The Church Under the Cross: Mission in Asia in Times of Turmoil: Volume 1 Taiwan: The Cross of Fascism (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798342247917)

Since the first edition of this book was published, I have kept in touch with colleagues and events in Taiwan over the last fourteen years. I was also privileged to participate in the 2015 150th anniversary of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan. Although great strides have been made in the ministry of the PCT and in the democratic movement in Taiwan during these years, the cross that my colleagues have had to bear for many years has not grown any lighter. In fact, at the time of writing, the People's Republic of China has put enormous pressure on the people of Taiwan to give up their de-facto independence and "return to the 'mother' country." It has tried to isolate the island, with its 24 million people, on the world stage. It has stepped up its bullying rhetoric in an attempt to plant fear in the hearts of its free and prosperous inhabitants. And it has launched daily military incursions into Taiwan's air defense exclusion zone in an effort to intimidate the government and exhaust its military response teams.

In order to chronicle this on-going story, besides the corrections made to the text of the first edition, 14 additional pages of text and 5 new photographs have been added to this second edition of Volume I "The Church Under the Cross: Taiwan - The Cross of Fascism."

This work was originally six years in the making. It began with an invitation in September 2003 by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy to participate in a December conference on human rights and to receive an award for my involvement in the democracy and human rights struggle of the Taiwanese people during my missionary days there in the early 1970s. In preparation for this conference, I was asked to write a memoir of my experiences during what had become known as the White Terror period in Taiwan's history. A number of people who read that memoir encouraged me to write about my subsequent experiences in Hong Kong, China, and Indonesia as well. It happened that I was called to minister in those places at critical times in their histories - times of turmoil that proved to be times of testing for the churches there. Thus, the common thread that runs throughout the four volumes of this series - the church under the cross. Although this memoir includes my story, it focuses as well on the wider church and the context in which I served as my colleagues and the Christians for whom they were responsible struggled to come to terms with the sometimes terrible challenges they faced.

My goal in setting down my experiences, observations, and conclusions was to produce an account that was informative, interesting, and inspirational. Even today, I find that many people do not know much about many of the events recorded in this work. My hope is that this account will help fill those gaps. I also hope that readers will find this account interesting, stimulating, and at times even humorous. My further hope is that readers will be as inspired as I was when I encountered the courageous Christians described in these pages as they faithfully practiced their faith and prophetically challenged "the powers."

Author: Wendell Paul Karsen
ISBN-13: 9798342247917
Publisher: Independently Published
Language: English
Published: 01/31/2025
Pages: 286
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.01lbs
Size: 9.61h x 6.69w x 0.60d