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What is the state of Christianity in China? Some scholars say that China is invulnerable to religion. In contrast, others say that past efforts of missionaries have failed, writing off those converted as nothing more than “rice Christians” or cynical souls who had frequented the missions for the benefits they provided. Some wonder if the Cultural Revolution extinguished any chances of Christianity in China. Rodney Stark and Xiuhua Wang offer a different perspective, arguing that Christianity is alive, well, and on the rise. Stark approaches the topic from an extensive research background in Christianity and Chinese history, and Wang provides an inside look at Christianity and its place in her home country of China. Both authors cover the history of religion in China, disproving older theories concerning the number of Christians and the kinds of Christians that have emerged in the past 155 years. Stark and Wang claim that when just considering the visible Christians—those not part of underground churches—thousands of Chinese are still converted to Christianity daily, and forty new churches are opening each week. A Star in the East draws on two major national surveys to sketch a close-up of religion in China. A reliable estimate is that by 2007 there were approximately 60 million Christians in China. If the current growth rate were to hold until 2030, there would be more Christians in China—about 295 million—than in any other nation. This trend has significant implications, not just for China but for the greater world order. It is probable that Chinese Christianity will splinter into denominations, likely leading to the same political, social, and economic ramifications seen in the West today. Whether you’re new to studying Christianity in China or whether this has been your area of interest for years, A Star in the East provides a reliable, thought-provoking, and engaging account of the resilience of the Christian faith in China and the implications it has for the future.
Jacques Gernet's invigorating book turns the tables on traditional approaches to the history of Christianity in China, presenting a coherent analysis of the impact of Christianity in the seventeenth century from the Chinese point of view. The aim is to reveal what the Chinese said and wrote about the Jesuit missionaries and to ask a profound general question: to what extent do the reactions of the Chinese at the time of their first contacts with the 'doctrine of the Master of Heaven' reveal fundamental differences between Western and Chinese conceptions of the world? For the missionaries themselves, the Chinese were men like any other, but corrupted by superstition and unfortunate enough to have remained in ignorance of the Revelations. Professor Gernet shows, the missionaries, just like the Chinese literary elite, were the unconscious bearers of a whole civilisation. The problems they encountered were generated by different languages and logic and by very different visions of the world and of man.
Within the next decade, China could be home to more Christians than any country in the world. Through the 150-year saga of a single family, this book vividly dramatizes the remarkable religious evolution of the world’s most populous nation. Shanghai Faithful is both a touching family memoir and a chronicle of the astonishing spread of Christianity in China. Five generations of the Lin family—buffeted by history’s crosscurrents and personal strife—bring to life an epoch that is still unfolding. A compelling cast—a poor fisherman, a doctor who treated opium addicts, an Ivy League–educated priest, and the charismatic preacher Watchman Nee—sets the bookin motion. Veteran journalist Jennifer Lin takes readers from remote nineteenth-century mission outposts to the thriving house churches and cathedrals of today’s China. The Lin family—and the book’s central figure, the Reverend Lin Pu-chi—offer witness to China’s tumultuous past, up to and beyond the betrayals and madness of the Cultural Revolution, when the family’s resolute faith led to years of suffering. Forgiveness and redemption bring the story full circle. With its sweep of history and the intimacy of long-hidden family stories, Shanghai Faithful offers a fresh look at Christianity in China—past, present, and future.
The Light Shines in the Darkness There is more to China's story than its rise as a global economic power. The Holy Spirit has birthed a vibrant, rapidly growing house church movement in China's cities. For years, Christians in the West have heard rumors of house churches in the rural countryside with believers numbering in the tens of millions. Now the underground movement has emerged among China's upwardly mobile, globally connected urbanites--and there will be no turning back! In Christian China and the Light of the World, you'll meet believers serving God's people in the People's Republic of China. Learn about the political, social and economic pressures faced by the urban Chinese church, and find out how you can pray for and support your sisters and brothers in Christ who are following Him no matter the cost. Their true stories of the Holy Spirit's miraculous move across the most populous nation on earth will thrill and inspire you . . . and lead you to worship the Light that darkness cannot overcome.
Jacques Gernet's invigorating book turns the tables on traditional approaches to the history of Christianity in China, presenting a coherent analysis of the impact of Christianity in the seventeenth century from the Chinese point of view. The aim is to reveal what the Chinese said and wrote about the Jesuit missionaries and to ask a profound general question: to what extent do the reactions of the Chinese at the time of their first contacts with the 'doctrine of the Master of Heaven' reveal fundamental differences between Western and Chinese conceptions of the world? For the missionaries themselves, the Chinese were men like any other, but corrupted by superstition and unfortunate enough to have remained in ignorance of the Revelations. Professor Gernet shows, the missionaries, just like the Chinese literary elite, were the unconscious bearers of a whole civilisation. The problems they encountered were generated by different languages and logic and by very different visions of the world and of man.
