The Jesus Sutras, by Martin Palmer

The Jesus Sutras:Rediscovering the Lost Scrolls of Taoist Christianity. By Maertin Palmer. Ballantine, 304 pp., $24.95.

It has become commonplace to criticize earlier generations of Christian missioners for exporting Western European culture and demanding that people around the world adopt European forms of life and thought on becoming Christians. Combined with this critique has been widespread interest in the possibilities of inculturation, the incarnation of the gospel in different cultures, as Christians have interpreted Jesus in relation to the images and roles of other religious traditions.

Because knowledge of the historical forms of Christianity in Asia has been severely limited, Western Christians have often assumed that inculturation is a new project. They have thought that the significant history of Christianity began within the borders of the Roman Empire and later moved from the Mediterranean basin to Northern and Eastern Europe. That the Church of the East, which developed during the first centuries in the Persian Empire, eventually spread along the Silk Road into China and flourished for centuries throughout central Asia largely has been forgotten.