Sjanghai

Shanghai, on China’s central coast, is the country’s biggest city and has become a global financial hub. It is one of the world’s largest seaports and a major industrial and commercial center of China. Shanghai was one of the first Chinese ports to be opened to Western trade, and it long dominated the nation’s commerce.

The heart of the city is the Bund, a famed waterfront promenade lined with colonial-era buildings. Across the Huangpu River rises the Pudong district’s futuristic skyline, including the 632-meter-tall Shanghai Tower and the Oriental Pearl TV Tower with distinctive pink spheres.

Many different religious groups are in Shanghai, to include Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and Popular Folk Religion. Taoism and Buddhism have the biggest following, while Shanghai also boasts the largest Catholic presence in mainland China.

The reality, though, is that the government insists that all religious activity is limited to state-sanctioned religious bodies. Congregations formed apart from these, like the Jesus following “house church” movement, are illegal. Their buildings can be confiscated, leaders imprisoned, and members fined.
Nevertheless, over the last four decades, Christianity has grown faster in China than anywhere else in the world. Underground cell churches meet throughout Shanghai, and the estimate is that there are now more than 100 million Chinese followers of Jesus.

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