Early next year, China will open the largest Bible production facility in the world.
Amity Printing, China’s only authorized publisher of Christian materials, will open the new plant Nanjing. According to reports, the printing plant will produce over 1 million Bibles per month. Amity is trying to meet the country’s increasing demand for the Bible.
Officially there are over 30 million Chinese Christians attending the government regulated churches. However, the majority of Christians in China worship together in ‘illegal’ house churches. Many observers believe that there are more than 100 million Christians in the country.
Response: I must admit that when I first read the headline, I had visions of cut-rate leather bound Bibles stacked in huge piles at all the major chain book stores across America. But according to the story, the new plant is for internal use, providing Chinese language Bibles.
The new plant will go a long ways toward supplying Bibles to the growing Christian community in China. This is a great development and a true blessing.
However, it is difficult for Chinese Christians living in rural areas to purchase Bibles since all of the ‘official’ stores are in larger cities. So the larger plant will not resolve the supply problem for rural Christians unless the government opens new stores in rural areas.
Some mission ministries have tried to supply house church members and rural Christians with Bibles and Christian materials at no charge. However, those distributing the ‘unofficial’ Bibles are subject to charges of smuggling and prison terms if caught.