A Messianic Deliverance for Post-Dynastic China

The Launch of the True Jesus Church in the Early Twentieth Century

Bibliographic Data

ID6008323
AuthorsLian Xi (Hanover College, corresponding author), Lian Xi Lian Xi (Hanover College)
Year2008
Volume34
Issue4
Pages407-441
Publication date2008-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueModern China (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0097-7004 • E-ISSN: 1552-6836
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0097700408318908
OpenAlexW2050229354
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited28

This article explores the rise of the True Jesus Church (TJC) as part of an emerging indigenous Chinese Christianity. Begun in 1917 under the influence of American Pentecostalism, the TJC developed into a lively popular sect with more than a million members by the 1990s. The birth of this independent and often antiforeign group coincided with, and was aided by, the surge of patriotism in the early Republican period and arguably constituted a religious expression of Chinese nationalism. More importantly, the TJC— with its messianic proclamations and bold displays of Pentecostal power— helped shape a twentieth-century Protestant millenarian movement in China amidst political disintegration, foreign aggression, and widespread suffering. Its growth signaled an evolution of popular religion in which Christianity joined local beliefs in supplying the core ideology of sectarian movements

China · Christianity · Ideology · Millenarianism · Nationalism · Patriotism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Protestantism · Sect · Sociology · Chinese history and philosophy · Gender Studies · History · Law · Pentecostalism and Christianity Studies · Philosophy · Religious studies · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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