Chinese House Churches:a Case Study

Over the last several decades, the Chinese religious environment has seen significant changes. From the mutual adaptation policies introduced in the1990s to the question of how to deal with house churches today, the Chinese government looks to control church influence while simultaneously giving them the space to develop a form of Christianity with Chinese characteristics. While the Three-Self and unregistered churches share a common theoretical tradition, the markedly different religious culture demonstrated through social activities, programs, and even classes make it clear that their relationship with society is quite different. This thesis focuses on a single unregistered church in Suzhou, China, and through a close analysis of the church religious culture attempts to explore the impact of Chinese policy on the development of a distinct religious culture in unregistered churches.This thesis is divided into five main chapters. The first chapter presents the theoretical background of the paper, as well as previous research on the subject. Chapter two explains the development of a distinctly Chinese Christian ideology under the influence of Chinese culture and a rigorous Chinese policy environment. Chapter three presents the specific methodology used in the interviews, including the choice of the city and church that lies at the heart of the study. Chapter four presents a picture of the church activities, individual perspectives on social responsibility and service gathered through a series of interviews, and finally an analysis of the findings that relates them to the situation of unregistered churches and Chinese Christianity as a whole. In the last chapter, options for future policy development and academic study are explored.