Books in the Studies in Chinese Christianity series

From 1807, when the first Protestant missionary arrived in China, to the 1920s, when a new phase of growth began, thousands of missionaries and Chinese Christians labored, often under very adverse conditions, to lay the groundwork for a solid, healthy, and self-sustaining Chinese church. Following an Introduction that sets the scene and surveys the entire period, Builders of the Chinese Church contains the stories of nine leading pioneers--seven missionaries and two Chinese. Here we meet Robert Morrison, the heroic translator; Liang Fa, the first Chinese evangelist; missionary-scholar James Legge; J. Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission; converted opium addict Pastor Hsi (""Overcomer of Demons""); Griffith John and Jonathan Goforth, both indefatigable preachers; and the idealistic advocates of education and reform, W. A. P. Martin and Timothy Richard. Readers will be inspired by their courage, devotion, and sheer perseverance in arduous work, and will gain an understanding of the roots of the two ""branches"" of today''s Chinese Protestantism.""A wonderful collection of excellent biographies of some most important figures in the history of China mission, written by the leading experts in the field.""--Kevin Xiyi Yao, Associate Professor of World Christianity and Asian Studies, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, MA""With so much attention paid to the explosive revival of Chinese Christianity today, G. Wright Doyle masterfully contributes a historical piece to the discussion, namely the ''Great Century of Missions'' in that nation. This edited collection highlights both indigenous and expatriate Christians, and both official and underground churches. It is a 1 Cor 3:6 type of book, showing that while many people have contributed various parts to the Christian enterprise, it was God who made it grow.""--Allen Yeh, Associate Professor of Intercultural Studies and Missiology, Cook School of Intercultural Studies, Biola University, La Mirada, CAG. Wright Doyle is English editor of the online Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity (bdcconline.net); coauthor of China: Ancient Culture, Modern Society; editor/cotranslator of Wise Man from the East: Lit-sen Chang (Zhang Lisheng); and editor of globalchinacenter.org and chinainst.org, which feature articles and book reviews about Chinese culture and religion, especially Christianity. His other works include Carl Henry: Theologian for All Seasons and Christianity in America: Triumph and Tragedy.

The hidden seeds of the Christian renewal in China today include the outstanding Chinese Christians in Salt and Light 2, a dozen new life stories with lively anecdotes and photographs. These reformers made lasting contributions that shaped modern China. Working out of the limelight in their professions, they had quiet but powerful influence on early twentieth-century civil society. Motivated by their faith, they modeled essential virtues. This series helps recover a lost Christian heritage linked closely to a legacy of East-West cooperation in an earlier global era.

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.""As China continues to aggressively urbanize so does the church. This book provides well-considered, insightful information that helps those of us on the outside looking in to better understand the true state of the present-day church in China. A tremendous update that truly informs.""--Marvin J. Newell, Missio Nexus ""The daily reality for Chinese Christians has completely changed and yet many in the West are still viewing the situation through an outdated lens. No one knows this better than Brent Fulton, who has spent a lifetime engaged with the subject. Fulton presents the rapidly changing church as it actually is. China''s Urban Christians is compulsory reading for anyone trying to understand this extraordinary moment in the history of the global church."" --Rob Gifford, correspondent for The Economist, author of China Road""Looking beyond tensions between church and the Chinese Communist Party-state, this book superbly draws together scholarship and firsthand interviews in a highly readable fashion to present how today''s most innovative Chinese Protestants are grappling with a wide range of complex issues. It shows that Christianity in China is far more nuanced than common black-and-white depictions of church-state conflict, even more complex than subtle grays could capture. If you read this book, you will marvel at the dazzling colors of a church in transformation.""--Carsten T. Vala, Visiting Fulbright Scholar, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile; Associate Professor of Political Science, Loyola University MarylandBrent Fulton is Cofounder and President of ChinaSource and the Editor of ChinaSource Quarterly.Prior to assuming his current position, he served from 1995 to 2000 as the managing director of the Institute for Chinese Studies at Wheaton College. Dr. Fulton holds MA and PhD degrees in political science from the University of Southern California and a BA in radio-TV-film from Messiah College.An avid China watcher, Dr. Fulton has written and taught extensively on the church in China and on Chinese social and political phenomena.Dr. Fulton and his wife, Jasmine, live in Hong Kong.

