Anyone wanting to bring together the more than 100 million Chinese-speaking Christians around the world must deal with the thorny issue of the church in China. There, Christians are split between unregistered house churches and the government-sanctioned Three-Self church. Additionally, heated differences in political views make it difficult for the global Chinese-speaking church to unify.
Nevertheless, global evangelical leaders want to bring this community together. Last week, a delegation from the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) traveled to China to meet with the leaders of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and the China Christian Council (CCC)—which are both overseen by the Chinese Communist Party—and offered them an invitation to collaborate.
The WEA launched the World Chinese Christianity Alliance (WCA) a year ago to serve the Chinese-speaking church with a think tank, publishing house, and media center, along with academic exchanges, resource sharing, and trainings.
Ezekiel Tan, general secretary of both the WCA and the Evangelical Alliance of Singapore, spoke with CT about the WCA’s aims, its current progress, and the unique challenges it faces as it brings together ethnic Chinese from around the world. (In the article, the term Chinese refers to all ethnic Han people regardless of where they reside.)
The WCA is the WEA’s first language-based network, instead of its typical location-based network. Why was Mandarin Chinese chosen to pioneer this?
Mandarin Chinese is our first endeavor because Chinese speakers are unique: They are overwhelmingly ethnically Han Chinese and share the same ancestry from China. Other international language groups, such as Arabic and Spanish, include people from different ethnicities.
Because Chinese people are so spread out, by reaching the Chinese, you reach all corners of the world. The only difference is that some read simplified Chinese while others read traditional Chinese. When you produce something in Chinese, there are economies of scale.
The elephant in the room is the geopolitical tensions around China. Oftentimes, there are mutual suspicions between China and its trade partners. We don’t want other groups to misrepresent the Christian community and how we perceive our relationship with China.
Chinese people also have a lot of financial resources. In many Asian countries, they are the minority, but they manage a disproportionate percentage of the wealth and resources. Reaching out to them helps us not only improve resource sharing among the community but also promotes greater philanthropy and charitable giving within the global movement.
What are the WCA’s aims?
We want to create a global platform that is not plucked from thin air but built on existing global networks, like Haggai International, which trains Christian leaders in 189 nations, or national Bible societies.
The WCA is a global platform for Chinese ministries and outreach. It will bring all Chinese Christians together to share Chinese-language resources—such as Sunday school materials, Chinese worship songs, and academic papers on subjects relevant to the global Chinese church—and improve efficacy in their respective work. At the end of the day, it will help us fulfill the Great Commission.
What is it not aiming to do?
Following the key ethos of the WEA, the WCA is not political, and we will not be taking sides. We want to be a neutral platform that provides a safe space for people to come together. We will abstain from anything political.
Also, we do not aim to be a global governing body of all Chinese ministries. It is a platform for existing groups and organizations to interact with one another. We are not here to compete with any existing network. Instead, we hope to play a complementary role.
Therefore, we invite any group that is already doing some aspect of Chinese ministry to get involved. The WCA is not geographically centric. While we are reaching out to ethnic Chinese, it doesn’t mean that Asia is the key base. We seek to be global-centric rather than regional-centric.
The WCA officially launched last July. What stage is it at right now?
Currently, we are focused on building infrastructure for the WCA, which we expect will take another year. The media center is still getting started and we have been communicating about it with various parties. Some work has been done with resource sharing and we have published a few books.
Right now, the training center is the most developed. We started holding trainings before the program was launched, and we have had 20,000–30,000 people from 20 countries joining our training annually. We go to different countries and locate a well-known Chinese speaker on a topic that we think is helpful, like parenting, communication, or Bible exposition. We publicize the training through our networks and invite people to join.
The second aspect is reaching out to the global Chinese Christians, including church leaders in Africa, Europe, North America, and the Asia Pacific. There have been many discussions and visits, although our budget constrains us.
The third aspect is the question of how we engage China. It’s too obvious to say that the majority of Chinese people are in China. Before this recent trip, we had taken several visits to different stakeholders, including the authorities. However, in China, we need to do things formally, so last week, an official delegation of representatives of the WEA’s international council and its regional leadership visited China to reestablish a relationship with the leaders of the Three-Self church.
The last visit that the WEA made to China was many years ago. After that visit, there hadn’t been any follow-up to engage in a more intentional working relationship. This time was groundbreaking because it marked the beginning of a long-term relationship.
We hope to contribute to building up goodwill among all groups. Christianity is a movement of peace, so we hope the meeting provides greater understanding between the registered church and the larger global church.
What are some of the sensitivities that the WCA has to take into consideration when working in a place like China?
Many people in China have misconceptions and misunderstandings about the external world, especially the West, and the rest of the world has a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings about what is happening in China.
Many Chinese think that all Christians are like American evangelicals—who are seen as very anti-China—or believe that we might have subversive intentions to destabilize China. But I tell them, The great majority of the people just want to love you, as we do.
