Among the many changes of the post-Mao era, one of the most surprising is the growth of Protestant Christianity. At the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC), Chinese Protestants numbered under one million; recent government estimates suggest this number has risen to anywhere between 10 and 17 million.Footnote 1 While these figures are certainly impressive considering the state's past treatment of religion, several scholars suggest the total figure is closer to 50 million, with some evangelical organizations outside of China speculating that it may be as high as 130 million.Footnote 2 With little evidence to support these later estimates, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to know the precise number of Protestants worshipping in China today.Footnote 3 External church watchers tend to inflate numbers to support their own political agendas, whilst local cadres on the other hand underreport religious activity so as not to invite scrutiny from above. Nationwide surveys are rare and often do not capture one of the most explosive mechanisms behind the growth of Protestantism – house churches.Footnote 4
House churches (jiating jiaohui 家庭教会) are variously described as autonomous, independent, unofficial and underground; however, their shared characteristic is that they are unregistered religious groups which, for differing reasons, are independent of the state and the officially sanctioned Protestant churches linked to the Christian Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and China Christian Council (CCC).Footnote 5 As unregistered and independent religious organizations, house churches tend to operate in a religious “black market:” they hold services in private, have no legal protection and support activities that are considered illegal by the state.Footnote 6 Indeed, house churches face a number of challenges. First, and most obviously, they are viewed with suspicion, if not outright hostility, from both the state and official religious communities.Footnote 7 This is because house churches represent some of the most diverse and robust forms of associational life operating outside of the state and its institutions.Footnote 8 They are unofficial and voluntary organizations, often with dense networks that cut across salient cleavages, endowed with resources and dedicated supporters, and led by charismatic leaders.Footnote 9 These characteristics, coupled with China's long history of sectarian movements that have openly challenged central authorities, make house churches particularly threatening to those in power.Footnote 10 Second, as underground organizations, house churches face difficulties in growing the church because locations of services change frequently and members are cautious about inviting new visitors who might, for example, be undercover police seeking to infiltrate and shut down their church. Similarly, house churches cannot rely on the door-to-door proselytizing and evangelizing media to build their congregations that are so common in the West as these activities are illegal for all religious traditions in China.Footnote 11 A final challenge is financial: funding for religious activities – from pastors' salaries and missionary stipends to seminaries and urban rents – must come from the internal resources of the church. There are no government subsidies for unregistered Protestants.
In spite of the challenges, there is consensus among scholars that more Chinese are worshipping in house churches than in government-approved ones.Footnote 12 Conservative estimates put membership of house churches on a par with that of the TSPM churches, making the unofficial Protestant community no less than 17 million.Footnote 13 Others indicate this last figure may also be too low. Richard Madsen, for instance, writes that “membership in these unofficial churches far outnumbers those in official churches.”Footnote 14 Liu Guojian estimates the number of unregistered Protestants to be closer to 50 million; Yu Jianrong places this figure between 45 and 60 million, or roughly three times that of TSPM churches; and Lauren Homer speculates that house church worshippers outnumber TSPM members by a 5:1 ratio.Footnote 15 The underground nature of house churches makes it impossible to know the exact size of the community; however, even the most conservative estimates are undeniably large. What explains the growth of house churches in a country where there is limited space for religious expression, where associational life is generally assumed to be controlled or led by the state, and where house churches face state repression and often have tense relations with officially-sanctioned Protestants? How can illegal organizations grow and flourish in such a hostile and closely monitored environment?
I will answer this question in an unusual but illuminating way. In particular, I will focus on the organizational strategy of one large house church that claims over one million members.Footnote 16 I argue that the growth of this church within a hostile political environment can be explained in part by its organizational structure and tactics: it functions in the shadows and at multiple levels; it is fractal rather than hierarchical; and members are absorbed into a network of self-contained and independent offshoots. In this way, if the authorities raid one unit, the integrity of the church is preserved.Footnote 17 As will be shown in the analysis below, there are similarities between the structure of the house church and the “organization weapon” developed by the Bolsheviks and then successfully used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in their own struggles for power, making this a striking example of organizational diffusion.Footnote 18
Protestant Growth in China
Many scholars have documented the remarkable growth of Protestantism in China.Footnote 19 Some argue that the post-Mao era is experiencing a values vacuum, where Marxist-Leninist and Maoist ideology is in decline and the masses are turning to religion as a cause in which to believe.Footnote 20 Others point to institutional changes in state policy in the 1980s that acknowledge the mistakes of militant atheism and create limited space for religious expression.Footnote 21 They argue that the state's shift in policy has facilitated growth in official and unofficial churches because religious activities were again legally permitted, therefore making conversion more publically (and politically) acceptable.
