This issue of Pray for China largely focuses on the growing need to adapt traditional ministry to the demands of an increasingly digital world. Christian Communications Ltd. (CCL), the group responsible for Pray for China, offer their perspective on why working to embrace technological trends is not only a way to meet the needs for pastoral care, but also a way to reach out to a generation that expects information to be available on a digital platform.
Jonathan Edwards and the Ministry of the Word: A Model of Faith and Thought, by Douglas A. Sweeney, sheds light not only on early American Christianity, but also on the nature of true faith. The author traces Edwards’ life, ministry, and thought, placing him in the context of New England Puritanism and drawing out lessons for us today.
Campaigning for Christ is a heartening account of high caliber missionary service during a time when Christian mission work was especially difficult. Despite the challenges they faced, the Baehrs worked tirelessly to tell the story of Christ not just in China, but also in Japan, Taiwan and the United States.
This is a marvelous book, and represents the learned Sinology of a long line of French Roman Catholic scholars, going back for hundreds of years. Though he devotes most of his attention to the story of Roman Catholicism, the author does give fair and generous summaries of important aspects of Protestantism in China.
The stories in Witnesses to Power come from one end of China to the other. They speak of rural and urban evangelism; healing and exorcism, compassionate care for needy children, community life of the Jesus family, church planting and growth in remote areas not penetrated by outside Christian witness, and the impact of the gospel to produce economic prosperity.
Confronting Confucian Understandings of the Christian Doctrine of Salvation will now be required reading for anyone seeking to understand why Chinese intellectuals have accepted, rejected, or modified the Christian message since the time of Matteo Ricci. Paulos Huang has given us a fine, clearly-organized study with a great deal of thought-provoking findings and suggestions.
