Faithful Disobedience: Writings on Church and State from a Chinese House Church Movement
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Throughout China’s rapidly growing cities, diverse expressions of unregistered house churches are also growing. In these churches, China’s pastors are developing a rich theological perspective that is both uniquely Chinese and rooted in the historical doctrines of the faith. To understand what motivates these house churches, as well as the ongoing political conflicts between church and state in China, outsiders must study the theology that guides Chinese Christians.
In this volume, key house church writings have been compiled, translated, and made accessible to English speakers. Featured here is a manifesto by well-known pastor Wang Yi and his church, Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, to clarify their theological stance on the house church and its relationship to the Chinese government. There are also works by prominent voices such as Jin Tianming, Jin Mingri, and Sun Yi. The editors have provided introductions, notes, and a glossary to give context to each selection.
These writings are an important body of theology historically and spiritually—not only for the Chinese, but also for the Western church as it considers the relationship between church and state in its own contexts. This unique resource will be valuable to practical and political theologians as well as readers interested in international relations, political philosophy, history, and intercultural studies.
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- Features key house church writings made accessible to English speakers
- Provides a manifesto by well-known pastor Wang Yi and his church, Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu
- Considers the relationship between church and state
- Part I: Our House Church Manifesto
- Part II: The Eschatological Church and the City
- Part III: Arrest and the Way of the Cross
The things that contribute to our understanding of the relations between church and state are not only narrowly exegetical but emerge as well from our experiences as Christians. What the Bible says about such matters is likely to be configured in our minds a little differently by Christians in nineteenth-century Netherlands, tribal peoples in Papua New Guinea, and Han people in China, even though all of us want to live our lives under Christ’s providential ordering of all things in this broken world. Wang Yi and his fellow contributors to this thought-provoking volume write in the full knowledge that theirs is not the only Christian voice in China, let alone elsewhere, but they argue their corner in defense of unregistered churches with exegetical skill, theological rigor, and pastoral insight. Churches in the West have much to learn from them.
—D. A. Carson, emeritus professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
The dynamism of the house church movement in China in the face of difficulty is one of the most compelling and inspiring stories in contemporary history. While the movement as a whole is composed mostly of smaller, low-profile churches, Pastor Wang Yi is a major voice coming from larger, higher-profile church circles. The sobering reality of his current imprisonment calls us all the more to pray for him (and other imprisoned Christians)—and to engage his ideas seriously.
—Kevin S. Chen, associate professor of Old Testament at Christian Witness Theological Seminary in San Jose, California, and author of The Messianic Vision of the Pentateuch
Reverend Wang Yi is a Chinese theologian in pastoral ministry and a public intellectual in social engagement. He is sharp, eloquent, and fearless. Under his leadership, the Early Rain Church expanded the wide reach of the house churches, that is the jiating churches, in multiple spheres of Chinese society. This collection of writings clearly shows the deepening of Chinese Christian thinking and articulation of biblical, historical, systematic, and practical theology. It is a must-read for anyone interested in Chinese Christianity, society, and culture. It is relevant for all Christians facing restriction, repression, and persecution in the contemporary world.
—Fenggang Yang, founding director of the Center on Religion and the Global East at Purdue University
- Title: Faithful Disobedience: Writings on Church and State from a Chinese House Church Movement
- Author: Wang Yi
- Publisher: IVP Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2022
- Logos Release Date: 2022
- Pages: 264
- Era: era:contemporary
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
- Subjects: Christianity › China; Church and state › China--History--21st century; House churches › China--History--21st century
- ISBNs: 9781514004142, 9781514004135, 1514004143, 1514004135
- Resource ID: LLS:FAITHFULDISOBED
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-11-29T15:17:47Z