Salt and Light presents the life stories of outstanding Chinese Christians who, as early modernizers, promoted China''s nation building and moral progress in the early twentieth century. Lively anecdotes and photographs highlight the strong character of ten pioneers in the modern professions of education, medicine, journalism, and diplomacy. These professionals were motivated by faith to introduce practical social reforms and build up China''s civil society. They modeled and promoted virtues essential to social progress during the ""golden age"" of Chinese Protestantism. Their stories touch on themes important in today''s global era: patterns of cooperation between foreign and Chinese partners, the contributions to China of Western-educated professionals, Christianity''s role in furthering East-West understanding and exchanges, and the transnational nature of modern Chinese Christianity. The editors and authors articulate the importance of recovering China''s Christian heritage as part of world Christianity.""I highly recommend this collection of succinct, deftly drawn portraits of Chinese Christians, whose lives made a difference. The editors and authors are sympathetic to their subjects but also realistic in their evaluation. Historians of modern China, and many in Chinese Christian communities worldwide, will enjoy and profit from learning about these ten laypersons who contributed much to the Kingdom of God and to the society in which they lived.""--Daniel H. Bays, Professor of History and head of the Asian Studies Program, Calvin College""Recovering the lost narratives of ten remarkable Chinese Christians tells us that Christianity in China is profoundly and thoroughly Chinese. These impressive stories so aptly show that the modern-era migration of Christian faith, in contrast to earlier Chinese appropriations since the seventh century, sank roots deep into the cultural soil of China. How this occurred, in each case, is an achievement to be celebrated. This is a wonderful project.""--Robert Eric Frykenberg, Professor Emeritus of History and South Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison""Salt and Light is a scrupulous and moving work that presents the human face of China''s emergence in the world, showing how China''s great human assets bear the imprint of deep encounter with the West. It is impossible to overestimate the long-term value of that encounter, and there is no question that such encounter will impact China''s international outlook. This book shows why China will take its bearings from the historical memories of complex relations with the West as it emerges as a major world power in the near future."" --Lamin O. Sanneh, D. Willis James Professor of Missions and World Christianity and Professor of History at Yale Divinity SchoolCarol Lee Hamrin is research professor at George Mason University and a senior associate with Global China Center and author of God and Caesar in China and Decision Making in Deng''s China.Stacey Bieler is author of ""Patriots"" or ""Traitors""? A History of American-Educated Chinese Students.

The hidden seeds of the Christian renewal in China today include the outstanding Chinese Christians in Salt and Light 2, a dozen new life stories with lively anecdotes and photographs. These reformersmade lasting contributions that shaped modern China. Working out of the limelight in their professions, they had quiet but powerful influenceonearly twentieth-century civil society. Motivated by their faith, they modeled essential virtues.This series helps recover a lost Christian heritage linked closely to a legacy of East-West cooperation in an earlier global era.""The second volume of Salt and Light is a wonderful accomplishment. It takes as its scene the world''s largest country during a century of turmoil and agony, and shows how a few heroic Chinese Christians tried to rescue and redeem their great country. The stories are without exception inspiring. At the same time, they shed much unsuspected light on the history both of China and of Christianity.""--Philip Jenkins,author of The Lost History of Christianity""The editors have assembled a strong team of authors, both Chinese and American, to write these compelling portraits. The subjects are lay Chinese Christians who were active between 1850 and 1950, all of whom had some contact with the United States and all of whom were leaders in building up Chinese society. For our day, which marvels at the rapid spread of Christianity in contemporary China, this book is especially important for showing how long-standing and how effective--but also how Chinese--have been the serious Christian contributions to Chinese society. This is a very important book.""--Mark Nollauthor of The New Shape of World Christianity""Living up to the high standards of Volume 1, this book offers new, finely written portraits of Chinese Christian patriots of the twentieth century. Their stories are both fascinating and inspiring, and they open new windows for viewing the history of modern China. They help us see the moral challenges and cultural transformations that underlay the political and economic struggles of the Chinese revolution.--Richard Madsenauthor of Democracy''s Dharma and China''s Catholics""Carol Hamrin and Stacey Bieler have brought together another set of illuminating portraits of historical Chinese Christian leaders. We see here the men and women who sowed the seeds of spiritual, psychological, and physical transformation that helped make the Chinese church--and indeed China itself--what it is today. A truly fascinating book.""--Rob Giffordauthor of China RoadCarol Lee Hamrin is research professor at George Mason University and a senior associate with Global China Center and author of God and Caesar in China and Decision Making in Deng''s China.Stacey Bieler is author of ""Patriots"" or ""Traitors""? A History of American-Educated Chinese Students.

