51. Chinese Jesus

Download the transcript for this episode here.

COMPETITION!
We’re celebrating our 500,000th download this month - half a million! And so, with the help of our major sponsor, Zondervan, we are giving away a book pack of five of Zondervan’s newest titles. We’ll throw in a copy of my new book Bullies and Saints AND an Undeceptions T-Shirt.

To WIN, all you have to do is leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (what used to be called iTunes), take a pic of the review and send it to us. Producer Kaley will pick the best-written review on October 25 (and I mean ‘best-written’ not necessarily most glowing). So be quick, you’ve got two weeks! 

LINKS

• Get to know our guest, Professor Xi Lian. 
• Read Professor Lian's book, Blood Letters: The untold story of Lin Zhao, a martyr in Mao's China.
• You might also like to seek out Professor Lian's other relevant books Redeemed by Fire: The rise of popular Christianity in modern China and also The Conversion of Missionaries: Liberalism in American Protestant Missions in China, 1907–1932.
• Meet our other guest I'Ching Thomas. 
• Read I'Ching Thomas' book, Jesus The Path to Human Flourishing : The Gospel for the Cultural Chinese
• Read more about Daoism (or Taoism).
• Get a broader background on Chinese religion from National Geographic. 
• More on the All Souls celebrations around China.
• Dig deeper into the idea of 'Actionless Action' or 'Wu Wei' here.
• Read the Analects of Confucius.
• Find out more about Christianity in communist China in this article from The Gospel Coalition.
• Winfried Corduan's book Neighbouring  Faiths is referenced by I'Ching Thomas about polytheism vs monotheism (amongst other things).
• Read more about Christianity in China from this article from 2020 in The Economist. 
• And this from Time about the imprisonment of a pastor Wang Yi (who led one of China's most well-known underground churches).
• Here's more about the 'sinicization of religion' in China from the Lausanne Movement.
• Read this article from the New York Times about China's 12 core socialist values.
• Christianity's growth in China is hard to predict, but Professor Fenggang Yang from Purdue University has given it a crack, estimating that China will become the largest Christian country in the world by 2030.