Church History

Blog Entries

The Earliest Chinese Christianity Brought Back to Life

Readers [of Jingjiao] will not only be equipped with the fascinating history of Jingjiao, which helps overcome the anti-Christian narrative that Christianity was brought into China by European and American colonial imperialists. Christians and missionaries in various global cultural contexts will also benefit from this book by learning from the Church of the East missionaries’ creative strategies of inculturation.

Blog Entries

Chinese Christianity Endures, Part 2

Learning from the 18th-Century Church Under Authoritarian Rule

Given China’s place in the world order today, it is very unlikely that they will completely ban all foreigners.... We can be confident that no matter how few the foreigners or how persecuted the flock, our God who makes the rocks cry out in testimony will ensure that his witness is never silenced, and his kingdom continues to advance.

Blog Entries

J.O. Fraser and the Making of the Lisu Bible

Fraser’s most acclaimed contribution to missions is his translation of the Bible and Christian hymns into the Lisu language. When he first met the Lisu people in Tengyueh, they had no written language of their own. After Fraser learned to speak the language, he began to translate the Bible into Lisu.

Blog Entries

Chinese Christianity Endures, Part 1

Studying the 18th-Century Church under Authoritarian Rule

The study then takes a closer look at the brief emergence of a comparatively Chinese underground church…before concluding with a fascinating reflection on martyrdom, comparing the Chinese notion of suffering perseverance motivated by filial loyalty to the saints who have gone before with the European concept of sacrificing one’s life for the gospel.

Blog Entries

Meet the Translators of the Chinese Bible

Chinese Bible translations were often the result of years of diligence, at times division, and significant group work. While Westerners often numerically dominated the projects mentioned above, Chinese Christians also played a role.

Blog Entries

Meet the Missionaries Who Went to China

ChinaSource Summer School Session 3

God works through the lives of individual believers to spread the gospel and fulfill the great commission. In this post, we have rounded up several posts that look at multiple important missionaries from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Blog Entries

Christianity Comes to China

ChinaSource Summer School Session 2

Take a walk through the past and learn about different missionary efforts in China, from the Nestorians to Matteo Ricci to missionaries like Robert Morrison and Hudson Taylor.

Lead Article

Pentecost in China (1)

Origins

The author delves into the history of how Pentecostalism came to China in the late nineteenth century. He introduces us to early missionaries—including women—Chinese leaders, and revivals.

Supporting Article

Pentecost in China (2)

Church Growth in the “New China” Era

Balcombe brings us into the present by telling us about the Pentecostal church at the end of the Cultural Revolution and on through the years to its present situation.

Supporting Article

Learning from the Larger Story

Menzies discusses his belief that the Pentecostal churches in China have an important contribution to make to the larger, global body of Christ, and that the Pentecostal movement, in China and globally, need the larger body of Christ.