O HOLY NIGHT: FOREIGN PROTESTANTS PACK CHURCHES AT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SHANGHAI 000580 DEPT FOR EAP/CM, AND DRL/IRF NSC FOR LOI, KUCHTA-HELBLING E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/30/2033 TAGS: PGOV PINR KIRF SOCI CH SUBJECT: O HOLY NIGHT: FOREIGN PROTESTANTS PACK CHURCHES AT CHRISTMAS REF: A. (A) SHANGHAI 360 ¶B. (B) SHANGHAI 408 CLASSIFIED BY: MATTHEW MURRAY, ACTING POL/ECON CHIEF, US CONSULATE SHANGHAI, DEPARTMENT OF STATE. REASON: 1.4 (b),(d) Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) Foreign Protestants packed church services for Christmas celebrations in Shanghai, taking advantage of recent indications that the Municipal Government is willing to provide more opportunities for expatriate Protestants to meet corporately in the city. With the growing number of foreigners in Shanghai, it is natural to see more foreign Christians, our contacts said, but authorities continue to view foreign Protestants with greater suspicion than Catholics or non-Christian religions, and foreign Protestants' efforts to interact with local Christians remain restricted. End Summary. -------------- O Come All Ye Faithful: Protestants Celebrate Christmas in Shanghai -------------- ¶2. (C) Shanghai has two primary church congregations for foreign Protestants -- one located on Hengshan Road in the French Concession area (in western Shanghai) and the other in Pudong's Jinqiao District (on the eastern side of the Huangpu River) -- both of which were packed to overflowing for services on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Poloff attended the Abundant Grace International Fellowship (AGIF) Christmas Eve service in Pudong, which was held at a hotel and was standing room only. An American businessman who has lived in Shanghai for three years told Poloff that Christmas Day services at the Hengshan Road church also were standing room only. (Note: There are other churches in Shanghai for foreign Protestants, most notably for Korean and Russian congregations as well as for overseas Chinese, including those from Taiwan and Hong Kong, but Hengshan and AGIF are the two primary international congregations in the city. End Note.) ¶3. (C) Shanghai, like other cities in China, does not allow Chinese citizens to worship together with foreign Protestant congregations, and foreigners are largely discouraged from attending Chinese services. AGIF and the church at Hengshan both share their church buildings with Chinese Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) congregations, which results in the foreign congregations regularly meeting on Sunday afternoons while Chinese Christians attend the TSPM services in the morning. The need to share space led to inconveniences during Christmas; for example, the Hengshan foreign congregation did not have much time to set up for its service, and the AGIF congregation elected to move its service to a nearby hotel. These minor problems, however, did not appear to deter those foreign Protestants who remained in Shanghai for Christmas from attending services in large numbers. -------------- Joy to the World: New Opportunities for Foreign Protestants -------------- ¶4. (C) Foreign Protestants living in western Shanghai (Puxi) were encouraged just prior to Christmas by the opening of a new expatriate congregation near Hongqiao Airport. Poloff attended the 300-plus member gathering, called Shanghai Christian Fellowship (SCF) Hongqiao, on the morning of December 28, where there also was a standing room only crowd in a leased hotel multifunction room. With a pastor from Singapore, Daniel Ho, and a wide range of nationalities represented, SCF, which was permitted by the Municipal Government to meet for the first time on December 14, may be the most culturally diverse of Shanghai's foreign Protestant congregations. Growing demand for a new foreign Protestant congregation had been steadily growing, and the Hengshan church, where many of the SCF attendees previously worshipped, increased from two Sunday services to three during the fall in order to accommodate the growing number of active churchgoers in the expatriate community. ¶5. (C) At the same time, foreign residents in Pudong are pleased that Bible Study Fellowship (BSF),a U.S.-based organization, which in addition to providing materials used for religious instruction in official churches in China, also operates men's and women's Bible Studies for foreign Christians, will be allowed to open a new Bible Study course in Pudong next year. BSF has been holding men's and women's Bible Studies for foreigners for the past couple of years but has been restricted by local authorities to operating only in Puxi. Foreign participants in the Bible Study, many of whom live in Pudong, believe the BSF program for foreigners will expand exponentially in Shanghai when opened to Pudong's large expatriate population. -------------- Hark, the Herald Angels Sing: Foreign Christians Growing in Numbers -------------- ¶6. (C) With more and more foreigners moving to Shanghai during the 1990s, it is natural to see a growing number of foreign Christians in Shanghai, Consulate contacts said. As a "City of Immigrants," Shanghai is more accepting to outsiders, said Lu Hanlong, Director of the Sociology Department