China's Reforming Churches

China's Reforming Churches

Author: Bruce P. Baugus

Publisher: Reformation Heritage Books

Published: 2014-05-26

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1601783183

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This is a critical moment in the life of China’s reforming churches and the Presbyterian and Reformed mission to China. This book provides both a historical look at Presbyterianism in China and an assessment of the current state of affairs, orienting readers to church development needs and the basic outlines of Reformed Christianity in China today. While laying out the challenges and opportunities facing the church, the authors argue that assisting this reformation in China should be a central objective of the Presbyterian and Reformed mission to China in this generation. Table of Contents: Introduction: China, Church Development, and Presbyterianism - Bruce P. Baugus Part I—The History of Presbyterianism in China 1. A Brief History of the Western Presbyterian and Reformed Mission to China - Michael M. 2. Watson Hayes and the North China Theological Seminary - A. Donald MacLeod 3. A Brief History of the Korean Presbyterian Mission to China - Bruce P. Baugus & Sung-Il Steve Park Part II—Presbyterianism in China Today 4. In Their Own Words: Perceived Challenges of Christians in China - Brent Fulton 5. Why Chinese Churches Need Biblical Presbyterianism - Luke P. Y. Lu 6. “A Few Significant Ones:” A Conversation with Two of China’s Leading Reformers - Bruce P. Baugus Part III—Challenges & Opportunities for Presbyterianism in China 7. The Social Conditions of Ministry in China Today - G. Wright Doyle 8. China: a Tale of Two Churches? - Brent Fulton 9. Two Kingdoms in China: Reformed Ecclesiology and Social Ethics - David VanDrunen 10. From Dissension to Joy: Resources from Acts 15:1–35 for Global Presbyterianism - Guy Waters Part IV—Appropriating a Tradition 11. The Emergence of Legal Christian Publishing in China: An Opportunity for Reformed Christians - Phil Remmers 12. A Report on the State of Reformed Theological Education in China - Bruce P. Baugus 13. The Indigenization & Contextualization of the Reformed Faith in China - Paul Wang Conclusion: The Future of Presbyterianism in China - Bruce P. Baugus Appendices A. Robert Morrison’s Catechism - Introduced and Translated by Michael M. B. Shandong Student Protest and Appeal - Introduced by Bruce P. Baugus and Translated by Born


Religious Entrepreneurism in China’s Urban House Churches

Religious Entrepreneurism in China’s Urban House Churches

Author: Li Ma

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-06-27

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1000227928

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This book offers a unique historical documentation of the development of the ambitious religious entrepreneurism by leaders of the Early Rain church (and later Western China Presbytery leadership), in an effort to gain social influence in China through local institution-building and global public image management. It unravels the social processes of how this Christian community with a public image of defending religious freedom in China was undermined by an internal loss of moral authority. Based on publicly available texts from Chinese social media that aren’t readily available in the West as well as in-depth interviews, it is framed by existing scholarship in social theories of the public sphere, charismatic domination in social transition, and the role of power in organizational behaviour. These churches’ stories show how Christianity, which has long been politically marginalized in communist China, has not only adapted and challenged the socio-political status quo, but how it was also ironically shaped by the political culture. This is an insightful and critical ethnographic study of one of modern China’s most famous house churches. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of Religion in China as well as those working in Religious Studies, Asian studies, Chinese studies, and Mission Studies more generally.


The Souls of China

The Souls of China

Author: Ian Johnson

Publisher: Pantheon

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 1101870052

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From the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist: a revelatory portrait of religion in China today, its history, the spiritual traditions of its Eastern and Western faiths, and the ways in which it is influencing China's future. Following a century of violent antireligious campaigns, China is now awash with new temples, churches, and mosques as well as cults, sects, and politicians trying to harness religion for their own ends. Driving this explosion of faith is uncertainty over what it means to be Chinese, and how to live an ethical life in a country that discarded traditional morality a century ago and is still searching for new guideposts. Ian Johnson lived for extended periods with underground church members, rural Daoists, and Buddhist pilgrims. He has distilled these experiences into a cycle of festivals, births, deaths, detentions, and struggle a great awakening of faith that is shaping the soul of the world s newest superpower. (With black-and-white illustrations throughout).


