Christianity in Taiwan
Traditional Chinese: 臺灣基督教 | |
|---|---|
Catholic Church of Wanchin | |
| Total population | |
| 3.9% (2005 census) | |
| Languages | |
| Chinese languages（Mandarin, Hokkien, Hakka） Formosan languages, Malayo-Polynesian languages（Tao, Filipino, Indonesian） Japanese, Dutch, Spanish, English | |
| Religion | |
| Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Nontrinitarianism |
Christianity in Taiwan constituted 3.9% of the population, according to Taiwan's 2005 census. Christians on the island included approximately 600,000 Protestants and 300,000 Catholics. Estimates in 2020 suggested that the portion had risen to 4% or 6%.
Due to the small number of practitioners, Christianity has not influenced the island nation's Han Chinese culture in a significant way. A few individual Christians have devoted their lives to charitable work in Taiwan, becoming well known and well liked—for example, George Leslie Mackay (Presbyterian) and Nitobe Inazō (Methodist, later Quaker).
A few presidents of Taiwan have been Christians, including Republic of China's founder Sun Yat-sen (Confucian-Congregationalist), Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo (both Buddhist-Methodists), and Lee Teng-hui (Presbyterian). Ma Ying-jeou apparently received a Catholic baptism in his early teens but does not identify with any religion or with Chinese folk religion practices. At the same time, the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan has been a key supporter of human rights and the Democratic Progressive Party, a stance opposed to many of the politicians listed above.