Written transcript of Archbishop Andrew Hutchison’s webcast – May 10, 2005

Once again welcome to Conversations with the Primate.

Today I’d like to speak to you about a recent visit to China. For some years, the Canada-China program was one of the important coalitions among churches in Canada relating to that country. The coalition, however, no longer exists. And since the Cultural Revolution in China, new relationships have been established between Canada and that country.

In April an ecumenical group consisting for four members of the Presbyterian Church, two members of the United Church of Canada and five from the Anglican Church of Canada visited China. In our delegation were Ellie Johnson, Director of Partnerships for the Anglican Church of Canada; Andrea Mann, responsible for our relations with Asia; Clarence Lee, a priest from the diocese of New Westminster; Tess Sison from the Anglican Journal staff and myself.

For most of us this was a first visit to China and for many of us a first visit to Asia. And I would have to begin by saying that my own ideas about China were probably about 20 years out of date.

Our visit began in Shanghai and from Shanghai we went to Nanjing, then later to Kurming and from there up into the mountains to meet some of the minority groups. And then finally back to Beijing before returning home.

First of all a few impressions about China. The rate of change since the Cultural Revolution has been just extraordinary at about every level of Chinese life. Shanghai, Nanjing, Beijing, are all huge metropolitan centres. Sixteen million people in Shanghai and everywhere construction. Imaginative modern architecture, the city centre just as clean as a whistle, wonderfully maintained and large numbers of automobiles.

Perhaps to illustrate the rate of change: in a meeting with the Canadian Ambassador in Beijing, he mentioned that he has a friend whose car license is 0002 because his was the second automobile in Beijing. I asked him how long ago that was and he said about 20 years.

How many cars are there now in Beijing, I asked. Over 2 million, said he, and increasing at the rate of nearly a thousand a day. Unfortunately, one of the consequences of that is rather heavy smog over all the large cities in China, a situation that certainly must be dealt with.

During the Cultural Revolution in China, all of the churches were closed, many of them taken over for warehouses and offices and other purposes. Since 1981 there has been considerable restoration. Under the leadership of Bishop Ding who’s well known to Canadians, the Three Self Patriotic movement was founded, a negotiation between the government and Bishop Ding that allows a Christian reality in a socialist state. The Three Self movement refers to self-governance, self-finance and self-evangelism. In other words, no interference from outside.

This would be an authentic Chinese reality. It’s a post-denominational Protestant church. That is no longer will people be identified as Baptist or Presbyterian or Anglican but simply as Protestant Christians. The ethic that will apply is one of respect and harmony. There will be no attempt on the part of anyone to persuade people of another faith or of another Christian view or even atheist to think like them. But there must be respect for all beliefs and above all harmony.

One can understand that in a country that contains a third of the world’s total population that social stability is of paramount importance to them. It was at the invitation of the TSPM, that is the Three Self Patriotic Movement and the China-Christian Council that we were in China. The council is a later development and administers the churches themselves.

Now here are some amazing statistics. The Protestant church in China has now grown to well over 17 million people and is growing daily at a staggering rate. In Shanghai I was invited to preach in one of the churches and that sermon just as a matter of record for those who might be interested is available on our website.

When I arrived at the church the church itself held something between 800 and 900 people and there were probably closer to 2,000 people there. All the hallways, the parish hall, and the lawns outside were filled with people and in each location there were large video screens so that they could access the service. Really for a Canadian quite an overwhelming sight. We were informed that more than 6,000 people would worship at the various services in that church on that Sunday. Now I thought that might just be Shanghai but when we arrived in Beijing exactly the same experience was repeated.

I’m sure one element that contributes significantly to the growth of the Christian reality in China is the work of the Amity Foundation, an agency established by the church for direct social services in communities where there are gaps in government provisions.

For example, we visited the House of Blessing, a home for young people with mental handicaps. We also visited a drug rehabilitation centre. And we’re told that the church is now significantly addressing both the problem of blindness in China and the problem of autism.

So through these social works, Christians win the hearts of others and I’m sure that’s what accounts for some of the growth. They also exercise leadership and find that the government moves in behind them and with them to collaborate in some of those good works.

Nor surprisingly a major challenge for China is theological education. There are now 18 seminaries across the country. Because of the Cultural Revolution, however, there’s a whole generation that is lost so there are a number of elder clergy and scholars and the rest are all quite young, since 1981.

In the China Christian Council the ratio of clergy to laity is 1 to 7,000. In Canada that ratio is about 1 to 200. So you see what a desperate need they have. All their seminaries are very full. We visited four and there are, in addition to that, several training centres that focus on training laity, as many congregations necessarily must be led by laity.

One of the important movements that Bishop Ding established and that is in all of the seminaries in China is a project, which they refer to as theological reconstruction and contextual ministry. What they mean by that is that triumphalist Christianity, colonial Christianity, Christianity that presents itself as a religion of judgement, all of that needs to be set aside and the Gospel needs to be reincarnated, if you like, into the social reality that is China today.

Two books by Bishop Ding help illuminate this phenomenon. One is his book, Love Never Ends, and the other a more recent publication in which Canada assisted with the English publication costs is called God Is Love.

So the focus becomes Jesus the servant, Jesus among the people, Jesus who suffers in the sufferings of his people and rejoices in the joys of his people, a thoroughly incarnational theology and that seems to be winning the hearts of the Chinese.

It certainly was the case during the Cultural Revolution and before that that Scriptures were not available to the Chinese and there were many groups in the West who are involved frankly in smuggling Scriptures into China. We visited the Amity Printing Company, which is a joint venture of the Amity Foundation in China and the United Bible Societies worldwide. So every time you contribute to the Canadian Bible Society you assist in this work. The Bible Societies pay for the paper and the rest is done in China. That makes Scriptures available very affordable.

I’m holding in my hands one copy of the Scriptures. Nearly 40 million of those have been produced and distributed in China since 1985. When we visited the printing company, we watched these coming off the assembly line at the rate of just under one per second. So the distribution goes on.

One further aspect of the Chinese church is that it is fully regulated, as are indeed all of the faith groups within the country. We met with the Director of Religious Affairs for the People’s Republic of China and frankly were impressed at the level of support and collaboration that the churches and other faith groups receive from government. They do, however, operate under strict regulations, regulations on religious affairs and this document was published just before our visit in March 2005.

It does mean, of course, in terms of Western ecclesiology that things such as civil disobedience are not tolerated. Social stability, as I mentioned earlier, was enormously important to the Chinese and obedience to the law is required of Christians and other faith groups within the country.

You may be wondering who this person beside me is. When we were in Quiming we went off to the mountains to visit some of the indigenous peoples, the minority peoples in China. At the end of a 12 kilometre climb up through the mountains in which we had to be shuttled in Jeeps because our regular transportation could not handle the terrain, we arrived in the small village of the Yee people and then subsequently went to a Meou people village.

And while we were with the Yee, I was presented with this marvellous jacket and here are bags that are made by them as well. In that little community of Meou people we found a church built in 1906 about to celebrate its 100th anniversary. And there people dressed in their tribal costumes, put on a wonderful musical concert for us.

Well, time is short and I wish I could take much more time with you. What a wonderful visit and what wonderful impressions we come back with and even some useful learnings for Canada. The notion of self-governance, self-support and self-evangelism is one that we would do well to take a hard look at here in Canada.

The notion of contextual ministry and a theological reconstruction that sets aside the old triumphalism and focuses on the servant ministry of Jesus is something else that we might well learn from. We give thanks to God for the great things that are being done in the church in China. We ask your prayers for them and I look forward to meeting you again in Conversations with the Primate.

God bless you.