This monograph studies a significant episode in Chinese Christianity. Focusing on the origins of Protestantism in South Fujian, it investigates the evolution of the churches which pioneered in indigenization and ecclesiastical union in China during the 19th century.

John Oman (1860–1939) was one of the most original and profound theologian-philosophers of his generation. Drawing on previously unpublished archival sources, Houston traces the influences on Oman’s Orkney childhood and his student days in Edinburgh University and the Divinity Hall of the United Presbyterian Church. She reviews Oman’s subsequent publications during his ministry in Alnwick, and his influential career as professor of systematic theology and college principal at Westminster College, Cambridge. Houston describes the extent to which Oman’s view of the world was challenged and affirmed by his experience of the First World War. Oman’s theological and religious perspectives, summarized as “reverence, freedom, and sincerity,” are rooted in the concerns of daily life. Oman’s experiences and reflections are sure to stimulate, challenge, and inspire readers today as much as they did in his own time.