Author: Jie Kang Publisher: Springer ISBN: 3319304909 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 296
Book Description
This book provides a significant new interpretation of China's rapid urbanization by analyzing its impact on the spread of Protestant Christianity in the People's Republic. Demonstrating how the transition from rural to urban churches has led to the creation of nationwide Christian networks, the author focuses on Linyi in Shandong Province. Using her unparalleled access as both an anthropologist and member of the congregation, she presents a much-needed insider's view of the development, organization, operation and transformation of the region's unregistered house churches. Whilst most studies are concerned with the opposition of church and state, this work, by contrast, shows that in Linyi there is no clear-cut distinction between the official TSPM church and house churches. Rather, it is the urbanization of religion that is worthy of note and detailed analysis, an approach which the author also employs in investigating the role played by Christianity in Beijing. What she uncovers is the impact of newly-acquired urban aspirations for material goods, success and status on the reshaping of local Christian beliefs, practices and rites of passage. In doing so, she creates a thought-provoking account of religious life in China that will appeal to social anthropologists, sociologists, theologians and scholars of China and its society.
Author: Wang Publisher: InterVarsity Press ISBN: 1514004143 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 218
Book Description
Reader's Choice Award Winner Throughout China's rapidly growing cities, a new wave of unregistered house churches is growing. They are developing rich theological perspectives that are both uniquely Chinese and rooted in the historical doctrines of the faith. To understand how they have endured despite government pressure and cultural marginalization, we must understand both their history and their theology. In this volume, key writings from the house church have been compiled, translated, and made accessible to English speakers. Featured here is a manifesto by well-known pastor Wang Yi and his church, Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, to clarify their theological stance on the house church and its relationship to the Chinese government. There are also works by prominent voices such as Jin Tianming, Jin Mingri, and Sun Yi. The editors have provided introductions, notes, and a glossary to give context to each selection. These writings are an important body of theology historically and spiritually. Though defined by a specific set of circumstances, they have universal applications in a world where the relationship between church and state is more complicated than ever. This unique resource will be valuable to practical and political theologians as well as readers interested in international relations, political philosophy, history, and intercultural studies.
Author: Brent Fulton Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers ISBN: 1498273386 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 169
Book Description
China's Urban Christians: A Light That Cannot Be Hidden looks at how massive urbanization is redrawing not only the geographic and social landscape of China, but in the process is transforming China's growing church as well. The purpose of this book is to explore how Christians in China perceive the challenges posed by their new urban context and to examine their proposed means of responding to these challenges. Although not primarily political in nature, these challenges nonetheless illustrate the complex interplay between China's Christian community and the Chinese party-state as it comes to terms with the continued growth and increasing prominence of Christianity in modern China.
Author: Li Ma Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000227928 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 250
Book Description
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.
Author: David Wang Publisher: Baker Books ISBN: 1441269053 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 208
Book Description
The Light Shines in the Darkness There is more to China's story than its rise as a global economic power. The Holy Spirit has birthed a vibrant, rapidly growing house church movement in China's cities. For years, Christians in the West have heard rumors of house churches in the rural countryside with believers numbering in the tens of millions. Now the underground movement has emerged among China's upwardly mobile, globally connected urbanites--and there will be no turning back! In Christian China and the Light of the World, you'll meet believers serving God's people in the People's Republic of China. Learn about the political, social and economic pressures faced by the urban Chinese church, and find out how you can pray for and support your sisters and brothers in Christ who are following Him no matter the cost. Their true stories of the Holy Spirit's miraculous move across the most populous nation on earth will thrill and inspire you . . . and lead you to worship the Light that darkness cannot overcome.
Author: Zhang Rongliang Publisher: Whitaker House ISBN: 1629113387 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 240
Book Description
"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.
Author: Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 0190923466 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 409
Book Description
"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"--
Author: Wayne Ten Harmsel Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers ISBN: 1725286246 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 140
Book Description
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.
Author: Jie Kang
Author: Wang
Author: Brent Fulton
Author: Li Ma
Author: David Wang
Author: Zhang Rongliang
Author: Carl Lawrence
Author: Tom Begier
Author: Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye
Author: Wayne Ten Harmsel