More functional explanations of Protestant growth suggest that religion is helping people to make sense of the challenges brought by growing marketization, such as rising inequality, declining social services and heightened perceptions of corruption.Footnote 22 Yang Fenggang, for instance, reminds us that arguments made by Max Weber almost a century ago apply to contemporary China. The “emerging market is exciting and perilous, accompanied by widespread moral corruption, which prompts many individuals to seek a theodicy, or a religious worldview, to put the seemingly chaotic universe into order.”Footnote 23 It is assumed that the philanthropic activities of house churches exert a positive influence on conversion rates in areas where social services are lacking.Footnote 24 Others maintain that part of the appeal of house churches is that they provide a form of leisure and community, which is attractive in the countryside where entertainment may be limited.Footnote 25 Elsewhere and in more urban settings, Christianity has become a pathway to upward mobility because it is seen as both modern and cosmopolitan. Cao Nanlai finds that Protestantism in Wenzhou has become a cultural and moral resource for those wanting “to reposition and distinguish themselves in the process of catching up the capitalist West and shedding uncouthness.”Footnote 26
Another observational explanation for the growth of Protestantism is the prominence given to supernatural phenomena, and in particular the importance of miracles (shenjiqishi 神迹奇事). Many house church members consider China to be a “chosen” nation where miracles are not only possible, but also are increasingly common. Studies of church recruitment report the importance of faith healing (xinyang liaofa 信仰疗法). Stories of conversion often begin with a non-believer suffering from a serious illness, then a Christian “lays hands” on the person and prays to cast out the physical ailment or demon (gan gui 赶鬼).Footnote 27 The miraculously-healed (or perceived-to-be-healed) quickly converts, joins the congregation, and as news of the healing spreads, the church grows one miracle at a time.
Similarly, others find that personal networks are key mechanisms in recruiting house church members.Footnote 28 Members first introduce their faith to their family and then move on to friends, classmates and trusted colleagues with the idea that these are safe recruits. When these networks have been exhausted, evangelists adopt more creative proselytizing strategies. Kevin O'Brien and Carsten Vala observe that Protestant recruiters use quasi-public spaces to introduce religious messages to strangers. For example, a house church will host a Christmas celebration in a university auditorium where university-aged members will attempt to recruit students.Footnote 29 At the same time, evangelists will appropriate other “safe enough” spaces, such as crowded (and noisy) public parks, open-air markets and even fast-food restaurants where their religious messages can be shared without inviting unnecessary risk.Footnote 30
Finally, it has been suggested that the legacy of indigenous churches has also contributed to the rapid growth of the house church community.Footnote 31 The argument here is that many Protestant churches refused to affiliate with the TSPM in the 1950s and have essentially been functioning independently for decades. As a result, when TSPM churches were shut down and violently targeted during the Cultural Revolution, some house churches were able to continue conducting limited, clandestine services. More importantly, when the state once again permitted greater religious freedom in the 1980s, the underground churches had a thirty-year organizational head start over state-sanctioned churches.Footnote 32
While the existing literature sheds light on the growth of house churches in China, it is incomplete for several reasons. First, many of the arguments explain the revival of religion more generally and not the variation in why house churches in particular are growing against a hostile background. For instance, ideological vacuums, economic instability and the need for communal belonging contribute to the resurgence of many religious traditions, including popular folk beliefs and state-supported Protestantism. Second, although the change in government policy has created more space for religious expression, it does so with the clear understanding that the state maintains a central role in defining the legal boundaries of religious orthodoxy and orthopraxy.Footnote 33 However, house churches operate outside of state-designated boundaries. Third, although the legacy of independent and indigenous churches has certainly given some churches an organizational advantage over TSPM churches, the house church community is extremely diverse and many house churches trace their beginnings to the later opening and reform period. Finally, studies of Protestant conversion that emphasize supernatural events and networks reveal only part of the story behind the house church growth; these same mechanisms are also behind the proliferation of falun gong and syncretic Buddhists groups of the 19th century.Footnote 34 Thus, while the current literature identifies many factors behind house church growth, there is still room for deeper analysis. This article contributes to the discussion by highlighting the organizational innovation of one house church that has navigated a restrictive religious environment and expanded to well over one million members in less than three decades.
