Aminta Arrington admits readers within the borders of one of the more far-flung Christian groups in China: the Lisu. This minority ethnic population has embraced Christianity in large numbers, now reaching 50 per cent or more. Arrington's study travels beyond the musical ability referred to in the book's title – she guides us expertly through a complex missionary history and Christian theology – but for Arrington, the pleasure that the Lisu people take in singing together and the ways in which this skill dovetails with early Protestant missionary efforts are emblematic of, even metonymic with, their genuine Christian faith.

For readers weary of essentialist Beijing propaganda about the rhythmic skills of Chinese ethnic minorities, and of overblown Christian missionary reports about the receptivity to the Gospel of Chinese minority populations, Arrington's research is an invaluable first-hand tonic. Apparently, the Lisu do excel at singing, but in Arrington's study that skill is not laid at the feet of distant political or religious authorities. These people sing for other reasons: communal, religious, aesthetic. Songs of the Lisu hills provides real insight into Lisu history and religious experience and into the theological possibilities behind those joyful songs.

The evangelisation of the Lisu in Yunnan began in the early 1900s by J. O. Fraser of the China Inland Mission (p. 25). Fraser felt an affinity for the music of the Christian Church (p. 26), and after some early missionary failures, he began to find success among the Lisu with a simplified message: freedom from the evil influences of the animist powers of traditional Lisu religion, atonement for sins through Jesus Christ, simple behavioural guidelines, regular preaching and communal singing (pp. 28–31).

Fraser also created a written script for the Lisu tongue (pp. 32–3). This script, used to the present day in Christian hymnals and Lisu bible translations, has arguably served to unify and preserve Chinese Lisu culture in a manner other Lisu groups in neighbouring countries cannot claim, and has possibly kept the encroachment of centralised Chinese language education and majority-Han cultural hegemony at bay (pp. 60–2). Perhaps equally important, Fraser enforced strict ‘three-self’ guidelines: the Lisu Christians from the earliest days had to be self-supporting, self-governing and self-evangelising (pp. 34–5). This localisation of the Christian religion, later enforced by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for its own reasons, proved to be a subversive boon to religions of foreign origin in China during the post-Mao era.

Though all Chinese Christianity went into hiding during the religious oppression under Mao, Arrington characterises this ‘middle era’ of Lisu Christianity as another kind of pause, a disappearance more complete than other Christian accounts describe due to the communal and public nature of Lisu Christian practice. A Lisu Christian friend named Barnabas tells Arrington, ‘It's not that they didn't believe . . . It's just that their belief could have no biaoxian, no expression’ (p. 127). This pause was not a full cessation without hope of revival, and Arrington details the ‘reclaiming factors’ that led to the reemergence of Lisu Chrisitianity after Mao died in 1976 and China's Reform Era began soon after: seeds of faith retained during the ‘Quiet Years’, aid from the Burmese and Thai Lisu congregations across those borders, and literacy in the written Lisu language among members of the post-1980 generation (pp. 166-8).

This pause and revival leads to a revisiting of early missionary debates regarding the orthodoxy of the Lisu faith. Is Lisu Christian theology overly legalistic, even pharisaical, with its emphasis on identity markers like ‘no smoking and no drinking’? Arrington helpfully compares these restrictions to biblical purity/pollution concepts of the sacred: God's people necessarily remain separate in part through behavioural rituals (ch. iv). If Christian faith among the Lisu is centred around communal practice rather than personal faith, can this be reconciled with Protestant preferences for sola fide assurance of salvation? Arrington explores these controversies thoroughly from the early missionary era through to the present state of Lisu Christian recovery. She comes down in favour of genuine Lisu faith: ‘Christianity is a communal faith that addresses the internal state of the individual heart. And Christianity is an individual faith that is best practiced within the bounds of community’ (p. 140).

Such apologetics satisfy this reader, though I would also approve of a study that did not feel the need to choose sides; any conclusion will inevitably strike adherents of other brands of orthodoxy as controversial and give oxygen to intra-religious disputes. Arrington's case is well-argued, and the western theological debates are saliently punctuated by engaging ethnographic descriptions of her many months living among these Christians and observing their faith in practice. She also includes several engrossing ‘Voices’ interludes, transcribed first-person narratives from her friends and acquaintances in this distant Christian community.

The book at times strikes devotional tones and even seems to echo judgemental missionary perspectives from long ago (pp. xvii, 13, 33, 43, 200). Some readers might want to hear a more complete account of Beijing's state persecution and financial support of minority Christian Churches (pp. 61, 159) as well as more critical consideration regarding what a ‘foreign’ religion not only contributes to, but inevitably erases from traditional culture (pp. 173–4). I recommend that these readers refer to Michele Zack's The Lisu: far from the ruler (Louisville, Co 2017) for a supplementary broad and secular look at the Lisu, Christian and traditional, both in China and as they live in neighbouring countries across the mountains.

CCP propaganda routinely touts the ‘excellent singing and dancing skills’ of China's minority peoples. Are the Lisu truly gifted musicians in some natural sense, and do Lisu Christians experience personal salvation if their religious experience is based primarily in communal rituals like congregational singing? Arrington concludes that the Lisu peoples’ ability and the pleasure that they take in singing harmoniously together are real, but that they should not simply serve as a propaganda talking-point for the central government's multiculturalist goals. Those cultural gifts and communal practices can mean something else: ‘[We] cannot understand Lisu Christianity until we experience a Lisu church sanctuary completely consumed with song’ (p. 201).