After Hongkong, Los Angeles, Atlanta and New York the German city of Cologne will be the next venue of the Bible Ministry Exhibition of the Protestant Church of China. At the invitation of the German Bible Society (DBG) and the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) the impressive display of historic bibles, over seventy information panels and Christian art exhibits will be shown during the German Protestant Kirchentag in Cologne from June 6th to 10th. With nearly 4.000 guests from abroad and over 100.000 German participants it is also a very large and significant ecumenical event.
The Exhibition was prepared by the Bible Society of Hong Kong, the China Christian Council (CCC) and the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of Protestant Churches (TSPM).
The China Christian Council represents the mainline Protestant Church, recognized by the Chinese government. Topics for the show are the early history of the Bible in mainland China, Bible publication after 1980, Bible printing and distribution after 1980, Bible ministries for national minority churches, the Bible and church life, and Christian art works. The distribution of the Bible in large numbers has contributed to the rapid growth of the Christian Church in China after the end of the Cultural Revolution.
This will be the first time for the Chinese Protestant Church to participate officially in the Kirchentag which is the largest convention of Protestants in Europe taking place regularly every two years in a different city of Germany.
On this occasion a bi-lingual edition of the Gospel of Luke has been published in German and Chinese to be distributed to visitors of the exhibition in Hall 10.2 of the Cologne Exhibition Centre.
A delegation led by Rev. Dr. Shengjie Cao, President of the Chinese Christian Council will travel to Germany with the exhibition and attend the Kirchentag event.
Bishop Wolfgang Huber, Chairman of the EKD Council who visited China in October 2004 points out that the exhibition will contribute greatly to better mutual understanding as it will be an excellent opportunity for meeting and sharing with Chinese Christians.
