House church (disambiguation)

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House church may refer to:

The British New Church Movement (BNCM) is a neocharismatic evangelical Christian movement. Its origin is associated with the Charismatic Movement of the 1960s, although it both predates it and has an agenda that goes beyond it. It was originally known as the "house church movement", although this name is no longer relevant as few congregations meet in houses. Gerald Coates, one of the early leaders, coined the name New Churches as an alternative. It is also restorationist in character, seeking to restore the church to its 1st century equivalent. While the Charismatic Movement focused on the transformation of individuals, the BNCM focused also on the nature of the church. For the BNCM since 1970, this has focused on the renewal of the fivefold ministries, particularly apostles, which for others might resemble a charismatically ordained and functioning episcopate.

Evangelicalism, evangelical Christianity, or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, trans-denominational movement within Protestant Christianity which maintains the belief that the essence of the Gospel consists of the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ's atonement. Evangelicals believe in the centrality of the conversion or "born again" experience in receiving salvation, in the authority of the Bible as God's revelation to humanity, and in spreading the Christian message. The movement has had a long presence in the Anglosphere before spreading further afield in the 19th, 20th and early 21st centuries.

Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Its adherents, known as Christians, believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and the savior of all people, whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Scriptures of Judaism, called the Old Testament in Christianity, and chronicled in the New Testament. It is the world's largest religion with over 2.4 billion followers.

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House church (China)

In China, house churches or family churches are Christian assemblies in the People's Republic of China that operate independently from the state-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and China Christian Council (CCC), and came into existence due to the change in religious policy after the end of the Cultural Revolution in the early-1980s.

The Three-Self Patriotic Movement is a Protestant church in the People's Republic of China, and one of the largest Protestant bodies in the world. It is colloquially known as the Three-Self Church.

China Christian Council Protestant religious organization in China

The China Christian Council was founded in 1980 as an umbrella organization for all Protestant churches in the People's Republic of China with Bishop K. H. Ting as its president. It works to provide theological education and the publication of Bibles, hymnals, and other religious literature. It encourages the exchange of information among local churches in evangelism, pastoral work and administration. It has formulated a church order for local churches, and seeks to continue to develop friendly relations with churches overseas.

A house church or home church is a label used to describe a group of Christians who regularly gather for worship in private homes. The group may be part of a larger Christian body, such as a parish, but some have been independent groups that see the house church as the primary form of Christian community.

Christianity in China Religious community

Christianity in China appeared in the 7th century, during the Tang dynasty, but did not take root until it was reintroduced in the 16th century by Jesuit missionaries. Today, it comprises Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals and a small number of Orthodox Christians. Although its history in China is not as ancient as Taoism, Mahayana Buddhism or Confucianism, Christianity, through various ways, has been present in China since at least the 7th century and has gained significant influence during the last 200 years. The number of Chinese Christians has increased significantly since the easing of restrictions on religious activity during economic reforms in the late 1970s; Christians were four million before 1949.

Protestant Christianity entered China in the early 19th century, taking root in a significant way during the Qing dynasty. Some historians consider the Taiping Rebellion to have been influenced by Protestant teachings. Since the mid-20th century, there has been an increase in the number of Christian practitioners in China. According to a survey published in 2010 there are approximately 40 million Protestants in China.

The Neo-charismaticmovement is a movement within evangelical protestant Christianity. The Neo-charismatic movement is considered to be the "third wave" of the charismatic Christian tradition which began with Pentecostalism, and was furthered by the evangelical charismatic movement. Neo-charismatics are now believed to be more numerous than the first and second wave categories, combined, as a result of the growth of postdenominational and independent charismatic groups. As of 2002, there were estimated to be approximately 295 million adherents or participants in the neo-charismatic movement.

Peter Xu is the founder of an Evangelical Christian movement in China known as the "New Birth", "All Range", or "Born Again Movement." It is a Chinese house church movement, unregistered by the Chinese government. In 1997, he was sentenced to three years in prison for his leadership role. He moved to the United States following his release.

