Counting Christians in China: A Critical Reading of “A Star in the East: The Rise of Christianity in China”

Abstract

Deciphering the number of Christians in China has been a particular fascination for Western scholars, church leaders, politicians, and journalists. Rodney Stark and Xiuhua Wang’s recent volume, A Star in the East: The Rise of Christianity in China, is the latest attempt to do just that. In addition, this slim volume (under 130 pages of text) attempts to provide a more precise demographic profile of Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, than population numbers alone reveal. The book begins with an overview of the state of religious belief in China in which Stark and Wang hope to avoid the “nonsense” offered by other authors by basing their discussion on “reliable statistics, properly interpreted” (pg. 2). The data from this initial chapter, which is actually based (over half of it verbatim) on a journal article by Stark and Eric Liu, discusses two recent surveys conducted in China in which the authors attempt to reconcile the fact that while many Chinese claim to have no religion, their actions may not support this assertion. After looking at religion in China in general, Stark and Wang focus on the state of Christianity. While a 2007 survey reports 2.5% of the population as Christian (about 30 million), the authors massage this number to suggest that there were “slightly more than 60 million” (p. 11) Christians in China at that time. Chapters two and three provide a bit of historical background on the situation of Christianity in China both before and after the founding of the PRC in 1949 and set the stage for Chapters four and five, which as the heart of the book look at factors such as education and urban or rural environments on the number of Chinese Christians. There are nuggets of novel statistical and analytical information found in these chapters. For example, survey results show that the religious revival in China is not predominantly rural, but that Christianity overall is growing among both rural and urban populations. As the authors summarize, “if there is an outbreak of religious fever in China, it is everywhere” (p. 95). Stark and Wang also provide statistics that reflect the role of family networks in rural conversions. As they aptly remark, “[i]n the most literal sense, in rural China, Christianity is a family affair” (p. 107). The authors further contend that higher education is positively correlated to being a Christian in today’s China. The sociological analysis of Chinese Christians is interesting, such as the assertion that conversion, as an act of conformity, usually follows social networks and family ties, or the refutation of the deprivation theory of conversion. However, these are the exact parts of the volume found in Stark’s other publications. It would be of interest for future scholars to apply such sociological analysis to local studies and actually show how conversion works along such lines in modern China. The final chapter offers projections of Chinese Christianity in the future and what this could mean for China. Stark and Wang predict just under 300 million Chinese Christians by 2030 and nearly double that number in 2040. The authors are more cautious in their prediction of what this growth may mean for China, but suggest it could encourage greater economic liberalization and