | website=网易 | date=August 23, 2013 | url=https://www.163.com/ent/article/96ULR5ST00031GVS.html | language=zh | access-date=March 5, 2023}}</ref> [[Christian video games]] and interactive media are also accessible in Chinese, including the [[YouVersion]] Bible app and ''Superbook'' games.<ref name="Storch 2010">{{cite web | last=Storch | first=Terry | title=YouVersion.com: Now in Simplified and Traditional Chinese | website=YouVersion | date=December 28, 2010 | url=https://blog.youversion.com/2010/12/youversion-com-now-in-simplified-and-traditional-chinese/ | access-date=March 5, 2023}}</ref>

==Restrictions and international interest==
{{See also|Anti-Christian sentiment in China}}
[[File:Kuanjie Protestant Christian Church (George W. Bush).jpg|thumb|U.S. President George W. Bush at the [[Three-Self Patriotic Movement|Three-Self]] [[Kuanjie Protestant Church]] in 2008.]]
In large cities with international links such as Beijing, foreign visitors have established Christian communities which meet in public establishments such as hotels and, sometimes, local churches. These fellowships, however, are typically restricted only to holders of non-Chinese passports.

American [[evangelism|evangelist]] [[Billy Graham]] visited China in 1988 with his wife [[Ruth Bell Graham|Ruth]]; it was a homecoming for her since she had been born in China to missionary parents [[L. Nelson Bell]] and his wife Virginia.<ref name="baptisthistory">{{cite news |title= Billy Graham: an appreciation: wherever one travels around the world, the names of three Baptists are immediately known and appreciated—Jimmy Carter, Billy Graham and Martin Luther King, Jr. One is a politician, one an evangelist, and the other was a civil rights leader. All of them have given Baptists and the Christian faith a good reputation. (Biography) |url= http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-87912863.html|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110829105151/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-87912863.html|url-status= dead|archive-date= August 29, 2011|publisher=Baptist History and Heritage |date=June 22, 2006 |access-date=2007-08-18}}</ref>

Since the 1980s, U.S. officials visiting China have on multiple occasions visited Chinese churches, including [[President of the United States|President]] [[George W. Bush]], who attended one of [[Beijing]]'s five officially recognized Protestant churches during a November 2005 Asia tour,<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/19/AR2005111901286_pf.html |title=Bush Attends Beijing Church, Promoting Religious Freedom |author-first1=Peter|author-last1=Baker|author-first2=Philip P. |author-last2=Pan|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=2005-11-19 |access-date=2012-02-29}}</ref> and the [[Kuanjie Protestant Church]] in 2008.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://chinaaid.org/2008/08/10/president-bush-visited-officially-staged-church-service-house-church-pastor-hua-huiqi-arrested-and-escaped-from-police-custody/|title=President Bush Visited Officially Staged Church Service; House Church Pastor Hua Huiqi Arrested and Escaped from Police Custody|date=2008-08-10|access-date=2008-08-10|work=China Aid}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.beijingnews.net/story/392406|title=Bush visits controversial Beijing church|date=2008-08-10|access-date=2008-08-10|work=Beijing News|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110723024205/http://www.beijingnews.net/story/392406|archive-date=2011-07-23|url-status=dead}}</ref> [[United States Secretary of State|Secretary of State]] [[Condoleezza Rice]] attended [[Palm Sunday]] services in Beijing in 2005.

The law does not define "proselytization", but the constitution states that nobody can force a citizen to believe or not believe in a religion;<ref name=US2022>[https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-report-on-international-religious-freedom/China  US State Dept 2022 report]</ref> new laws in 2022 required anyone preaching online to apply for a permit for proselytizing.

During the [[2008 Summer Olympics|2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing]], three [[United States|American]] Christian protesters were deported from China after a demonstration at [[Tiananmen Square]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Blanchard|first=Ben|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/reutersComService_2_MOLT/idUSPEK25586720080807|title=Beijing police stop protest by U.S. Christians|access-date=2008-08-08|work=Reuters|date=2008-08-07}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Carlson|first=Mark|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvMTdU7mt0c| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211114/IvMTdU7mt0c| archive-date=2021-11-14 | url-status=live|title=U.S. Demonstrators Taken From Tiananmen Square|access-date=2008-08-08|agency=Associated Press|date=2008-08-07}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