at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS),pointing to the thousands of foreign white collar workers who move to Shanghai to work in the financial sector or for foreign-invested enterprises. SASS Institute of Religious Studies Director Yan Kejia told Poloff on November 17 that he estimates there are approximately 160,000 foreigners in Shanghai who are "religious believers," including Protestants. ¶7. (C) According to Yan, it is difficult to accurately gauge how many foreign Christians live in Shanghai, however, because (1) there is regular turnover of foreigners in Shanghai every year, (2) foreigners' lives are busy so while they may believe in a religion, they might not go to church, and (3) it is difficult to calculate the number of believers who are short-term (less than 6 months) residents of Shanghai. Yan added that one example of the difficulty faced when predicting the number of foreign Christians in Shanghai is that there are 50,000 long-term Korean residents in the city, and 30 percent of Korea's population is Christian. The number of Korean Christians in Shanghai may be higher than 15,000 (30 percent), however, because Korean white collar workers are more likely to be Christian than their blue collar counterparts, and many of the Koreans who are drawn to Shanghai are white collar workers. -------------- - What Child Is This? Authorities Still Watching Foreign Protestants -------------- - ¶8. (C) Despite the recent apparent opening, the Shanghai Municipal Government continues to pay particularly close attention to foreign Protestants. Yan Kejia contends that many of the obstacles encountered by foreign Protestant groups in Shanghai when they want to establish new congregations stem from more benign reasons and legitimate concerns than many foreigners understand. Yan pointed out that there are not enough pastors who speak foreign languages, foreigners' expectations for their churches are high, and the church registration process, which includes the problem of acquiring land for churches or finding other church buildings to share, always will be cumbersome whether in China or elsewhere. It is therefore a positive sign that the Municipal Government has been able to meet the religious needs of many foreign Protestants, Yan stated, including not only at the Hengshan Church, and AGIF, which was established three years ago, but also in the Korean and Russian communities in particular. ¶9. (C) Yan acknowledged, however, that local authorities watch foreign Protestant congregations much more closely than other religious groups. Yan stated that Catholic churches, Buddhist temples, and Muslim mosques all allow foreigners and Chinese citizens to mix freely in Shanghai. (Note: Congenoffs have found Chinese Catholic churches welcome their attendance. End Note.) Protestantism is "more of a participation activity," however, which worries local officials, Yan said. "Catholics just pray, take communion, and go home," Yan stated. "But Protestants always want to get organized." The local government remains concerned about keeping foreign Protestants separate from their Chinese counterparts, said Li Feng, a professor at East China Normal University, because the Government feels threatened by Protestants as an organization. Religion for individuals is relatively free in Shanghai, Li told Poloff on November 19, but the Municipal Government wants to prevent the growing number of foreign Protestants in the city from "organizing" local Chinese Christians. -------------- Go Tell It On the Mountain... But Not if Chinese Live There -------------- ¶10. (C) Not surprisingly, therefore, foreign Protestants in Shanghai regularly report that while the activities of their own foreign congregations do not appear to be curtailed -- and in fact are enjoying growing freedom as evidenced by Christmas celebrations in 2008 -- their opportunities to share their faiths with local Chinese and interact with Chinese religious organizations are somewhat restricted (see also Ref A on East China's Chinese Protestant community). Nate Showalter, AGIF's pastor, told Poloff that AGIF has grown rapidly in its three years of existence and has enjoyed a fairly cooperative relationship with local officials. It is difficult, however, for church members to interact with local Chinese Christians, Showalter said, and as a result, AGIF's Missions Committee expends many of its resources to support community development activities in India rather than locally in Shanghai. ¶11. (C) Diana Mark, a Singaporean national, said she was able to work with a local house church for several months, enjoying some anonymity as an Asian and Chinese speaker. House church members told her in December, though, that she should not continue working with them because local officials had learned a foreigner was involved with their group (see also Ref B on house church difficulties). Matthew Hilliard, an American missionary, told Poloff on December 26 that he is encouraged that he and his wife are allowed to attend a local Chinese church, Grace Church, in Jingan District. He is disappointed, however, that he cannot be "as active as we would like" in the church's activities, lest his higher profile as a foreign Protestant cause additional problems for the church. CAMP