274 Book Reviews
China and the True Jesus: Charisma and Organization in a Chinese Christian Church. By Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. xx + 385 pages. Hardcover. isbn 978-0-19-092346-4. $99.00.
The True Jesus Church (Zhen Yesu Jiaohui 真耶穌教會) has been a subject of much interest within studies of Chinese Christianity. Scholars such as Daniel Bays, Murray Rubinstein, Deng Zhaoming, Lian Xi, Ke-hsien Huang, and R. G. Tiedemann have written about the group, but the discussions have tended to be limited to short essays or parts of essays. Researchers have been prone to apply hermeneutical lenses such as revivalism, Pentecostalism, or popular re- ligion to this group. These are religious analogues that legitimize the growth of the movement as a response to the “deprivation” of the poor and the marginal- ized. While there may be some benefit in these interpretive approaches, much of the early scholarship on the True Jesus Church was informed by the “Chris- tianity fever” (Jidujiao re 基督教熱) of the 1980s and 1990s which, according to sources in China, primarily spread among the four manys (si duo 四多)—that is, the many old, many women, many illiterate, and many ill. The book under review, which is a significant revision of a PhD dissertation, attempts to over- come these limits and biases in the study of this fascinating group. Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye has written the first monograph-length study of the True Jesus Church, framing the movement as a form of restorationist Chris- tianity akin to Mormonism, the Disciples of Christ, or Seventh-Day Adventism (11). Doing so enables her to acknowledge the Pentecostal and Adventist roots of the group, which can be recognized in the priorities of glossolalia as first evi- dence and Saturday Sabbath observance, but also underscores the importance of its idiosyncratic ordinances, such as facedown immersion baptism and foot- washing. Most of these have biblical precedents, but restorationist groups in China and in the United States have also relied on extrabiblical sources, such as the prophetic visions of their leaders (90–91). This study draws on another major concept: the importance of the term “charisma.” While some readers may interpret this word in the framework of charismatic Christianity and its emphasis on the Christian gifts of the Spirit (which is of course very appropriate for the True Jesus Church), Inouye uses this term to emphasize the importance of the Weberian notion of charismatic authority—an extraordinary power channeled by individuals and organiza- tions (she prefers not to use the term “institutions” [13]). This helps to explain the attractiveness of the True Jesus Church’s founder Wei Enbo 魏恩波 (1879– 1919) in bringing new converts into the church. But it also explains the tena- cious nature of this group. Although it was founded two years before Wei’s death in 1917, the True Jesus Church has spread and thrived in the Chinese
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/22143955-00702008