Blog Entries on Church and Society
Senior Care in China
Will the Church Step Up?
Looking at the challenges of the growing population of the elderly in China and the opportunities for churches to meet the needs.
Why China Needs Two
The big news out of China last week was, of course, the Party’s decision to alter its longstanding family planning policy.
Strengthening Marriages in the Chinese Church
How the church in China is seeking to strengthen marriages in the face of an increasing divorce rate.
Young People in China
This past month has seen a flurry of articles written about the religious sentiments of Chinese youth, all triggered by the release of a survey conducted by the National Survey Research Center of the School of Philosophy at People’s University in Beijing. Many of the stories picked up the angle that Islam was the most popular religion, while others highlighted the growing popularity of religion in general among Chinese young people.
These stories actually prompt deeper questions about what life is like for youth in China today. What are Chinese youth like? What are the issues they wrestle with? How are they coping with the pressures of life? Are they really interested in spiritual matters?
Explaining China’s “Religious Awakening”
Rodney Stark and Xiuhua Wang’s new book, A Star in the East, combines data from a major study on religion in China conducted during the past decade together with keen sociological insights in order to explain the factors behind China’s phenomenal church growth.
14 Questions
On June 4, 2015, ChinaSource President Brent Fulton was a guest on the Connecting Faith program of My Faith Radio in the Twin Cities. Host Neil Stavem spent the hour talking with Brent about modern China and some of the unique challenges and opportunities facing the country and the church in China 26 years after the crackdown in Tiananmen Square.
Worship in China
Why Place Matters
The destruction of churches and widespread pulling down of crosses in Zhejiang province during the past year have served to highlight the dilemma facing China’s Christians, whose numerical growth has, for the past several decades, outstripped the availability of suitable venues for worship.
The Safety Belt of China
Last week I attended The Gospel Coalition Conference in Orlando, FL.
Space, Place, and Face
The Transformation of China’s Church
As urbanization has redrawn the landscape of China, its effects have been far reaching, altering not only the physical geography but also the social fabric in multiple dimensions.
The Greying of China and the Church’s Response
As China’s elderly population mushrooms and its working-age population shrinks, Christian families find themselves caught in the middle of this demographic divide. Cultural expectations and legal requirements put the onus on them to care for older family members, but neither the government nor the society at large are adequately prepared to support this effort.