[[Pope Benedict XVI]] urged China to be open to Christianity, and said that he hoped the Olympic Games would offer an example of coexistence among people from different countries. Unregistered Catholic clergy has faced [[political repression]], in large part due to its avowed [[loyalty]] to the [[Holy See|Vatican]], which the Chinese government has claimed interferes in the country's internal affairs.<ref name="state.gov">See [https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2008/108404.htm U.S. State Department "International Religious Freedom Report 2008"]</ref>

[[The Associated Press]] reported in 2018 that "Xi is waging the most severe systematic suppression of Christianity in the country since religious freedom was written into the Chinese constitution in 1982." This has involved "destroying crosses, burning bibles, shutting churches and ordering followers to sign papers renouncing their faith," actions taken against "so-called underground or house churches that defy government restrictions."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://apnews.com/article/china-beijing-freedom-of-religion-international-news-asia-pacific-c09b2ee4b71540c8a7fd6178820c5970|title=Group: Officials destroying crosses, burning bibles in China|date=April 30, 2021|website=The Associated Press|author-first1=Christopher|author-last1=Bodeen}}</ref> Since 2018, crucifixes and other religious imagery inside of churches have increasingly been replaced with images of Xi Jinping.<ref name=":2">{{Cite news |last1=Smith |first1=Nicola |last2=Pan |first2=Jenny |date=2024-10-05 |title=Xi and Mao replace Jesus and Mary in Chinese churches |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/10/05/xi-and-mao-replace-jesus-and-mary-in-chinese-churches/ |access-date=2024-10-05 |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |language=en-GB |issn=0307-1235}}</ref>

In April 2020, local authorities visited Christian homes in [[Linfen]] and informed welfare recipients that their benefits would be stopped unless they removed all crosses and replaced any displays of Jesus with portraits of Mao and [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of China|General Secretary]] [[Xi Jinping]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|author-first1=Nate|author-last1=Flannagan|title=China tells Christians to renounce faith in Jesus & worship President Xi Jinping instead|url=https://www.christiantoday.com/article/china-tells-christians-renounce-faith-in-jesus-worship-president-xi-jinping/135221.htm|access-date=2020-07-21|website=Christian Today|date=19 July 2020 |language=en}}</ref>

In June 2020, local officials oversaw the demolition of Sunzhuang Church in Henan province. Prior to the Church being demolished, one man was arrested and at least two women were injured.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web|title=China: 200 communist officials demolish church, beat Christians|url=https://www.christianpost.com/news/china-200-communist-officials-demolish-church-beat-christians.html|access-date=2020-07-21|website=www.christianpost.com|date=27 June 2020|language=en}}</ref>

In reports of countries with the strongest anti-Christian persecution, China was ranked by the [[Open Doors (charitable foundation)|Open Doors]] organisation in 2023 as 16th most severe.<ref>[https://www.opendoorsuk.org/persecution/world-watch-list/china/ Open Doors website, retrieved 2023-08-08]</ref>

In December 2023, [[Wang Huning]] stated that Christian groups must "adhere to the direction of the [[sinicisation]] of Christianity."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Woo |first=Ryan |date=December 25, 2023 |title=Christmas in China brings glittering decor and foreign influence concerns |work=[[Reuters]] |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/china/christmas-china-brings-glittering-decor-foreign-influence-concerns-2023-12-25/ |access-date=December 25, 2023}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Christianity|China}}
* [[Bibliography of Christianity in China]]
* [[Catholic Church in China]]
* [[Chinese Orthodox Church]]
* [[Chinese Rites Controversy]]
* [[Christianity in Sichuan]]
* [[Denunciation Movement]]
* [[Historical Bibliography of the China Inland Mission]]
* [[Holy Cross Church, Wanzhou]]
* [[Protestantism in China]]
* [[Timeline of Christian missions]]
* [[List of Protestant theological seminaries in the People's Republic of China]]
* [[Heterodox teachings (Chinese law)]]
* [[Religion in China]]
* [[Freedom of religion in China]]
* [[Human rights in China#Religious freedom]]

