God's Renegade: Karl Gutzlaff: China's Most Controversial Missionary, Drug Dealer & Spy

Would you sacrifice everything you own to help people who would forever hate you?Karl Gutzlaff sacrificed his citizenship, his family, and even gave his life on the mission field to share the name Jesus Christ and in the end was vehemently hated by many of his contemporaries. Many today have never heard of him, and those who have heard of him only know what has been written about him: that he was a failure and a fraud. However in truth, Karl Gutzlaff might be the single most influential figure in the history of China.Karl isn’t remembered fondly, and many mission history books purposefully omit his name, but his legacy is stubbornly impossible to erase. His opponents and most of his fellow missionaries denigrated him as a charlatan, a fraud, a drug dealer, a colonialist, and a liar.They weren’t wrong, but they also weren’t entirely right.For someone who was so transformational, it is amazing how little has been written about him. Despite the criticism and controversy there was one who did give Karl the credit he was owed—none other than Hudson Taylor, who referred to Karl as the “grandfather of the China Inland Mission.” Read more