CH/WM 658 History of Christianity in Asia

Professors: Todd M. Johnson, Ph.D., Xiyi Yao, Th.D.

Teaching Assistant: Jennifer Lee

Spring 2016, Tues, Thurs, 9:35 – 11:00am

Course description

Christianity was born in Asia, not Europe. This course explores the history of Christianity in Asia

from the time of Christ to the present. All major regions of Asia are covered including Western

Asia and the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Eastern Asia. The course will include all

major Christian traditions from the Church of the East to other Orthodox churches, the Roman

Catholic churches, and more recent Protestant efforts. From the first to the tenth century, there

were more Christians in Asia and Africa than in Europe. This course tells this story on its own

merits, without treating it as an extension of the history of European Christianity. After centuries

of decline, Christianity in Asia in the 21st century is once again growing and thriving.

Learning Outcomes

Students who participate in “the History of Christianity in Asia” will:

1. Gain a basic understanding of the history of Christianity in Asia.

2. Study the impact of Silk Road trade on the spread and development of Christianity.

3. Become familiar with the cartography and geography of Asia.

4. Understand the dynamics of cultural and religious exchange in Asia.

5. Begin to discern the current situation of Christianity in Asia.

6. Present short versions of their papers during finals week.

Required Texts

Bailey, Betty Jane & J. Martin Bailey, Who Are the Christians in the Middle East? Grand Rapids,

MI: William B. Eerdmans: 2010 (ISBN 978-0-8028-6595-3).

Jenkins, Philip, The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-year Golden Age of the Church

in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia---and How It Died, New York: HarperOne, 2008 (ISBN

978-0-06-147280-0)

Moffett, Samuel H., A History of Christianity in Asia. Vol. 1. “Beginnings to 1500.” Maryknoll,

NY: Orbis Books, 1992 (ISBN 1570751625).

Moffett, Samuel Hugh, A History of Christianity in Asia, Vol II: 1500-1900, Maryknoll, NY:

Orbis Books, 2005 (ISBN 1-57075-450-0)

Phan, Peter C., ed., Christianities in Asia. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011 (ISBN 978-1-

4051-6090-2).

Course Requirements

Students should be aware of the weight of class participation in the final grade. Students are

expected to keep up with all assignments, and to come prepared for each class discussion session.

1. Two book reviews (800 words for the Phan and Moffett books, 30%)

2. One 15-20 page paper on Christianity in Asia (70%). Short presentations will be given during

finals week.

Lectures (Exact sequence may change)

Week 1

Historiography of Christianity

Christianity as an Asian religion

Week 2

Early Christianity in Western Asia

The Church of the East

Week 3

Christians on the Silk Road

Christians on the Arabian Peninsula

Week 4

Christians in India

Christians in Central Asia

Week 5

Christians in China

Week 6

The Rise of Islam

Week 7

The Mongols, Tamerlane, and the Black Death

Week 8

European Christianity encounters Asia

Week 9

Modern Christianity in China

Week 10

Modern Christianity in India

Week 11

Modern Christianity in Korea, Japan, and the Philippines

Week 12

Modern Christianity in Central Asia

Week 13

The Disappearing Church in the Middle East

Week 14

Student presentations

Select Bibliography

Aikman, David, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global

Balance of Power. Regnery Publishing, 2003 (ISBN 0895261286). Badr, Habib, ed., Christianity: A History in the Middle East, Beirut, Lebanon: Middle East Council of

Churches, 2005.

Barrington, Ann M., Japan’s Hidden Christians (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1993).

Baum, Wilhelm and Dietmar W. Winkler, The Church of the East: A Concise History. London: Routledge,

2010.

Bays, Daniel H., A New History of Christianity in China. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012 (ISBN978-

1-4051-5955-5).

Bays, Daniel, Christianity in China: From the eighteenth century to the Present. Stanford, CA: Stanford

University press, 1996 (ISBN 0-8047-2609-4).

Betts, Christians in the Arab East.

Billings, Peggy, Fire beneath the Frost: the Struggle of the Korean People and Church (New York:

Friendship Press, 1984).

Blair, William N., and Bruce Hunt, The Korean Pentecost and the Suffering Which Followed. (Carlisle, PA:

Banner of Trust. 1977).

Boxer, C.R., The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,

1974.) (ISBN 0-520-02702-7).

Branley, Brendan R., Christianity and the Japanese. Maryknoll, NY: Maryknoll Publications, 1966.

Brown, G. Thompson, Not by Might: A Century of Presbyterians in Korea (Atlanta: PCUSA, 1984).

Buswell, Robert E., and Timothy S. Lee, eds., Christianity in Korea. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i

Press, 2006. (ISBN-13: 978-0-8248-2912-4).

Cary, Otis, A History of Christianity in Japan, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Protestant Missions.

Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle, 2000.

Chang, Lit-Sen, Asia’s Religions: Christianity’s Momentous Encounter with Paganism (Phillipsburg, NJ: P

& R Publishing, 1999).

Charbonnier, Christians in China, AD 600 to 2000.

Chung, Chaisik, Korea: The Encounter between the Gospel and Neo-Confucian Culture (Geneva: WCC

Publications, 1997).

Chun, Sung C., Schism and Unity in the Protestant Churches of Korea (Seoul: Christian Literature Society

of Korea, 1979).

Chung, David, Syncretism: The Religious Context of Christian Beginnings in Korea (Albany, NY: State

University of New York Press, 2001).

Clark, Allen, A History of the Church in Korea (Seoul: Christian Literature Society of Korea, 1971).

Clark, Charles Allen, The Nevius Plan for Mission Work Illustrated in Korea (Seoul: Christian Literature

Society, 1937).

Clark, Donald, Living Dangerously in Korea: The Western Experience 1900-1950 (Norwalk, CT:

Eastbridge, 2003).

