Dangerous mission

A picture of local church in Central Asia taken by a Chinese missionary Photo: Courtesy of a Beijing church

Chinese missionaries working in Muslim world cause safety concerns

The past decade has increasingly seen Chinese "house church" congregations send missionaries abroad, some with a focus on evangelization in the Islamic world. The missionaries do their best to adapt, learning the local language, dressing, acting and behaving like the local people. But the work can be risky, as apostasy and blasphemy might be against law in some predominately Muslim countries. Religious experts warn that Chinese Christians' evangelism might cause safety concerns and diplomatic disputes.

Wang Jie (pseudonym), a pastor at Beijing Zion Church, has been on a number of missions to Islamic countries in recent years. He now works on recruiting, training and dispatching Chinese missionaries to Islamic countries.

Wang traveled to Central Asia in 2012 for the first time, leading other six Christians. He has since made short trips to the region several times.

He has now decided that after this year's Spring Festival he and his wife would start their long-term missionary work in the region.

Wang's sending church Beijing Zion Church, established in 2007, has an ambitious vision of spreading the gospel in the Islamic world. To date, the church has dispatched two families to Central Asia. One family has already been there for a year and a half.

While experiencing an expansion in its own country, Chinese Protestant churches say they feel called to spread the gospel.

"In the past 200 years, over 20,000 overseas missionaries preached the gospel to every corner of the nation," Gao Quanfu, head pastor of Light of Zion Church in Xi'an, a pioneer and promoter of Chinese evangelization in Muslim countries, told the Global Times.

Gao said he believes it's time for the Chinese to go out and preach.

China's churches have long been divided between churches officially sanctioned by the government and so-called "house churches," underground churches that do not accept administration from the State.

The Chinese government has adopted a tolerant attitude toward house churches in recent years. House churches' overseas missionary work was spontaneous, with no authorization by Chinese authorities.

There also have doubts on the necessity and impact of the Chinese house churches' overseas evangelism activities.

China's central and local governments do not encourage cross-cultural evangelism, and government-authorized churches have never engaged in such cross-cultural evangelization, Yan Kejia, director of Institute for Religion Research of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

There are a large number of non-Christians in China, and there has no need to spread religion in foreign countries, Yan added.

Go westward

Before, many Chinese churches struggled to survive due to a shortage of money, staff and resources.

A surging Chinese economy has changed all that. An increasing number of house churches in China now have the means to send overseas missionaries, with Islamic regions as one of mission fields.

Gao believes that Chinese Christians have "natural advantages" when evangelizing in many parts of the world. "Most of the countries in Central and South Asia are friendly to China, which makes it easier for the Chinese Christians to preach the gospel in those nations, compared with the Western missionaries," Gao added.

The missionaries' work is eased by these countries' growing commercial and cultural ties with China. In step with China's growing regional and economic influence, an increasing number of Chinese Christians are moving to Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, as well as Africa to set up business and, in some cases, to do missionary work.

Huang Ying (pseudonym) was among the first batch of missionaries sent out by a Beijing house church. She became a Christian in her 20s when she studying in a Beijing university and became determined to be a missionary. Beginning in 2009, she visited Kazakhstan for two weeks to a month every year, teaching Chinese in a language camp for primary school students.

Missionaries are volunteers. They cover living expenses by collecting money from local believers and through remittances by their sending church. Churches typically offer classes on local language, culture and customs before missionaries are sent abroad.

Before Huang started her missionary work, she had to undergo six months of training.

Huang believes he is "answering the call of the Lord" by converting people.

Kazakhstan is a Muslim-majority country, with over 70 percent of the country professing Islam as their faith, according to a 2009 national census.

According to a report by the Daily Mail last November, ISIS released footage showing jihadi training courses for dozens of Kazak children. The video depicted the children being taught to use every type of rifle the organization had available.

Despite the potential risk from extremists, Huang's sending church has made overseas missionary work one of its top priorities since 2009, with special prayer meetings held each Monday. The pastor also updates the congregation on overseas missionary work every Sunday.