Rev. Gao Ying, China Christian Council
1. What are the most burning issues you are facing regarding the role of churches in your society?
In the Chinese mainland, it is impossible to address the role of the churches in Chinese society without having the issue of gospel and culture in mind. Being one of the world’s ancient countries, with a history of thousands of years, Chinese traditional culture largely shaped by its age-old different schools of philosophy still lingers on and can never be erased from ordinary Chinese people’s daily life. Chinese people still remain Chinese in a very real, pervasive and subtle way. Christianity was brought to China in modern time when other schools of thought and religions had long been embedded on Chinese soil. With 400 years of Catholicism and 200 years of Protestantism, compared with two and a half millennia of Confucianism and Daoism, 2000 years of Buddhism and 1300 years of Islam, Christianity is a teenager, and thus, is a very young, small and yet non-dominant religion in China. In such a milieu, to determine the role of churches in society, we cannot help but first relate it to the relationship between Christ and Culture. Which model should we follow: Christ against Culture, Christ of Culture, Christ above Culture, Christ and Culture in Paradox, or Christ the Transformer of Culture? (Niebuhr, Christ and Culture) Or is one of these codified models sufficient for Chinese churches to follow? Do we need to create a new model that is truly contextual? These, under the umbrella question of gospel and culture, are both traditional and new issues for Chinese churches to ponder before they come to an understanding of the role of churches in society.
As mentioned above, Chinese churches are not only young, but also small and non-dominating , which means that Christians in China comparing with the population are in a tiny minority and their social, political, economic and moral influence on society is not quite strong. According to a recent progressive statistics given by some Chinese sociologists, Christians in China of both registered and non-registered churches are less than 40 million, which is less than 3% of the total population. The majority of Christians are still in the rural areas, which parallels with 60% of the Chinese people are of rural population. Among these Christians, there are many who are poor-educated, with low-income and old in age. Although with its rapid growth, Christians have expanded from rural areas to cities, from elderly people and women to young adults, from poor educated people to well educated intellectuals, and from people with lower income to wealthy people, generally speaking, Christianity in Chinese society is still at a marginalized stage. How can a marginal group have a role to play in society? What role should the churches play in society, which directly or indirectly has marginalized the churches? Should the churches strive to be in the center of society in order to play an influential role? Again, these are issues challenging Chinese church when we deal with the question of the role of churches in society.
With such a cultural and historical background and the contemporary social status, does it mean that the churches in China do not have an important role to play in society? The answer is, No. As incarnation has been seen as divine marginalization, a marginal church can especially learn from the marginal Jesus to exert profound influence on others. The social, political and economic status of Jesus and his loneliness, powerlessness and humility has offered us particular insight to learn how to grow strong from being small and weak, and to grow mature from being young. (Jung Young Lee, Marginality: The Key to Multicultural Theology, 1995) The issue remains for the churches in China is how to transform the seemly disadvantage of marginalization into an advantage of playing a positive role in society. The churches should take the advantage of having the experience of being marginalized to help those who also belong to the marginalized, who are cared by Jesus. With diverse ancient schools of philosophical and religious thought as well as contemporary trends of thought including neo-Marxism and the borrowing of Western values, another issue remains for the churches in China is how to advocate the spirit of mutual respect in a pluralistic society in order to have a better role to play in society.
2. How can the fellowship of member churches support the churches in the situation you are facing?
An important way for the fellowship of member churches to support the Chinese churches is to try to understand our situation through careful listening. With a good understanding of our situation, it is not so likely for some member churches to make any judgment according to their own context or criterion. With a reasonable understanding of our situation, the fellowship can offer the support of what we really need, not the support of what is thought that is needed.
Solidarity from the fellowship is always needed. One way of the embodiment is to have joint projects of social service toward those who are in need and who suffer injustice. The social service may include poverty and disaster relief, overcoming domestic violence, helping with school-less children and so forth. This will help the churches better understood in our society and further help to expand the role of Chinese churches in society.
3. In which regard and how can your experience enrich and be of relevance to the fellowship?
Since there is no such thing as “theology”; there is only contextual theology, (Stephen B. Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology, 2004) each church is a contextual church. In the pluralistic global village, on the one hand, there is much in common for the global villagers, on the other, each villager is shaped by her context. Hence, there is no one single standard of ways of doing things. Listen carefully to others’ stories and respect one another’s different stories is a spirit of being in fellowship. The awareness of differences and the respect of diversity are always conducive to building up a strong fellowship.
Though the churches in China are young, small and not strong, our experience is not all negative. There is much for the young, small and invisible to accomplish. We have accomplished much in the last 3 decades within our context, and there is much more for us to accomplish. We never take our marginal status as an excuse of being lazy, rather, we try to overcome difficulties and move forward step by step. Being faithful to our Lord and persistent in broadening our vision and participating in God’s mission is our conviction. There is no church in the world that is always mature, big and strong in all aspects. Our experience may be a good company for those who feel young, small or weak in some aspects, during certain period of time.
