Note: All the names of Chinese Christians have been changed in this article as sources risk imprisonment and fines for their involvement in this work.
Over the Chinese New Year holiday, David Fang, a Beijing house church pastor, organized an online book club. For 23 days, the 20 members of the club gathered on a video call where Fang would read one chapter of the Chinese translation of Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly before leading a discussion on the reading.
One woman in her 50s who joined the club said she had been feeling burnt out from serving at church, as conflicts had arisen between her and other church members. She had begun to withdraw from her ministry commitments.
Yet as she read the book, she said, her heart softened. Jesus understands sinners because his heart is merciful and gentle, Ortlund wrote. Believers are called to imitate him. Convicted, she called members of her church and sought reconciliation.
“Seeing the heart of Jesus for the sinner and the needy, I was deeply touched by the love of Jesus Christ,” she said. “The bitterness was dissolved, and my heart became gentle and lowly.”
The Chinese translation of Gentle and Lowly used by the book club has not been published in China and can’t be found in any physical bookstores. Instead, the Christian organization Living Stone offered the e-book as a free download, and from there, it was widely shared among the Chinese Christian community. (CT changed the name of Living Stone to protect it from being shut down by the government.)
Under China’s increasingly strict book-publishing system, fewer and fewer Christian books—translated or not—pass censors and obtain the government-issued ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers) required for books to be sold in the country. To combat the lack of high-quality Christian literature, groups like Living Stone now produce e-books as PDF, EPUB, and MOBI files and disseminate them online.
Although online Christian publishers risk getting shut down and struggle to make a profit, they believe these books are vital in growing China’s churches, so they plan to continue adapting as policies change.
“The external environment may force us to change our format, but it will not diminish people’s spiritual needs,” said a former bookseller at Baojiayin, China’s biggest online Christian book retailer. “Instead, it will ignite an even greater need for the gospel.”
It wasn’t always the case that Christian books were hard to find in China. In the early 2000s, Chinese Christian publishing houses experienced a brief period of growth when Christian bookstores had brick-and-mortar establishments that legally published translated books by authors like Rick Warren, John Stott, and John Piper. Between 2012 and 2013, more than 300 Christian bookstores existed in China, according to the former Baojiayin employee.
Yet beginning in 2013, the government began to crack down on the industry, shuttering bookstores, sealing warehouses, and suspending online bookstores. In one prominent case, a court in Zhejiang sentenced Chen Yu, the owner of Xiaomai (“Wheat”) Bookstore, to seven years in prison in 2020 and fined him more than $27,000 Authorities destroyed nearly 13,000 of his books.
Today, only ten Christian booksellers are left, a majority of them publishing Reformed authors. Last year, the most established Christian publisher managed to publish only four printed books. The authors who made the cut: Tim Keller, James K. A. Smith, David Naugle, and the first-century Jewish historian Josephus.
Only state-owned publishers can apply for ISBNs, so private publishing companies must collaborate with them. Since Chinese president Xi Jinping came into power in 2013, the government began enforcing a law cracking down on the distribution of books that contradict the Chinese Communist Party.
Christian publishers only pitch books they think can be approved by the censors at their state-owned publishing partners. Many of those are rejected during the content review. Books that make it through the process and get published still aren’t safe: Authorities can ban them from being sold or destroy them for unexplained reasons.
Since 2018, the government has significantly reduced the number of ISBNs it gives out, a change that came after the Central Propaganda Department began overseeing the country’s publishing industry. This reduction increased competition among manuscripts, so books that are not profitable or cover sensitive topics—such as religious books—rarely get published.
Even the government-run State Administration for Religious Affairs and the China Christian Council, the only legally recognized Bible publishers in China, have recently stopped selling Bibles online. A search for “Bible” on major online bookstores like Dangdang, Taobao, JD, and Weidian led to zero matches.
Yet Living Stone is still equipping believers with resources. In the past decade, it has translated and created digital copies of more than 100 theological books, including works by D. A. Carson, Sinclair Ferguson, and Jen Wilkin. Currently, it offers 75 free e-books, 20 printed books, and 27 audiobooks, with permission from the original publishers.
Most of the books on its website focus on practical topics such as pastoral work, discipleship, parenting, and spiritual formation. Many house churches share these e-books with church members or use them in book studies for their leaders or congregations.
