This article examines the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chinese Protestantism in the early People"s Republic of China (PRC) in terms of state-society relationship by analysing Tian Feng, official journal of the Three-self Reform Movement Committee, preserved in the Shanghai Municipal Archives.
Many conventional studies assumes that the system by which the CCP managed Chinese Protestantism in the early days of the PRC was coercive and the Party-state was the only agent of religious policy formation aiming at complete control over Chinese Protestantism. However, according to the article, the CCP encouraged political participation of Chinese Protestantism for efficient implementation of its religious policy. In the early PRC, the Party-state intended to exert effectively its power over the religious sphere, thereby absorbing social capital from religious forces to consolidate the regime. To this end, the CCP guaranteed a certain space of religious activities for Chinse Protestantism and invited it to cooperate with state by forming its own mass organization.
In response to state"s demand, Chinese Protestantism organized Three-self Reform Movement Committee since 1950 and cooperated with CCP in its religious policy in many ways. First, the Committee legitimized its participation in the Korean War and the anti-imperialism movement by declaring a series of manifesto. And it also arranged various accusation meetings and political study sessions in favor of CCP"s requests. It is worth noting that such cooperation with the CCP was based on Chinese Protestantism"s own motives. By meeting the state"s demand, it could secure a theoretical basis that guaranteed the existence of Christianity under the communist regime and futhermore could obtain social reward that permitted the Committee to exert its influence on whole Chinese Christianity. In this regard, it can be concluded that the Committee"s political participation in the early 1950s was not necessarily attributed to fear for the repressive Party-state, but to a certain degree of voluntarism of Chinese Protestantism itself.
In sum, the author redefines state-society relationship formed between the CCP and Chinese Protestantism in the early PRC under the angle of governance meaning that the state encourages the voluntary participation of society under state leadership rather than state"s unilateral control over society. In this governance system, though it is apparent that the Party-state still played a leading role in the relationship with Protestantism, it attempted to govern society through the interaction with people who have faith in God.