Book Review: House Church Christianity in China, by J. Kang

One cannot spend much time in Christianity without talking about overseas missions. And one of the country that is often on the radar of Christians is China. From J. Hudson Taylor to Eric Liddell, there have been many missionaries to this land of the Orient. When the Communist Party took over China, the church moved underground. This textbook is an analysis of what happened in Chinese churches.

Chapter 1 tells the history of the house churches in China, which has moved from strategic tolerance to suppression to relaxation over time. Chapter 2 tells the story of how the author connected with a house church and seminary in the city of Linyi through his connections in Beijing and chapter 3 goes farther back into the history of the Linyi house church. Chapter 4 delves into the entire network of house churches that exist in China and how those churches connect with each other. Chapter 5 talks about how the house church had to teach its members on the different aspects of the Christian life. Chapter 6 shows the bridging of the gap between pastoring the church and shepherding the church that every pastor must have. Chapter 7 shows the change that the church of Linyi had from being a rural-minded church in finances (poverty increases spirituality for the pastor) to being an urban-minded church in finances (financially supporting the pastor increases the spread of Christianity). Chapter 8 concludes the book and sums up all the changes that took place in this church.

This book is a good history of what has happened in Chinese Christianity. The one major discrepancy that I find between what this author believes and what I believe is that he highly advocates the Charismatic movement, and that feeling should be a huge part of our religion. For this reason, my rating is docked a bit lower, to 3.5 stars out of 5.

WHERE TO BUY THIS BOOK:

http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319304892

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THIS BOOK:

Kang, J. House Church Christianity in China. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International, 2016.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL: I received a complimentary copy of this book through the Springer book review program, which requires an honest, though not necessarily positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.