For instance, the pastor of a Reformed house church in Shanghai said he gives away one or two copies of Mark Dever’s What Is a Healthy Church? and Thabiti M. Anyabwile’s What Is a Healthy Church Member? to his church members every Sunday. He sees the books, which he prints out himself, as supplemental to his church’s current adult Sunday school series on ecclesiology, or the theology of the church.
“Chinese house churches are very weak in ecclesiology and even overlook this important doctrine,” Chen said. “This series of books has solid theology and is easy to understand, making them very suitable for congregations without formal theological training.”
Most Christian publishers focus on translating foreign books, as house church pastors and theologians in China often don’t see publishing as a viable option—they fear persecution for penning books, don’t have time to devote to it, or feel like the “younger brother” in global Christianity and question whether they have much to contribute, said Hannah Nation, cofounder of the Center for House Church Theology. Those who do write book-length treatments often unofficially share their work online.
Living Stone’s director, Lawrence Lau, never expected to get into Christian publishing. In 2007, Lau returned to China from studying abroad, hoping to become an e-commerce entrepreneur. Yet through Christian friends and sermons, he felt God reminding him to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matt. 6:33, ESV) instead of following his own professional dreams. He remembers finally acquiescing and telling God, “I am willing to obey whatever you want me to do.”
Living Stone started as a traditional Christian publishing company before going completely online in 2020. Today, Living Stone’s e-books, which do not have Chinese ISBN numbers, are mostly offered for free or low prices to make them accessible to the church. To pay translators and staff, publishers sell online courses on how to be faithful stewards or on marriage and raise support from churches.
E-books more easily skirt Chinese censors than physical copies do and are easier to disseminate. The format is also gaining popularity in China as more and more people read on e-readers, phones, and tablets. A 2023 National Reading Report found that the average Chinese adult reads three to four e-books per year, with 10 percent reading ten or more e-books annually.
Living Stone isn’t the only Christian organization turning to digital products. WeDevote Book, one of the largest Chinese Christian e-book platforms based outside China, has more than 2,000 titles available. Domestic Christian publishing organizations have also released many e-books over the years, covering topics and genres such as exegesis, marriage, devotionals, and biographies. Some of these books were previously available in print but were banned, later returning in e-book format.
Living Stone also offers audiobooks, book studies, podcasts, and articles. In the past few years, its website has received visitors from 100 countries. Lau said it is reaching the Chinese diaspora who need Chinese-language Christian books.
“Although our publishing environment is difficult, I feel the needs of a broader audience,” Lau said. “When I communicate with overseas brothers and sisters, I find that they have abundant English book resources … while the supply of Chinese Christian book resources is far less rich than that in mainland China.”
A translator for Living Stone noted that, growing up in a rural house church, he often heard Christians ask, “If you can’t understand the Bible, why read other books?”
However, he had questions about the faith that he couldn’t find answers to by reading the Bible. For instance, through reading R. C. Sproul’s The Holiness of God, he understood for the first time that he could not win God’s favor through good deeds or draw near to God’s holiness apart from Christ.
He said many of his questions have been answered during the translation process, and his understanding of Christ continues to deepen.
Over the past two years, he has translated 11 theological works for Living Stone and frequently shares book recommendations with his Christian friends. “Every time I receive a new book to translate, I feel particularly happy,” he said. “Not only can I support my family through this, but I can also learn theological knowledge.”
After the translation team finishes their manuscripts, Living Stone must send the work to overseas e-book platforms because it cannot obtain publication permits in China. China’s Great Firewall blocks most of these platforms, making it difficult for domestic users to access them.
Living Stone has built its own website platform to give Chinese users access without a VPN (virtual private network) to bypass the government’s restrictions, yet at any moment censors could shut them down. Some users have reported network issues while trying to download or purchase books, and others have experienced issues with making payments.
Organizations like Living Stone also face a shortage of translators and editors who have knowledge of literature, history, and philosophy—and also a solid theological foundation. The translator who has been in the industry for a decade still feels his translation skills fall short of Living Stone’s standards. He spends his free time taking courses to fill the gaps in his theological knowledge.
Today, Lau noted, urban house churches are in great need of pastoral resources, as the COVID-19 pandemic caused churches to break up into smaller groups and meet in homes. This has resulted in a lack of leaders.
“Books can play the role of teachers and advisers,” Lau said. “Even by reading a book together, churches can achieve unity on certain issues. It is regrettable and frustrating that we cannot legally publish in the country, but if we wait for printed books to be published, we might miss the needs of this period.”
