Marxism Research Network
Unofficial English Translation

Cui Qi & Zheng Honge: A Survey of Christian Gathering Points for Urban Migrant Workers

Science & Atheism

As the process of urbanization advances, the development of Christianity within China’s borders is shifting from the countryside to the towns and cities; consequently, the group of rural migrant worker Christians is gradually expanding. The state of this group's faith—especially the impact of Christian belief on their social role positioning and social integration—has attracted broad attention from the academic community. Although many urban Christian churches are still severely deficient in resolving the predicaments faced by migrant worker Christians, the Christian church has, in fact, become a collective that welcomes migrant workers entering the city. More importantly, the Christian church has become a spiritual home for the migrant workers' sustenance and a faith community that provides comfort and recognition for rural Christians within a marginalized social structure. Since 2000, many domestic scholars have employed various research methods to explore the organizational status of migrant worker Christian churches and the faith conditions of their believers. These studies are in-depth and detailed, but on the one hand, because the situations they reflect are mostly a decade old, they find it difficult to present the latest conditions of development; on the other hand, these studies focus primarily on migrant worker Christian gathering points cultivated by rural church teams, and rarely involve gathering points formed through the self-organization of migrant workers themselves. To this end, this article will base itself on field materials collected in recent years regarding a migrant worker Christian church in Beijing, attempting to conduct further research on this topic and striving to present the diverse organizational characteristics of migrant worker Christian churches in the process of contemporary Chinese urbanization in a relatively comprehensive manner.

I. Description of the Survey Subject: An Overview of the Z Migrant Worker Church

Existing field materials indicate that migrant worker Christian churches in Beijing emerged at the end of the 20th century, most of which were established by rural churches from neighboring provinces. From the perspective of geographical space, during the early stages of their founding and development, the meeting venues of many migrant worker churches were mostly located in urban outskirts, "villages-in-the-city" [1], or the peri-urban interface (the rural-urban fringe). Different from existing research that mostly focuses on migrant worker churches established under the cultivation of rural church teams, the Z Church of focus in this article is a "quasi-Three-Self" church [2] affiliated with Hall A of the Three-Self Church. This church is located in Community F, a "village-in-the-city" on the outskirts of Beijing where the floating population [3] accounts for the vast majority. During the field investigation, the author participated in the daily religious activities of Z Church in the identity of a seeker (catechumen), understanding the faith status of migrant worker Christians and the changes within the church through observation and interviews, focusing on how they "employ Christian doctrine and knowledge to interpretively understand and construct the meaning of their own lived worlds."

(1) Church Establishment and Evolution

Z Church was founded in the 1990s, initially organized spontaneously as a gathering by several migrant worker Christians from Anhui Province. As the scale of the gatherings expanded, its influence continued to grow, and the number of believers steadily increased. In order to construct a stable, sustainable gathering point close to home for the believers and to expand the scale of Three-Self "pastoral care," the Three-Self Church A intentionally brought this fellowship point under its management. In this context, supported by the "pastoral care" of Three-Self Church A, several migrant worker Christians established the Z gathering point in 2003 as a subordinate of Church A and began renting a meeting space. Z Church aims to provide "pastoral care" to Christians among the floating population, and its daily expenses rely entirely on the offerings of believers. Due to factors such as community demolition/relocation and the high mobility of migrant workers, some believers have moved away, leading to a decrease in the church's offering income. In recent years, the offerings received have been less than 100,000 yuan per year; after deducting various expenses such as rent, ministry visitation, and pastoral salaries, it can only maintain a basic balance of payments. Since its inception, Z Church has consistently faced significant financial pressure and has thus been unable to develop new gathering points.

Throughout its history, the composition of believers in Z Church has been relatively homogenous, and prayer rituals are relatively simple. Compared to traditional urban churches, the gatherings of this migrant worker church, which is primarily composed of the floating population, remain in a primary differentiation mode of "sub-grouping by relations" (guānxi). In meetings, believers mostly use geographical ties (hometown) as a reference and form several internal groups based on interpersonal relationships from their place of origin (fellow-townspeople). Compared to migrant worker churches established under the cultivation of rural church teams, Z Church has a lower degree of organization and has not seen differentiation based on the logic of institutionalized sub-grouping.

