Description
Book SynopsisSchism is the first ethnographic and historical study of Seventh-day Adventism in China.
Scholars have been slow to consider Chinese Protestantism from a denominational standpoint. In Schism, the first monograph that documents the life of the Chinese Adventist denomination from the mid-1970s to the 2010s, Christie Chui-Shan Chow explores how Chinese Seventh-day Adventists have used schism as a tool to retain, revive, and recast their unique ecclesial identity in a religious habitat that resists diversity.
Based on unpublished archival materials, fieldwork, oral history, and social media research, Chow demonstrates how Chinese Adventists adhere to their denominational character both by recasting the theologies and faith practices that they inherited from American missionaries in the early twentieth century and by engaging with local politics and culture. This book locates the Adventist movement in broader Chinese sociopolitical and religious contexts
Trade Review
“Christie Chui-Shan Chow’s research unlocks evidence of identity patterns that I have not encountered in any other author writing on comparable topics in contemporary China. Her book thus opens up new academic terrain, both within the study of Chinese Christianity and of contemporary China in general.” —Lars Laamann, author of Christian Heretics in Late Imperial China
"Christie Chui-Shan Chow’s superb study of the Seventh-day Adventist church in China recasts our understanding of the post-denominational context of Chinese Christianity. Fine-grained case studies detail four major factions, two local church splits, and one example of collaboration beyond schism, as Chow explores how churches of this Protestant minority have negotiated state control and enforced unity through retrenchment and adaptation of their rites, organization, and theology." —Chloë Starr, author of Chinese Theology
"This book has obvious appeal to anyone interested in global Adventism, but its real gift is the way it makes Christianity in China come alive. . . . For Adventists, like for so many other Christians, the pathway forward was never clear, and thus produced both intense conflict and enormous creativity. Chow suggests this may be one reason for Chinese Christianity’s vitality today." —Mission Studies
"As the first monograph-length study of Seventh-day Adventism in China covering the (roughly) forty-year period from the mid-1970s to the 2010s, this book is a significant contribution to the field of Chinese Christianities." —International Bulletin of Mission Research
"Schism: Seventh-day Adventism in Post-Denominational China is a riveting work on Chinese Protestantism that intentionally focuses on the Seventh-day Adventist denomination.... Schism is not only the first volume in the Liu Institute Series in Chinese Christianities by the University of Notre Dame Press, but it is also the first work that details the history of the Chinese Adventist denomination from the mid-1970s to the 2010s." —Social Sciences and Missions
Table of ContentsIntroduction
1. China’s Adventist Century and Wenzhou
2. To Pray or Not to Pray? The First Schism
3. Come Out of “Babylon”: The Wilderness Schism
4. Hybrid Identity: The Wheatfield Schism
5. “Sisters, You Should Also Help!” The Case of Horizontal Dyke Village
6. Divide and Divide: The Case of Stone Ground Village
7. A Brief Coalition: The Case of South Pond
Conclusion
