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doi: 10.1017/S0009640710001952 Redeemed by Fire: The Rise of Popular Christianity in Modern China. By Lian Xi. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010. xvi + 333 pp. $45.00 cloth.
In his first book, The Conversion of Missionaries (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), Lian Xi explored how life in China changed some Protestant missionaries, moving them from their initially conservative and exclusivist attitudes toward more liberal theological positions. In a fascinating counterpoint, Redeemed by Fire shows how the cross-cultural religious encounter, grounded in the Chinese culture and politics of the time, produced quite the opposite reaction among many Chinese Christians. The "Popular Christianity" of the title most often refers to the many fundamentalist or pentecostal indigenous churches that took root in early twentieth-century China, some of which continue to influence the development and spread of Chinese Christianity today. In recounting the stories of these groups, and generally eschewing any extended discussion of the missionaries (though they appear here and there throughout the text, now as inspiration, now as foil), Lian answers the call of scholars like Daniel Bays, Tao Feiya, and Liu Jiafeng, who have been advocating for more attention to Christianity as a Chinese religion, one not necessarily beholden to what Bays calls the "Sino-foreign Protestant establishment."
Although Lian devotes some ink to the periods before and after (about a chapter each), the bulk of the book consists of case studies of Republican era (1912-1949) indigenous Christian groups in China. The True Jesus Church, the Jesus Family, Wang Mingdao and his Christian Tabernacle, John Sung...