August 1, 2013
Watch Living with Dead Hearts Now (Its Free) (July 29, 2013, China Geeks)
Weve finally released our film, online and for free. Here you go.
ZGBriefs
A weekly roundup of news and analysis to help you follow key developments in China and the Chinese church.
Latest
July 25, 2013
From Cape Town to Seoul (July 24, 2013, ChinaSource Blog)
Christian leaders from China made history at the 2010 Lausanne Congress in Cape Town, South Africa, not by their participation, but by their absence. Although some 200 leaders had made preparations and raised the necessary funds to attend, the vast majority were stopped at the airport and prevented from leaving China. Nearly three years later, about 100 of these leaders were able to join their counterparts from around the world in Seoul, Korea, for the Asian Church Leaders Forum. This meeting was historic in that it represented perhaps the first time that such a broad spectrum of Chinese church leaders from multiple regions of China and multiple streams within the unregistered church was able to meet with an equally broad spectrum of international evangelical leaders.
July 18, 2013
FEATURED ARTICLE Seoul Commitment (July 18, 2013, Chinese Church Voices)
In June of this year about a hundred church leaders from Mainland China joined their counterparts from around Asia and beyond for the Asian Church Leaders Forum, held in Seoul, Korea. In response to the conferences reaffirmation of the 2010 Cape Town Commitment the participants from China (many of whom had planned to attend the Lausanne Congress in Cape Town but were prevented from doing so) drafted their own commitment to engage as partners with the global church in world evangelization. Their statement is here reproduced in its entirety.
July 12, 2013
Foreigners and Chinese Working Together: A Local Perspective (Summer 2013, ChinaSource Quarterly)
As a Chinese Christian, Jenny has worked alongside foreigners in Christian organizations for over a decade. She opens her heart and shares insights from a Chinese perspective to help new workers (and those already in China) avoid points of misunderstanding and friction as they serve with local brothers and sisters.
July 5, 2013
Changing China, Continuing Challenges (Summer edition, ChinaSource Quarterly)
This new context for China ministry raises a host of questions for anyone committed to long-term ministry in China. Ministry goals and strategies that were formed in the 1990sand in some cases in the 1980smay no longer be appropriate for the conditions and needs of the Chinese church today. Models of cooperation and partnership that were developed to aid a church with little money and few qualified ministers no longer fit the current realities. Even questions as fundamental as, "How do Christians relate to society?" need to be reconsidered in post-Olympic China. For those already deeply engaged in China service, there is a great need for reevaluation.
June 27, 2013
Building a Chinese Church Culture (June 26, 2013, Chinese Church Voices)
Whether or not the church can be accepted in society depends upon the image of the church in society, and the establishment of the churchs image is likewise dependent on the culture of the church. Society cant see the faith of the church; they see only the outward expression of that faith through its culture. The kind of culture the church has will therefore determine what kind of image they have within society.
June 20, 2013
Beijing to Require Certificate of No Criminal Conviction for Foreigners Employment Licenses (June 19, 2013, US and China Visa Law Blog)
The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security has announced that employment license applicants will need to submit a certificate of no criminal conviction (also known as a police clearance letter) from their country of residence, effective July 1.
June 13, 2013
A Superpower And An Emerging Rival: A Look Ahead At China (June 13, 2013, NPR)
U.S.-China relations have deteriorated in recent years, amid growing concerns about cybersecurity and human rights. As part of TOTN's "Looking Ahead" series, The Economist's China editor Rob Gifford talks about the future relations between the world's two biggest economies.
June 6, 2013
Listen: Tiananmen Square, A 'Watershed' For Chinese Conversions To Christianity (June 3, 2013, Here & Now Radio)
Monday is the 23rd anniversary of China's 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. And Professor Fenggang Yang of Purdue University says the crackdown set off a trend of conversions to Christianity in China.
May 30, 2013
A lot of nice-sounding words (May 24, 2013, The Economist)
CHEN GUANGCHENG is a blind Chinese activist who left his country a year ago, soon after taking refuge in the American embassy in Beijing. Mr Chen was in London recently to receive an award for his work defending the rights of rural Chinese women. The Economist's China Editor, Rob Gifford, caught up with him at the Houses of Parliament, to ask him about recent changes in China and about his own exile.
May 23, 2013
Encountering China (May 19, 2013, The China Story)
This essay was commissioned as a review of Kin-ming Lius edited volume, My First Trip to China: Scholars, Diplomats and Journalists Reflect on their First Encounters with China, Hong Kong: East Slope publishing, 2012. As it turns out, The China Story offers a more commodious destination for these reflections. My thanks to Linda Jaivin and Gloria Davies for their comments on draft versions of this essay.
May 9, 2013
China Rising (May 4, 2013, Al Jazeera)
Special Series: After centuries of western dominance, the worlds centre of economic and political weight is shifting eastward. In just 30 years, China has risen from long-standing poverty to being the second largest economy in the world faster than any other country in history. From angry farmers to weary migrant workers, powerful politicians and everyone in between, what China says and does, has become of undeniable importance to the entire world.