Monday, September 15, 2008

Historic Chinese Religious Delegation Visits Atlanta

The first-ever American-Chinese Multi-Faith Religious Exchange brought top leaders from China’s five government-recognized religions—Buddhism, Catholicism, Daoism, Islam and Protestantism—to Atlanta last week for four days of meetings with government, civic and religious leaders.

The trip was organized by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a group of about 3,000 churches and individuals that conducts evangelistic and community-building efforts all over the world. The difference between CBF and many other Christian groups with regard to China is that it works in conjunction with the Communist government rather than with underground house churches.

Covering the delegation for GlobalAtlanta, I was able to meet Gao Feng, president of the China Christian Council. His organization is the umbrella group that supports all the government-registered Protestant churches in China. To talk with him for 15 minutes was an amazing experience for me. I have long read about his organization and its partner, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement in books about Chinese Christianity, and now I have his business card.

Read the full story here. More about the forum and CBF to come.

Photo: Gao Feng

No comments: