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.
Many of the China stories told by Christians inside and outside China are uplifting accounts of faith, of changed lives, and loving communities. There is clearly a disconnect between these voices and those that have unfortunately become mainstream within some evangelical circles. When it comes to their rhetoric about China and the Chinese, it is time for these Christian leaders to take themselves, as well as the gospel, seriously.
From the 2002 summer issue of ChinaSource Quarterly.
These narratives can also have a distorting effect upon those who employ them, for our China stories speak to more than simply what we think about China; they also reveal what we desire.
"It is curious, however, that to this day the Mao years remain the least studied period in the history of religion in modern China." This book helps fill that gap.
Welcoming a new reality even when it is at odds with the stories we have come to believe about China and about ourselves.
Thoughts about the violent demonstrations on the U.S. Capitol earlier this month.
Our China stories are not merely descriptions of an objective reality manifesting itself in the Chinese church; they speak to where we believe China’s church is (or should be) going.
In proposing that we need to get beyond the “persecuted church” narrative, I am not advocating . . . that we leave it behind completely, but rather that we recognize its limits.
It is possible to agree on many things about China, yet still talk past one another.
This enduring narrative of the TSPM is an integral part of the larger Persecuted Church narrative that continues to dominate conversations about the church in China both in Christian and secular circles.
A case could be made that, for many Chinese, Christianity provides credible responses to questions that Communism raises but is ultimately unable to answer.
With the media’s incessant focus on official persecution of the unregistered church in China, Fulton reminds us that it is often easy to forget the vibrant dimensions of Christian life playing out in China’s registered churches.