This month registered churches across China will hold celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant churches in China.
Promoting self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM)was officially initiated on September 23, 1950 when “The Three-Self Manifesto” was signed by many Christian leaders and laypersons and was published on the front page of the People’s Daily. Together with the China Christian Council, founded in 1980, they are often abbreviated as “CCC&TSPM.”
On Wednesday, Jilin Christian Council & Three-Self Patriotic Movement held a symposium to commemorate the day. A total of 50 church staff and local officials shared topics including the past 70-year history of the registered church in Jilin, the Sicinization of Christianity, and church and Chinese culture.
Shanghai CC&TSPM conducted a music worship on Monday, attended by about 400 local pastoral workers and volunteers in the Moore Memorial Church. Rev. Xu Yulan, chairman of Shanghai Municipal Patriotic Three -Self Association, presided over the worship. Rev. Geng Weizhong, president of Shanghai Christian Council, preached a sermon entitled “Commended for Their Fatih”, citing Hebrews 11:1-2.
A week ago, Beijing CC&TSPM started to publish papers about TSPM on WeChat. Some articles were written by the old generation church leaders such as Y. T. Wu and Bishop K.H. Ting.
There were more than 38 million Christians in China, according to the white paper, China’s Policies and Practices on Protecting Freedom of Religious Belief, released by the Chinese government in April 2018. However, this number is believed to be too low as there are also house churches that came into existence in the early 1980s, independent from the state-sanctioned TSPM.
