|TOP|Could evangelical Christianity in China bring to an end years of rule by the Communist regime? That is the view of one expert encouraged by a recent report that claims Chinese people are turning to religion in increasing numbers after years of state-imposed atheism.

D.J. McGuire, president of the China Support Network and the China E-Lobby, remains hopeful following an article that was recently published in the Chinese newspaper, the Epoch Times.

The article found that years of Communist rule has not brought the Chinese people satisfaction or spiritual transcendence, reports Agape Press, but has only prompted them to search elsewhere to find the ‘missing something’ in their lives.

“The Chinese people are suffering a crisis of faith," McGuire contends. "As one would expect, Maoism has not brought them fulfilment of any kind. They're now relying on radical nationalism the CCP is in order to survive, and that's exactly the sort of thing that only works temporarily."

|AD|Instead of putting people off religion, McGuire maintains that the national-pride strategy of the Communist regime has only made the people turn to the very thing the Chinese government fears the most.

"What we now see is a people, the Chinese people, crying out for faith, crying out for fulfilment," he explains. "And they're finding it, increasingly, in Christianity."

According to McGuire, “the farther and deeper [Christianity] spreads, the more treacherous it is for the Chinese Communist Party,” because there is something fundamentally different about the Christian, he asserts.

“What makes Christianity different, in particular evangelical Christianity - and I say this as someone who was born and raised Catholic - [is that] evangelical Christianity is connected but it's decentralised, which makes it much harder for the communists to stamp out and remove," said the head of the China Support Network.

Contrasting with the more centralised structures of other religious communities in China such as Falun Gong and Roman Catholics, he said, “And that is why I think the rise of evangelical Christianity is one of the things that will lead to the end of the Chinese Communist regime."