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Tom Frakes and Erik Burklin love law and order. They represent a new generation of evangelicals who believe it is better to operate openly and legally rather than underground in China.

Frakes's Training Evangelistic Leadership (TEL)-China educates non-Christian university students about Christianity. While in China, Frakes worships at a state-licensed church in Guangzhou, a city in southern China near Hong Kong. His congregation, associated with the government's Three Self Patriotic Movement, is evangelical in theology and outreach.

Burklin runs China Partner, a ministry founded by his father, Werner. The organization provides teachers and resources to Three Self seminaries and Bible institutes. Six months ago, China Partner helped launch a new Bible institute in Nanchang, Jiangxi, in central China. The Nanchang Bible Institute expects to triple its current enrollment to 240 by 2007.

More Western missions groups are looking for ways to work legally in China. There are 51 American Protestant missions agencies working inside China, according to the Evangelism and Missions Information Service. These agencies provide a wide range of officially permitted services, from Bible publishing and English-language instruction to health care and adoption.

For years the National Council of Churches has brokered relationships between American mainline Protestants and China's official church. The ncc also generated controversy by disputing reports of persecution of Christians in China. Andrew Young, future ncc president and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said he found "no evidence" of persecution of Christians on his travels in China in 1998.

On the other hand, since the 1949 communist revolution, evangelicals have smuggled Bibles and provided other support, working extensively with the persecuted, underground church. But that's no longer the case exclusively.

Brent Fulton watches China mission trends from the ChinaSource think tank in Fullerton, California. He told Christianity Today, "In the last ten years, there has been a shift from painting the [Three Self] church as colluding with the government toward seeing valid opportunities of working with the open church."

Erik Burklin believes China Partner fulfills a dual role. In addition to helping China's churches, he says, "We want [Westerners] to learn about China. There are so many misconceptions." Erik's father, Werner, recalls that an American missionary in Nanchang was very surprised to hear that there was a Bible institute in town. "He had already been there for nine months," Werner says. "Even missionaries in China often don't realize the extent of ministry of the legal, above-ground church."

Erik recognizes that thousands of unregistered congregations (known as house churches) are thriving in China. But he sees an unfair bias among some evangelicals, favoring independent congregations over churches supervised by communist leaders.

Frakes believes Westerners can minister in China in a variety of ways. "You can come in openly, but you have to check your weapons at the door. Or you can tunnel in [and] be secretive." He believes the secretive approach backfires. "[Westerners] look like burglars in the government's eyes."

Frakes favors what he calls the "lizard approach." Proverbs 30 describes a lizard living in the king's palace. "The lizard is in the palace for years. He has seen how things operate. He is wise, but he is also benign. He catches bugs. Though he is an uninvited guest, the king lets the lizard stay."

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October 7 2002, Vol. 46, No. 11