In this important article, Kevin Xiyi Yao, Associate Professor of Global Christianity and Asian Study at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, addresses both the prospects for Chinese cross-cultural missions and the challenges facing this nascent movement.
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The spring issue of ChinaSource Quarterly focuses on the role of Confucianism among Chinese today. Recognizing that as the influence of Confucianism in China continually grows, conflict could arise between Christianity and Confucianism, the authors in this issue give background information about Confucianism and provide a Christian understanding of its teachings.
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Since the opening and reform initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, China has been transformed into a major economic power. Urbanization and a rising living standard have combined to create a new middle class. Likewise, the Chinese church has exploded with unprecedented numerical increase. Recently, the center of gravity and growth of the church has moved from countryside to the cities, and its leaders face the challenge of seeking to be “salt and light” in every sector of society and joining the worldwide Christian community in fulfilling the Great Commission.
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This excellent study by Christopher Wigram examines Hudson Taylor’s biblical interpretation and application to personal life and cross-cultural missions, especially in the light of wider currents of teaching on Christian discipleship and effective missionary work. Drawing upon a broad array of primary sources, supplemented by more recent publications about the nineteenth century missionary movement, the author paints a detailed picture of Taylor’s Bible-based spirituality and its impact upon his life as a bearer of the gospel to the Chinese.
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Hudson Taylor is widely recognized as one of the most influential Western missionaries to China in the nineteenth century. The founder of the China Inland Mission (CIM), which became the largest missionary agency in China, Taylor also helped spark a movement, generally called “faith missions,” within the larger Western missionary enterprise. His position as a major figure in the immensely popular foreign missions endeavor gave him a position from which to speak, not only about overseas missions, but also about the Christian life in general.
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Christopher Daily’s book on Robert Morrison is anything but a typical biography. In his work, Daily explores the ways in which Morrison was influenced by his missionary training and to what extent he carried out the plan handed to him by his instructor, Dr. David Bogue.
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Writing with admirable clarity and conciseness, Daniel Bell explores the rapidly-growing influence of some aspects of Confucianism in today’s China; shows why this development is basically positive; ventures a few guesses about the future; and makes some recommendations, both for the Chinese and for Westerners.
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This well-researched book records the lives and work of some of the early women missionaries in China. Valerie Griffiths traces the lives of several notable female missionaries, from the 1820s through the 1990s, who traveled to remote villages in the interior of China to reach out to women who had never been exposed to God’s message of love.
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Wise Man from the East: Lit-sen Chang (Zhang Lisheng) contains translations of two shorter works by this once-influential but now largely forgotten theologian: Critique of Indigenous Theology and Critique of Humanism. Chang (1904-1996) was once an ardent believer in China’s “Three Teachings” – Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, especially Zen Buddhism. Converted to Christ at the age of fifty after a distinguished career in the academy and in the government, he re-examined his former convictions in the light of the Scriptures and then wrote extensively to show how the Bible offers what other religions could not.
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This volume is a collective biography of forty seven Alabama missionaries who served in China between 1850 and 1950.
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This work is a collection of essays by Western teachers who have taught English in China through EERC (Education Resources and Referrals – China). Their stories vary widely – from humorous recollections of how struggles with the language barrier result in pantomime and misunderstandings, to serious reflections on how Chinese traditions surrounding childbirth produce a mother who is distant from her own baby. Each story is rich with a lesson in Chinese culture and the personal transformation that life in this Eastern country has brought about in the author.
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Contrary to repeated, and increasingly shrill, claims of widespread, systematic, and violent persecution of Christians in China today, almost all Chinese Christians meet together without harm. There are severe legal restrictions on religious activity, of course, though these are often not enforced.
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