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.
With literally hundreds of crosses falling prey to overzealous local officials in Wenzhou and neighboring cities, the region once seen as a bastion of extraordinary religious freedom is now the subject of worldwide attention due to an equally extraordinary crackdown on its churches.
Chinese Church Voices is running a series of articles taken from a lengthy interview with a Reformed unregistered church pastor in China. The fact that the Christian website in China where the interview originated gave the topic such in-depth attention, and the fact that this particular pastor (and many others like him) are such strong advocates of Reformed theology, raise the question of why denominations have become so attractive to Christians in China.
Reformed theology has found fertile ground in China, particularly among urban unregistered churches.
Somewhere between my third and fourth trips to the bank to open a new account, it hit me. I realized why I was so frustrated. In my efforts to negotiate a system that seemed, to me, overly complicated, I had made a serious tactical error.
The past decade has seen a groundswell of passion among Christians in China to pursue cross-cultural ministry. A corresponding wave of activity among outside organizations and churches has aimed at equipping China's church for this task.
The past three decades have seen tens of thousands of Christians from outside China engaged in myriad activities aimed at serving the Chinese church and society. Today their role is changing. New skills – one in particular – are needed to work out what this role and what their relationship to China's church should look like in days to come.
For those in long-term service in China, one of the difficulties in discerning where things are headed politically and socially is knowing how to separate out significant long-term trends from those events that, while appearing important in the moment, may prove to be mere distractions. This is particularly true for those working with the church in China, who often attempt to "read the tea leaves," through the lens of religious policy and its immediate affect upon China's Christians.
Former Hong Kong Chief Secretary Stephen Lam has a unique understanding of "One Country, Two Systems," the policy whereby Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. As director of the office that oversaw the Handover ceremony and related events, Lam worked with both British and Chinese officials to write a significant chapter in China's contemporary history.
The notion of social renewal is a common theme among urban church leaders as they consider what it means for the church to take its place on the stage of society. The need for social renewal is linked to the recognition that there is currently no shared belief system among China’s people.
A decade ago David Aikman wrote Jesus in Beijing, provocatively subtitled "How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Balance of World Power."
Churches have been demolished in Wenzhou, Christian workers detained on the North Korean border, and a leading religious official proclaims that a "Chinese theology" is needed so that the church can serve socialism. These developments have featured prominently in the news in recent weeks, with more than a few commentators concluding that a crackdown on Christianity in China is underway or soon will be. However, a closer look at the events in question suggests otherwise.
篇者的话: 这篇文章的原文刊载于华源协作中文版夏号2014