PEOPLES OF THE BUDDHIST WORLD
A Christian Prayer Guide
By Paul Hattaway
Piquant. 453 pages. £14.99
ISBN 1 903689 90 2
(Distributed by IVP, freephone 0800 622968)
Produced by the same author as Operation China (and duplicating some of its material), this book presents details of 238 people groups which are largely Buddhist. While some of these are small tribes, it includes the large populations of Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar and China. It is good to have a book drawing attention to Buddhism, from which there have not generally been many converts and which is proving popular among people in Britain and the US.
There is a mass of information here about both the different people groups and approaches to evangelising Buddhists. There are photos on every page and most of these feature individuals who are without Christ. To view Buddhists as a group is to depersonalise them, but the pictures make us realise that these are real people who need to hear the gospel. Various incidents from church history remind us of the failure of Christians to take the gospel to countries like Japan.
