Christianity In Qufu: History, Present Situation And Development Trend

Since the reform and opening up, the faith of Christian in our country, especially in rural areas gets rapid development, becoming a kind of social phenomenon that cannot be ignored. The article takes the Christian Faith in Qufu as a case study, and takes the Christians in the Holy Trinity Church, the village of Xi Linxi, the village of Yuanjia and the village of Qiandai of QuFu as the main study object. This paper carries out detailed understanding and survey of the establishment and development of the four gathering points,through the methods of field work, in order to find out the developing trend of Christianity in QuFu, thus providing new points of view and information.Qufu is the birthplace of Confucian culture, and the local people generally respect Confucius and believe in feudal ethics and rites, therefore since the modern times the development of Christianity in the local is very slow. After the liberation, the new China launchs the movement of "anti the religious superstitious", the activities in the three gathering points which are in the DongZhuang in the north of original Qufu stop basically. Extending to the reform and opening up, along with the change of social structure, the change of social policy, and the constantly change of social environment, the policy on freedom of religious belief is implemented gradually.Christian in QuFu has been rapid spread, and its development momentum is significantly faster than_other traditional religions, such as Buddhism, Islam and so on.The development of Christianity in QuFu presents the following development situation: Firstly, regarding to the number of believers, the team of Christian was once massive. However, the increasing speed tends to be slow gradually in recent years;Secondly, from the point of view of the age of believers, the age of Christian as a whole tends to be aging,but at present the whole age of followers is going to become younger in average age, of course,the process is very slow; Thirdly, form the point of view of the education level of Christian, the education level of believers begin to be improved step by step; Fourthly, accompanied by the increase of the cultural level of Christian and the promotion in the ideological dimension, Christians’ understanding of the Christian doctrine is going to be deeper, and they begin to give up some of original utilitarian colour, with the purity enhanced; Fifthly, the process of the Christian indigenization will continue to develop, and the randomness of religious rites, the life-orientation of propagandist content and the entertainment of propagandist way will be more obvious; Sixthly, in the development process of Christianity in QuFu, the organizational system of the church will be perfected day by day; the organizational activities will be more and more diversified; the organizational range will be more and more widely, too.On the overall, the high-speed development period of Christianity in Qufu has already passed, and a smooth and orderly development stage is coming.