Book(electronic)2018

Authoritarian containment: public security bureaus and Protestant house churches in urban China

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Abstract

Since the early years of the People's Republic of China, the Chinese state has sought to regulate the practice of religion. The institutions it created for that purpose were meant to ensure that religious practice would not happen outside the supervision of the state. Since the 1990s, however, unregistered religious sites have proliferated in China, and those include Protestant house churches. China is said to have more unregistered churches than registered ones. Unregistered churches have, for the most part, deliberately chosen not to register with the State Administration for Religious Affairs, and they have also bypassed a number of other central government regulations on religious activities. Despite the fact that they are illegal, local public security bureaus have tolerated those churches. The text argues that they have done so to contain the influence of Protestantism in Chinese cities.

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Book(electronic)#12018

Authoritarian Containment: Public Security Bureaus and Protestant House Churches in Urban China

Reny, Marie-Eve

In Authoritarian Containment, Marie-Eve Reny examines why local public security bureaus tolerate unregistered Protestant churches in urban China--an officially atheist country where religious practice is controlled by the state--when the central government considers them illegal. She also notes that other authoritarian regimes have employed a similar strategies to control the activities of informal religious organizations.