Its principles are: self-governance, self-support (i.e., financial independence from foreigners), and self-propagation (i.e., indigenous missionary work).
It was first coined in the late-19th century by various missions theorists, and is still used today in certain contexts such as in the Three-Self Patriotic Movement in mainland China.
[6] In the early 20th century Roland Allen, a former Anglican missionary to China wrote two influential books that promoted the concept of indigenous churches based on the three-self principle.
[9] However, in its alignment with China's United Front Work Department, the TSPM sought to unify all Christians in China behind the government's political and social agenda and thus politicized matters of religious belief and practice and "subordinated the religious mission of the church to the political agenda of the Communist Party.
[11] Some scholars of mission, such as Paul Hiebert and David Bosch, have later argued that there needs to now be a fourth "self," self-theologizing.