== Notes ==
{{NoteFoot}}

== References ==
=== Citations ===
{{Reflist}}

== Sources and further reading ==
{{refbegin}}
* [[Daniel H. Bays]]. ''Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present''. Stanford University Press, 1999. {{ISBN|978-0-8047-3651-0}}
* {{cite book |last = Bays |first=Daniel H.|author-mask=4 |year = 2012 |title = A New History of Christianity in China |publisher = Wiley-Blackwell| location = Chichester, West Sussex ; Malden, MA|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lgS-j2m_0TEC |isbn = 9781405159548 }}
* Carpenter, Joel, and Kevin R. den Dulk. ''Christianity in Chinese Public Life: Religion, Society, and the Rule of Law''. Palgrave Pivot, 2014. {{ISBN|978-1-137-42787-8}}
* Crofts, Daniel W. ''Upstream Odyssey: An American in China, 1895–1944'' (East Bridge, 2008), scholarly biography of Daniel Crofts, minister in China Inland Mission (CIM).
* {{cite book|last=Esherick|first=Joseph W.|title=The Origins of the Boxer Uprising|url=https://archive.org/details/originsofboxerup00jose|url-access=registration|publisher=U of California Press|year=1987|isbn=0-520-06459-3}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=jVESdBSMasMC&q=Secondary+devils Excerpt]
* Harrison, Henrietta, "'A Penny for the Little Chinese': The French Holy Childhood Association in China, 1843–1951." ''American Historical Review'' 113.1 (2008): 72–92. [https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3228646/Harrison.pdf?sequen.. online]
* Hynter, Jane. ''The gospel of gentility: American women missionaries in turn-of-the-century China'' (Yale UP, 1984). 
* {{cite book | first = Kenneth Scott | last = Latourette | author-link = Kenneth Scott Latourette | year = 1929 | title = A History of Christian Missions in China }} [https://archive.org/details/historyofchristi0000unse_h0o1 online]
* {{cite book |last = Lodwick |first= Kathleen L.  |author-link=Kathleen Lodwick|year = 2016 |title = How Christianity Came to China: A Brief History |publisher = Fortress Press| location = Minneapolis, Minnesota|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tv9sDQAAQBAJ |isbn = 9781451472301}}
* Lee Shiu Keung. ''The Cross and the Lotus''. Christian Study Centre on Chinese Religion and Culture, Hong Kong, 1971.
* Marsh, Christopher. ''Religion and the State in Russia and China: Suppression, Survival, and Revival''. Bloomsbury Academic, 2011. {{ISBN|978-1-4411-1247-7}}
* Miller, James.  ''Chinese Religions in Contemporary Societies''. ABC-CLIO, 2006. {{ISBN|978-1-85109-626-8}}
* {{cite journal | first = Irma Tam | last = Soong | year = 1997 | title = Sun Yat-sen's Christian Schooling in Hawai'i |journal = The Hawaiian Journal of History |volume =  13 }}
* {{cite book | first = Jonathan D. | last = Spence | author-link = Jonathan D. Spence | year = 1991 | title = The Search for modern China | publisher = W. W. Norton & Company |isbn = 978-0-393-30780-1 }}
*  Stark, Rodney. ''A star in the East : the rise of Christianity in China'' (2015) [https://archive.org/details/starineastriseof0000star online]
* Thompson, Phyllis. ''The Reluctant Exodus'' (Singapore: OMF Books, 1979)
* Varg, Paul. ''Missionaries, Chinese, and Diplomats: The American Protestant Missionary Movement in China, 1890–1952'' (1958) [https://archive.org/details/missionarieschin0000varg online]
* Wielander, Gerda. ''Christian Values in Communist China''. Routledge, 2013. {{ISBN|978-0-415-52223-6}}
* {{cite book |author-last=Yin |author-first=Peng |year=2015 |chapter=Chinese Protestantism and the Prospect of a Public Religion |editor-last=Hunt |editor-first=Stephen J. |editor-link=Stephen J. Hunt |title=Handbook of Global Contemporary Christianity: Themes and Developments in Culture, Politics, and Society |location=[[Leiden]] |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |series=Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion |volume=10 |doi=10.1163/9789004291027_013 |pages=229–246 |isbn=978-90-04-26538-7 |issn=1874-6691}}

