Engaging the Spirits

Traditional Chinese vs Christian Encounters with the Unseen Realm

By: Timothy Garner Conkling

Narrated by: Timothy Garner Conkling

Length: 2 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

In this concise yet detailed study, Rev. Timothy Garner Conkling PhD., a veteran missionary and pastor to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and the US, examines the similarities and differences that practitioners of traditional Chinese religions and Christian believers encounter as they seek to appease, manipulate, worship, and engage the inhabitants of the unseen realm.

This audiobook is a must-listen for those who want to understand the differences in world view and religious practice that exist between Christians and those who follow Chinese Buddhism, Taoism, or indigenous Chinese traditional religions. It also offers important insights into which practices traditional Chinese religious believers would have to stop or change if they become Christians.

Engaging the Spirits outlines the inhabitants of the unseen realm for both religions and details the representative practices of Chinese ancestor worship, divination, spirit-possession, and exorcism in comparison with Christian spiritual warfare, prayer, and exorcism.

©2018 Timothy Garner Conkling (P)2020 Timothy Garner Conkling

Living in Taiwan or China? Read this book!

When I arrived in Taiwan, one of the first things I noticed was that there are temples everywhere. As a Christian preparing to work alongside non-Christian Taiwanese colleagues for at least a year, I knew that I would have to learn everything I could about their religious beliefs. Additionally, everyone I met warned me that Christians in Taiwan often encounter spiritual attack and demonic activity, so I wanted to be prepared. I learned a lot from my colleagues and church family in the first seven months. Then, I read this book. Timothy Conkling’s “Engaging the Spirits” connected and made sense of the disparate things I had learned about traditional Chinese religion and gave me a solid foundation on which to build.

Conkling’s greatest strength in his comparison of traditional Chinese and Christian encounters with the unseen realm is his commitment to “think from the Han.” The first third of the book is especially helpful as it explains the particularly “Han” foundations of Chinese religion (e.g. situational vs moral evil, Chinese naturalism, even the traditional definitions of words used in Chinese Christian vocabulary) before moving on to analyze Chinese and Christian approaches to spiritual encounters. I especially loved Conkling’s concluding comparison between traditional Chinese religion and the occult worldview of Biblical-era cultures, as my independent studies in early Christianity continue to help me in understanding Chinese religion and the struggles faced by first-generation Taiwanese Christians.

(While my personal context is Taiwan, Conkling’s book has also helped me understand how my friends from “secular” mainland China relate to the spiritual realm.)

This is an excellent introduction to traditional Chinese religion and Christian spiritual warfare. But as Conkling makes clear throughout the book, it is the first of many steps into larger conversations and an even larger spiritual battlefield.