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The burgeoning growth of the church in China is
one of the startling trends in Christendom in the
21st century. Now comes the even more startling revelation
that these Chinese believers are not embracing a
religion that Western missionaries have attempted for
hundreds of years to plant on Chinese soil. Rather,
the Chinese are rediscovering a God who has been
a constant presence in their history and culture
for more than four millennia.
Chan Kei Thong in his extensively
researched and compellingly well-written
Faith of Our Fathers presents many historical
gems to validate this astonishing perspective.
From his study of the most ancient Chinese historical
texts, Thong establishes that the earliest Chinese
form of worship was of a monotheistic God recognizable
by His attributes as the same God Yahweh of
the Old Testament worshipped by Jews and Christians.
This God, known as Shang Di, is the one for
Whom the famed Temple of Heaven in Beijing was
built. It was here that Chinese emperors through
the centuries offered the annual sacrifices
that confirmed their right to rule in ceremonies
that parallel in amazing ways similar rituals
related to blood covenants in the Old Testament.
These imperial ceremonies suggest an understanding
of the problem of sin, of the need for salvation
and even of the inability of any sacrifice to
fulfill God’s judgment.
Through engaging and gripping retelling of some
of the most significant stories in China’s
history, Faith of Our Fathers reveals
God’s guiding hand upon the Chinese people
from the very beginning of their existence.
The Chinese language reflects knowledge of the
first events of human history as told in the
Bible. Even the early name the Chinese people
used for their country is revealing: Shen Zhou,
which means God’s Country. Over the millennia,
the dynastic cycles that have been the hallmark
of China’s long history reflect God’s
principles at work: leaders as well as dynasties
were raised up or brought down, depending on
their attitude and behavior towards God, based
on the doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven. Emperors
were called the “Son of Heaven”
and were seen as the intermediary between Shang
Di and the Chinese people, required to reflect
Shang Di’s loving care for His people
in their rule of the land. Quite remarkably,
Thong even takes up the controversial subject
of the Chinese dragon, proud symbol of China's
heritage but reviled by most Christians, and
presents a thoughtfully argued thesis of its
historic role and its impact on Chinese cultural
development.
Faith of Our Fathers reaches a broad
audience with these surprising new insights.
For the China novice or student of Chinese culture,
Thong gives painless access to an understanding
of the world’s oldest living civilization
along with valuable new perspectives on the
long history of China. For the world Christian,
Faith of Our Fathers provides compelling
new material to use in bringing the saving message
of the Gospel to the world’s most populous
nation and an encouraging new perspective of
God’s relationship to all the peoples
of the world. Perhaps most significantly, to
all who are of Chinese descent, whether on mainland
China or overseas, Faith of Our Fathers
reveals that God did not turn His back on the
world’s largest people group. He was present
and active at the genesis of their culture and
has left His “fingerprints” throughout
the history of this great civilization, always
and ever calling its people to Himself.
Faith of Our Fathers is most compelling
because it follows Thong’s own personal
journey of discovery of these truths. Readers
share in his journey from the painful charges
by his relatives and friends that he had betrayed
his cultural heritage when he converted to Christianity
to the joyful realization that by accepting
Shang Di as Lord he was, in fact, worshipping
alongside China’s most venerated ancients!
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