China's Millions: The China Inland Mission and Late Qing Society 1832-1905

by Alvyn Austin

Overview

Series: Studies in the History of Christian Missions (SHCM)

In China's Millions veteran historian Alvyn Austin presents a compelling historical narrative of the China Inland Mission (now the Overseas Missionary Fellowship) — the first history of the CIM by an outsider — including 36 never-before-published illustrations and maps from the CIM/OMF archives. In the course of his sweeping survey, Austin examines a remarkable array of subjects, from the visionary, charismatic sect-leader Pastor Hsi, to the "wordless book," a missionary teaching device that fit perfectly with Chinese color cosmology, to the opium-soaked aftermath of the North China Famine of 1877-79.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802829757
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	04/23/2013
Series:	Studies in the History of Christian Missions
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	540
Product dimensions:	6.25(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Alvyn Austin, born in Calcutta to CIM missionaries, isassistant professor of history at Brock University, St.Catharines, Ontario.

Editorial Reviews

Choice
"An excellent study of the single most important Protestant mission effort in China. . . Highly recommended."
 
Andrew T. Kaiser
— Taiyuan Regional Director, Shanxi Evergreen Service
"For the modern expatriate China worker seeking to be God's vehicle for blessing the Middle Kingdom, China's Millions provides essential background reading. The issues raised in Austin's narrative of the enculturation of the gospel in northern China are as relevant today as they were when Hudson Taylor's pioneers first began working in Shanxi. Humanitarian relief, cultural misunderstandings, folk religion and sectarian beliefs, disunity and suspicion — all these factors continue to influence Christian work in modern China. In analyzing the strengths and weaknesses, the successes and failures, of so effective an organization as the China Inland Mission, Austin has produced a book of immense practical value. China's Millions should be read and digested by anyone seriously committed to building God's kingdom in China."
 
Daniel Bays
— editor of Christianity in China
"A rich, lovingly crafted, and elegantly written study. . . Probably the single largest contribution is the sympathetic yet sober and objective portrayal of Hudson Taylor as a person, along with insightful profiles of a whole host of other CIM worthies, power brokers, and assorted oddballs. Embedded in this informative (and often entertaining) narrative (which skips, rather than plows, through decades of history) comes an implicit interpretation of the institutional growth of the CIM as an organization. . . Austin's portrayal of the formidable Pastor Hsi is deft, a real contribution in itself."
 
Donald Lewis
— Regent College
"A carefully crafted and superbly researched work that breaks new ground in our understanding of Protestantism's early roots in China."

From the Publisher