Three Self Patriotic Movement 1 from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.
These two presentations were made by the leaders of the Chinese Christian Council (CCC)/ Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) in Shanghai. They were recorded at an informal meeting with students of Bakke Graduate University undertaking Overture China II in April 2010. The Q&A time is very revealing, not least in the way questions are carefully avoided or sidestepped.
Three Self Patriotic Movement 2 from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.
According to Wikipedia, the three principles of self-governance, self-support (i.e., financial independence from foreigners) and self-propagation (i.e., indigenous missionary work) were first articulated by Henry Venn, General Secretary of the Church Missionary Society from 1841–73, and Rufus Anderson, foreign secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions[1][2]. The principles were drafted formally during an 1892 conference in Shanghai of Christian missions reflecting an almost unilateral agreement that the future of the Chinese church depended on the indigenization of the leadership, and the finding of sufficiently Chinese modes of worship[3]. Dixon Edward Hoste, head of the China Inland Mission was known for putting the same principles into practice in the effort of assisting the Chinese to establish their own indigenous churches during the early 20th Century.
In 1951, a Cantonese Christian named Y. T. Wu (吴耀宗, 1893–1979) initiated the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, which promoted a strategy of 'self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation' in order to removve foreign influences from the Chinese churches and to assure the communist government that the churches would be patriotic to the newly-established People's Republic of China. The 'Three-Self' is a characteristically Chinese way of abbreviating 'self-governance, self-support, self-propagation' (自治、自养、自传).
The movement began formally in 1954 and allowed the government to infiltrate, subvert, and control much of organized Christianity[4].
From 1966 to 1976 during the Cultural Revolution, the expression of religious life in China was effectively banned, including even the TSPM. The growth of the Chinese house church movement during this period was a result of all Chinese Christian worship being driven underground for fear of persecution. To counter this growing trend of "unregistered meetings", in 1979 the government officially restored the TSPM after thirteen years of non-existence[5], and in 1980 the CCC was formed.
In 1993 there were 7 million members of the TSPM with 11 million affiliated, as opposed to an estimated 18 million and 47 million "unregistered" Protestant Christians respectively.
The TSPM / China Christian Council see themselves as the scaffolding to help local churches come together. Their vision of the church is the one Jesus prayed for – “that they may be one”, except here it is under State control and segregates Chinese believers from expatriate Christians who are not allowed to worship together. While this is deeply concerning, I share their desire to avoid the return of free market denominationalism to China.
On a separate occasion, late at night over a McDonald's hamburger, I met with one of the leaders of the unregistered house church movement. Based on the cell principle, they do not have church buildings or hold Sunday services. Instead they meet in one another's homes for fellowship and worship, and practice friendship evangelism. When they outgrow their 'meeting point' they appoint new leaders and plant another cell church. While autonomous they network with cell churches in other parts of the world.
