After 5 years of painstaking work, the entire collection of The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal has now been reprinted through the cooperation of the Christianity and China Research Center & National Taiwan University Press.
The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal (1868-1941, CR) was the longest published English journal during the 19th century in China until it ceased publication in 1941, when the Second World War outbreaks in Shanghai. It was designed primarily to facilitate communication and fellowship among Christian missionaries throughout China. The 75 volumes include countless rare photos and maps, drawings and statistics.
To those who want to have a thorough understanding of Christianity in China, CR is definitely the richest record of all; it provides the comprehensive issues including cross cultural contact such as the explanation of core Confucius values, local and regional etiquette and culture to missionaries in places within China they found themselves in.
Other valuable contents include difficulties that concerned the missionaries in China, such as translation issues, health and medical care for missionaries and their families; it also shows the statistics collected on the missions in China, include the number of baptized converts, the number of churches, schools and hospitals etc.
“The Chinese Recorder’s long and continuous publication has already made it one of the most important historical records of the Church in China. Its value among historical accounts of Protestant Christianity in China is obvious and completely unrivaled by any similar publications, and its status as first-rate historical material is unmatched.” James Shih-chieh Cha, CR’s editor-in-chief stated in the preface.
Since The Chinese Recorder’s volume is both vast and numerous, they are scattered in many different places in the world, those who were able to preserve a complete collection is uncommon. In the past due to the vagaries of time and space as well as the objective conditions that had to be dealt with, research was highly restricted.
Cha hopes that this republishing will allow researchers add depth and breadth to Chinese Church history, allowing for a change of vision and for research on Chinese Christianity to reach new levels.
To order The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal, contact the dealer Airiti Inc. at press@airiti.com or call Miss Shih at +886-2-2926-2006 ext. 8551.
