Monday is for Missions: China

With over 1 billion people, China is home to roughly 1/6th of the world's population. China has been a breeding ground for Marxist philosophy and the communistic regime has attempted to filter out all forms of religion. However, as history has proved, the Christian church has experienced phenomenal growth under such oppression although true statistics can not be validated. Nonetheless, the true church is healthy (arguably more healthy than the western church) and is growing exponentially.

Such growth under opposition is impressive and encouraging, however, we should be careful not to lose sight of the still great need for evangelization. The majority of Chinese peoples have still never been exposed to the saving grace made available through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Most are either atheistic (as the government would prefer) and others still have strong ties to Buddhism, Daoism (or Taoism), or other Chinese ethnic religions. Since the staunch Buddhist denies the existence of evil altogether, the concept of an indwelling sin nature is even more foreign to them. Daoism is where the familiar Yin-Yang symbol finds its origins and the philosophy expressed is that of an intermingling of good and evil to the extent that there is no clear distinction. Although fun to draw, this philosophy has grave implications for the thinking Christian.

Our friends at Operation World have been focusing on China since March 24 and will continue to do so until April 5. Follow this link to Operation World for an excellent overview of the country, its geography, religion, and politics. This will also be helpful with tools on how to pray for China.

It is interesting that I probably have a personal association with more missionaries to this area of the world than to any other. I'm not sure why I find this interesting given the high density of the world's population, but it seems interesting nonetheless.