China Presents Official Survey on Christianity

According to China’s first official faith survey, Christians now number over 23 million, or 1.8% of the overall population, in the communist country. The study, conducted by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), an academic unit controlled by the government, looked at the response of over 60,000 questionnaires carried out in more than 300 counties across China. The 23 million officially recognized Christians account for 73% of China’s religious population. A whopping 68.8% of respondents converted to Christianity after either they or one of their family members fell ill.

The official estimate, while significant, is drastically lower than the estimate by underground church leaders and missiologists, who believe the number, when taken into account the undocumented believers, would be in the range of the hundreds of millions. Nonetheless, the official survey is notable for being the first survey of its kind and for documenting the rise of Christianity in an increasingly modernized country.

For more, read on here.

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