Official Chinese surveys now show that nearly one in three Chinese describe themselves as religious, an astonishing figure for an officially atheist country, where religion was banned until three decades ago.

The last 30 years of economic reform have seen an explosion of religious belief. China's government officially recognizes five religions: Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Islam and Daoism. The biggest boom of all has been in Christianity, which the government has struggled to control.

One way it has tried to do that is by establishing government-sanctioned churches. In one such church in the east of the country, China's Protestant heartland, parishioners bow their heads as the pastor says grace. Hundreds are huddled around circular tables to eat lunch.

The official church is part of what's called the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, the state-sanctioned Protestant organization. Three-Self refers to the strategy launched in the 1950s of removing foreign influences from Chinese churches — self-governance, self-support, self-propagation.

The church is marking husband-and-wife day, which is an annual celebration of faith and community. A thousand people each week from dozens of nearby villages pack into this church, situated about 300 miles from Shanghai.

Among them is Yao Hong, a 38-year-old woman in a maroon jacket who became a Christian almost two decades ago, seeking comfort after her husband at the time had an affair. She believes it's patriotic to be Christian.

"God is rising here in China," she says, gesturing around the cavernous church. "If you look at the U.S. or England, their gospel is very advanced. Their churches are rich, because God blesses them. So I pray for China."

In the past, she has left the village to work in Shanghai. She says her belief in Christ was a lifeline in the alien metropolis and her church acted as her family.

"Whether they know you or not, they treat you as a brother or sister," she says. "If you have troubles, they help out with money or material assistance or spiritual aid."

As China urbanizes and millions of rural migrants experience the social and economic dislocation of traveling to new cities, Christianity can provide them with an instant community.

Many believers sitting on the hard wooden benches of the village church are older. They tell stories of the rewards of faith and how prayer cured illnesses and ended beatings from husbands.

Pastor Ni is in charge of this church. (NPR agreed to withhold his full name to protect his identity.) He says there is total religious freedom in China, and he characterizes relations between state and the church as extremely good.

"The government never interferes with our internal affairs," he says. "There are no orders, no coercion. That doesn't exist and we get on well."

In this part of the country, every small village has at least one church, and each shows signs of being carefully tended. One has a door curtain made from a patchwork of rice sacks; another, a hand-sewn altar curtain, complete with a white appliqued cross.

Local ministers say that about 10 percent of the population in this part of China is Protestant, but all believe that the real figure may be much higher.

Gray Areas Governing Religion

No one knows exactly how many Christians there are among China's population of 1.3 billion. There are an estimated 21 million members of the government-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic movement, but nobody knows how many Protestants worship in unregistered house churches.

Some recent surveys have calculated there could be as many as 100 million Chinese Protestants. That would mean that China has more Christians than Communist Party members, which now number 75 million.

About 30 miles from Pastor Ni's church in a dusty country town, a group of women from another state-sanctioned congregation pray ahead of a public performance they have planned for the day. China's constitution protects freedom of religion, but proselytizing in public places is forbidden. However, the gray areas are growing ever greater, and these women are exploiting those blurred lines.

The women chat and laugh as they carefully apply their makeup. They're wearing traditional pink silk pajamas for the first act, with thick red down jackets on top. They set up on a noisy street, and their show opens with a folk dance. A woman dressed as an old man whips a woman in a donkey costume.

A crowd quickly gathers, mostly elderly people, bringing their own wooden stools with them.

The next skit hits the audience with Christian messages. Two women dressed up as husband and wife wear traditional big-head papier mache masks that engulf their entire heads. They argue, come to blows and ultimately are brought back together by finding God.

The troupe's show goes on for two hours. They sing traditional opera, adding Christian messages. They perform classical dances, swirling pink and white fans in unison. They even don black sequined jerseys and long black boots to groove to pop songs.

Wang Meizhen, the troupe's unofficial leader, says its members "use traditional art to bring in the non-believers."

"It's difficult for them to walk away. Then we include Christian messages. We want to bring them to God," says Wang, who converted to Christianity 10 years ago.

'Boss Christians' And 'China's Jerusalem'

Not far off on a windswept hillside, an elderly caretaker gives a tour of an enormous, newly built church, complete with its own baptism pool. It's an example of how informal networks of rich urban Christians are helping the spread of rural Protestantism.

The church was built with funding donated by Christians from the coastal city of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province, about 500 miles away.