Highland Christianity

“Highland Christianity offers an extraordinarily rich and quite fascinating range of case studies of Christianity in multiple societies that stand on the margins of the better-known societies of Southeast Asia. There is so much of value here for scholars of Christian conversion in the modern world, and of Christian adaptation to diverse cultural settings, not to mention for borderland studies in general. The essays are of uniformly high quality.”

—Philip Jenkins, author of Kingdoms of This World: How Empires Have Made and Remade Religions

“The editors have assembled a first-rate international team of scholars in a book of obvious importance for the recent history of Christianity, but also for illuminating ethnology, Asian tribal languages, and modernization theory. For the Hmong, Lisu, Karen, Miao, Ahmao, and Lahu peoples who live where China, Burman/Myanmar, Vietnam, and Thailand come together, the surprisingly strong presence of Christian adherence turns out to have resulted not from “the colonization of consciousness” but from conversions experienced for the hill peoples’ own purposes. It is a fine book with importance far beyond its revelations about this one corner of the world.”

—Mark Noll, author of The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith

“Through the lenses of indigenization, modernity and ethnicity, this important volume reshapes our understanding of the Christianities of South, Southeast, and East Asia in its pioneering integrated approach to the border-crossing peoples and languages of the uplands. Fascinating case histories draw out missionary and colonial legacies while fore grounding the oppositional identities and local agency shaping Highland Christianity.”

—Chloë Starr, author of Chinese Theology: Text and Context

“The mountainous borderlands of Southwest China and Southeast Asia have become fertile soil for the indigenization of Christianity, especially evangelical Protestantism. Until now scholars have largely neglected these popular movements of conversion among ethnic minorities who straddle national boundaries. Highland Christianity rectifies this omission, highlighting the compulsive attraction of missionary orthographies and the modernizing literacy that followed. This book will become the authoritative treatment of the subject.”

—Brian Stanley, Professor Emeritus of World Christianity, University of Edinburgh

“Displaying a sophisticated approach to analyzing the complex factors surrounding the embrace of Christianity among the hill peoples of the Southeast Asian borderlands is still largely unknown to scholars of world Christianity. With an admirable attention to the agency and lived experiences of many ethnic groups, this expertly edited collaborative volume is a must read for anyone interested in the processes of Christian conversion, modernization, and ethnic regeneration in landscapes still largely unknown to scholars of world Christianity.”

—David Hempton, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor

“A compelling analysis of Christianity in highland Asia. It examines how their Christianity enables the Indigenous peoples of this region to creatively construct their identity and ethnicity on their own terms amid the bewildering forces of colonialism and nation-making processes. Instead of analyzing the origins of Christianity as simply a colonial encounter, the contributors demonstrate how it provides social cohesion and intellectual, cultural, and political capital.”

—Arkotong Longkumer, author of Reform, Identity and Narratives of Belonging: The Heraka Movement in Northeast India