China's Early Missionaries

The state of Christianity in China today differs dramatically from 1951, a year in which many foreign missionaries were expelled from the country, as you can see in these photos taken by Howard Sochurek.

After the Communist Party took power in 1949, Zhou Enlai's 1950 "Christian Manifesto" served as a dramatic tool to remove any "Western imperialist influences" from Christianity and to put it under the authority of the Chinese government.

While prosetylization  in China remains illegal, and Western missionaries continue to maintain a low profile within the country, it's interesting to see how much of the work of the missionaries up until the 1950s has continued to fuel the growth of Christianity in China today.