House Churches

Abstract

Since their emergence in the late 1970s, Christian house churches in China have experienced tensions with the government. ¹ In recent years, the center of the house church movement has gradually shifted from rural China to the cities, and house churches have become more open and normalized. For this reason, the Chinese government cannot avoid dealing with questions of religious nature. It must face the reality of the growing house church movement and work toward constructing positive state-religion relations by carefully managing relations with these churches, promoting harmony, and reducing tensions.