Among China's restive religious and social groups, Protestants have arguably created the most sustained structural challenges to the Chinese Communist Party's ordering of society. By drawing on grassroots fieldwork conducted across the country, this book therefore charts the ambition of the government to restrain Protestant population growth and direct it towards regime purposes.

In particular, interviews with key church leaders who founded illegal Protestant congregations with hundreds of participants, reveal how officials and illegal congregational leaders have developed ties of...