The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints historian Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye has sadly passed away. She died on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, after battling cancer.
She was a senior lecturer in Chinese studies at the University of Auckland and an expert in the social and cultural history of modern China, charismatic global Christianity, and women and religion.
Inouye grew up in Costa Mesa, California, as a fourth-generation Chinese-Japanese American. Her Chinese great-grandfather, Gin Gor Ju, settled in Utah, while her father’s family is originally from Japan.
Her grandparents met and married in a World War II-era Japanese internment camp in Heart Mountain, Wyoming.
She graduated magna cum laude in East Asian studies from Harvard College in 2003, delivering the Harvard Oration at the class day graduation exercises. In 2011, she received her PhD in East Asian languages and civilizations from Harvard University.
Inouye lived in Xiamen, China, while researching and writing her dissertation, and was affiliated with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences from 2009 to 2010.
She served as an associate editor of the Mormon Studies Review and frequently contributed on topics of religion. Oxford University Press published her book “China and the True Jesus: Charisma and Organization in a Chinese Christian Church” in 2019.
