Christianity is a ‘western’ religion and a religion of individual freedom, right?
Eastern traditions emphasise family and community above the individual. The Christian mind and the Chinese mind are two venerable yet incompatible things.
So, Christianity should have a problem in China. It is just one of the attempted foreign invaders.
And, yet, Christianity is alive and growing in China. Is this a western-controlled religious insurgency or is there an Eastern Jesus many in the West have missed?
This episode is sponsored by Zondervan’s new book Deep Peace by Todd Hunter.
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Meet our guests
Professor Xi Lian’s research is focused on China’s modern encounter with Christianity. Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Lin Zhao, a Martyr in Mao’s China (2018) is his most recent book. It is the first authoritative, documented biography of the most important political dissident in Mao’s China, whose open opposition to communism was sustained by her Christian faith. Dr. Lian’s other research projects include the flourishing of Christianity among minority peoples on the margins of the Chinese state and the emergence of Protestant elites and their prominent, if also precarious, role in the search for civil society in today’s China.
I’Ching has been a communications consultant, a missionary in West Asia with Operation Mobilisation (OM), and an apologist and director of training for an international apologetics ministry. Presently she leads OM International’s leadership development efforts. I’Ching speaks at universities, churches, and conferences regularly. She has also written Jesus: The Path to Human Flourishing, exploring the commonalities between the gospel and Confucius’ ideal of human flourishing. She has also contributed to other books: Beyond Opinion and The Popular Handbook of World Religions. I’Ching is co-creator of CantoSense, a video podcast on contextualization and cultural redemption for the Cultural Chinese.
Links
Download the transcript for this episode here.
- Get to know our guest, Professor Xi Lian.
- Read Professor Lian’s book, Blood Letters: The untold story of Lin Zhao, a martyr in Mao’s China.
- You might also like to seek out Professor Lian’s other relevant books Redeemed by Fire: The rise of popular Christianity in modern China and also The Conversion of Missionaries: Liberalism in American Protestant Missions in China, 1907–1932.
- Meet our other guest I’Ching Thomas.
- Read I’Ching Thomas’ book, Jesus The Path to Human Flourishing : The Gospel for the Cultural Chinese
- Read more about Daoism (or Taoism).
- Get a broader background on Chinese religion from National Geographic.
- More on the All Souls celebrations around China.
- Dig deeper into the idea of ‘Actionless Action’ or ‘Wu Wei’ here.
- Read the Analects of Confucius.
- Find out more about Christianity in communist China in this article from The Gospel Coalition.
- Winfried Corduan’s book Neighbouring Faiths is referenced by I’Ching Thomas about polytheism vs monotheism (amongst other things).
- Read more about Christianity in China from this article from 2020 in The Economist.
- And this from Time about the imprisonment of a pastor Wang Yi (who led one of China’s most well-known underground churches).
- Here’s more about the ‘sinicization of religion’ in China from the Lausanne Movement.
- Read this article from the New York Times about China’s 12 core socialist values.
- Christianity’s growth in China is hard to predict, but Professor Fenggang Yang from Purdue University has given it a crack, estimating that China will become the largest Christian country in the world by 2030.
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Undeceptions is part of the Undeceptions Network. Seeking to ‘undeceive ourselves’, and let the truth ‘out’.