(2) Composition of Believers

The "pastoral care" of the church relies primarily on Pastor Z from a house church [4], Pastor L from the Three-Self Church A, and Preacher H and Elder S from a house church. Pastor Z serves multiple churches in Beijing, including Z Church, and is mainly responsible for the Bible study meetings at Z Church; Pastor L is a Three-Self church pastor and mainly presides over the Holy Communion services and baptism ceremonies at Z Church; Preacher H and Elder S are primarily responsible for Sunday worship at Z Church. The community of nearly one hundred believers mostly came to the church through introductions by acquaintances such as fellow-townspeople, coworkers, and neighbors. Among them, middle-aged and elderly female believers constitute the majority; the vast majority of believers are internal migrants living in rented accommodation in or around Community F; the main body of believers remains rural believers who had already entered the city for work and life; their level of education is generally not high, with the vast majority having graduated from primary or junior high school, and some female believers being illiterate. Occupationally, male believers are mostly engaged in jobs such as security guards, construction workers, and transport drivers, while female believers are mostly mall cleaners or domestic hourly workers. Similar to many rural churches, this church does not perform specialized registration of believers, so it has not counted the exact number of congregants. The degree of participation in activities among migrant worker Christians varies greatly, mainly relating to the believers' faith and level of piety. Based on this, we can divide them into the following types:

  1. Church Coworkers (Tónggōng): As core members of the church, coworkers have the absolute right to speak and vote on daily church affairs. Z Church currently has seven coworkers—two men and five women. They are all tacitly recognized as church coworkers by the congregation because of their high degree of participation and long duration of service, rather than through formal ordination. Since its founding, the church has had no formal ordination procedure.
  2. Choir Members: The choir currently consists of fifteen people—five men and ten women—mostly in their 40s or 50s; this includes the five church coworkers. Choir members are all baptized and volunteered to join. They learn to sing more hymns of praise than ordinary believers and have a higher degree of participation, making them the main members of the church.
  3. "Sleeping Believers" (Juétú), "Loafers" (Hùnzi), and "Christmas Christians": These titles primarily refer to those who, although they believe in Christianity or have even been baptized for many years, stay "far from God" in their daily lives. Their piety is low, and they focus more on the "spiritual" (efficacy/miracles) rather than on "faith." Specifically, "sleeping believers" [5] refers to those who fall asleep during meetings, mainly elderly believers with insufficient energy; "loafers" is a term used by pious believers to jokingly refer to those who do not dare to admit they are Christians in secular life—this includes some new believers as well as some who have been baptized for years but only attend church activities irregularly; "Christmas Christians" is analogous to "Rice Christians" [6], referring to those who rarely participate in church activities on ordinary days and only come for gatherings on Christmas. These latter two categories, in the eyes of many pious believers, can hardly be called true Christians.
  4. Ordinary Believers and Seekers: Most ordinary believers at Z Church only participate in Sunday meetings. The vast majority are migrant workers and elderly people who have moved to the city; most were rural Christians who converted in their hometowns. In recent years, seekers at Z Church have not been numerous; according to a coworker, only six seekers have been baptized at Z Church in the last three years. This is related, on the one hand, to a decline in believers' enthusiasm for evangelizing, and on the other, to the current crude and crowded meeting space. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic has also brought a significant impact on the church's normal offline gatherings, with intermittent meetings causing the loss of some believers and seekers. Currently, the seekers participating in gatherings are mainly elderly people who have moved to the city, who have more discretionary time on weekends and low requirements for the meeting environment. Elderly seekers who participate in gatherings basically consistently will, after a period of time, choose to be baptized and become true Christians.

(3) Main Activities and Rituals

As a migrant worker church, Z Church’s schedule and ritual activities take full consideration of the actual situation of migrant workers. Generally speaking, the meeting procedures are relatively simple; during the meetings, congregants frequently enter and leave at will, whisper, and mobile phone ringtones sound from time to time. This stands in sharp contrast to Three-Self churches like Church A or new-style urban house churches which have clear church constitutions and meeting discipline—a fact that pastoral coworkers and pious believers feel deeply. Some scholars have also pointed out that the church form and the way of faith among migrant worker Christian churches actually maintain a very high degree of continuity with rural churches, showing significant differences from urban churches, especially the fellowships of intellectuals or professionals known as the "Third Type of Church." Currently, Z Church’s main activities include three regular weekly meetings, a monthly coworker meeting, and an annual Christmas celebration and Easter baptism ceremony.