The Fellowship
From rural origins in southern Henan, the China Gospel Fellowship (CGF) (Zhonghua fuyin tuanqi 中华福音团契) has become one of the largest house churches in China. The church has no clear denominational identification, but there are strong charismatic and Pentecostal leanings (lingenpai 灵恩派 and wuxunjie 五旬节) – many members speak in tongues (glossolalia), practise faith healing, prophesy and other gifts of the Holy Spirit.Footnote 35 Founded in the 1980s in Tanghe 唐河 county, estimates of CGF members number above one million. In 2006, for instance, one church leader suggested that there were at least 3.5 million baptized members, but added that it had been several years since a systematic count had taken place and that membership might be closer to seven million.Footnote 36 Christian media reports of the church estimate the size of the membership as being between five and seven million,Footnote 37 whereas academic reports provide more modest figures of between one and four million.Footnote 38 Again, it is difficult to know the exact size of the membership of the church, but CGF is widely recognized as one of the largest house churches in China, with a sophisticated organizational structure and dense networks that extend well beyond the country's borders.Footnote 39
The history of the CGF is similar to that of other large house churches in China. Many of the current leaders converted to Christianity during the final years of the Cultural Revolution. As one leader (Pastor “Chen”) explained, as a young man he suffered from an illness that left his legs paralyzed. Local doctors offered no cure and indicated that it was likely he would die within the year. Upon hearing his story, a Catholic neighbour offered to pray on his behalf. As Pastor Chen recalls, he was extremely sceptical, but after a few days of regular prayers he began to feel life in his legs. Within weeks he was walking, and by the end of the month he had converted to Christianity.Footnote 40
As word of Chen's healing spread, pilgrims visited his home to witness the miracle, be healed themselves, and learn about the Gospel (fuyin 福音). He recounts that many of the visitors actually laid the foundation of the Fellowship by bringing handwritten Bible passages and recalling hymns from memory. Within a few years after the end of the Cultural Revolution, over twenty people were attending regular services at his house. As the congregation grew they began to hold multiple gatherings every evening for fear that a large service would attract police attention.
In 1980, Chen began travelling with other church members around the countryside in hopes of introducing Christianity to a younger generation. His description of the early years resembles accounts of other house church developments.Footnote 41 Usually a team of two or three preachers would travel to neighbouring villages and towns under the guise of labourers. The targeted areas were selected based on the team's social networks, such as extended kinship ties. Teams would move from village to village proselytizing until their personal networks were exhausted. They would then continue their activities among strangers, knocking on doors until they found a sympathetic family. One former recruiter explained that often the only people who would take them in were the elderly and sick – in other words, desperately poor families who would provide food and shelter in exchange for help with farming and other odd jobs.Footnote 42
The CGF's early years are also strongly reminiscent of communist organizers during their own revolutionary years: teams lived and worked in accordance with the frugal and egalitarian “Spirit of Yenan,” they sought to broaden their base through face-to-face interaction with peasants, and armed themselves only with ideology.Footnote 43 When asked about the difficulty of converting Christians, one preacher remarked that manual labour gave them an opportunity to prove their worth – for instance, in the fields they might sing hymns or tell Bible stories to pass the time and then invite villagers to informal services in the evenings. In fact, many preachers were conscious that tilling the fields was the most effective way to “awaken the peasantry,” in part because many in the missionary teams were also farmers and they could easily connect with the rural population. Moreover, the missionary teams purposely used the shared vocabulary of agriculture, such as “sowing seeds” (bozhong 播种) and “harvesting crops” (shouge zhuangjia 收割庄稼) as metaphors for founding churches and converting Christians.Footnote 44 Such language resonated with rural recruits and had the added advantage of disguising their illegal proselytizing activities.Footnote 45 Ironically, Mao used the same metaphor for sowing the seeds of revolution.Footnote 46
Generally, missionary teams would spend one to two weeks in a village laying the groundwork before moving on. However, in larger villages they could spend several months forming up to 20 house churches and numerous cell groups. As one preacher stressed, it was important to establish multiple and relatively self-contained units as a single church might fail after the team left, or if local authorities were especially hostile towards Christians, it would be necessary to hold services in smaller cells where activities would remain unnoticed.Footnote 47 Therefore, an investment in multiple and disaggregated groups improved the likelihood that the larger organization would flourish over time.
