As China's Christian Persecution Rages, Is Faith in Decline or Thriving in the Shadows?

A persecution watchdog is casting doubt on a recent report indicating there could be a decrease — or at least a stagnation — in the number of Christians in China. David Curry, CEO of Global Christian Relief, an organization that helps Christians under duress around the globe, believes a Pew Research Center report on the matter likely isn't telling the full story.

"If you believe Pew Research’s latest report, about 23.3 million adults in China self-identified as Christian in 2010," Curry wrote in a recent Fox News piece. "That number fell to 19.9 million by 2018. That’s a decline of nearly 3.5 million Christians in less than a decade." Curry, though, believes there is essential context one must acknowledge when exploring these numbers. He expanded upon the narrative in a recent interview with CBN Digital, explaining the reasons the numbers are very likely not capturing the realities of what's happening on the ground in China. "The church in China, I believe, based on ... some methodology of our own, is somewhere around 120 million," Curry said, though definitive numbers are difficult to determine.

If true, this would mean some estimates are off by almost 100 million people. One of the challenges, Curry said, is using self-identifying religious data inside a country that openly punishes Christianity and those who choose to publicly align with the faith. "They have self-identifying as one of the factors and a number of things which make the number incredibly low," he said. "Historically, the Chinese church has been underground."

While the church came above ground in recent decades, the rise of Chinese President Xi Jinping has created roadblocks and problems, with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) increasingly cracking down on the faithful. The government looks down upon those who attend church regularly — and children cannot be legally aligned with any faith tradition. Curry said the CCP is trying to "strangle" Christianity, leading some people to very likely conceal their beliefs when overtly asked.

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