China S Old Churches

Alan Sweeten’s China’s Old Churches presents a long-term historical view of Catholicism in north China as seen through Western-style sacred structures. Using historical materials as well as architectural and visual evidence, he reveals churches’ former impact and their present-day legacy.

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

A collection of papers on the history of Christianity along the Silk Road and in pre-modern China, pushing back the frontier of knowledge in a fast developing new area of research.00The diffusion of Christianity along the Silk Road from Iraq and Iran to China in the pre-modern era has attracted scholarly attention in the West since the discovery of the famous Xi?an (Nestorian) Monument c. 1623. This initial discovery was dismissed as a?Jesuit forgery? by Voltaire, Edward Gibbon and many other scholars of the Enlightenment. However, its authenticity has been more than vindicated by the discovery of genuine (Nestorian / Jingjiao) Christian texts in Chinese from Dunhuang and in Syriac, Sogdian and Old Turkish from Turfan (Bulayïq) at the beginning of the last century. The discovery of a second major inscription which included part of a Chinese Christian (Jingjiao) text already known to scholars from Dunhuang, and the recent re-discovery of several Dunhuang Christian texts in a Japanese library, has removed any lingering doubts about the authenticity of the texts recovered from Dunhuang. The surviving material spans almost a millennium from the introduction of Christianity along the Silk Road in the sixth and seventh centuries through the Mongol period and beyond.

In spite of difficulties posed by a hostile socialist government, the Catholic Church in China has shown remarkable perseverance and growth since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1979. The essays contained in The Catholic Church in Modern China inform readers of the major issues facing the Catholic Church in China today. Their insights should be welcomed by everyone from the Catholic layperson contemplating a trip to China to scholars and specialists in China and religious studies.

This sociological portrait presents how Chinese Christians have coped with life under a hostile regime over a span of different historical periods, and how Christian churches as collective entities have been reshaped by ripples of social change. China's change from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, or from an agrarian society to an urbanizing society, are admittedly significant phenomena worthy of scholarly attention, but real changes are about values and beliefs that give rise to social structures over time. The growth of Christianity has become interwoven with the disintegration or emergence of Chinese cultural beliefs, political ideologies, and commercial values. Relying mainly on an oral history method for data collection, the authors allow the narratives of Chinese Christians to speak for themselves. Identifying the formative cultural elements, a sociohistorical analysis also helps to lay out a coherent understanding of the complexity of religious experiences for Christians in the Chinese world. This book also serves to bring back scholarly discussions on the habits of the heart as the condition that helps form identities and nurture social morality, whether individuals engage in private or public affairs. ""Li Ma and Jin Li have written an unusually valuable book on the recent history of Christianity in China. Unlike too many others (often speculative or ill-informed), they support their general narrative with extensive ethnographic research. The individuals they have interviewed provide fascinating insights into conversions in prison, the Christian 'harvest' from the Tiannamen Square massacres, effective evangelism at McDonald's and Starbucks, the emergence of Christian NGOs, ongoing tensions between believers and the Chinese Communist Party, the surprising emergence of self-conscious Chinese Calvinist theology, and much more. The result is extraordinary insight concerning perhaps the most important scene of Christian development in the world today."" --Mark Noll, Professor at the University of Notre Dame ""Ma and Li have given us an invaluable set of voices from China's Christian world. Through patient combing of printed texts and many hours of interviews with people today, they allow Chinese Christians to speak for themselves and let us understand how Christianity has become China's fastest-growing--and one of its most influential--religions. Understanding China requires understandings its faiths and beliefs, and especially those of its youngest but most dynamic faith: Christianity."" --Ian Johnson, Pulitzer-Prize winning writer, Author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao ""Readers in the West and the East alike are keen to know more about life in China, both today and in the recent past. For Christian readers, this eager curiosity extends to the churches of China, the majority of which remain officially illegal and are often hidden. What does it mean to be a Christian in China today? How do today's Chinese Christians remember the past? Why have they come to faith? What difference does Christianity make in their lives? Sociologist Li Ma and her husband, theologian Jin Li, have interviewed over 100 Chinese Christians from various parts of the nation. Their voices, so seldom heard, come through with amazing force. This book reveals the hearts and minds of Chinese Christians as never before."" --Joel Carpenter, Director, Nagel Institute for the Study of World Christianity at Calvin College ""Surviving the State, Remaking the Church is a truly illuminating book. Based on interviews with Chinese Christians, it provides valuable glimpses into the remarkable stories of how the Chinese churches survived during the era of the most severe repression. It also provides vivid and thoughtful accounts of the many contemporary challenges facing Chinese Christians even as their churches continue to flourish."" --George Marsden, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Notre Dame Li

In the late 1970s when Mao's Cultural Revolution ushered in China's reform era, religion played a small role in the changes the country was undergoing. There were few symbols of religious observance, and the practice of religion seemed a forgotten art. Yet by the new millennium, China's government reported that more than 200 million religious believers worshiped in 85,000 authorized venues, and estimates by outside observers continue to rise. The numbers tell the story: Buddhists, as in the past, are most numerous, with more than 100 million adherents. Muslims number 18 million with the majority concentrated in the northwest region of Xinjiang. By 2000 China's Catholic population had swelled from 3 million in 1949 to more than 12 million, surpassing the number of Catholics in Ireland. Protestantism in China has grown at an even faster pace during the same period, multiplying from 1 million to at least 30 million followers. China now has the world's second-largest evangelical Christian population—behind only the United States. In addition, a host of religious and quasi-spiritual groups and sects has also sprouted up in virtually every corner of Chinese society. Religion's dramatic revival in post-Mao China has generated tensions between the ruling Communist Party state and China's increasingly diverse population of religious adherents. Such tensions are rooted in centuries-old governing practices and reflect the pressures of rapid modernization. The state's response has been a mixture of accommodation and repression, with the aim of preserving monopoly control over religious organization. Its inability to do so effectively has led to cycles of persecution of religious groups that resist the party's efforts. American concern over official acts of religious persecution has become a leading issue in U.S. policy toward China. The passage of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, which institutionalized concern over religious freedom abroad in U.S. foreign policy, cemented this issue as an item on the agenda of U.S.-China relations. God and Caesar in China examines China's religion policy, the history and growth of Catholic and Protestant churches in China, and the implications of church-state friction for relations between the United States and China, concluding with recommendations for U.S. policy. Contributors include Jason Kindopp (George Washington University), Daniel H. Bays (Calvin College), Mickey Spiegel (Human Rights Watch), Chan Kim-kwong (Hong Kong Christian Council), Jean-Paul Wiest (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Richard Madsen (University of California, San Diego), Xu Yihua (Fudan University), Liu Peng (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), and Carol Lee Hamrin (George Mason University).

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.