During the 1980s, teams of missionaries scattered across the Chinese countryside, but their efforts were not always successful. Several informants reported fierce competition with TSPM churches and pressure from local authorities.Footnote 48 As one missionary recalled, when entering an area where they had no personal connections they would join TSPM churches with the intention of “stealing sheep” (tou yang 偷羊). TSPM ministers did not always welcome the competition. In one such instance, a TSPM minister alerted local police to the CGF missionaries' evangelizing activities and participated in a police raid on a house church held in a barn. During the raid, the police told the worshippers that their activities were illegal and demanded that they disband. As the police were interrogating the members about the leaders of the group, the TSPM minister began shouting that the congregation should only worship in government-approved churches. One elderly woman complained that it was too far for her to walk, and a shouting match erupted between the TSPM minister and the house church congregation. This provided enough of a distraction for the missionaries to abscond and avoid arrest.Footnote 49 On other occasions, the missionary teams were arrested and sent to labour camps (laodong ying 劳动营) for re-education. One missionary recalled that the early years were particularly difficult and almost all missionaries were sentenced to three or four months in labour camps, but some of the higher leaders served up to 15 years.Footnote 50 However, incarceration was often considered the least of the missionary team's worries. The minimum fine for proselytizing was 500 yuan (about one year's income in rural China) and church leaders were fined up to 2,000 yuan.Footnote 51
Encircle the Cities
By the late 1990s, the Fellowship had planted churches in every province and had now set their sights on the cities.Footnote 52 Again, one is reminded of the parallels with the CCP before they came to power. They recognized the importance of the countryside for building a support base and to serve as a springboard for revolution, and the strategy of encircling the cities.Footnote 53 However, rather than revolutionary goals, the church's urban shift was driven by practical factors. Church leaders felt that they and other house churches had saturated the countryside and were looking for new recruits. As one leader stated, “over half of the villages [in China] now have a church.”Footnote 54 While it is impossible to verify this claim, another leader suggested a second important factor: rural to urban migration. By the late 1990s, hundreds of thousands of young Chinese were relocating to cities in search of employment, and the church followed. Moreover, many migrants were active in their rural churches and the CGF leadership could take advantage of the diaspora's desire for community in an unfamiliar urban setting. Indeed, one leader remarked on the church's strong rural roots: “Even in the cities, we are still a rural church” (zai chengshi, women haishi nongcun jiaohui 在城市, 我们还是农村教会).Footnote 55
The move to a more restrictive urban market also meant that the church could no longer rely on the strategies for proselytizing that were effective in the countryside. One new tactic that proved successful was to evangelize from within factories. Similar to Lenin's call to “capture the trade unions,” teams of missionaries would apply for jobs at factories.Footnote 56 Team members would work hard to become model workers and then gradually introduce Christianity to co-workers. As one former missionary recounted, “we were ‘airborne troopers’” (kongjiang budui 空降部队) – agents sent inside factories to turn workers towards Jesus.Footnote 57 Even when factory management discovered their proselytizing activities, the missionary teams were often not fired because they were considered honest and hardworking employees. Thus, one of the shared sources of legitimacy for both early communists and the evangelizing “airborne troopers” is also one of the simplest: the moral authority of hard work.Footnote 58
The Organizational Weapon
Lenin argued that “the proletariat has no other weapon in the fight for power except organization.”Footnote 59 The Party must build an organization prepared for combat in an openly antagonistic environment – an organization that is highly adaptable, able to operate efficiently with secrecy and subversion, that is able to neutralize and infiltrate opponents, compete effectively with existing authority, and exploit the elasticity in the political system.Footnote 60 Therefore, for Lenin, the organization itself was a weapon in the struggle for power.
