The number of Christians in China has hit a record 23.05 million in 2010, accounting for 1.8 present of the county's total population, according to a survey released on Wednesday by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), China News Service reported.

The Blue Book on China Religions, which is released by the institute of world religions at CASS for the first time, also notes that a whopping 68.8 percent of believers converted to Christianity after either they or one of their family members fell ill. The proportion increases among older people.

"Only 15 percent of believers said they are Christian because of the influence of family traditions." Li Lin, who organized the survey, said in the Blue Book.

The number of Christians witnessed a rapid growth in recent years and it now takes up 73.4 percent of China's religious population.

To accommodate the increase in the number of churchgoers, there has been a corresponding increase in the number of churches in the country, which currently stand at more than 55,000.

By the end of 2009, more than 50 million copies of the Bible had been printed in China, according to Fu Xianwei, chairman of China's Three-Self Patriotic Movement National Committee.

But Christian communities are still marginalized in larger society. It is regarded as "the religion of the poor", with women and old people taking the majority.

Li pointed out that the number of female Christians is much higher than male Christians, accounting for 70 percent of the total.

In some villages where most young and strong people have turned to big cities for jobs, the church has become a spiritual lodge for the older people, women and children left-behind.

The average education level of Christians in China is relatively low -- more than half of them haven't finished primary school and only 2.6 percent of them have received a college education.

The Blue Book also revealed an increase in other faiths, including Buddhism, Islam, and Taoism.

(CRIENGLISH.com August 12, 2010)