scholarly journals The Rise of Calvinist Christianity in Urbanising China

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 481
Author(s):  
Jie Kang
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Northern China ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
House Church ◽  
Chinese Christians ◽  
Organizational Issues ◽  
House Churches ◽  
Theological Seminaries ◽  
Korean Missionaries

Over the past decade, Reformed Christianity, broadly based on the theology of Calvinism, has spread widely in China, especially by appealing to Chinese ‘intellectuals’ who constitute most of the house church leaders in urban areas. It draws its moral guidance from a so-called rational or intellectual focus on biblical theology, reinforced by theological training in special seminaries. It consequently rejects the ‘heresy’ of the older Pentecostal Christianity, with its emphasis on charisma, miracles, and theology based on emotional ‘feeling’. This Reformed theology and its further elaboration have been introduced into China in two main ways. The first is through overseas Chinese, especially via theological seminaries in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. For instance, preachings of the famous Reformed pastor Stephen Tong (唐崇荣) have been widely disseminated online and among Chinese Christians. Second, Korean missionaries have established theological seminaries mainly in cities in northern China. This has resulted in more and more Chinese church leaders becoming advocates of Calvinism and converting their churches to Reformed status. This paper asks why Calvinism attracts Chinese Christians, what Calvinism means for the so-called house churches of a Christian community in a northern Chinese city, and what kinds of change the importation of Reformed theology has brought to Chinese house churches. Various significant accounts have addressed this development in China generally. My analysis complements these accounts by focusing on a small number of interconnected house churches in one city, and uses this case study to highlight interpersonal and organizational issues arising from the Calvinist approach.

Visible and Voluble: Protestant House-Church Writings in the Twenty-First Century

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chloë Starr
Keyword(s):  
Church Leaders ◽  
First Century ◽  
Modern China ◽  
House Church ◽  
Protestant Church ◽  
House Churches ◽  
History Of ◽  
Protestant Christians ◽  
The Government ◽  
Initial Survey

The growth of unregistered churches, which now surpass state churches in number, is one of the remarkable stories of modern China. This chapter presents an initial survey of the writings of three Protestant Christians whose theological allegiance is to the house churches: Lü Xiaomin, Wang Yi, and Yu Jie. The chapter begins in the countryside, the nucleus of growth for house churches during the 1980s, where the itinerant evangelist Lü Xiaomin expressed her faith in the medium of the hymn. Lü’s work from the 1990s and 2000s represents an enduring acceptance of persecution, a “suffering servant” model of Christian living. More recently, certain new urban house-church ministers have enjoyed a strong media presence as they have argued with the government over their right to worship and to register their churches. The chapter considers the work of Wang Yi, the pioneer Reformed minister from Sichuan, and his joint writings with émigré dissident Yu Jie. The work of such house-church leaders and their experience speaking nationally and internationally represent a new stage in the history of the Chinese Protestant church.

Containment and Authoritarian Regime Resilience

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Eve Reny
Keyword(s):  
Local Governance ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
Local State ◽  
House Church ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
House Churches ◽  
Regime Resilience

Containment enables church leaders to secure themselves space for the informal practice of religion outside state institutions. It also minimizes the risks that churches are punished for avoiding the central government’s regulations on religious affairs. Yet the strategy yields uneven benefits for unregistered churches and the local state. This chapter accounts for how containment contributes to the resilience of China’s authoritarian regime. It depoliticizes house church leaders, feeds divisions between compliant and dissident church leaders, and generates information about unregistered churches that ultimately makes local governance less co-optive and less coercive. It then discusses the circumstances in which containment might not yield its intended outcome, that is, empower house churches in ways that unsettle the regime.

scholarly journals Probleme rondom die Bybel in die gereformeerde teologie: besinning vanuit ’n Christelike filosofie

2008 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
B. J. Van der Walt
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
Philosophical Perspective ◽  
Reformed Tradition ◽  
The Bible ◽  
God's Word ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Way

Problems with the Bible in reformed theology: reflections from a Christian philosophical perspective The motivation for undertaking this investigation is the present tension in the reformed theology and in the reformed churches in South Africa. In spite of the fact that the reformed tradition confesses the authority of the Bible, theologians and church leaders are at the moment divided on how to view and interpret the Scriptures. They disagree about the message of God’s Word in the case of topical issues, for instance whether women should be allowed in ecclesiastical offices or on what the Bible has to say about homosexuality. The author is of the opinion that these tensions in the same church are caused, not only by different methods of interpreting the Bible but, at a much deeper level, also by the way in which one views the Bible according to different worldviews. In trying to resolve these problems and the resulting conflict of opinion, a Christian philosophical approach will be taken instead of the current theological efforts.

scholarly journals The Challenges and Strategies of Food Security under Rapid Urbanization in China

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong-sheng Wang
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Food Consumption ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Southern China ◽  
Northern China ◽  
Northern Region ◽  
Grain Production ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Agricultural Income ◽  
The Impact

Food security has received wide attention in China for a long time due to the challenges of a huge population and limited farmland area. Under conditions of rapid urbanization, the food scenario has changed, creating major challenges for massive populations in China. This paper intends to reveal the impact of urbanization on food security and to propose strategies for mitigating the threats to it. Total grain production has continuously increased, but most of the grain production has been distributed in the northern region since 2006. Although the per capita rural income has increased significantly since 1980, the agricultural income ratio has consistently declined from 56.13% in 1983 to 26.61% in 2012. A dramatic shift in food consumption away from grain towards meat, poultry, eggs, milk and liquor has been found in both rural and urban areas. The faster agricultural water consumption growth in northern China over southern China helped close the gap. There has been net increase of cultivated land in northern China, whereas southern China has seen a net decrease. The medium- and low-level cultivation ratios of land were 52.84% and 17.69%, respectively, in 2015. This paper concluded that food security in China could be ensured by increasing production and optimizing consumption. It suggested that enhanced grain production capacity, strict water management, and land consolidation engineering as well as agricultural industrialization could be used for maintaining grain production. Food consumption itself can be managed by optimizing resident dietary pattern, reducing food waste, adjusting grain consumption structure and moderating food imports policy.

