While Walls identified strongly with the church in Africa, where he served as a missionary from 1957 to 1966, his scope was global. His reframing of Christian history brings a much-needed perspective to the stories we often tell about God’s mission in the world, including in China.
It has been said that for the person who has a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
For foreigners who go to China, it is often the case that what they find depends on what they’ve come looking for.
Western narratives about China and its church are built on a fundamental, but often unspoken, assumption about the relationship between law and society.
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.
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.
Not exactly.
If the global pandemic has laid bare our shared vulnerability, then it has also highlighted our interdependence as global citizens.