In these chapters, we note the pattern of progression, “conquest,” and then retrogression, as formerly “Christian” nations and peoples were conquered from without or fatally compromised from within.

Dr. Hancock has presented the reading public with a masterpiece of cultural, intellectual, religious, and cross-cultural history. Just as the announcer on the classical music station will sometimes say, “And now, for our big piece of the day, here is Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,” so this treatise is long and wide, deep and high, rich and complex, with a vast range of topics and a temporal, conceptual, and imaginative scope that one very seldom finds even in multivolume works.

The pandemic, and now a severe winter storm in Texas, have prompted the question: What is God trying to teach us?

This one-volume history of Christian missions is, in one sense, comprehensive. Neill’s grandparents and parents had served as missionaries in India, bequeathing to him an insider’s knowledge of missionary life and work, which he augmented by serving in India with the Church Missionary Society for twenty years. His narrative reads like a story rather than a mere chronicle.

Hattaway calls Shandong “The Revival Province,” because it has witnessed so many massive turnings to God, often spilling over into other parts of China. Other provinces have more Christians and a greater percentage of Christians, but none has witnessed revivals as Shandong has.

The “bottom line” is that almost all strategies and methods of reaching Chinese and others worldwide with the gospel will have to be based on a world without the Pax Americana that has prevailed since the end of World War Two and without the same level of American personnel or financial resources.

Though published more than twenty years ago, this massive compendium of information remains an essential resource for all students of Christian missions, world Christianity, and world history.

Most churches and Christians do not emphasize deep transformation by God through the Holy Spirit. They communicate the facts of the faith well enough, but fail to address the deep idols of the heart that make us vulnerable to besetting sins, addictions, and despair when real trouble comes.