(b)
The Church of Christ in China (1927)
The national Christian Council of China inspired the creation of this body (more a federation of denominations than a united Church) on the basis of the belief that ‘there is an essential unity among all Chinese Christians.’145 The bond of union of this federation had three main tenets: • Faith in Jesus Christ as our Redeemer and Lord, on whom the Christian Church is founded; and in our earnest desire for the establishment of His Kingdom throughout the whole earth. • Our acceptance of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the divinely inspired Word of God, and the supreme authority in matters of faith and conduct. • Our acknowledgement of the Apostles’ Creed as expressing the fundamental doctrines of our common evangelical faith. This three-fold basis for unity, replacing the Apostles’ Creed with the Nicene Creed to accommodate Eastern Orthodox Christians, is the model for unity I wish to commend in this book.
(c)
The Three-Self Patriotic Movement, China (1954)
In China in 1954 the Three-Self Patriotic Movement came into being, ‘selfgoverning, self-supporting, self-propagating’. This was at a time of strong Government opposition to Christianity. Today it exists alongside ‘unofficial’ churches. The China Christian Council was formed in 1980 as a parallel body to the TSPM ‘to unite all Chinese Christians who believe in the heavenly Father and who acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord.’ The Catholic Patriotic Association (1957) is the Roman Catholic counterpart of these bodies.
(d)
The Reformed Church of France (1938)
By 1905 Protestantism had become severely fragmented. Eight divisions of French Protestantism, most of them using the description ‘Evangelical‘ in their Rouse, Ruth and Neill, Stephen C, A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1517-1948, SPCK, London, 1954, p 459. 145
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