“Where the Three Self churches [a government-sponsored Christian/quasi-Christian movement] are allowed to do what churches in most parts of the world do–counseling and encouraging for church members, visiting and praying for the sick, operating orphanages and homes for the elderly, or explaining Christianity to anyone interested in it–they generally do it very well. Much of it is accomplished through the Amity Foundation, a nonprofit institution established in 1985 to enable North American and European churches and private individuals to fund a broad variety of social and cultural programs in China, many of them administered by Three Self churches in different parts of the country. The Amity Foundation has an annual budget of $5 million, of which 25 percent comes from the U.S. and Canada, 51 percent from Europe, 15 percent from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, and only 2.5 percent from China itself. Much of its support from the U.S. comes from mainline Protestant groups like the Lutheran World Federation, and the Church World Service, the global service arm of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S. …

“As mentioned earlier, while Bibles are indeed available for sale at Three Self churches in at least seventy locations throughout the country, house church leaders repeatedly tell me that it is not possible in most places for one person to purchase several copies at a time. House church Christians wanting a Bible may have to travel a hundred miles or more in order to obtain one. In some cases, Christians have been asked to indicate their names and addresses before being allowed to purchase Bibles. Bibles are also not available in ordinary Chinese bookstores, even though copies of the Koran and of Buddhist scriptures are.”

—Jesus in Beijing