Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Asia

Download or read book Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Asia written by David Halloran Lumsdaine and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-13 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although a minority of the Asian population, Protestants in Asia are a fast-growing group. What are the political implications of this evangelical Christianity? In some cases, religion has enabled poor and marginalized people to gain greater prosperity, self-confidence and civic skills, and more open-minded and democratic societies. But does religion have the kind of cultural currency needed to generate political changes in governments such as China's? Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Asia provides six case studies on China, Western India, Northeast India, Indonesia, South Korea, and the Philippines. The contributors, mainly younger scholars based in Asia, bring first hand-knowledge to their chapters. The result is a groundbreaking work, indispensable to everyone concerned with the future of the region. Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Asia is one of four volumes in the series Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in the Global South and grew from a Pew-funded study that sought to answer the question: What happens when a revivalist religion based on scriptural orthodoxy participates in the volatile politics of the Third World? At a time when the global-political impact of another revivalist and scriptural religion - Islam - fuels debate, these volumes offer an unusual comparative perspective.