Asian Church and Missions History

We are fascinated with this seminary class we are taking. A Canadian retired missionary from Victoria, BC has come to teach us “Asian Church and Missions History.” Dr. Anne Kwantes knows a lot! How wonderful to have such an educated woman, who has lived in the Philippines for years and even wrote a book on Philippine Church history, teach us all the knowledge she has gained through her years. Maybe a professor reading this can come teach another one-week course sometime!

I have never learned so much in a history class because Dr. Anne can really tell stories but also can organize them in historical order. The most mind-boggling thing I have learned so far is that by AD 800 there were more Christians East of Syria than West of it. However, there was so much persecution and there has been much less focus on documenting history in the East that we have not learned so much about this. Plus when we typically study the history of the Church we focus on the Roman Empire and the expansion of the Church West.

We are learning how Christianity spread to Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and even India and China in the early centuries. However, Christianity basically died out in the East by 1500. That is when Roman Catholics and Jesuits begin going East to bring the gospel again. Finally in the late 1700s and 1800s Protestant missionaries also began a mission movement bringing the gospel to India, China and beyond.

This class makes me hungry to see the gospel preached in every nation. I stare at the map of Asia and I get excited to see God moving. My mind is full of info so I better get to work on my reading.