UNDERGROUND CHURCH

Project Pearl's one million Bibles smuggled into China provided a burst of the Living Water for the thirsty Christians in China's underground church. But the full impact of Project Pearl, reported by a Time Magazine article that told the world about the scarcity of Bibles in China, was even greater.

Having lost its face to the world, the Chinese government eventually decided to allow one company - the Nanjing Amity Printing Co. ("Amity") - to annually print 500,000 Bibles for its officially- sanctioned Three Self Patriotic Movement ("Three Self") churches.

But 500,000 Bibles, insufficient even for the demand from the Three Self churches, didn’t reach the body of Christ in the underground churches, whose members couldn’t buy the Amity Bibles without "registering" and thereby exposing their congregations.

Amity Bibles thus served the Chinese government as tools of both propaganda and persecution; they created the façade of religious tolerance to the outside world while luring China's underground churches to the surface.

To alleviate the burgeoning shortage of Bibles in China's underground church, Christians in the free world smuggled Bibles into China and also equipped and financed secret Bible printing inside China.

But the acute shortage of Bibles in China persisted and worsened as the underground church's rapid growth continued to outstrip the supply of Bibles, until the tide began to turn in the early 21st century.

Project Pearl House Church