Love her or hate her, Empress Dowager Cixi does not leave us with the option of just letting her drift off into historical obscurity. Jung Chang's (author of Wild Swans) recently published Express Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China is destined to become a must read for China hands.
An interview with Dr. Fenggang Yang about a new exchange program at Purdue University.
The following eschatological scheme is what I have pieced together from scattered statements in Eastern Lightning writings. It does not seem altogether consistent, and it may not reflect the common understanding among the cult's rank and file.
The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity (三位一体) is that there is one God (一神) in three persons (三个位个).
The Spring 2014 issue of ChinaSource Quarterly takes up the topic of Confucianism'S resurgence in China and its implications for the church. Certainly not a new topic, the relationship between China's dominant worldview and the Christian gospel has been a perennial subject of discussion since at least the days of Matteo Ricci. Successive generations of Christians in China have asked the pertinent questions in different ways, some choosing to find accommodation between the two, while others find them to be mutually exclusive.
Christians from a church in Shanghai minister to leukemia patients.
A brief discussion of the origins and evolution of the Eastern Lightning cult, an introduction
Tomorrow (April 5) is "Tomb-Sweeping Day," a festival to honor the ancestors by tending their graves. There were two articles about this that caught our attention this week.
Section three of "Where did Eastern Lightning Come From?" This section looks at the origins of Eastern Lightning's ideas.
Adding to my recent list of Ten Books on Christianity, I'd like to also commend the three volumes of Salt and Light: Lives of Faith that Shaped Modern China, by Carol Lee Hamrin and Stacey Bieler.
Section two of "Where Did Eastern Lightning Come From?"
This is my third blog reflecting back on six days I spent in China recently with Brent Fulton where we met with pastors, seminary leaders and academics in Shanghai and Beijing. I shared in the first blog about my amazement at the growth of the church and the window that seems to be opening for the gospel, and in my second I raised concerns about the environmental disaster that is overtaking China and the key role of the church in calling people to care for God's creation.