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A Dictionary of Asian Christianity. Edited by Scott W. Sunquist, David Wu Chu Sing, and John Chew Hiang Chea. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2001. xliv + 937 pp. $75.00 cloth.
Editor Scott Sunquist and associate editors David Wu Chu Sing and John Chew Hiang Chea are to be lauded for their efforts in putting together this dictionary over the course of ten years. More than 1200 entries provided by over 400 contributors from South, East, and Southeast Asia give the reader a plethora of detail from a great variety of national, ethnic, and ecclesial perspectives. The dictionary was born "out of two senses of frustration" (xxi): the first arising from professors of church history in Asia who had few resources for their teaching, and the second from the national, political, and linguistic barriers that prevented scholars from seeing the ecumenicity of the Christian faith. In 1990 the three editors, then all members of the faculty of Trinity Theological College in Singapore, embarked on the Dictionary project that would gather and represent the history of Christianity in Asia from the first century to the present. All those interested in the history of the church in Asia will find this dictionary greatly helpful in furthering their knowledge on the subject. I have already used it profitably in my teaching and commend it...