Brent Fulton

Brent Fulton is the founder of ChinaSource.

Dr. Fulton served as the first president of ChinaSource until 2019. Prior to his service with ChinaSource, he served from 1995 to 2000 as the managing director of the Institute for Chinese Studies at Wheaton College. From 1987 to 1995 he served as founding US director of China Ministries International, and from 1985 to 1986 as the English publications editor for the Chinese Church Research Center in Hong Kong.

Dr. Fulton holds MA and PhD degrees in political science from the University of Southern California and a BA in radio-TV-film from Messiah College.

An avid China watcher, Dr. Fulton has written and taught extensively on the church in China and on Chinese social and political phenomena. He is the author of China's Urban Christians: A Light That Cannot Be Hidden and co-authored China's Next Generation: New China, New Church, New World with Luis Bush.

Dr. Fulton and his wife, Jasmine, previously lived in Hong Kong from 2006 to 2017. They currently reside in northern California.

He is currently facilitating a network of member care professionals serving missionaries sent out from China. He also consults with other organizations on the impact of China's religious policy.

Latest

Flying against the Wind

Nestled in a spring-fed valley in the desert northeast of Los Angeles, St. Andrew’s Abbey is a long way from its roots in Chengdu. The only living link that remains is Brother Peter Zhou Bangjiu, a 91-year-old Sichuan native who rejoined the abbey in 1985 following his release from a Chinese labor camp.

3 Questions: Remembering the Poor

Brother Tom is a grassroots church planter in an Asian city. For the past twenty years he has worked with a global organization on creating access and sustainability for church planting.

Too Quickly to Be Astonished

Surveying China’s extraordinary rise over the past decade, Graham Allison, in his book Destined for War, paraphrases former Czech President Vaclav Havel when he says, “It has happened so quickly, we have not yet had time to be astonished.”

The Overseas NGO Law: A Second Look

Following a rather chaotic start, the process of registering foreign entities under the Overseas NGO (ONGO) Law is getting underway, albeit slowly.

China’s Religious Revival

A genuine "must-read" for those seeking to understand the complexities of religious life in China today. 

A Chinese Christian says “No” to say “Yes!”

A recent Chinese Church Voices post featured one Chinese believer’s reflections on several related decisions she had made in her struggle to live out an authentic faith. Each decision involved saying “no” to the prevailing social norms, putting the author, Wei Chen, at odds with the expectations of co-workers, family, and even her fellow Christians. While Wei posed her decisions in the negative, they together represent a positive affirmation of the counter-cultural values to which many Christians in China aspire.

3 Questions: High-Impact Networks

A ChinaSource "3 Questions" interview with Kärin Butler Primuth, CEO of visionSynergy, discussing the characteristics of high-impact networks. 

Toward an Urban Church Theology

When I wrote China’s Urban Christians: A Light that Cannot be Hidden, it was with the conviction that massive urbanization in China had significant implications for China’s church. The emergence of a new kind of church in the city was not merely an extension of the experience of China’s primarily rural house church movements or of churches affiliated with the TSPM. Rather, a fresh set of dynamics was impacting the development of China’s newly forming urban Christian communities.

The latest issue of ChinaSource Quarterly, with its theme of urban church theology, delves into these dynamics. Guest editors Mary Ma and LI Jin have pulled together an impressively well-rounded look at the increasingly complex urban church environment.

An Unforgiving Mirror

Reading Kathleen Lodwick’s How Christianity Came to China (Fortress Press 2016) was disturbing for two reasons. 

A Chinese Christian Observes Ramadan

Last year, in order to better understand those whom he has been called to serve, Pastor Mark, a Chinese Christian, joined in the Muslim celebration of Ramadan. He learned some unexpected lessons.