Extra Costs for Urban Older People with Disabilities in Northern China

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaolin Wang ◽  
Liping Xu ◽  
Xiaoyuan Shang ◽  
Ping Guo
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Older Women ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Oldest Old ◽  
Northern China ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
Living Standard ◽  
Old People ◽  
Functional Disabilities ◽  
The Cost

This paper uses the living standards method to estimate the extra costs for older people with functional disabilities in urban areas in Northern China. The research finds that the cost for older people who live alone is higher than those who live with other family members, and their living standard is lower. The costs increase with the age, especially for the oldest old people who live alone. The cost for older women is higher than their male counterparts. The extra costs of support for people with functional disabilities decrease the overall living standard of the household.

scholarly journals Atmospheric polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in rural and urban areas of northern China

2014 ◽  
Vol 192 ◽  
pp. 83-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Li ◽  
Chen Wang ◽  
Hongqijie Wang ◽  
Jiwei Chen ◽  
Huizhong Shen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons ◽  
Aromatic Hydrocarbons ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Northern China ◽  
Rural And Urban Areas ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Polycyclic Aromatic

MORMONS, GENDER, AND THE NEW COMMERCIAL ENTERTAINMENTS, 1890–1920

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 302-324
Author(s):  
Christine Talbot
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Double Standard ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Religious Organization ◽  
Church Community ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Movie Theaters ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Church

In the early twentieth century, new forms of commercial entertainment—dance halls, movie theaters, amusement halls and parks, saloons and the like—emerged in urban areas, providing new ways for young Americans to amuse themselves. This essay explores the distinctive Mormon response to these new forms of amusement. Mormon leaders took up other progressive reformers’ concerns about early twentieth-century amusements, but refracted them through a distinctively Mormon lens that was at once gendered and uniquely religious. Mormons rejected the progressive double standard that sought to constrain women's, more than men's, participation in these new entertainments, focusing on restraining both genders equally. While many progressives held women more responsible for the sexual transgressions they worried resulted from these new forms of entertainment, Mormons held men and women equally accountable. Moreover, while other progressives sought (and largely failed) to provide alternative, more wholesome, entertainment for American youth, Mormons successfully provided family and Church amusements that kept their youth safely ensconced within the Church community. By the end of the 1910s, Church leaders had officially institutionalized the provision of amusement for its members and the Church formally became a social as well as religious organization.

scholarly journals Measurement report: New particle formation characteristics at an urban and a mountain station in northern China

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (23) ◽  
pp. 17885-17906
Author(s):  
Ying Zhou ◽  
Simo Hakala ◽  
Chao Yan ◽  
Yang Gao ◽  
Xiaohong Yao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Formation Rate ◽  
Northern China ◽  
Particle Formation ◽  
Urban Site ◽  
New Particle Formation ◽  
Large Area ◽  
Air Mass ◽  
Mountain Site ◽  
Favorable Conditions

Abstract. Atmospheric new particle formation (NPF) events have attracted increasing attention for their contribution to the global aerosol number budget and therefore their effects on climate, air quality and human health. NPF events are regarded as a regional phenomenon, occurring over a large area. Most observations of NPF events in Beijing and its vicinity were conducted in populated areas, whereas observations of NPF events on mountaintops with low anthropogenic emissions are still rare in China. The spatial variation of NPF event intensity has not been investigated in detail by incorporating both urban areas and mountain measurements in Beijing. Here, we provide NPF event characteristics in summer 2018 and 2019 at urban Beijing and a comparison of NPF event characteristics – NPF event frequency, formation rate and growth rate – by comparing an urban Beijing site and a background mountain site separated by ∼80 km from 14 June to 14 July 2019, as well as giving insights into the connection between both locations. During parallel measurements at urban Beijing and mountain background areas, although the median condensation sink during the first 2 h of the common NPF events was around 0.01 s−1 at both sites, there were notable differences in formation rates between the two locations (median of 5.42 cm−3 s−1 at the urban site and 1.13 cm−3 s−1 at the mountain site during the first 2 h of common NPF events). In addition, the growth rates in the 7–15 nm range for common NPF events at the urban site (median of 7.6 nm h−1) were slightly higher than those at the mountain site (median of 6.5 nm h−1). To understand whether the observed events were connected, we compared air mass trajectories as well as meteorological conditions at both stations. Favorable conditions for the occurrence of regional NPF events were largely affected by air mass transport. Overall, our results demonstrate a clear inhomogeneity of regional NPF within a distance of ∼100 km, possibly due to the discretely distributed emission sources.

Everyday Forms of Containment

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Eve Reny
Keyword(s):  
Church Leaders ◽  
Public Security ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
House Church ◽  
Low Profile ◽  
Shared Information ◽  
The Government ◽  
Rules Set

This chapter empirically accounts for how house church leaders have complied with explicitly and implicitly transmitted rules set by local authorities containing them. They have kept a low profile by avoiding criticizing the government during sermons, refrained from attracting public attention to their activities, and in some cases, limited the size of their congregations. House church leaders have also opened up to local authorities and shared information about their activities when needed. Beyond such compliance, the authorities have sustained containment by sending house church leaders warnings when they anticipate they might be crossing red lines. Yet religious leaders have themselves accumulated information about local public security bureaus, which has facilitated the pursuit of their interests.

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