House church (China)

In China, house churches or family churches (Chinese: 家庭教会; pinyin: jiātíng jiàohuì) are Protestant 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.

While these groups are sometimes described as "underground churches" (Chinese: 地下教会; pinyin: dìxià jiàohuì), this term is generally associated with Catholic assemblies who have chosen to operate independent from the state-sanctioned Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (Chinese: 中国天主教爱国会; pinyin: Zhōngguó Tiānzhǔjiào Àiguó Huì) and the Bishops Conference of Catholic Church in China (Chinese: 中国天主教主教团; pinyin: Zhōngguó Tiānzhǔjiào Zhǔjiào Tuán).

K. H. Ting, one of the key leaders of the TSPM and the CCC for many years, did not like the term "house church" and preferred to use the term "house gathering" (Chinese: 家庭聚会; pinyin: jiātíng jùhuì). This was because he found designations such as "house church" and "official church" as returning to the pre-Cultural Revolution practice of denominationalism.

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