The Registered Church in China

The Registered Church in China

Author: Wayne Ten Harmsel

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2021-03-09

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 1725286246

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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.


I Stand with Christ

I Stand with Christ

Author: Zhang Rongliang

Publisher: Whitaker House

Published: 2015-07-01

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1629113387

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"My name is Zhang Rongliang, and I am an unashamed follower of Jesus Christ.…It is considered quite dangerous to reveal the contents of this book, but these are stories that need to be told for God’s glory and for the encouragement of the church.” So begins this extraordinary first-person account by the prominent leader of one of the largest underground churches in China. A former Communist Party member, Zhang took a stand for Christ and was targeted for prison, work camps, and torture, all the while helping to build a network of millions of faithful believers. Spanning the time of Mao’s regime to today, Zhang testifies of God’s supernatural movements, of the sacrifice of countless Christians who loved and served Christ—regardless of the cost—and of the exciting new vision among believers in China to reach not only the Chinese but the entire world with the gospel.


Jesus in Beijing

Jesus in Beijing

Author: David Aikman

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-03-27

Total Pages: 459

ISBN-13: 1596986522

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This book details the great unreported story of the Chinese giant, its enormously rapid conversion to Christianity, and what this change means to the global balance of power.


China and the True Jesus

China and the True Jesus

Author: Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 0190923466

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"The history of the True Jesus Church, a Pentecostal church founded in Beijing in 1917, reveals dynamic interaction between charismatic experience and organizational processes. Believers' lived experiences provide grassroots perspective on developments in China's modern history, including transnational exchange, gender roles, models for legitimate governance, clandestine culture, and church-state relations"--


Macao's Church of Saint Paul

Macao's Church of Saint Paul

Author: Cesar Guillen-Nuñez

Publisher: Hong Kong University Press

Published: 2009-01-01

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 962209922X

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"Macao's Ruins of St. Paul (correct name Church of Madre de Deus) is the only example of Baroque art and architecture in China. This beautifully illustrated book explores anew the now vanished but once renowned Church, as well as the Jesuit university college of which it was part. Both Church and College were destroyed by fire in 1835. From the perspective of the history of art they have remained poorly explored. The author remedies this by imaginatively reconstructing their ground plans, architecture and decoration in the light of new information in original documents that he has found in archives and libraries in Europe and Macao. In his re-creation of the buildings, he illustrates and draws on the evidence of selected Jesuit buildings in Italy, Portugal, Spain and Portuguese India and considers the historical Counter-Reformation environment that eventually led to the College of Madre de Deus in China. The most recent art-historical findings on the Mannerist and Baroque art of the Jesuits in Europe and Iberian colonies are also taken into account. The author, who first identified the surviving façade of the Church as a retable-façadeƯƯƯƯ, an unusual type of Iberian and Latin American church façade resembling an altarpiece, brings his argument to its logical conclusion by relating it to the Church's plan and decoration. An extremely important aspect of the art promoted by the Jesuits, centring on the cult of passive martyrdom, is also candidly discussed. This book will enable the general public to better appreciate the Ruins and provides much of interest and value to scholars, students, architects, art museums and cultural organizations."--Publisher's website.


Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity

Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity

Author: Alexander Chow

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-07-27

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 3030730697

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This volume explores Chinese Christianity—or Chinese Christianities—in a variety of forms and expressions, including those from outside the geopolitical boundaries of mainland China. Advancing a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of Chinese churches, the essays collected here engage many historical, sociological, cultural, and theological contingencies. The collection includes historical discussions of the early-20th-century encounters of Protestant and Catholic missionaries in China and the rise of Christianity among Malaysian Chinese and British Chinese communities. Essays examine the thinking of K. H. Ting (or Ding Guangxun), often remembered for his leadership in the Three-Self Patriotic Movement in the 1980s–90s, by revisiting his earlier theology and approach to the Bible in the 1930s–50s. These retrospectives give way to contemporary explorations into how Chinese churches negotiate their urban identities amidst the complexities of globalization in Chengdu and Shanghai, as well as in Vancouver, Canada. Taken as a whole, this collection offers close examinations into various aspects of Chinese Christianity’s complex picture, helping readers to recognize the many shades and colors of the global Chinese Church.