If you approach China’s registered church with misconceptions, you will go in there too guarded and can make a sensitive situation even worse. Also, China has its own rules and regulations, so we seek to approach the government-run church within a legal framework.
When we visited China this time, we went to learn more about them, about what can be done and what can’t be done. We learned to navigate the relationship with humility like some of the earliest missionaries to China, Hudson Taylor and Robert Morrison. They went to China, appreciated the culture, and worked with the Chinese people.
What did you learn during this recent fact-finding trip to China?
The WEA’s International Council received a very warm welcome in China. We met with the top leadership in China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs, the national TSPM and CCC, Nanjing Union Seminary, the Amity Foundation (a Christian charity in China), and Amity Printing, one of the world’s largest Bible producers. It was a chance for the international council to see China’s Three-Self church for themselves and ask questions.
Besides building friendships, we were also able to have authentic and robust conversations, raise issues, and invite partnership. For instance, two of the concerns we discussed were about the Sinicization of Christianity as well as China’s attempt to create a new version of the Bible. We were able to ask the different leaders we met about this and hear their perspectives.
In the first instance, they clarified that they were exploring what it means for someone in China, in a socialist country, to practice their faith. They are not addressing the core doctrines like the Incarnation or the deity of Jesus, but other aspects like how they worship or relate to Chinese society. We invited them to do this together with the rest of the global evangelical family.
In the second instance, they noted that they were not coming out with a new translation of the Bible but revising the popular Chinese Union Version, which was first translated in 1919. They said they wanted to make as few changes as possible, with the goal of helping young people and non-Christians better understand the Bible. Again, we told them that we were interested in engaging with them in the revision in order to help diffuse tensions and clarify miscommunications. Then they could produce a translation that those outside of China could use as well.
At the end of the day, the international council members were very grateful to hear from the TSPM and CCC leaders and encouraged by this positive beginning of this new relationship.
You mentioned earlier some misconceptions that the West has of China and vice versa, but what about the misconceptions within the Chinese-speaking community, such as between house churches and Three-Self churches? How do you plan to bring them together?
When people ask me this, I always point to the United Nations as an example. The world’s enemies gather there because they trust in the UN’s neutrality. Even today, some groups are trying to kill each other, but they go to the UN for dialogue. They work on joint projects like the World Health Organization or UNICEF.
The WEA is not about individual preferences or inclinations but the global evangelical family. Our track record speaks for itself—we work with the whole spectrum of evangelicalism. We want to include everyone and provide resources for everyone.
How have diaspora Chinese groups responded to the idea of the WCA?
There are some concerns, but I was pleasantly surprised to receive overwhelmingly positive responses. They said they had been looking for something like this for a long time.
We were not prepared to see such an overwhelming response, which means we now have to work very hard with limited resources to get started. Many groups have asked, “What can you give me now? What can you help me with?” We are thankful but playing a bit of catch-up.
Of course, there have been some collaborations between Chinese Christian groups in the past, but they have never been so global. This is especially true as many overseas ministries are keen to visit or do ministry in China but do not have the avenue to do so. Also, ethnic Chinese Christians want to do missions, but because they only speak Chinese, they are limited in where they can go. With the WCA, they can partner with churches in Africa and use Mandarin to relate to their fellow Chinese who live there. They are looking forward to greater opportunities and possibilities.
Also, some pastors have good materials, but they don’t know how to reach the world, they only use it in their congregation or their church. With this platform, their material can now go global.
How would this alliance differ from the existing network of the Chinese Coordination Center of World Evangelism (CCCOWE)?
The difference is that CCCOWE was built from the ground up, while the WCA is part of a global family. CCCOWE was started in Hong Kong and Taiwan by some individuals who wanted to connect the Chinese church. The WCA, on the other hand, is an offshoot of the WEA, which represents 600 million Christians and represents all denominations and groups.
The great majority of the Christian groups in CCCOWE only work with the house church movement in China. But there are tens of millions of Christians in China who attend registered churches that CCCOWE is not reaching.
As noted by our recent trip, the WEA is willing to go to the Chinese government and work with all parties, including the registered churches. This is what distinguishes us and demonstrates that we are complementing what CCCOWE is doing by reaching places that it can’t. Also, CCCOWE focuses on evangelism, while we cover the holistic life cycle of Christianity. Currently, we are already collaborating with CCCOWE on several projects.
What are your hopes for the future of WEA’s partnership with China?
We want to continue dialoguing with the TSPM and CCC and explore ways these groups can partner with the WEA and regional evangelical alliances, as well as working together on the WCA.
If the WEA could be at the forefront of building goodwill and collaboration with the registered church, I think this would be really beautiful. I pray that there will be more ground-up collaborations with the registered church and with other groups that may be concerned, suspicious, or fearful of establishing relationships with them. We hope to be a bridge anchored by our faith in the region and beyond.
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