Legacy of John Sung
In the 1930s, no evangelist traveled further, spoke more often, or led more Chinese people to faith than Song Shangjie (John Sung). In the October 2016 issue of the International Bulletin of Mission Research, Daryl Ireland explores the legacy of one of China’s most dynamic and memorable Christians.
This is the first scholarly article to make use of Sung’s own personal diaries (not those edited and published by his daughter). They reveal new facets of his life and ministry, most memorably regarding his time spent in an insane asylum. Sung famously spoke of his hospitalization in 1927 as a gross misunderstanding of his conversion. His diaries, however, suggest another story. What happened in the asylum is summarized in the Legacy article, but will be unpacked further in Ireland’s forthcoming article on conversion in the journal Mission Studies.