No matter how you feel about America’s decentralized phone confusion, the fact remains that, thanks to Ma Bell, Nanjing, China, is as close as Nantucket, Maine—give or take a few touch tones. And for author Sharon Mumper, this meant the difference between a cover story based solely upon second-and third-hand reports, and one offering CT readers an insider’s look at a complex situation.
Most surprisingly perhaps, Mumper, the associate director of Evangelical Missions Information Service and three-time visitor to the People’s Republic, was able to dial Bishop Ting, the controversial head of China’s state-approved church organization, direct.
“It’s hard to get a phone number inside a Communist country,” she telephonically told CT editors after completing her story. “But fortunately, we had a contact in Hong Kong who had the bishop’s Nanjing number.”
Twelve digits later, Sharon had her interview: “The bishop’s superb English made the best of a bad connection.”
Sharon reached out and touched the Orient eight times, getting quotes and counsel from assorted men and women familiar with both Ting’s Three-Self Patriotic Movement and China’s multitudinous house churches: all in addition to getting a phone bill for $295.93.
While we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
A Christian reconciliation group in Israel and Palestine warned that war would come. Now the war threatens their relevance.españolالعربيةFrançaisрусскийУкраїнська
The plan would organize UMC churches in four global regions, with each given more leeway around same-sex marriage and other theological issues.