The importance of organizational structure and strategy were also impressed upon the CGF leaders as the church urbanized. However, rather than revolutionary goals to overthrow the regime, church leaders turned to organizational tactics to ensure survival and growth. The church needed to develop a more effective defence – particularly to avoid detection by authorities in densely populated areas and to enable continuity of operations when churches were raided, leaders arrested and property confiscated. At the same time, the church needed an offensive strategy that would allow it to expand into new markets and accommodate its day-to-day financial demands, for example funds for urban rents, stipends for missionaries and salaries for preachers. Thus, the CGF needed an organizational model that would allow it to be more streamlined, efficient and responsive to its growing congregation, and at the same time elude state surveillance.Footnote 61 The early communists provided a powerful template.
In early 2000, the organizational weapon of the church was formalized, incorporating many of the evasive tactics developed earlier. Church activists served in rotating locations, maintained low public profiles and relied on word-of-mouth networks to publicize their activities. The church also incorporated new defensive measures, such as creating semi-autonomous branches that were based upon a functional division of labour, and isolating levels of the church hierarchy from one another. These actions were designed to reduce the costs of regime harassment. The church's organizational structure became its greatest asset when navigating the inhospitable landscape.
The CGF is designed to function discreetly and at multiple levels. At the top of the organizational structure is a leader who is referred to as “uncle” (shushu 叔叔).Footnote 62 The uncle is elected by a lower council and serves as the head of the church until he is either unwilling or unable. The second level of the church is the Council of Elders, sometimes referred to as “headquarters” (zongbu 总部).Footnote 63 The Council is comprised of the uncle and seven or eight members and represents the core leadership of the church. Its primary role is to advise the leader and oversee the different responsibilities of the church. Specifically, the Council manages various church departments (bu 部), including administration, business, fundraising, missionary work, education, youth/children outreach, pastoral care and worship.Footnote 64 The Council also votes on major church decisions, such as identifying locations for evangelical work, developing training material for missionaries and ministers, and defining the church's relationship with foreign churches. Membership includes both men and women, but it is predominately men who have earned their revolutionary stripes as early missionaries in the church. Younger generations may also be asked to join if they have worked their way up through the ranks and have expertise such as formal training in finance or law. As one informant explained, the Council is an efficient tool for grooming the next generation of leaders.Footnote 65
Below the Council are district churches (jiao qu 教区; pianqu 片区; muqu 牧区). These districts are territorially based and normally include at least 30,000 baptized members.Footnote 66 Generally, there is more than one district per province although some districts incorporate multiple provinces. Teams of five to seven staff manage each district, including a church elder (zhanglao 长老) and three to six deacons (zhishi 执事). Mirroring the division of labour above, each deacon is responsible for a different department of the church and is considered as part of the full-time, professional staff. Staff have all worked at the lower levels, are well-trained in church affairs, and many have spent time in labour camps or under house arrest. According to one leader, church personnel are disciplined men and women who have shown a strong personal commitment and a willingness to make sacrifices for the benefit of the church.Footnote 67 Such a description is reminiscent of Lenin's revolutionary vanguard: they are “more than just technically trained members of an elite group… the key element is personal commitment to the point where serious risks are accepted…. [They] cannot be created simply through indoctrination; they are trained and tested in the struggle for power.”Footnote 68
The district churches' autonomy from the upper echelons of the CGF serves as another important organizational aspect.Footnote 69 Initially, the church had an administrative level between the district churches and the Council of Elders, called Missionary Sending Agencies (chai hui 差会), which coordinated religious activities in the provinces.Footnote 70 However, these centres were gradually absorbed into the lower districts. Several church leaders commented that Missionary Sending Agencies took many of the most talented preachers out of the churches and placed them in a bureaucracy.Footnote 71 Moreover, by eliminating this additional level the districts were more likely to be run by local “cadres” – i.e., those with the most connections, credibility (which is important when interacting with local authorities), and the expertise required to understand the local needs of the church and “win” believers. Again, this echoes the Party strategy of elevating indigenous talent.Footnote 72
The fourth level comprises local churches (this level is known by several names: difang tuandui 地方团队; difang jiaohui 地方教会; fenqu 分区; bendi jiaohui 本地教会). On average, there are three to five local churches in each district. They coordinate large worship services once or twice a month and on religious holidays. Local churches also provide a loose support network for the levels below them. For instance, when a cell group is raided, it is the local church cadres who mobilize to rebuild the cell and direct members to safe places of worship.
