Great Story of Gospel Spread in Supposed Off Limits Country

Gospel under seige in Communist countries has been narrowed down recently with the breakup of the Soviet Bloc, and now more predominant the oppression in Muslim countries. China has been one of those "iffy" places where publically the government would want us to believe there is religious freedom, but there are real doubts. What is truly fascinating from this read is that China Christians feel God's call to the Islam nations!

This book serves to provide a view of that very thing, with a well documented history and insights into the Far East power, with this well written former editor of Time magazine in China.

The profiles of the key players both from the government's Religious Bureau and the house churches and foreigners is illuminating. Theology is not discerned much, just a journalistic type mentioning of its leanings at times, along with some of their confessional publishing appendixed.

God bless all those that have and are and will take a stand to confess Christ in that place.

Dissappointing

AIkman wrote a fair history of of Christianity in China, however he misrepresents what is going on in China today. By far the biggest problem in the Chinese church is poor teaching and abusive practices. This exists almost exclusively in the underground churches.

Aikman wrote a book that caters to the palates of American Christian evangelicals who want to hear exactly what Aikman is telling them. Young "missionaries" who have yet to understand the difference between culture and faith or have even critical thinking will use this book to find inspiration and funding.

As a Mandarin speaking Christian who has spent considerable time in China I was hoping to like this book. If I was not, I would proabably think it was very good.

A fair summary of the growth of Christianity in China.

"Jesus in Beijing" is a quick summary of the events, leaders, and movements behind the explosion in Christianity in China over the past few decades. Aikman breaks his book up into several sections devoted to topics such as the Chinese church patriarchs, the slightly less influential but still very important church "uncles," famous Chinese Christian women, the roots of Christianity in China, how Christianity is influencing different artists, musicians, and others contributing to present-day Chinese culture, and most controversially, the debate between the government-approved churches of the Three Self Patriotic Movement and the "underground" house churches.

While Aikman is clearly more favorable to the side of the house churches and their leaders, I do believe he was fair to Bishop Ding, the leader of the government's Three Self Patriotic Movement. While it can be argued that Ding has done much to advance Christian freedom in China, Ding also made statements in the past that go beyond simple respect for Chinese law... statements that were clearly pro-Communist. Ding also at times has professed a theology that is beyond liberal to a point that is simply not Christian. Ultimately, it is somewhat telling that Ding never spent a minute in prison while so many other Christians during Mao's reign, especially church leaders, were being brutally beaten and imprisoned for years at a time.

Aikman sides at the end of the book with Chinese Christians that are critical of far right American groups (including some Christians) that seem only to want to exploit Chinese government abuses (which are indefensible) in order to shut off US contact and trade with China. He supports the Christians who believe that China is making progress, even if it has a long way to go. He clearly believes with these Chinese Christian moderates that the worst thing the US could do would be to intentionally antagonize and isolate the Chinese government. So Aikman does understand that there is a reactionary element running in some Christian groups, both inside and outside of China, but he also realizes that there is something suspicious about Christians that are too comfortable with what is still a totalitarian, often repressive, Chinese government as well.

This book isn't the most exciting read as there are several typos, and Aikman's writing is fairly dry. But he has done his homework, he clearly cares about the people of China, both Christian and non-Christian, and he does a good job here of introducing the key players and laying out the background behind a fascinating movement occuring in a country that could very well dominate the 21st century, for good or bad, as much as America dominated the last century.