Articles on Church History
Resource Corner
Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity
A significant resource, this website offers the names and life stories of significant figures in Chinese Christianity including those who pioneered and nurtured the churches, led independent Christian movements, and applied biblical values to Chinese social and political challenges across the centuries and around the world.
Book Reviews
Ecclesiology, History, and the Identity of the Chinese Church
A Book Review
Using a historical approach, this book looks at the early stages of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and Chinese Protestant Christians’ responses to changing church-state relations from 1949-1958. The author proposes that to understand the conflicts between the early stages of TSPM and the Chinese church leaders, theology and Christian identity are significant factors. This work provides valuable insights to keep in mind while studying the history of Chinese Christianity.
Book Reviews
A New Understanding of the Relationship between Christianity and Chinese Culture
The Missionary's Curse: and Other Tales from a Chinese Catholic Village by Henrietta Harrison.
Harrison recounts the story of Catholicism in a small village in Shanxi, from its initial arrival at the opening of the seventeenth century right up to the present.
Book Reviews
Building up China’s Church
China’s Reforming Churches by Bruce P. Baugus, ed.
Reviewed by Jennifer Guo
This volume is written from the conviction that China’s need for church development is largely the need for the development of a healthy and robust presbyterianism that comes from an understanding of biblical theology of the church as articulated within the Reformed tradition. It frequently corrects common erroneous presuppositions and reveals that within China there is a surprising amount of freedom for Christians—and even for the officially illegal, unregistered churches.
Book Reviews
Roots of China’s Current Christian Revival
Fierce the Conflict by Norman H. Cliff.
A Review by Tony Lambert
Supporting Article
The Roots of Bishop K.H. Ting’s Theology
The 1930s up to the Cultural Revolution
The last year has seen the promotion by Bishop K. H. Ting (Ding Guangxin), former head of both the China Christian Council (CCC) and the Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM), of a campaign for “theological construction” that is “compatible with socialism.” To understand this current movement we look back at Bishop Ting's early life and work.
Supporting Article
Maintaining the Integrity of the Gospel
Today, the church needs to commission and groom a new generation of middle-management “China experts” with China experience. These individuals must learn the language, they should have a firm foundation placed by seminary training which believes in the inerrancy of Scripture, they must have much experience among the Chinese, and perhaps a doctoral degree in Chinese history or intercultural studies. And they must hold to a strong, unqualified confidence in the Bible, the inerrant Word of God, and a high view of God, Scripture and the cross. More than anything else, what China needs is a clear message of the sound, complete gospel.