===Historiography and memory===
* ''Handbook of Christianity in China, Volume One: 635-1800'', (Handbook of Oriental Studies: Section 4 China), Edited by Nicolas Standaert, Brill: Leiden - Boston 2000, 964 pp., {{ISBN|978-90-04-11431-9}}
* ''Handbook of Christianity in China. Volume Two: 1800 – present''. (Handbook of Oriental Studies: Section 4 China), Edited by [[R. G. Tiedemann]], Brill: Leiden – Boston 2010, 1050 pp., {{ISBN|978-90-04-11430-2}}
* {{cite journal |last =Hayford  |first = Charles|title =Christianity in China |journal =Oxford Bibliographies Online Chinese Studies |date =2014 |url = http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199920082/obo-9780199920082-0104.xml# |doi = 10.1093/obo/9780199920082-0104 |isbn = 9780199920082|url-access =subscription }}
* {{cite book |author-last=Ming Ng |author-first=Peter Tze |year=2015 |chapter=Chinese Christianity: A 'Global-Local' Perspective |editor-last=Hunt |editor-first=Stephen J. |editor-link=Stephen J. Hunt |title=Handbook of Global Contemporary Christianity: Themes and Developments in Culture, Politics, and Society |location=[[Leiden]] |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |series=Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion |volume=10 |doi=10.1163/9789004291027_009 |pages=152–166 |isbn=978-90-04-26538-7 |issn=1874-6691}}
* {{cite book |author-last=Ming Ng |author-first=Peter Tze |year=2012 |title=Chinese Christianity: An Interplay between Global and Local Perspectives |location=[[Leiden]] |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |series=Religion in Chinese Societies |volume=4 |doi=10.1163/9789004225756 |isbn=978-90-04-22574-9 |issn=1877-6264}}
* Mungello, D. E. "Reinterpreting the History Of Christianity in China." ''Historical Journal,'' 55#2 (2012), Pp.&nbsp;533–552. [https://www.Jstor.Org/Stable/23263349 online]
* {{cite book |author-last=Balmont |author-first=Alexis |year=2025 |title=Le christianisme chinois du haut Moyen Âge. Recherche historique, philologique et théologique sur les textes chrétiens chinois du VIIe au Xe siècle |location=[[Paris]] |publisher=[[Éditions du Cerf|Cerf]] |isbn=978-2204168694}} includes a critical edition of all Chinese Christian texts from the Tang period

===Primary sources===
* {{cite book | first = James Hudson | last = Taylor | author-link = Hudson Taylor | year = 1868 | title = China's Spiritual Need and Claims | publisher = James Nisbet | location = London | edition = Third }} [https://archive.org/details/cu31924023067972 online]

{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Christianity in China}}
{{Library resources box |about=yes |lcheading=Christianity – China }}

* {{CathEncy|wstitle=The Church in China |volume= 3 |last= Cordier |first= Henri |author-link= Henri Cordier |short=1 }}
* Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, "[http://ricci.rt.usfca.edu/about.html The Ricci 21st Century Roundtable on the History of Christianity in China]." Includes Bibliographies (an unannotated listing); biographies of people who played a role in the history of Christianity in China, web links.
* [http://www.bdcconline.net/ Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity]
* [[Orthodoxwiki:Timeline of Orthodoxy in China|Timeline of Orthodoxy in China]]
* [http://lib-nt2.hkbu.edu.hk/sca_fb/index.html Preservation for the Documentation of Chinese Christianity 香港浸會大學圖書館 華人基督宗教文獻保存計劃] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191017081254/http://lib-nt2.hkbu.edu.hk/sca_fb/index.html |date=2019-10-17 }}
* [http://libproject.hkbu.edu.hk/was40/outline?searchword='%25'&channelid=57203&sortfield=%2BPrimary_Title Documentation of Christianity in Hong Kong Database (香港基督教文獻數據庫)]  Special Collections & Archives, Hong Kong Baptist University Library.
* [http://lib-nt.hkbu.edu.hk/libsca/dcp/booklist.html Christianity Rare Books Database 基督教古籍數據庫]  Special Collections & Archives, Hong Kong Baptist University Library.
* [http://libproject.hkbu.edu.hk/was40/search?channelid=7336 Christianity in Contemporary China Clippings 當代中國基督教發展剪報數據庫]  Special Collections & Archives, Hong Kong Baptist University Library.
* [http://lib-nt2.hkbu.edu.hk/sca_fb/index.html Preservation for the Documentation of Chinese Christianity 香港浸會大學圖書館 華人基督宗教文獻保存計劃] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191017081254/http://lib-nt2.hkbu.edu.hk/sca_fb/index.html |date=2019-10-17 }}
* [http://libproject.hkbu.edu.hk/trsimage/lantern/home.html China Through the Eyes of CIM Missionaries]  Special Collections & Archives, Hong Kong Baptist University Library.
* [http://libproject.hkbu.edu.hk/trsimage/lantern/pdf/CIM_booklist.pdf Library Holdings on China Inland Mission]  Special Collections & Archives, Hong Kong Baptist University Library.

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