This collection offers fresh perspectives on Sino-Western cultural relations, with particular regard to the experience of Christianity in China. The contributors include authorities from China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), Europe (including Russia and Eastern Europe), and North America.
Globalization and the Making of Religious Modernity in China, co-edited by Thomas Jansen, Thoralf Klein and Christian Meyer, investigates the transformation of China’s religious landscape under the impact of global influences since 1800. The interdisciplinary case studies analyze the ways in which processes of globalization are interlinked with localizing tendencies, thereby forging transnational relationships between individuals, the state and religious as well as non-religious groups at the same time that the global concept ‘religion’ embeds itself in the emerging Chinese ‘religious field’ and within the new academic disciplines of Religious Studies and Theology. The contributions unravel the intellectual, social, political and economic forces that shaped and were themselves shaped by the emergence of what has remained a highly contested category. The contributors are: Hildegard Diemberger, Vincent Goossaert, Esther-Maria Guggenmos, Thomas Jansen, Thoralf Klein, Dirk Kuhlmann, LAI Pan-chiu, Joseph Tse-Hei Lee, Christian Meyer, Lauren Pfister, Chloë Starr, Xiaobing Wang-Riese, and Robert P. Weller.
In The Registered Church in China, Wayne Ten Harmsel pulls back for Western readers the shroud of mystery surrounding Chinese registered churches. Through interviews with Chinese pastors, evangelists, and lay Christians, he provides a rare view of what it means to live in the shadow of both the government and the well-known house churches. Registered churches have received criticism from both of these sources, as well as from many churches in other countries, particularly the United States. Ten Harmsel examines the charges leveled against registered churches and presents a balanced picture of the complexity of the church situation in China. (Such complexity arises, for instance, in the registered churches' struggle to respond to new religious regulations and the controversy over Sinicization.) China has become a major center of twenty-first-century Christianity, and, despite how little is known about registered churches in the West, these congregations play a significant role in shaping Chinese Christianity today.
The rapidly growing Chinese Protestant Church faces a significant challenge: it must adapt itself to the unique dimensions of Chinese culture, leaving behind the trail of old missionary theology and molding an authentically Chinese approach to biblical interpretation and Christian life an approach that works within both the traditional and the contemporary dimensions of Chinese society. Rising from an extraordinary 2003 Sino-Nordic conference on Chinese contextual theology which brought Chinese university scholars and church theologians together for the first time Christianity and Chinese Culture addresses ways in which the church in China is responding to that challenge. The essays collected here highlight both the stunning complexities confronting Protestant Christianity in China and its remarkable potential. This is a most timely publication on the current issues and research on Christianity and Chinese culture in the PRC previously unavailable in English. The list of scholars in the collection reads like a Who s Who? in Christian studies in China, including both secular academics and Christian theologians. The final part on theological reconstruction is of particular interest, given its importance for the Protestant churches in the last decade. This book should be on the shelf of any scholar interested in the subject. Edmond Tang Director, East Asian Christian Studies University of Birmingham, UK Contributors: Zhao Dunhua, Zhang Qingxiong, Diane B. Obenchain, Svein Rise, He Guanghu, Wan Junren, Lo Ping-cheung, You Bin, He Jianming, Lai Pan-chiu, Jorgen Skov Sorensen, Jyri Komulainen, Gao Shining, Zhuo Xinping, Notto R. Thelle, Yang Huilin, Thor Strandenaes, Li Pingye, Vladimir Fedorov, Wang Xiaochao, Choong Chee Pang, Zhang Minghui, Li Qiuling, Fredrik Fllman, Birger Nygaard, Deng Fucun, Chen Xun, Gerald H. Anderson, Zhu Xiaohong, Sun Yi, Chen Yongtao, Lin Manhong, Wu Xiaoxin.
The Battle for China’s Spirit is the first comprehensive analysis of its kind, focusing on seven major religious groups in China that together account for over 350 million believers: Chinese Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Tibetan Buddhism, and Falun Gong. The study examines the evolution of the Communist Party’s policies of religious control, how they are applied differently to diverse faith communities, and how citizens are responding to these policies. The study—which draws on hundreds of official documents and interviews with religious leaders, lay believers, and scholars—finds that Chinese government controls over religion have intensified since November 2012, seeping into new areas of daily life. Yet millions of religious believers defy official restrictions or engage in some form of direct protest, at times scoring significant victories. The report explores how these dynamics affect China’s overall social, political, and economic environment, while offering recommendations to both the Chinese government and international actors for how to increase the space for peaceful religious practice in a country where spirituality has been deeply embedded in its culture for millennia.