"This book by Gregg Ten Elshof explores ways of using resources from the Confucian wisdom tradition to inform Christian living. Neither highlighting nor diminishing the differences between Confucianism and Christianity, Ten Elshof reflects on perennial human questions with the teachings of both Jesus and Confucius in mind. In examining such subjects as family, learning, and ethics, Ten Elshof sets the typical Western worldview against the Confucian worldview and considers how each of them lines up with the teachings of Jesus. Ten Elshof points to much that is deep and helpful in the Confucian tradition, and he shows how reflection on the teachings of Confucius can inspire a deeper and richer understanding of what it really means to live the Jesus way."--Publisher's description.

A bold and original study of German missionaries in China, who catalyzed a revolution in thinking among European Christians about the nature of Christianity itself In this accessibly written and empirically based study, Albert Wu documents how German missionaries—chastened by their failure to convert Chinese people to Christianity—reconsidered their attitudes toward Chinese culture and Confucianism. In time, their increased openness catalyzed a revolution in thinking among European Christians about the nature of Christianity itself. At a moment when Europe’s Christian population is falling behind those of South America and Africa, Wu’s provocative analysis sheds light on the roots of Christianity’s global shift.

The first full-length critical biography and theological analysis of Wang Mingdao, the spiritual father of China’s House Church Movement. One of the most influential figures in Chinese Christianity, church leader and evangelist Wang Mingdao rejected state control of religion in favor of the religious freedom of the unregistered House Churches—a choice that made him a frequent target of government persecution. In this thorough new biography, scholar Christopher Payk traces Wang’s life and Christian development through the sociopolitical tumult of twentieth-century China. Drawing on unpublished sermons, journals, and additional sources in English and Chinese, Payk argues persuasively that Wang’s theology—while largely based on Christian scripture—was shaped by Confucian tradition, reason, and personal experience. Following Christ and Confucius brings new clarity to Wang’s uncompromising faith and lasting impact.

To understand the position of Christianity in China today, one must review and assess the long sweep of the history - over thirteen hundred years - of the Christian faith in China. Confucius, the Buddha, and Christ does that and addresses the essential question of why Christianity over all those centuries has remained foreign to the Chinese - why it has remained an outsider never able really to enter the warp and woof of Chinese life. Dr. Covell's book details and analyzes the history of Nestorians, Catholics, and Protestants, who, in various eras, have tried unsuccessfully to knit Christianity into the fabric of Chinese culture. He argues that Christianity's failure to become Chines has two roots: its foreign connections and its foreign message. Works have been written to address the history of one or another of the waves of missionary activity in China. This book is unique in that it puts together and assesses the core of Christianity - it's message and form - in its varied contexts over more than a millennium of Chinese history. What was preached? How? Why did it fail? Also studied here is the only major attempt to Christianize China from within - the Taiping Movement in the mid-nineteenth century. Confucius, the Buddha, and Christ is a thoroughly-documented, in-depth case study of contextualization - the most significant theme in contemporary world mission studies. It is deceptive, not prescriptive. Its historical perspective opens the door to the only way that other Christians can wisely relate to Chinese Christianity, whether in the People's Republic or in the worldwide Chinese diaspora.

Christianity and Confucianism: Culture, Faith and Politics, sets comparative textual analysis against the backcloth of 2000 years of cultural, political, and religious interaction between China and the West. As the world responds to China's rise and China positions herself for global engagement, this major new study reawakens and revises an ancient conversation. As a generous introduction to biblical Christianity and the Confucian Classics, Christianity and Confucianism tells a remarkable story of mutual formation and cultural indebtedness. East and West are shown to have shaped the mind, heart, culture, philosophy and politics of the other - and far more, perhaps, than either knows or would want to admit. Christopher Hancock has provided a rich and stimulating resource for scholars and students, diplomats and social scientists, devotees of culture and those who pursue wisdom and peace today.

The book is a manifesto or apologia for Chinese Christians. It seeks to articulate how it is possible to maintain a Chinese identity and a Christian identity at the same time without capitulating to some western or other cultural model of Christian identity. To be a Chinese Christian is to adopt a distinctive, unique identity that owes much to both traditions but is sui generis. Providing great resources for the construction of a Chinese Christian theology, Confucius and Paul converge across a surprisingly broad front. Yet, the Christ of the Cross completes or extends what is merely implicit or absent in Confucius; and Confucius amplifies various elements of Christian faith (e.g., community, virtues) that are underplayed in western Christianity. The Christ of God as found in Paul's letter to the Galatians brings Confucian ethics in the Analects to its fulfillment while protecting the church from the aberrations of Chinese history and while protecting China against the aberrations of Christian history in the west. Chinese Christianity has something to give the church that needs to be heard. China can develop its distinctive vision of Christianity for the sake of the church universal. Chinese Christianity will have its global mission if it can find its own authentic Chinese-Christian identity. Insofar as that identity brings the best of the Confucian tradition into the Christian story, it will help revivify global Christianity.

Written by and for Asian Americans, this study guide helps you discover and embrace Asian identity and learn to bridge the conflicting values of parents, culture and faith. Through accounts of humorous, frustrating and heartbreaking personal experiences, the authors offer support, encouragement and ideas for living out the Christian faith between two cultures.

In this compact book, the authors reflect on the legacy of four great religious thinkers: Buddha, Jesus, Confucius, and Muhammad. They offer a brief biography of each founder, describing the events that most shaped his life, how his personal spirituality developed, how he lived and how he died, what kind of person he was, and finally, they briefly trace the course of each religious tradition after its founder's death. The Carmodys divide their topic into the major dimensions of spiritual life - nature, society, the self, and divinity - and provide clear and easy access to where each figure stands on enduring issues and how each compares with the others.

Within the next decade, China could be home to more Christians than any country in the world. Through the 150-year saga of a single family, this book vividly dramatizes the remarkable religious evolution of the world’s most populous nation. Shanghai Faithful is both a touching family memoir and a chronicle of the astonishing spread of Christianity in China. Five generations of the Lin family—buffeted by history’s crosscurrents and personal strife—bring to life an epoch that is still unfolding. A compelling cast—a poor fisherman, a doctor who treated opium addicts, an Ivy League–educated priest, and the charismatic preacher Watchman Nee—sets the bookin motion. Veteran journalist Jennifer Lin takes readers from remote nineteenth-century mission outposts to the thriving house churches and cathedrals of today’s China. The Lin family—and the book’s central figure, the Reverend Lin Pu-chi—offer witness to China’s tumultuous past, up to and beyond the betrayals and madness of the Cultural Revolution, when the family’s resolute faith led to years of suffering. Forgiveness and redemption bring the story full circle. With its sweep of history and the intimacy of long-hidden family stories, Shanghai Faithful offers a fresh look at Christianity in China—past, present, and future.

This updated edition by one of the world's leading apologists presents a systematic, positive case for Christianity that reflects the latest work in the contemporary hard sciences and humanities. Brilliant and accessible.