 Historians tell us that around the year 100 AD there were about 20,000 Christians. They were a minority group that at its best was tolerated and at its worst severely persecuted. About 210 years later, when Constantine was in power, Christianity was no longer a minority group, but numbered around 20 million. We see the same scenario in China. In 1950, before Mao introduced communism, there were about 4 million Christians, if you also include Catholics. According to a survey done in 1993, they estimated that today there are over 41 million Protestant Christians in China.
The speed of growth in these two examples is of course extraordinary and I do believe we have a lot to learn from both of them, but I think there is an interesting point to be made here when it comes to Christian unity. |