Shanghai Faithful

Within the next decade, China could be home to more Christians than any country in the world. Through the 150-year saga of a single family, this book vividly dramatizes the remarkable religious evolution of the world's most populous nation. Shanghai Faithful is both a touching family memoir and a chronicle of the astonishing spread of Christianity in China. Five generations of the Lin familybuffeted by history's crosscurrents and personal strifebring to life an epoch that is still unfolding.A compelling casta poor fisherman, a doctor who treated opium addicts, an Ivy Leagueeducated priest, and the charismatic preacher Watchman Neesets the bookin motion. Veteran journalist Jennifer Lin takes readers from remote nineteenth-century mission outposts to the thriving house churches and cathedrals of today's China. The Lin familyand the book's central figure, the Reverend Lin Pu-chioffer witness to China's tumultuous past, up to and beyond the betrayals and madness of the Cultural Revolution, when the family's resolute faith led to years of suffering. Forgiveness and redemption bring the story full circle. With its sweep of history and the intimacy of long-hidden family stories, Shanghai Faithful offers a fresh look at Christianity in Chinapast, present, and future.