The Chinese Church in Christ (Chinese: 基督徒會堂, abbreviated as CCiC) is an independent

Chinese Independent Churches

The Chinese Independent Churches are a major category of churches of Chinese people.During Missionary Council Meetings in the mid to late 19th century several Western missionaries started advocating for the Chinese Christians to become independent instead of relying on outside support and funds....

 Chinese church founded by Wang Mingdao in Beijing in 1927. The Chinese Church in Christ was founded without the help of foreign missionaries so in essence it was Chinese Christians preaching to the Chinese populace. From the beginning, this church has been administratively self-governing and financially self-sufficient.

Background

Wang Mingdao was one of the best known Chinese Christian figures in the West because of his public resistance to the authorities in the 1950s and subsequent long imprisonment before his release in 1979. A stern and rather dogmatic man, often critical of western missionaries and vociferously opposed to "liberal" theology, Wang was a powerful speaker and teacher. From the late 1920s he spent about half of every year on the road conducting revivals and evangelistic meetings in evangelical and fundamentalist churches, even after building the Chinese Church in Christ in Beijing. Wang edited and published a popular quarterly Christian magazine for over two decades, enhancing his national visibility. A fearless man, Wang and his church defied the Japanese authorities during the early 1940s as well as the new Communist government in the 1950s. He was also proudly independent; foreigners could attend his church, but only a handful were ever invited to preach from his pulpit .

Entry requirements

Wang Mingdao was especially tight on church entry. During the sixteen years from 1933-1949 only 570 new believers received baptism

Baptism

In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...

 since every new believer were required to bring another convert to the church before baptism was allowed. He said, “The sheep must have life, your behaviour of giving birth to more sheep shows that you have life”. Therefore being able to bring people to believe in the faith is evidence that indeed you are quite clear of the path to salvation. Although it does not mean that you have already received salvation, it shows that you are worthy to become one of their church members.
Once Wang Ming-Dao

Wang Ming-Dao

File:WangMingdao.jpgWang Mingdao was an independent Chinese Protestant pastor and evangelist imprisoned for his faith by the Chinese government from 1955 until 1980.-Childhood and conversion:...

’s strict entry requirements were satisfied, both the new convert’s behaviour and lifestyle were to be closely observed and examined by church members for a brief time period. This was done in order to confirm that the new believer really was behaving in a way that a Christian ought to behave and that their faith did have a solid foundation.

External links

• Chinese Church in Christ, Hong Kong