Carolyn Nystrom's Clouds Of Witness

Mark A. Noll and Carolyn Nystrom's book, Clouds of Witness: Christian Voices from Africa and Asia, is a compilation of 17 biographical sketches of significant African and Asian Christians. Each of these inspirational people played a key role in establishing churches and driving Christian movements and renewals within their respective countries. These lesser-known disciples of the 19th and 20th centuries, are proof that Christianity is not restricted to European nations. While Western Christianity had faltered in its mission attempts, those national missionaries who took it upon themselves to spread the gospel within their own communities by merging it with local culture and ideas, proved that post-colonial growth through the non-Western world was possible. To begin, these Christians proved that a working knowledge of the local language and culture is important to the overall success of the mission, and people are more likely to listen to people from their own culture than they are to Westerners. Likely, this is due to the fact that Western missionaries enter these countries with their own biases and the habit of trying to inflict them on the locals. Often have we been found guilty of trying to inflict our lifestyle on others as …show more content…
For instance Sun Chu Kil, along with a fellow elder in 1906, implemented early-morning prayer meeting which were a reflection of the ancestral forms of traditional Korean worship, and which are stilled used by Korean Christians today (253). Many others ensured that the Scriptures were translated into their native tongue for the people to read and study on their own. Others excommunicated Western missionaries, whether for better or for worse, from their communities indefinitely, leading Christianity to develop in a way that was unique to each individual culture