Conference: The Shaping of Christianity in China

Oxford, UK
21 – 22nd May 2015
Deadline: 27th Mar 2015

A fresh look at the contribution of indigenous Christians

The focus of the conference will be on the role played by Chinese Christians in the shaping of Protestant and Catholic Christianity within China over the past century-and-a-half.

This is not to ignore the significant role of foreign missionaries whose accounts have been well told, but to redress the balance and to bring to life the very important contribution of the many indigenous Christians, often marginalised in western-told histories, who spoke the language, understood the cultures, and were often the primary active agents in helping to spread a knowledge of the gospel.

There are a number of indigenous Christian leaders, catechists, priests, and evangelists whose stories have been told, but also there are many other significant ‘ordinary people’ who can be retrieved from diaries and correspondence, scattered references in magazines, and from oral accounts.

In doing this we hope to rescue from the condescension of posterity the voice of indigenous Christians and, in the process, provide a wider, more balanced and sufficient history than that which has tended to dominate church and academy.

We have twenty guest speakers covering topics such as:

  •     Missionaries in the Making of Vernacular Christianity in China
  •     An Indigenous CIM Medical Missionary  and Later PRC National Hero: Unveiling Complexities in the Life Story of  Dr. Gao Jincheng
  •     The hybridization and localization of the colony and the making of Hong Kong Christian leaders: three oral history accounts
  •     A Comparative Analysis of  Indigenous Chinese Theologies  in the 20th and 21st Centuries  
  •     Wang Weifan’s Cosmic Christ
  •     “Abolish this Great Evil”:  Chinese Christians’ Opposition to Opium Trafficking
  •     Chinese Literati and their Christian Poems in the 17th Century – Dedicated poems by literati from Fujian
  •     A Female Christian Exorcist and a Male Spirit-medium: the Breakthrough of Protestantism in a Fishing Village during China’s Cultural Revolution
  •     The Role of Chinese Workers in the Church Missionary Society’s Kwangsi-Hunan Mission, 1899-1951
  •     Revisionist Women’s Work for Women: Contribution of Native Women Workers in Canton, American Presbyterian Mission

 

Confirmed speakers include

Dr. Patrick Fung (General Director, OMF)

Prof. Charles Weber (Wheaton College, USA)

Prof. Stephen Williams (Union Theological College, Belfast)

Dr. Alex Chow (University of Edinburgh)

Lian Xi (Professor of World Christianity at Duke University, USA)

Cost

2 days – including lunches and coffee breaks, £25; 1 day – including lunch and coffee breaks, £15

 

Location

Oxford Centre for Mission Studies
Woodstock Road
Oxford

OX2 6HR

Accommodation is not included

The booking deadline is 27 March and places are limited to 100.

To buy tickets for this event, click here

 

Visit the website at: External Link…

 

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