Source: The Guardian

A secretive conference to examine the future of Christianity in China is due to take place in Beijing this week amid rapid growth of the religion, which many believe has more Chinese adherents than the 87-million member Communist party.

An official at the government-controlled Institute of World Religions, which is helping to organise the conclave, declined to provide details of its agenda.

But Yang Fenggang, director of Purdue University’s centre on religion and Chinese society, said many Chinese Christians believed the conference was part of a government push to create a more “submissive” church. “It is clear that the top leaders feel unease with Christianity,” he said.

One underground pastor said officials would consider ways to “strengthen management” of what is a tightly controlled church. “I don’t believe the government will close the church but I do believe they want to manage it,” said the pastor, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I don’t think they will control the doctrine. The government has no interest in what you preach. They are just worried about if you are against the party.”

The conference, The Sinicisation of Christianity, is expected to be attended by religious affairs officials, academics and members of China’s official church.

This summer the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, launched an unprecedented crackdown on human rights lawyers as part of a broader offensive against any perceived threat to the Communist party’s six-decade monopoly on power.

Zhang Kai, a Christian human rights lawyer who fought against a Communist party campaign to remove crosses from more than 1,200 churches in Zhejiang in 2013, was seized by security agents and taken into custody in August.

Read More