The first Christian missionaries arrived in China in the 16th century. Today, it is estimated that there are 50-80 million Christians in China, 12 million of whom are Catholic. While the CCP fears the destabilizing force religion can unleash, it also recognizes its social contributions and the moral restraint it encourages in its adherents. The Party's main concern is that religious groups will encourage a degree of association that challenges that of the government.

China's Catholicism traces its origins to the counter-reformation in France, when Jesuit missionaries came to China and created mini-Christendoms in rural villages by integrating the communities' religious and civic institutions.  The practical result was that these communities did not challenge the existing political order, but instead accommodated to it.  Nevertheless, not long after coming to power, the Communist government repressed the Catholic Church, whose independent moral authority and organizational independence it saw as a threat to the totalitarian system Mao was instituting.  In recent years, even as thae original system has largely faded away, the Catholic Church remains a target of persecution by the CCP, who continue to be threatened by the Church’s organizational independence. (In particular, the government remembers the role of the Vatican in the Polish Solidarity movement and the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union).

While the Catholic Church has persevered in China, the past twenty years have seen far greater growth in the Protestant Church--both in officially-licensed churches and "house churches" operating outside the laws governing religious worship in China.  While this growth has taken place in both rural and urban areas, Chinese cities, in particular, have seen a marked increase in the number of conversions, especially among the professional classes.  There appears to be an increasing number of lawyers and law professors who have converted to Christianity and have taken an interest in the so-called "higher law" background to Western and, specifically, American constitutionalism.

"Business Christians," another fast-growing group, consist of individuals who strive to conduct their business in an ethical manner, but also find the associative aspect of church networks helpful to their work. In some cases, if they are successful and prominent enough, "Business Christians" are able to influence government attitudes toward religion on a local level, protecting their churches from harassment. There are also self-identified Christian groups in almost every Chinese university, some of whom have been active in trying to develop a specifically Sino-Christian theology. 

Rural areas, on the other hand, have seen a marked growth in so-called "house churches." In many cases, the government is aware of and allows the churches to exist. The province or village in which a church is located, as well as the number of Christians in the region, often determines the relationship between the house church and the government. In some areas, local officials are lenient towards house churches and may themselves be members of one. In other areas, house churches must operate underground for fear of persecution.

The urban/rural divide distinguishes house churches from one another, affecting everything from church governance to membership. In urban areas, house churches tend to be a reflection of dissatisfaction with state-sanctioned churches; in rural areas house churches often form for lack of a registered church. By virtue of their relative independence from the government, some have speculated that the house churches might serve as something of a progenitor for Chinese self-governance. In rural areas this seems less likely as house churches are often led by charismatic and occasionally authoritarian-like figures, where church members have little to say about the church’s direction. In some larger, urban house churches, however, members of the congregation participate in church governance and activities, creating, in many ways, self-governed mini societies.

I. Alexis de Tocqueville on Religion
III. The Role of Popular or Folk Religions in Chinese Society
IV. The State’s Response: Confucianism and Morality Campaigns