Analysis

The history of Christianity in Shanxi deserves more recognition, says the author, as the setting of a number of notable incidents: the first Christian multi-agency international relief effort; the deaths of more expatriate and Chinese Christians during the Boxer turmoil; and especially fierce resistance to Japanese aggression, in which Chinese and foreign Christians were caught up.

These trends, though they may slow in pace and decrease in intensity, do not seem to be in danger of stopping; if anything, they will continue to grow and to permeate more and more corners of Chinese culture and society.

[These] articles and reviews span both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism from the sixteenth century to the present, and they touch upon history, theology, evangelism and social action, the impact of Christianity upon Chinese society, and challenges facing the Chinese church today. . . . The result is a rich sampling of voices on a wide variety of issues concerning Christianity in China, and it will be of interest to an equally broad range of readers.

This selection of thirty short excerpts from the letters, diaries, and writings of outstanding missionaries and leaders is meant to be read one at a time. “Readers are expected to linger over each quotation, perhaps reading only one quotation a day, and to spend time afterward in prayer, reflecting on them in light of their own experiences,” explains the author, a veteran Christian worker in China.

In her epilogue, the author writes, “The main purpose for writing this book was to get to know a man—an ordinary man who nevertheless magnified the grace of God…. Another purpose … was to record the history of a crucial period in the development of the history of the Church in China.” In my opinion, she succeeded in both purposes.

Timothy Conkling has written an extremely important book. Based on exhaustive research over many years and drawing upon a wide variety of unimpeachable sources, he has given us a definitive analysis of both house-church Protestants and government religious policy and practice as they were at the time of writing.

Palmeiro’s visit to China at the end of the Ming dynasty came at a critical juncture in the Jesuit mission there. His personal career, the decisions he made about mission strategy, and the story of the first two centuries of Jesuit missions worldwide carry potent lessons for us now.

Although containing much useful information, some illuminating insights, and a fresh perspective on the early years of the China Inland Mission, this revisionist history is almost fatally flawed by a profound prejudice that prevents objectivity in dealing with the sources and leads to misinterpretation and at times even misrepresentation.

On the Road to Siangyang is a labor of love and comes out of [Jack Lundbom's] own affiliation with the Evangelical Covenant Church, formerly known as the American Mission Covenant. Drawing upon an unusually rich store of personal conversations with former missionaries and their family members, as well as Chinese Christians, and supported by extensive documentation, this book will prove to be a gold mine for historians of missionary work in China.

Paul Golf's book is thoroughly researched, well written, well organized, and marked with energy, passion, remarkable balance, and extremely valuable as an expression of what many Chinese Christians believe about themselves – their history, their present condition, and the mandate God has passed on to them.