Analysis

Developments since the publication of this book have only confirmed its main argument: “China’s rise is a watershed event that will change the global landscape and that is on par with the ascent of the United States of America as a global economic, political, and military power a century earlier.”

Getting Saved in America “tells a story of how people become religious by becoming American.” The author focuses almost entirely upon immigrants from Taiwan in the 1980s and 1990s, which is when many of the Chinese churches in the United States began as Bible study groups initiated by these highly-educated newcomers. Anyone working with, or wanting to understand, Chinese churches in America today should read her carefully-wrought study, for it explains much.

This important article both explains the growing significance of Confucius for today’s China and more than hints at a possibly abrasive confrontation with the rapidly-expanding Christian population.

We continue our review of Mario Poceski’s Introducing Chinese Religions with his discussion of “Later transformations of Confucianism.”

We continue our review of Mario Poceski’s excellent Introducing Chinese Religions, picking up the story at his chapter on popular religion. With the publication of Redeemed by Fire, by Li Xian, with its demonstration that much of house church Christianity in China draws upon, and reinforces, powerful themes and trends in Chinese popular religion, understanding this growing phenomenon is all the more imperative.

Anyone who wants to understand Chinese Christianity today must have some knowledge of its religious milieu. We need to familiarize ourselves with this religious landscape, lest we seriously misconstrue the recent rise, nature, and problems of Chinese Christians today.

Clearly written, tightly organized, well-documented, this volume helps us understand the multiple roles played by the Chinese church in America in the lives of its members. Along the way, we learn a great deal about the aspirations, struggles, and profound transformation of Chinese who become committed evangelical Christians in their adopted land.

This first volume in the Oxford Studies in World Christianity, also edited by Professor Sanneh, has set the highest possible standard. A full survey being impossible, my review will only highlight a few major features of Sanneh’s overall thesis, with a focus on the insights they provide for students of Chinese Christianity.

“How should we view the changes in China’s culture and its influence in the light of the globalization of the economy during the last thirty years?”

Writing from England with a firm grasp of geopolitical realities, Martin Jacques has thrown down the gauntlet. Those who would dispute the thesis of this book, summed up in the title and sub-title, must marshal more evidence and more convincing arguments than he has.