Clark, Donald N., Christianity in Modern Korea. New York: University Press of Smerica, 1986 (ISBN 0-

8191-5384-2; 0-8191-5385-0).

Covell, Ralph R., Confucius, the Buddha, and Christ, A History of the Gospel in Chinese. Maryknoll, NY:

Orbis Books, 1986 (ISBN 0-88344-267-1)

Cragg, Kenneth, The Arab Christian, A History in the Middle East. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/

John Knox Press, 1991. (ISBN 0-664-21945-4)

Dawson, Christopher, ed., Mission to Asia. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1955.

England, John C., The Hidden History of Christianity in Asia, The Churches of the East before 1500

(ISPCK, Delhi, 1998)

Foltz, Richard C., Religions of the Silk Road: Premodern Patterns of Globalization. Second Edition, New

York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Foltz, Richard, Spirituality in the Land of the Nobles.

Francis, Carolyn Bowen and John Masaaki Nakajima, Christians in Japan (New York: Friendship Press,

1991).

Frykenberg, Robert E., Christianity in India, From Beginnings to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2011.

Gilman, Ian and Hans-Joachim Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500. Ann Arbor, MI: University of

Michigan, 1999.

Griffith, Sidney H., The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of

Islam, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008.

Hedlund, Roger E., ed. Christianity Is Indian: The Emergence of an Indigenous Community (Delhi: ISPCK,

2000).

Hunt, Everett N., Protestant Pioneers in Korea (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1980). Call No. BV3460 H86.

Hunter, Alan, and Kim-Kwong Chan, Protestantism in Contemporary China. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1993 (ISBN 0521441617)

Huntley, Martha, Caring, Growing, Changing: A History of the Protestant Mission in Korea (New York:

Friendship Press, 1984).

Iglehart, Charles W., A Century of Protestant Christianity in Japan (Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle

Company, 1959).

In Soo Kim, History of Christianity in Korea. Qumran Publishing House, 2011 (ISBN 978-89-6562-134-8

93230)

Johnson, Todd M. and Kenneth R. Ross, eds., Atlas of Global Christianity, 1910-2010 (Edinburgh:

Edinburgh University Press, 2009).

Kang, Wi Jo. Christ and Caesar in Modern Korea: A History of Christianity and Politics (Albany, NY:

State University of New York Press, 1997).

Kim, Sebastian C., ed., Christian Theology in Asia. Cambridge University Press, 2008. (ISBN-13-978-0-

521-68183-4)

Koschorke, Klaus & others, eds., A History of Christianity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, 1450-1990,

A Documentary Sourcebook (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2007).

Lambert, Tony, The Resurrection of the Chinese Church (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991).

Lee, Timothy S., Born Again in Korea.

Lian, Xi, Redeemed by Fire, The Rise of Popular Christianity in Modern China (New Haven, Yale

University Press, 2010) (ISBN 978-0-300-12339-5)

Lumsdaine, David H., ed., Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Asia. Oxford University Press, 2009

(ISBN 978-0-19-530825-9)

Mullins, Mark R., & Richard F. Young, eds., Perspectives on Christianity in Korea and Japan, The Gospel

and Culture in East Asia (The Edwin Mellen Press, 1995).

Mullins, Mark R., Christianity Made in Japan, A Study of Indigenous Movement. Honolulu: University of

Hawai’i Press, 1998. (ISBN 0-8248-2114-9)

Mullins, Mark R. ed,. Handbook of Christianity in Japan, Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2003 (ISBN 90

04 13156 6)

Pacini, Andrea, ed., Christian Communities in the Arab Middle East, The Challenge of the Future. (Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1998).

Paik, L. George, The History of Protestant Missions in Korea, 1832-1910 (Seoul, Korea: Yonsei University

Press, 1970). Call No. BV3460 P3 1971.

Pak, Ung Kyu, Millennialism in the Korean Protestant Church (New York: Peter Lang, 2005).

Palmer, Spencer, Korea and Christianity: The Problem of Identification with Tradition (Seoul: Hollym,

1967).

Park, Chung-shin. Protestantism and Politics in Korea (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003).

Phillips, James M., From the Rising of the Sun, Christians and Society in Contemporary Japan (Maryknoll,

NY: Orbis Books, 1981).

Rhodes, Harry A., & Archibald Campbell, eds., History of the Korea Mission, Presbyterian Church in the

U.S.A., Vol. II, 1935-1959 (Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations, The United

Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., 1964).

Ruikanen, Miikka and Paulos Huang, eds., Christianity and Chinese Culture (Grand Rapids, Mich. : W.B.

Eerdmans Pub. Co. 2010).

Moffett, Samuel Hugh, The Christians of Korea (New York: Friendship Press, 1962)

Scheiner, Irwin, Christian Converts and Social Protest in Meiji Japan (Berkeley, CA: University of

California Press, 1970).

Stewart, John, Nestorian Missionary Fire

Thomas, Winburn T., Protestant Beginnings in Japan, The First Three Decades, 1859-1889. Tokyo, Japan:

Charles E. Tuttle, 1959. Call No. BR1305 T368 1959.

Tiedemann, R., ed., Handbook of Christianity in China 2. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.

Trimingham, J.S., Christianity among the Arabs in Pre-Islamic Times.

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1896-1937 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’I Press, 1990).

Wickeri, Philip L. Seeking the Common Ground, Protestant Christianity, the Three-Self Movement, and

China’s United Front. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988 (ISBN 0-88344-441-0)

Xin, Yalin, Inside China’s House Church Network. Lexington, KY: Emeth Press, 2009 (ISBN

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Yamamori, Tetsunao, Church Growth in Japan, A Study in the Development of Eight Denominations 1859-

1939 (South Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1974).

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