Contextual Theology: Education that Prepares Chinese Christians for the Challenges They Face
House church Christians in China face many challenges in their daily faith journey. Dilemmas arise from broader societal issues, such as cultural incongruence and a pervasive spiritual vacuum, as well as issues specific to the house church identity, centered around a posture of resistance. Both these areas need to be addressed; all create powerful disorienting features. These challenges also present an opportunity for house church Christians to learn, grow, and be transformed. Theological education in the house church context must factor in these contextual elements, encourage students to theologize within their communities, and find biblical solutions.
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Contextual Theology: The Voice of the House Church Must Be Heard
Theology that answers contextual questions is important—but who gets to pick which questions are important? Are they being answered within the contextual “soil” by those who grew up in that soil? Those inside the soil may choose to converse with different theological voices abroad based on the needs that face them…Are inside voices choosing the content of the theological conversation? Or is that content being thrust upon them? There needs to be a recognition of both the beauty and the fallen-ness of culture whereby we are both purveyors and critics of it. If this is how we measure contextualization, then the voice of the house church must be heard, for their theology is a significant contributor to the conversation.
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Go and Make Disciples, Part Two: Thriving, Not Merely Surviving
One leader said, “Under persecution, we recognize our own heart. We are lovers of the world. We love the world more than we love the Lord. We do not want to bear the cross; we love the middle class life. We were converted and learned Christianity with missionaries from South Korea and the U.S. Now, we realize that we deeply desired the lifestyle of those missionaries. Under persecution, we do not want to bear the cross for the Lord. The way of the cross of our older generation is now truly our path. We need to follow our fathers and our grandfathers in this way. We need to become followers of Christ by his cross. We need to repent; leaders as well as congregations.”
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Go and Make Disciples, Part One: Faithfully Implementing Their Orders In All Circumstances
Church members face different pressures. They are asked by their bosses and their communities to stop going to the unregistered church, but to go to the official church. If they do not, there are different kinds of harassment. The first layer is, the government might terminate utilities, water, electricity, and gas for the Sunday worship place. They could also do this for individual people’s houses. This is common and normal; people may have no gas and no heat, even in the winter. The government also tries to pressure the landlord to push the churches out of their rental space for Sunday worship. If a landlord allows anyone to rent their space for Sunday worship, nowadays there is a fine for about $30,000.
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Parenting as Discipleship, Part 2: God Uses Our Parenting to Ask Us to Reflect on Our Heart
Because of the importance of having face—wanting to present themselves in the best way—a lot of times they focus on what is happening on the outside, but miss the heart. That is a big gap we see. They parent their kids the way they were taught as a child. Chinese emphasize doing good for others in order to maintain relationships, and the goal of personal duty is to achieve good in community. There is a heavy emphasis on personal behavior and sacrifice. We also grew up in the teaching that if we did not do well outwardly, we would be punished. These values affect the understanding of the connection between God and themselves when they become Christians. They understand God in a very legalistic way: “I have to do this; if I don’t, God will punish me.” Although their theology tells them otherwise, they live their lives focusing, not on God’s grace, but on that they did something wrong. “God is punishing me, that is why I lost my job. This is happening because I am not doing well and I’m not pleasing God.” We are indoctrinated into that way of living.
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Parenting as Discipleship, Part 1: Address Both the Heart and the Behaviors
When kids engage in sinful behaviors, we need to address both the heart and the behaviors. We do this by helping them understand the problems of their behavior, the connection between their hearts and their behavior, how the behaviors reveal their relationship with God, correcting them, and inviting them to rebuild their relationship with God. Discipline (this is not the same thing as spanking) is also used, not as a means of punishment, but to help the children to realize their sinful actions break down their relationships with both men and God. Consequences that fit the crime are given to help the children remember the effects of sin. However, the conversation needs to continue, to help the children realize the cross is much bigger and covers their sin. Parents need to help children to realize there is hope after admitting their sin, and our merciful, patient, loving Father invites them to go back to him. Discipline of sinful behaviors is not the final solution—inviting them to rebuild a relationship with God is.
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Between Loss and Hope: Qing Ming and Easter
The irony of the day not only consisted of us intentionally visiting cemeteries on Easter Sunday, but also in showing us how little my two worlds related to one another. Almost none of my relatives knew that earlier that morning I had just preached at a predominately white church. If they did, they would assume that my vocation as a pastor only reflected how much I had assimilated into the white Protestant culture. On the other hand, most of our church friends had probably never even heard of a holiday called Qing Ming. They do not know much about that side of my life. But for us, the differences between East and West, and the contrast between life and death, all converged in our little family on that Easter Sunday.
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Contemporary Issues for Chinese Women
On the outside China seems like any other modern country…But underneath the veneer of modernity and high-tech gadgets, the government still wields incredible control over individuals’ lives. In this big brother type of surveillance state it is risky to be a Christian. It is well known that in recent years, persecution against any group that is deemed a threat to the government has been systematically targeted and been subject to a major crackdown—Buddhists, Uyghurs, and Christians. This fact is felt acutely by the locals. The difference between us in the West and them is this persecution is normal and they have always found ways to remain faithful and thrive.
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The Changes Brought by Gospel Renewal
Influenced by fundamentalism, as well as traditional moral culture, the teachings of the traditional church emphasized suffering and personal piety. All pastors were projected to be spiritually strong men without greed, selfish evil desires, or weakness…
What is the gospel? The gospel is salvation. No matter how strong I am, I am still a sinner in need of salvation.
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Going Wider: Praying for the Gospel to Spread in China
As we pray for ministry in China this year, will you join us in praying that the gospel would go wider? Pray that the church in China would be deeply-rooted in the person of Jesus, and that these deep roots would lead to great fruit. Pray that more churches would be planted and that the lost would be found. Pray that, even in this season of darkness, the church would shine as a light in this dark world, boldly proclaiming that Jesus Christ is our king!
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