Samuel Lamb or Lin Xiangao was a Protestant pastor in Guangzhou, China. He was a leader in the Chinese house church movement and known for his resistance against the state-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM).

The Anti-Christian Movement (非基督教运动) was an intellectual and political movement in China in the 1920s. The May Fourth Movement for a New Culture attacked religion of all sorts, including Confucianism and Buddhism as well as Christianity, rejecting all as superstition. The various movements were also inspired by modernizing attitudes deriving from both nationalist and socialist ideologies, as well as feeding on older anti-Christian sentiment that was in large part due to repeated invasions of China by Western countries. The Chinese Nationalists had also sought unity in their country as well as a transformation in the way that their society operated which seemed to heavily rely upon Western thought and/or ideals. They brought forth age-old criticisms about the Western religion and accused the Christian missionaries of actively participating in it as a way of eliminating the native culture like other foreign imperialists.

The Born Again MovementB.A.M., or Word of Life Church, or All Ranges Church of China is a Christian religious movement founded by Peter Xu Yongze in 1968 during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, when all churches were officially closed by the Communist government under Chairman Mao.

Allen Yuan Xiangchen was a Chinese Protestant Christian pastor. He was acclaimed by Open Doors as "a towering figure in China's house church movement" and known for his resistance against participation in the state-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement, which resulted in imprisonment for more than twenty-one years.

The Fangcheng Fellowship is a Christian religious movement in China. Established in the early 1970s by Li Tianen, it expanded to become one of the largest house church networks with, as of 2010, an estimated ten million members. If considered Protestant, it constitutes one of the largest Protestant denominations in the world, and the second largest in China, behind the state-supported Three-Self Patriotic Movement.

Bob Fu American pastor

Bob Fu is a Chinese American pastor. He is the founder and president since 2002 of China Aid, which provides legal aid to Christians in China. Bob Fu was born in Shandong in 1968 and studied English literature at Liaocheng University in the 1980s. He converted to Christianity after an American teacher gave him a biography of a Chinese Christian convert. After his studies, Fu taught English at the Central Party School in Beijing while participating in the house church movement. In 1996, Bob Fu and his family emigrated to Hong Kong and then the United States, after his wife became pregnant without the government permission to have a child. Fu founded the China Aid Association in Philadelphia in 2002, but moved its headquarters to Midland, Texas in 2004. Fu is also known for his role in helping negotiate barefoot lawyer Chen Guangcheng's immigration to the United States; in this sense, has been described as a "liaison" between oppressed groups in China and foreign governments or media that can help them.

True Jesus Church non-denominational Christian church founded in Beijing, China

The True Jesus Church is a Christian Church that originated in Beijing, China during the Pentecostal movement in the early twentieth century. The TJC is currently one of the largest Christian groups in China and Taiwan, as well as one of the largest independent churches in the world.

Political theology in China includes responses from Chinese government leaders, scholars, and religious leaders who deal with the relationship between religion and politics. For two millennia, this was organized based on a Confucian understanding of religion and politics, often discussed in terms of Confucian political philosophy. At various points throughout its history, Chinese Buddhism presented an alternative to the political import of Confucianism. However, since the mid-twentieth century, communist understandings of religion have dominated the discourse.

The Christian Manifesto

"Direction of Endeavor for Chinese Christianity in the Construction of New China", commonly known as "The Christian Manifesto" or "The Three-Self Manifesto", was a political manifesto of Protestants in China whereby they backed the newly-founded People's Republic of China (PRC) and the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Published in 1950, the manifesto paved the way for the government-controlled Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) of Protestants. This movement proclaimed the three principles of self-government, self-support, and self-propagation. The drafting and content of the manifesto was, and remains, controversial to this day.

Lianghui (Protestantism)

Protestantism in China uses lianghui to speak of the two Chinese government-sanctioned Protestant organizations: the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and the China Christian Council (CCC). Due to the close relationship between these two organizations, they are sometimes mistaken as the same organization.