  1. Bible Study Meetings and Prayer Meetings: The Monday night Bible study has always been the responsibility of Pastor Z. The scale of each study is maintained at about thirty people, with the pastor leading prayer and the examination of scripture, occasionally questioning believers according to a study manual. Prayer meetings are scheduled for Wednesday evenings, organized by the believers themselves, with a participation scale equal to the Bible study. Prayer takes the form of a kneeling ritual where believers take turns praying voluntarily, each using about 5 minutes, until the end.
  2. Sunday Worship and Holy Communion: Sunday worship is held on Sunday afternoons, with 70 to 100 people attending each time, presided over entirely by coworkers. First, believers sing hymns of praise, then the choir offers a song, and believers stand for silent prayer. After this segment, the coworkers teach songs and welcome newcomers. They then invite Christians prepared for intercessory prayer and testimony to share their prayer requests and testimonial stories. In this segment, the prayers or testimonies shared by believers mostly involve daily illnesses, accidents, employment/job choices, and children's education regarding themselves or relatives. For this reason, some scholars have pointed out that perhaps the testimonies and miraculous stories of believers cannot fully prove that various religious promises are true, but they indeed can strengthen the mutual faith in the divine among the congregation. After the prayer, a coworker leads the believers in reading selected passages from the Bible, and then the pastor takes the stage to preach. Holy Communion is generally scheduled for the afternoon of the third Sunday of each month, presided over by Pastor L from Church A. The process is basically the same as Sunday worship, except the Holy Communion ritual is held after the pastor's sermon.
  3. Christmas Gatherings: For Christians, the most solemn festival of the year is Christmas. Believers at Z Church generally begin preparing for Christmas celebrations two months in advance, with believers voluntarily signing up to rehearse programs. The celebration typically lasts from morning until evening, during which the church provides a free lunch. The rehearsed programs include dance, song offerings, and skits. The meeting procedure follows the fixed segments of song offerings, prayer, and preaching, followed by the performances. After the gathering, the church prepares a small gift for everyone, and Christmas is also the day with the highest number of believers in the whole year.
  4. Easter Baptisms: Z Church generally holds its annual baptism ceremony on Easter, with the pastor from Three-Self Church A presiding over the sprinkling rite and issuing baptism certificates. Two months before the baptism, the church arranges a counseling class where pastoral coworkers systematically explain the Bible to believers intending to be baptized; they are only eligible for baptism after passing an assessment. The number of believers baptized each year is not fixed, but the vast majority of believers participating in gatherings are already baptized.

(4) Relations with Other Churches

On the one hand, as an independent church within the "quasi-Three-Self" category, the Z migrant worker church does not have close contact with other urban churches. This is mostly reflected in the hiring of pastors from other churches for "pastoral care," while the church's daily gatherings and financial management are actually independent from the pastors' own churches. Although it is also a "rural church in the city," Z Church has little linkage with migrant worker churches cultivated by rural church teams. And it maintains only a nominal subordinateship with Three-Self Church A; as mentioned, Church A only regularly dispatches pastors to preach and preside over baptisms, but does not interfere in its daily operations. As for the new-style urban house churches and traditional Beijing churches located in various office buildings and residential buildings, Z Church lacks contact with them even more, and believers know very little about Christian ministries such as pastoral joint prayer meetings or "Peaceful China" [7].

Beyond this, since its founding, Z Church has had no substantive contact with the local neighborhood committee [8]. The neighborhood committee has not interfered with the church's normal religious activities, only reminding the church of fire safety and other matters in daily life, while church believers have never participated in various community volunteer activities in the name of the church. Generally speaking, Z Church’s external linkage is not strong, nor does it have the will to develop ministries or reform the church, preferring rather to maintain the status quo.

II. The Current Situation and Characteristics of Z Migrant Worker Church

Existing research has found that migrant worker Christians find it difficult to obtain specific...

"Spiritual" care and group identity, and have even faced varying degrees of discrimination within certain urban churches due to their status. This impels them to lean toward joining churches composed of fellow rural Christians with similar social and cultural backgrounds, constructing "village churches within the city." Regarding Church Z, the focus of this article, because it is located in a peri-urban fringe [9], its believers are overwhelmingly migrant workers, and it was formed as a self-organized entity at its inception. Therefore, its current developmental status and characteristics differ significantly from those of the Three-Self churches, traditional urban churches, new-style urban house churches, and migrant worker churches supported by rural church networks. At present, this is mainly reflected in the following four aspects:

(1) "Mobile" religious venues. Although the F Community, where Church Z is located, has not experienced large-scale total village demolition due to urbanization, Church Z has relocated nearly ten times within the community since its founding. The reasons for these frequent changes of venue are primarily constrained by factors external to the church. These include the expiration of leases, rent rising too quickly, the demolition of illegal structures, and complaints from neighbors about noise. Since most of the believers rent and live within or around F Community, Church Z "circulates" only within the community to account for the time and economic costs of the believers. Although the number of believers shows a growing trend, the church’s current financial capacity is not yet sufficient to afford the higher costs of moving "up into buildings" [10] outside the area.