House churches (jiating jiaohui 家庭教会) represent the fifth level and the foundation of the CGF. Generally, there are three leadership positions in the house church: preacher, music leader and accountant. Congregation sizes range from between 15 to 150 baptized members, but average around 30 members.Footnote 73 Depending on the location, services are held in private homes, barns or fields in rural areas, and in apartments or offices in the cities. This level is frequently targeted by the authorities and so the locations of worship services change often. Once membership reaches a critical mass of 30 to 40 regular attendees, leaders will again divide the congregation into smaller house churches. Interestingly, congregations within the same city tend to have little contact with one another and function as semi-autonomous units. It is important to note the fractal nature of the organization, a factor which was also crucial for the survival of early communist movements. For instance, each house church is relatively self-contained, rather than being dependent on other units either horizontally or vertically within the organization. This allows higher leaders to disappear behind the scenes while remaining plugged into an effective system of command. In this way, if one house church is raided, the larger organization is not at risk.Footnote 74 Therefore, house churches, like the early communist units, “are very small, not merely because of conspiratorial advantages gained when a party member knows only a few of his comrades, but perhaps more especially because such extreme subdivision makes possible full use of membership.”Footnote 75
The final level is made up of cell groups (xibao xiaozu 细胞小组), an organizational level also used and perfected by communists during their own revolutionary struggles. Cells are attached to a house church, comprise between seven and 15 members, and meet on a weekly basis. Larger and more active house churches may contain as many as 50 cells, but the average is closer to seven. Generally, one or two active members from the house church coordinate the cells and set the theme of the meetings. Cells may also form around particular demographic groups, such as women or young people. Church pastors explained that the cellular pattern is crucial to the larger organization because it both addresses the needs of individuals and binds them to the church.Footnote 76 Thus, like the communists before, the cellular structure ensures that “the member is not simply an adherent within an amorphous group, as in the case of most voluntary associations, but is absorbed into a network of subordinate organizations and offshoot bodies which are able to bind him effectively into the party structure.”Footnote 77
Conclusion
The purpose of this article has been to explain how house churches have managed to expand and flourish in a highly competitive and restrictive political environment by examining the organizational innovation of one large house church. What stands out from this analysis are the similarities between the organizational structures of early communist movements and underground Protestants. The CGF, like the early communist parties, is a clandestine organization competing for members and operating in a repressive political context; it too is directed by leaders with “revolutionary credentials”; its organization is fractal and operates at multiple levels; within each level there is a functional division of labour; the levels are insulated from the others to allow them to re-organize swiftly when raided by authorities; the organization is staffed by loyal “cadres” who are plugged into an efficient system of command and operate from behind the scenes; and lower-ranking members are tightly-knit into the network through regular meetings, ideology and cell groups. Thus, the lower units may come and go, but their departure does not jeopardize the upper levels, the larger mission, or, for that matter, have much horizontal impact on the organization itself. Not only has the organizational structure empowered both the house church and early communist movements, but it also has allowed them to take advantage of a certain elasticity in the political environment as a result of liberalizing reforms (contemporary China), political disarray (the warlord and Republican eras), and growing pressures to reform followed by regime crackdowns (tsarist Russia). Therefore, in spite of competing ideological agendas between Christians and communists, the organizational structure is and has been crucial in protecting and promoting them both.
Is it surprising that the highly touted organizational weapon developed by the Bolsheviks and recycled by the CCP has been adopted by a religious vanguard? Since the Roman Empire, Christians have met in small, self-contained groups to escape persecution, and contemporary churches outside of China have adopted cellular and fractal models to encourage growth.Footnote 78 It could be argued that organizational homogeneity between underground communists and churches is encouraged by two mechanisms working in tandem: functionality and mimesis. Groups embedded in similar environments adopt organizational forms that are optimal for their survival.Footnote 79 Therefore, the organizational congruence between communists and underground Christians is owing to the fact that these are both “subversive” groups operating in hostile political environments, and that their choice of organizational models is likely quite limited.
