Christianity has become the most practiced religion among the Chinese in America. However, but very little solid research exists on Chinese Christians and their churches. This book is the first to explore the subject from the inside, revealing how Chinese construct and reconstruct their identity—as Christians, Americans, and Chinese—in local congregations amid the radical pluralism of the late twentieth century.

Today there are more than one thousand Chinese churches in the United States, most of them Protestant evangelical congregations, bringing together diasporic Chinese from diverse origins—Taiwan, Hong Kong, mainland China, and Southeast Asian countries. Fenggang Yang finds that despite the many tensions and conflicts that exist within these congregations, most individuals find ways to integrate creatively their evangelical Christian beliefs with traditional Chinese (most Confucian) values. The church becomes a place where they can selectively assimilate into American society while simultaneously preserving Chinese values and culture.

Yang brings to this study unique experience as both participant and observer. Born in mainland China, he is a sociologist who converted to Christianity after coming to the United States. The heart of this book is an ethnographic study of a representative Chinese church, located in Washington, D.C., where he became a member. Throughout the book, Yang draws upon interviews with members of this congregation while making comparisons with other churches throughout the United States. Chinese Christians in America is an important addition to the literature on the experience of "new" immigrant communities.

Dr. Fenggang Yang is Associate Professor of Sociology at Purdue University, specializing in the sociology of religion. He received his BA from Hebei Normal University (Shijiazhuang, China) in 1982, MA from Nankai University (Tianjin, China) in 1987, and Ph.D. from The Catholic University of America (Washington, DC) in 1997. His sociological research has focused on immigrant religions in the United States and religious change in China. He is the author of Chinese Christians in America: Conversion, Assimilation, and Adhesive Identities (Penn State University Press 1999), the co-editor (with Tony Carnes) of Asian American Religions: The Making and Remaking of Borders and Boundaries (New York University Press 2004), and the co-editor (with Joseph B. Tamney) of State, Market, and Religions in Chinese Societies (Brill Academic Publishers 2005) and Conversion to Christianity among the Chinese (a special issue of the Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review, 2006). His articles have been published in books and in the American Sociological Review, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Sociology of Religion, Amerasia Journal, and Journal of Asian American Studies, the Sociological Quarterly, including one that won the “2002 Distinguished Article Award” of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and one that won “2006 Distinguished Article Award” of the American Sociological Association’s Section of the Sociology of Religion. His current research focuses on the political economy of religion in China, Christian ethics and market transition in China, and Chinese Christian churches in the United States. He has given many invited lectures at universities and the Smithsonian Institution, and has been interviewed by the Washington Post, Seattle Times, Los Angeles Times, etc. and some newspapers in Asia.

杨凤岗，河北沧州人。1982年获河北师范大学法学学士，1987年获南开大学哲学硕士，1997年获美国天主教大学社会学博士。曾任沧州教育学院教师、中国人民大学哲学宗教学讲师、美国休斯敦大学社会学博士后、美国南缅因州大学社会学助教授。现任美国普度大学社会学副教授，中国人民大学讲座教授。