Christian Values in Communist China

This book argues that as new political and social values are formed in post-socialist China, Christian values are becoming increasingly embedded in the new post-socialist Chinese outlook. It shows how although Christianity is viewed in China as a foreign religion, promoted by Christian missionaries, and is as such at odds with the official position of the state, and liable to repression, Christianity as a source of social and political values, rather than a faith, requiring adherence to a church, is in fact having a huge impact, informing both official and dissident ideology, and providing a key underpinning of morality and ethics in the moral vacuum left following the move away from old-style Communist ideology. The book shows how Christian values, especially the idea of Christian love, are expounded in Chinese discourse, taken up in both official and dissident thinking, and widely adopted in everyday life in many aspects of actual daily practice. The book concludes by discussing how new political and social values with their strong Christian underpinning are likely to develop in future.