Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Asia

This is one of four projected volumes to emerge from a massive, 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? Is the result a democratic politics of the ballot box, or is it more like an authoritarian politics of command from on high? Does the evangelical faith of the Bible hinder or promote a politics of the ballot box? At a time when the global-political impact of another revivalist and scriptural religion - Islam - fuels vexed debate among analysts the world over, these volumes offer an unusual comparative perspective on a critical issue: The often combustible interaction of resurgent religion and the developing world's unstable politics. Three of the volumes focus on particular regions (Africa, Latin America and Asia). The fourth will address the broader question of evangelical Christianity and democracy in the global setting. The present volume considers the case of Asia. In his introduction, editor David Lumsdaine offers a historical overview of evangelicalism in the region, provides a theoretical framework for understanding evangelical impact on the global south, and summarizes the findings presented in the remainder of the book. Six individual case studies follow, focusing respectively on the situation in 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 and employ both field and archival research to develop their data and analyses. The result is a groundbreaking work that will be indispensable to everyone concerned with the future of the region.