Christian History Home > Issue 98 > Christianity Fever
Christianity Fever
Through a century of political turmoil and disillusionment, waves of Chinese intellectuals have come to Christ.
Stacey Bieler and Carol Lee Hamrin | posted 8/08/2008 07:48AM
For more than 100 years, China's tiny cultural elite has wrestled with the role of Christianity in society. Traditional scholars educated a century ago in state-sponsored Confucianism tended to reject Christianity as a foreign teaching. But the new professionals of the 1910s and '20s, as well as the growing middle class in the last 20 years, have been attracted to Christianity as a way to build a strong modern China. Their initial question is often "What can Christianity do for China?" For some, this utilitarian approach becomes a personal spiritual journey. The pattern has been a tidal wave of interest in times of political upheaval, followed by a low tide, often due to anti-Western nationalism. The third of these high tides is surging in Chinese society today.
The Golden Age of Protestantism
One hundred years ago, scholar-officials lost hope for reviving the Qing dynasty. Since China had to compete with the West on its own terms to survive as a nation, families began to send their children ... To view this item, you must be a member of ChristianHistory.net.
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