(2) A contract-based pastoral team system. Migrant worker Christians are highly mobile, have low levels of education, and face significant survival pressures. Focused primarily on labor and employment, it is difficult for them to find the time or energy for systematic theological training to become full-time pastors. As a self-organized meeting point mainly composed of migrant workers from elsewhere, hiring full-time dedicated pastoral staff is clearly a significant expense. Adopting a flexible contract-based "shepherding" model can reduce the church's operating costs while meeting the basic "spiritual" needs of the congregation. This method has continued from the founding of the church to the present and has gained the recognition of the many believers. Although Elder S, a member of the pastoral team, intends to promote Church Z’s transformation into an urban church by establishing a complete organizational structure and a full-time pastoral team, there is significant disagreement among the congregation regarding this proposal.

(3) Polarization of "spiritual" needs. Regarding the reform of Church Z, the believers are clearly divided into two camps. Most middle-aged and elderly believers who have gathered here for many years are accustomed to the current meeting model and do not approve of the church's reform. They believe that the "village in the city" [11] could be demolished at any time, and that Church Z is inherently a temporary "refuge." Furthermore, constrained by life experiences, language communication, and knowledge acquisition, they rarely take the initiative to evangelize or participate in urban Christian missionary work; thus, the future direction of the church is not within their immediate consideration. Conversely, in the view of a small number of young and middle-aged believers and seekers, the lack of a full-time pastoral team and the loose organizational structure lead to deficiencies in "shepherding" and "spiritual care." Their differentiated and individualized needs cannot be adequately addressed, which does not help their "spiritual growth" or missionary work. Consequently, many believers consider the church "irregular"—merely a place for people to gather and sing hymns. If young believers wish to systematically study Biblical theology, they still need to go to "regular" churches to hear lectures.

(4) Severe imbalances in the age and gender structure of believers. Among the nearly one hundred believers in Church Z, the age structure is dominated by those born between the 1950s and 1970s; there are eight people born in the 1980s and none born in the 1990s. In terms of gender, female believers constitute the vast majority, with fewer than twenty male believers. The structure of Church Z exhibits the typical "Three Manys" [12] characteristic of Chinese Christian groups: many elderly, many women, and many illiterate. Due to this characteristic, combined with its location in a "village in the city" and the crude meeting environment, Church Z finds it difficult to attract younger congregants.

Most migrant worker Christian churches choose locations in "villages in the city," which leaves the churches in a state of being liable to demolition at any time; the migrant worker church is nothing more than a temporary, mobile community of faith. Simultaneously, the dual characteristics of the migrant worker Christian church itself also affect the urban integration of migrant worker Christians. On one hand, it constructs a "faith-based family" [13] that emphasizes "love" and "faith," providing migrant worker Christians with a sense of belonging and helping them face external setbacks and hardships with optimism. On the other hand, its inherent tendency toward insulation and the lack of active communication with the outside society intensifies the social segregation of migrant worker Christians to a certain extent.

Compared to urban or rural churches, migrant worker churches in the process of social transformation face more complex practical dilemmas. The mobile nature of both the migrant worker churches and the believers themselves means they lack the internal possibility for institutional construction. Coupled with the lack of external institutional support and guarantees, it is difficult for migrant worker churches—represented by Church Z—to construct a sustainable, institutionalized meeting model in the short term. Generally speaking, as a marginalized urban group, migrant worker Christians establish churches based on fellow-townsman networks [14], using them as a "base" for integrating into the city. However, the incomplete organizational structure of migrant worker churches and the constant fate of facing demolition mean that migrant worker Christians must fluidly establish or seek out new church "homes."

III. Discussion and Reflections

With the advancement of urbanization and the large-scale movement of the floating population into cities, China's urban-rural social structure has undergone significant changes. At the same time, accompanied by the collision of pluralistic values during the period of social transformation, the lifestyles and values of the rural floating population have changed considerably. Currently, in some of China's cities, Christianity exerts an influence on a portion of the rural floating population that cannot be ignored. Due to various factors, migrant worker Christian churches will inevitably continue to exist for the current and future periods. In this regard, while paying attention to migrant worker Christian churches and the migrant worker Christian community, we should also think deeply about the religious belief issues of migrant workers and propose coping strategies from the perspective of doing a good job in religious work.