Modern man has found that material achievements are failing him, but in his escape from despair, he has become an easy prey for the deceptive cult of ""Zen-Existentialism."" There has emerged a mode of radical ""New Humanism"" with its emphasis on ""human autonomy."" In place of the God-man appears the ""man-god."" There is a search for the ""world within,"" the ""limitless inner space,"" the ""expansion of consciousness"", and the transcendental experience of ""Satori."" First published in 1969, this book prophetically anticipated the growth of New Age developments in the decades to follow. Lit-sen Chang directly spoke to the Hippie movement of his day, which was then seeking various means of transcendence through drugs and eastern mysticism.This book also reflects fifty years of bitter experiences of the author''s spiritual pilgrimage and shows how he was miraculously delivered by the grace and power of God from his ""cul-de-sac."" Chang writes of the utter futility of the fantasy of the East, analyzes the root causes of the crises in the West, and points out the doom of auto-soterism after his careful diagnosis of the human problem in cultural, philosophical, religious, and theological terms. ""Chang makes his judgment by cultural and Scriptural criteria, tempered by a background in the Orient and a vast experience in the West . . . He speaks of his own experience of Zen and this gives his words the authoritative power of witness.""Dr. James Forrester, Former President, Gordon College and Divinity School""The finest work from a Christian standpoint on the subject of Zen-Buddhism . . . Chang has performed a real service for evangelical Christianity by analyzing Zen from the inside.""Dr. Walter Martin, The Christian Research InstituteLit-sen Chang (1904-1996) was an ardent Chinese Buddhist on his way to India to promote a renaissance of Asian religions when he met Christ. He had been a talented legislator, and a brilliant young author on law and land policy. He now committed himself to serve Christ, and graduated summa cum laude at Gordon Divinity School in 1959, and then served as special lecturer on missions and world religions. He wrote twenty volumes on the field of Christian apologetics against Chinese culture and the contemporary West. Wheaton College honored him with the Doctor of Letters in 1984.

In this centennial year of China''s 1911 Revolution, Volume 3 in the Salt and Light series includes the life stories of influential Chinese who played a political or military role in the new Republic that emerged. Recovering this precious legacy of faith in action shows the deep roots of the revival of Christian faith in China today.""The third volume of Salt and Light provides invaluable information on the centrality of Christian leadership in the making of modern China. The Chinese Christians profiled here pioneered the first civic and social reform movements of the twentieth century. The recovery of their stories is a fabulous contribution to the history of Christianity as a dynamic force in Chinese history. This inspiring and informative book belongs on the bookshelf of everyone who cares about Chinese Christianity.""-Dana L. RobertTruman Collins Professor of World Christianity and the History of MissionBoston University""For decades, Western and Chinese academics have ignored the positive impact of Christian missionaries on China, generally because of faddish ideological blinkers. But with the third and final volume of their groundbreaking work, Hamrin and Bieler have assembled ample proof--if any was really needed--that a reevaluation of how we''ve looked at China in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is not just needed, it''s imperative.""-John Pomfret, The Washington Post and author of Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China""This third volume of Salt and Light extends the contributions of this series to our better understanding of modern China. Bringing religion back into a comprehensive study of Chinese history and culture necessarily includes bringing Christianity back into this national story, and Salt and Light shows just how influential Christian faith and ideals were among a diverse set of leading Chinese intellectuals and social leaders in twentieth-century China. Social and intellectual historians will benefit from the careful research and engaging presentations of the chapters in Hamrin''s collection.""-Timothy Cheek, Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia. Living with Reform: China Since 1989.Carol Lee Hamrin is research professor at George Mason University, senior associate with Global China Center, and author of God and Caesar in China.Stacey Bieler is an independent historian and author of ""Patriots"" or ""Traitors""? A History of American-Educated Chinese Students.