The Christian Manifesto
1950 political manifesto of Chinese Protestants drafted by Y. T. Wu et al.; condemns missionary activity in China as imperialist, pledges loyalty to the communist leadership, and encourages an indigenous Chinese stance toward Christianity
"Direction of Endeavor for Chinese Christianity in the Construction of New China", commonly known as "The Christian Manifesto" or "The Three-Self Manifesto", was a political manifesto of Protestants in China whereby they backed the newly founded People's Republic of China (PRC) and its Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership. Published in 1950, the manifesto paved the way for the government-controlled Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) of Protestants. This movement proclaimed the three principles of self-government, self-support, and self-propagation. The drafting and content of the manifesto was, and remains, controversial to this day.
The manifesto was devised after Protestant leaders presented their concerns with religious freedom to Zhou Enlai, the Premier of China. Instead of receiving their report, Zhou demanded them to come up with a statement in support of the new CCP leadership. Y. T. Wu and other leftist clergymen espoused the task and presented a draft manifesto that, after some opposition and changes, became a foundational text of Christianity in the new People's Republic. It condemns missionary activities in China as a form of imperialism, pledges loyalty to the CCP leadership, and encourages the Church to take up an indigenous Chinese stance toward Christianity.
Published on the front page of the People's Daily, the manifesto was accompanied by a campaign to gather signatures. Many Christian leaders and laymen signed, while others refused to do so.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Christian Manifesto” is 1950 political manifesto of Chinese Protestants drafted by Y. T. Wu et al.; condemns missionary activity in China as imperialist, pledges loyalty to the communist leadership, and encourages an indigenous Chinese stance toward Christianity. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Christian, Manifesto and political, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q10866682. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1950.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Christian Manifesto” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.