Articles by Brent Fulton
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Disciples are made to need one another, and in their interdependence they reveal God's glory. Collaboration with those who follow Christ from other backgrounds is a powerful witness in this regard. By living and ministering well together the lives of those who don't know Jesus will be impacted by a community of spiritually transformed, self-giving people who demonstrate a love that is not of this world. -
Abiding in Christ is a key requirement for God's mission
"Abide in me... that you bear much fruit, so showing yourselves to be my disciples". Such fruit is not the output of human effort, it is the result of the Holy Spirit's transformative work in our lives. So why to we invest such energy into achieving material outcomes? -
What reframing missions looks like from a Chinese perspective
Our understanding of the who, what, and where of missions is shifting as new realities emerge, like the missions movement from China. But undertaking and tracking missions by Western metrics continues to be questioned by many from non-Western backgrounds serving in missions today. -
The Church in China example reveals effective witness is more than proclamation
It is the beauty of a transformed life that gives credibility to our words and vitality to our witness. The Church in China provides ample evidence of this. In this article, China specialist Brent Fulton reflections on the different ways the gospel has been transmitted and people transformed since the 1970s. -
The end of persecution is a realistic hope but in the meantime we lament
In a perfect world, where legal systems hold political power to account and protect minorities against human rights abuses we might expect an end to persecution. But we do not live in a perfect world. People with power continue to act with impunity against those who think and live differently to them. Christians have a way to cope with this reality and a real and living hope for a future free of persecution. -
Back to Jerusalem is too small a focus when Chinese Christians have the power to advance the gospel worldwide
The idea that Chinese Christians have a responsibility to take the gospel "back to Jerusalem" has become widely popularized but it fails to recognize a much larger perspective. The role of China’s church in world evangelization has more to do with intentionality of heart than with getting to any one particular destination. Chinese believers among diaspora worldwide have great potential to advance the gospel everywhere, but it requires a shift of thinking away from traditional missions paradigms. -
Anticipating a hope that will be fulfilled
The Christian hope is not misplaced or empty. As advent begins, we need to cling to a hope eternal, one that seeks the glory of God not our earthly desires. The pathway to that hope leads through suffering, but following that path will not leave us disappointed. -
Sinicization: Culture or Politics?
In his incisive Christianity Today article titled “Xi Jinping Is Not Trying to Make Christianity More Chinese,” Purdue University professor Fenggang Yang draws a distinction between Sinicization, or the cultural adaptation of religion to Chinese culture, and what he calls “Chinafication,” a more literal translation of the Chinese term Zhongguo hua (中国化) used in the current “Sinicization of religion” campaign.
