Firsthand accounts of faith lived out in the context of Chinese Christianity.
Paster Ho believes one-on-one ministry is important in an age when young people want quick answers to their questions. “We need to equip good youth leaders to connect with the youths, especially at this age when youths rather listen to their friends than their parents.”
When facing situations in which right and wrong choices are not quite so black and white, we need each other more than ever to discern the right path to take. In supporting each other, I believe we should also give each other the benefit of the doubt more often than not.
I’m not the tidiest or most organized person in the world, so the expression luan qi ba zao (乱七八糟) was one I learned and took to heart early. A direct translation is “chaos seven eight in a wretched state.”
Following the rhythm and images in [Haizi’s] poem, my poem introduces complementary and contrasting ideas as well as tones and metaphors from a Christian perspective. The repeated lines of “Today” in contrast to Haizi’s “From tomorrow on” signify that salvation is available today (Luke 4:21).
The Christian community contributed a third way to imagine national salvation, an equivalent force to the two major political parties, the Nationalists (KMT) and the Communists (CCP)…. Modernist and Fundamentalists… had a common political vision. They both embraced Chinese nationalism and portrayed Christ as the only power that could overcome imperialism.
How important unity must be for Jesus, that right before he was arrested, before he faced the suffering on the cross—at that moment, he did not refer to the horrible suffering which was to come. Rather he was thinking about the issue of unity.
Those I interviewed in China… expressed repeatedly that holding tight to these unexamined views of themselves and their positions was a big hindrance in reconciling relationships. Yet, as their mindsets shifted, a door to potential reconciliation opened.
An interesting feature of Chinese social and political discourse is propensity to label institutions or political campaigns using numbers… They are catchy and thus relatively easy to remember. Here are some of my favorites.
Official and popular attitudes towards the written language vacillate between shame (characters are too awkward, slowing China’s development) and pride (characters are China’s unique cultural heritage) …China’s place among the nations rises in tandem with the development of her language, revealing the intimate relationship between linguistic modernization and the modernization of the nation itself.
A few years ago when we were living in China, I “accidentally” ended up having an interfaith discussion with two imams which was actually very helpful. Here’s the story of one of those discussions.
An interview with a Christian family navigating the changes and challenges of China today.
Poetry is not only a form of cultural exegesis, but also a mode of common theology enriching conversations and reflections. When poetry is spiritually impregnated, it becomes a form of doxology, which I regard as the ground of all theology and missiology.