Christianity in the New Asia

That’s the subtitle of the recently premièred film 1040, a documentary from director Evan Jackson Leong and producers Anson Ho and Carl Choi. The teaser trailer’s worth watching—here’s the promotional brief:

1040 is an explosive documentary that focuses on the rapid changes in Asia and the significant shift of spiritual landscape in the area known as the “10/40 Window”- the regions between 10 degrees and 40 degrees North Latitude on the eastern hemisphere. In the film, artist and minister Jaeson Ma takes us on an exciting journey through the Asian countries in the window, showing us the dramatic changes happening on the ground. We visit China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Indonesia. Through incisive observations, intimate interviews with prominent leaders and celebrities, and powerful, never-before-heard stories, 1040dynamically explores a part of our globe that is experiencing vast socioeconomic expansion and profound shift in identity- it is an area that is now nothing less than the frontier of world Christianity.

Christian evangelism is a sore spot for many Buddhists, both in Asia and abroad. Buddhism is a long-established religion in Asia, a status that comes with great benefits as well as pernicious institutionalized drawbacks. That’s another post for another time, but I suppose this film lends me to dwell more on the sable clouds than on the silver lining. Thanks to the Angry Asian Man for this link. (Update: It wasn’t clear, but I’m happy for Asia’s Christian community—it’s just that this feeds into mixed feelings overall…)