A lengthy Newsweek article paints a dramatic picture of the growth of Christianity in China and the work missionaries are performing to swell the ranks — and to get around the governemnt’s repressive policies toward religion.

All across China, more and more people are turning to Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior. The numbers have been growing for years, encouraged by the personal freedoms that have slowly accompanied the country’s economic reforms. Protestantism—and especially evangelicalism—appeals to many Chinese in rural areas that have been left out of China’s economic miracle. Now China has at least 45 million Christians, the majority of whom are Protestant, according to Chinese academics. Western observers say the numbers are much higher. Dennis Balcombe, a preacher from California who has made hundreds of mission trips to China since the late 1970s, and Western researchers put the number at closer to 90 million.

Either way, the movement now has a momentum of its own. Centuries after Westerners flocked to the Middle Kingdom in search of souls, Chinese missionaries have taken over from their Western mentors and are proselytizing directly. And for the first time, they are making serious plans to spread the good word beyond their borders. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Christianity has grown faster in China than anywhere else in the world in the last 20 years,” says Daniel Bays, a historian of Chinese Christianity at Calvin College in Michigan.

The religious upwelling presents a serious challenge to the Chinese Communist Party, which still allows only atheists in its ranks and has always viewed religion, especially Western-imported Christianity, as a potential source of dissent. The government forbids evangelicalism and requires Christians to worship in officially sanctioned churches, but is struggling to keep up with the skyrocketing numbers. Already there are about 6 million members of the official Roman Catholic Church and 15 million Protestants. But because of government limits, there’s a severe shortage of clergy and churches. In Beijing alone, people pack the 100 existing official churches, overflowing into basements to watch sermons on closed-circuit television.

The article looks at how the bravery of activist Christians “terrifies” the CCP, which sees Christian churches as a major factor in the fall of Communism in Europe. With the Falun Gong effectively silenced in China, it’s now the Christians who are giving the party nightmares. The reporters note the supreme irony of this attitude:

A flourishing church could solve a lot of problems for China’s leaders—in some places officials look the other way as churches open orphanages, elder-care homes and other badly needed services. But even if Beijing doesn’t allow real religious freedom, Chinese Christians will continue to spread the word, at home and abroad.

I guess it would be too logical for the CCP to try to benefit from this movement, actually using it to ease some of China’s huge burdens, instead of worrying about how to supress it.