Running well All Kinds of TheologicalSchools and Fostering Young Priests
Owing to the influence of the Culture Revolution and the greatincrease in the number of Christians since the 1980s， China faceda severe short of Christian clergy. In Shanghai， for example， there were about 43，000 Christians and 808 priests in 1949， with eachpriest responsible for some 54 Christians on average; in 1995，the number of Christians had exceeded 120，000， but there wereonly 221 priests， with each priest responsible for 540 Christians.
To make things worse， many priests had become quite aged andweak and were not able to carry out their work. However，compared with that in other places， the situation in Shanghaiwas not bad. There were even less priests in rural areas. In someplaces， one priest had to be responsible for thousands of Christiansas well as several churches and gathering places. The worst situation was that some places did not have even one priest，leaving all Christian activities taking place spontaneously， whichtriggered the boom in heresy and twisted the image of Christianity.
To train more priests， Nanjing Jinlin College of Theologyreopened and began to recruit students in 1981. This college wasestablished by the National committee of Three-Self PatrioticMovement of the Protestant Church in China in November 1952，and was constituted of 12 theological schools in eastern China.
Bishop Ding Guangxun was its dean. The college stopped classesfrom 1966 to 1980 due to the impact of the Cultural Revolution，and resumed in February 1981. It provided a four-year regularcollege program， a three-year postgraduate program and a threeyearBible correspondence program. In addition to the normalscience and arts courses， the college also offered theologicalcourses that could be classified in four categories： Bible Research，History of the Churches， Theological Research and TheologicalPractice. The college took it as a teaching principle to layemphasis on students‘ study and self-training with the formerplaying a major role， and to encourage students to attachimportance to self-training by taking part in various kinds ofactivities held by the churches so as to apply their learning inpractice. At present， the college has 27 full-time teachers andtudents coming from churches all over the country （157undergraduates and 29 postgraduates）。 In the 50 years since itwas founded， the college has fostered many qualified priests andresearchers who stick to the three-self principle and have arelatively high command of theology. Besides this college， manyother theological colleges have been established around China.
By 1996， there were 17 of these， with Nanjing Jinlin College ofTheology at the core and the rest located respectively in Shanghai，Beijing， Chengdu， Wuhan， Shenyang， Fuzhou， Hangzhou， Xi"an，Changsha， Nanchang， Kunming， Zhenzhou， Jinan， Hefei，Guangzhou and Huhhot. Since the 1980s， China has trained 2，748students majoring in theology， including 58 postgraduates， 883
undergraduates and 1，807 professional trainees. Currently， thereare 1，283 students still studying at school. Some outstandingstudents were selected to go abroad for advanced studies. Someof them returned and became the backbone of the teaching staffof various theological schools， the leaders of the twoorganizations at central and local levels， or priests who provideChristian services at grassroots churches.
However， churches in rural areas still face more difficultiesthan those in urban cities. Christians in rural areas usually were not qualified in terms of theology and were vulnerable to theinfluence of heresy. To consolidate the rural churches and meetthe lack of clergy， the churches developed many kinds of shorttermtraining classes， correspondence courses and professionaltraining classes. By November 2002， more than 50 provincialtraining centers had been established. The clergy trained in theprofessional classes， totaling 500，000， have become leaders ofthe rural churches and have taken the responsibility of managingthem and enlightening Christian believers.
