We hope you will see that Chinese Catholics live with a strong awareness of Our Lord Jesus’s presence with them amidst many challenges, that they live in hope in exceedingly challenging times, and they remain faithful to him in ways that can inspire us all.
China’s Catholics continue to endure their present circumstances, attending services, meeting in their homes for private prayer and study, and supporting one another in their Christian faith.
Video: China’s Crisis of Faith and the Struggle Over Moral Authority (November 19, Asia Society, via YouTube) As the crisis of faith has raised alarms in Beijing and the country's leaders have cracked down on unsanctioned religious expression, a panel of experts discuss how the faithful have responded with resilience and determination. Speakers include Pulitzer Prize–winning author Ian Johnson, Duke Divinity School Professor Xi Lian, and Whitman College Assistant Professor Yuan Xiaobo.
Video - A Pilgrimage to China’s Noodle Capitol (November 15, 2024, Saint Cavish) An obsession with Lanzhou's hand-pulled noodles takes me to the grave of the man who started it all.
Guangzhou: “I Truly Love This City” (November 7, 2024, China Partnership) Guangzhou, a city of about 19 million, is one of the most important trade cities in China and the world. The city sits near the head of the Pearl River Delta, and for many years has been the means through which foreign influence first entered Mainland China. Guangzhou is famous for its Cantonese culture, and believers in the area say their city is comfortable, laid back, and simultaneously treasures its history while being an up-to-date and modern metropolis.
Meet Ms. Hu: She Built a Garden From Chongqing’s Discarded Past (October 30, 2024, Sixth Tone) A dinosaur’s head peers out from a tangle of wildflowers. Half a horse stands watch beside saplings and scattered blossoms. These fragments are part of Ms. Hu’s hidden garden in Chongqing’s Shibati scenic area—once the heart of commerce in this megacity in southwestern China. This unlikely garden, crafted from scraps and relics collected from the city’s streets, seems worlds apart from the surrounding construction site, where trucks and cranes relentlessly reshape this 1,000-year-old neighborhood.
On November 14, 2024, nearly 200 Chinese pastors, church leaders, theologians, and educators from around the world gathered at the picturesque Biola University. Together, they celebrated the historic establishment of the Institute for Advanced Studies of Chinese Christianity (IASCC) and the Biola Research Initiative for Chinese Theology.
As we close out 2024, I am filled with gratitude—for God’s goodness that has pursued us, for faithful partners like you, and for the lives being transformed through his love. Today on this Giving Tuesday, I invite you to join us. Your partnership helps us connect people, ideas, and resources to advance God’s work in China and beyond.
In Pastor Hsi, written by Mrs. Howard Taylor, we can tell that the pastoral problems Pastor Hsi encountered when the Shanxi Church was established more than a hundred years ago are exactly the same as those we face today: there is the danger of false teachers, the pain brought by church division, and the various different voices from inside and outside the church.
In just a few weeks we will celebrate Messiah’s birth, remembering the day when hope entered the world, forever changing the course of human history. Many of our China stories have a similar anticipatory quality. Whatever our stories may promise, our hope for China is more than looking forward to an ideal future.
As we prepare for Thanksgiving Day celebrations here in the United States, I’ve been thinking about expressions of thanks in Chinese culture and language. The most common way of expressing thanks in Chinese is xie xie (谢谢). But there is another word: gan’en (感恩). I love that en means “grace.”
With Memorize What Matters, you’re not only given tools for memory but also an invitation to see Bible memorization as a spiritual discipline that equips you to serve, teach, and grow in your relationship with God.
As this painful summer passed, poor Pastor Hsi endured unspeakable suffering and pressure, but most of his co-workers still supported him firmly. The love and loyalty of people were a great comfort to him. But they still had to go through this refining furnace together. Sometimes it even seemed that God’s hand had withdrawn, and Satan was destroying the ministry at will.
The Lord builds his church, and the church he constructs will look a bit different in each climate and landscape. It is the seed that has power to grow roots down into deeply buried cultural expressions and expectations, roots that will produce fruit fitting the context, fruit that is both beautiful and empowering.
God’s truth remains constant across generations. He speaks to each one in unique ways while sharing the same message of salvation. What is he saying to the 150,000 Chinese students in the UK today? How can we meet their needs and invite them into God’s kingdom?
Will you join us in praying for the unreached peoples? Together, let us commit to being part of God’s mission to make disciples of all nations and to plant healthy churches that will reproduce to surrounding villages and across generations.
Our hope and prayer is that the keynote speaker, Scott Shaum, and the various workshops will help all of us to pause, hear, reflect, and live God’s call in our lives for the long haul, in sustainable and kingdom service for the glory of God!
As someone who has been involved with China for over 60 years, I’ve witnessed the shifts in Sino-Catholic relations, from the closed society of the Mao era to the cautious engagements of today. This Quarterly issue is especially significant, addressing both longstanding and emerging challenges faced by Catholics in China amidst ongoing socio-political pressures.
When he finally found the truth, Wu felt that it was just like “tripping blindly over [a] threshold and being thrown flat on his stomach into the House of Light.” In other words, one must give up believing he or she has the power to attain truth by oneself, and humble oneself to the point of realizing that it is a gift.
We need to go beyond dogma and statements to show and tell in more holistic, contextual and embodied ways. As the apostles declared and displayed Christ through prayer and worship (Acts 4:24; 16:25; Philippians 2:5-10), so can we find unique expressions that are embedded and empowered in our own cultures and tongues.
On July 9, 2024, approximately 80 Chinese and Korean pastors, ministry leaders, and researchers met in Gaithersburg, MD, to hear about, reflect on, and find applications for the first comprehensive baseline study involving Chinese and Korean churches in the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and northern Virginia (DMV) region.
Some may assume that Chinese Bible translation resources are limited, but that’s not entirely accurate. The United Bible Societies have been carrying out an extensive Bible digitization project, preserving texts and creating digital archives in many languages. This project revealed that while English has the highest number of translations, Chinese ranks third after Spanish, with over 80 complete or partial translations.