The second mechanism at work is the explicit recycling or mimicry of early communists by house church leaders, with the CCP as the obvious home-grown example.Footnote 80 Indeed, as Elizabeth J. Perry argues, “the Communist Party is an extremely powerful, indeed virtually irresistible, organizational template for any group trying to operate in contemporary China.” This helps to explain why other marginalized groups, such as falun gong, have also similarly structured their organizations.Footnote 81 Yet, the organizational innovation of the house churches may not rest solely with the CCP; it also springs from China's longer history of secret societies and syncretic sects – associational groups that populated the political margins at different historical moments.Footnote 82
In support of organizational diffusion, interviews revealed that some church leaders do in fact credit the CCP for the church's organizational choices. One CGF leader remarked that just as the CCP was forced to organize to protect itself from the Kuomintang, the CGF faces similar challenges and has adopted a structure that allows it to “stand firm under pressure.”Footnote 83 A second leader speculated that perhaps Mao was secretly a Christian inspired by Biblical accounts of house churches (there is little evidence to support this view and it is more likely that Mao was influenced by secret societies).Footnote 84 Another church member echoed Perry's argument that the Party continues to be an influential model for the church in that the upper levels are modelled on current political institutions – that is, the Council of Elders is a cabinet of advisers (the standing committee), who report to the uncle (president), and who are responsible for different aspects of church affairs (ministries) and the grooming of the next generation of leaders.Footnote 85 Thus, it would seem that the CCP has had a lasting influence on Chinese Protestants, although certainly not one that was intended.
The organizational innovation and sophistication of the CGF also has important implications for the study of contemporary China. Church leaders are quite aware that as their network moves from rural to urban and global markets, they are viewed with increasing suspicion by a regime that is intent on countering threats to its hegemony – as we have seen, most recently, with respect to its responses to the colour revolutions and the wave of popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.Footnote 86 As a result, church leaders are quick to reinforce the idea that they are a purely religious organization with no political ambitions.Footnote 87 In fact, patriotism (aiguozhuyi 爱国主义) in the church was often referred to by respondents, and is also a frequent theme of TSPM churches.Footnote 88 As one preacher explained, most services begin with prayers for China and CCP leaders (even though Party members are required to uphold atheism), signalling an open commitment to patriotism.Footnote 89 This commitment reveals, among other things, an important difference between early communists and house churches. Namely, house churches do not use organizational strategy as a subversive weapon to challenge and replace the existing political order, but rather out of practical necessity to coexist.
Another church member noted that other large associational groups operating on the political margins, such as falun gong, serve as an important example of how not to engage the state. One informant conceded that a single phone call could activate the church's dense network and bring tens of thousands of people to the capital, much like the 1999 falun gong protests. However, such an act would only end badly for the church and other Christians across the country. Church leaders stressed that there are effective ways to build the church in China, but mobilizing in Beijing and openly contesting the state is not one of them.Footnote 90 At the same time, falun gong may provide another important lesson for house churches. James Tong, for example, has shown that falun gong originally mirrored the regime's administrative hierarchies – a factor that was threatening to those in power and may have also facilitated the crackdown because the regime was familiar with the organizational template.Footnote 91
This suggests a final implication. The CGF incorporates over one million members, making it one of the largest and most sophisticated civil society networks in China. It is a well-organized, voluntary association that promotes cooperation among citizens at various levels, integrates urban and rural areas, and even has transnational linkages. Moreover, unlike other large associations in China, it is truly an independent organization, with no ties to the state. While church leaders do not see themselves as revolutionaries and are quick to downplay any political aspirations in favour of a spiritual and patriotic mission, this does not mean that they will always do so. One is reminded of the role civil society played in the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Its power came not from a project to end the regime so much as its ability to establish an existence separate from the regime. In this sense, the organizational weapon can be used to subvert, as well as establish, communist powers.
