The manifesto was devised after Protestant leaders presented their concerns with religious freedom to Zhou Enlai, the Premier of China.

Y. T. Wu and other leftist clergymen espoused the task and presented a draft manifesto that, after some opposition and changes, became a foundational text of Christianity in the new People's Republic.

It condemns missionary activities in China as a form of imperialism, pledges loyalty to the communist leadership, and encourages the Church to take up an indigenous Chinese stance toward Christianity.

Some view the manifesto as a betrayal of the Church, while others find sympathy for the position of Chinese Christians struggling to reconcile their faith with the changed political situations.

Of all religions in China, Christianity was particularly susceptible to such pressure, because its inherently foreign character made the government think of it as a political threat.

[5] At the same time, the Common Program adopted by the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in 1949, the de facto interim constitution of the PRC, guaranteed freedom of religion.

[6] The Chinese Church faced four problems in the changed reality: it was dependent on foreign funding, its confession was fundamentally at odds with the communist ideology, it was wary of how local CCP cadres would implement religious policy of the new government, and finally, the Church was uneasy with China's foreign policy of friendly ties with the Soviet Union.

[9] Similarly, in December 1949 Wu's associates published an open letter "Message from Chinese Christians to Mission Boards Abroad" that declared foreign missionary activities unwelcome in China and called for their legacy to be critically reassessed.

[6] Wu and his associates would implement the government's desires by publishing a document outlining Chinese Christianity in the new era.

[11] The role of the TSPM was, and still is, to ensure that Protestant churches approved by officials operate according to the government's religious policy.

[14] Y. T. Wu and other Shanghai churchmen were joined by Protestants from the northern regions of China to hold talks with Premier Zhou Enlai in May 1950.

[4] On the agenda were, most likely, all four problems of the Church: reliance on foreign funding, irreconcilability of faith and the communist ideology, suspicion towards local party cadres, and resistance to China's friendly ties with the Soviet Union.

[16] Among the Protestant parties concerned, attitudes to the situation varied widely and so writing the manifesto had been "as painstaking as it was controversial".

Churches in China protested the draft,[7] and Wu was forced to make some changes,[3] although he refused other suggestions on the grounds of time constraints.

[29] The campaign ultimately reached 417,389 claimed signatories before the circulation was over,[5] in 1954,[28] amounting to about half of all Chinese Protestants.

[5] For China author Richard C. Bush, it was this moment rather than the initial publication that marked the manifesto's transforming of Chinese Christianity.

[45] "The Christian Manifesto" makes three central claims: first, the Chinese Church should obey the new communist government and partake in the building of a "new China".

Finally, the Church should strive to construct a Christianity indigenous to China embodying the so-called "Three-self principles": self-government, self-support, and self-propagation.

[24] The manifesto adopts the propagandistic language of the Chinese revolution resulting in overly optimistic and naive terms.

[50] The covering letter accompanying it states that its target audience is people outside the Church and aims to educate them about the social and political position of Christianity in China.

China Inland Mission, naively, brushed off charges of imperialism on the grounds that churches they had founded were relatively independent.

[53] When missionaries finally realized the implications of the manifesto, they had no choice but to condemn it,[54] regarding it as a unilateral termination of their relationship with Chinese Christians.

[9] Similarly, Bob Whyte argues the manifesto was appropriate in its historical setting, as "[t]he tide of history had left them with no other choice".

The project of securing religious freedom in China, although conditioned by Chinese patriotism, was thus a Christian endeavor instead of a government fiat.

[59] Wickeri also points to the absence of Ting's signature and the initial failure of other Anglicans to sign as proof of alternatives to total submission in the early TSPM.

[21] Robert G. Orr thinks that the number of signatories indicated that Chinese Christians agreed with the CCP regarding its analysis of imperialism in China.

According to Wickeri, this was not necessarily a disadvantage since it allowed the Church to discover an indigenous Chinese identity and a new social conscience.

[28] Theologically, "The Christian Manifesto" reflects upon Wu's idea that the "Spirit of God" is discernible in the socio-political progress.

[62] According to Wickeri and Peter Tze Ming Ng, "The Christian Manifesto" is, however, not so much a theological treatise as it is a political statement.

[63] Wickeri contends that this was the only way that the Church could make its position understood by the largely non-Christian Chinese population who shared their patriotism but not their religion.