(1) Strengthening the management of religious affairs according to law and standardizing religious venues for the floating population. The Regulations on Religious Affairs state that collective religious activities of religious citizens should generally be held within religious venues. The preparation, establishment, and organizational management of religious venues should all be carried out in accordance with relevant regulations. Along with the rural-to-urban shift of Chinese Christianity and the increasing scale of religious groups within the floating population, the mismatch between the management of urban religious venues and population mobility has become increasingly prominent. At present, management of meeting points for religious groups among the floating population, such as migrant worker Christians, is still lacking; many religious meeting points suffer from loopholes such as lax management or management that exists in name only. When legal religious venues cannot meet the needs of migrant worker Christians, they tend to establish private religious venues or join underground missionary organizations. In view of this, we should earnestly improve the methods of religious management for the floating population and promote the integration of grassroots community governance with religious governance. Relevant government departments can, in accordance with the provisions of the Regulations on Religious Affairs, strengthen supervision over religious venues for the floating population, including migrant worker Christian meeting points. On the other hand, they should work with legal religious groups such as the Christian Three-Self churches to genuinely understand the faith needs of religious groups in the floating population and meticulously identify religious meeting points that are still in a "grey area." Through reasonable and effective means, religious meeting points that meet the relevant conditions should be incorporated into the overall management of legal and compliant religious groups and venues.

(2) Focusing on enhancing the legal awareness of migrant worker Christians and viewing religious faith rationally. Since the 18th Party Congress, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has attached great importance to religious work. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out at the National Conference on Religious Work: "We must completely, accurately, and comprehensively implement the Party's policy on freedom of religious belief, respect the religious beliefs of the masses, and manage religious affairs according to law. The essence of the Party's religious work is mass work. The fundamental political and economic interests of religious and non-religious masses are identical; both are the mass foundation for the Party's governance. We must both protect the right of religious masses to freedom of religious belief and unite the religious masses to the maximum extent, while also performing work with the religious masses patiently and meticulously." "We must persist in uniting the broad masses of religious believers around the Party and the government" and "must improve the level of the rule of law in religious work." During our investigation, we found that some migrant worker Christians have a biased perception of the Party's policy on freedom of religious belief. In daily life and religious activities, this is specifically manifested by continuously strengthening their own faith attributes to shape a unique symbolic boundary for the Christian group. Moreover, this perception is often accompanied by blindness and one-sidedness, which can easily induce irrational behavior and is unhelpful in guiding religion to adapt to socialist society. To this end, we should emphasize strengthening the intensity of education on the rule of law and actively promote "legal publicity and education into communities and into churches." On one hand, we should guide religious masses to participate in religious activities at legally registered venues; on the other hand, we should guide both religious and non-religious masses to learn to use legal weapons to maintain their own legitimate rights and interests when they suffer illegal infringements, and to view religious faith objectively and rationally. By deeply carrying out publicity and education on the rule of law, we can, to a certain extent, reduce the temptation of various illegal or underground missionary organizations for the floating population, especially the migrant worker group. This is conducive to both urban development and social stability and holds great significance for promoting urban religious governance.

(3) Providing necessary social public services to meet the urban integration needs of migrant workers from multiple dimensions. For migrant workers in a state of "semi-urbanization," long-term urban life has blurred their identification with their original rural society. On the other hand, under the dualistic structure [15], the exclusion of the migrant population by cities makes it difficult for them to develop a sense of belonging to the urban destination. The anxiety and confusion generated by the weakened social status and marginalization of migrant workers impel them to turn to religion for solace. Religious belief becomes a "vent" and a spiritual sustenance for alleviating their tension and anxiety, and it also becomes one of the bridges for building a social support network for migrant workers. Thus, it can be seen that when public services for the floating population in urban management are lacking to a certain degree, and the church is able to provide them with a certain "sense of belonging" and "identity," believing in and joining a Christian church becomes a choice. By believing in and joining a Christian church, migrant workers can, to some extent, compensate for the exclusion and isolation they suffer in urban work and life. Therefore, relevant government departments should strive to improve the quality and content of urban services, providing migrant workers not only with vocational skills training but also paying attention to their psychological demands. By integrating government and social resources, strengthening grassroots community governance, protecting the legitimate rights and interests of migrant workers, and actively promoting community acceptance of migrant workers, we can strive to meet the realistic needs of migrant workers' urban work and life from multiple dimensions. This is the foundational work for correctly understanding and handling the issue of urban migrant worker Christian meeting points and doing a good job in religious work.

In conclusion, under the premise of advancing urbanization and population mobility, studying migrant worker Christians and their church organizational forms is an entry point for us to understand the values, cultural views, and lifestyles of religious groups within the contemporary floating population. It also helps us comprehensively understand the diverse characteristics of Christian faith groups represented by migrant worker Christians. This topic has important practical significance and deserves our continuous attention and research.

Web Editor: Caihong Source: Science and Atheism Issue 3, 2022