Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in Reformed Margins.
There is perhaps no more iconic Chinese American than Jeremy Lin. He’s the embodiment of all our hoop dreams, he got into Harvard, and he’s even a committed Christian! In 2010 he even tweeted that his two favorite books were Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper and Humility by C.J. Mahaney.
Now to the keen observer of American Christianity, Lin’s choice of literature is not only intriguing, but also quite telling. Piper and Mahaney have both played prominent roles within New Calvinism, a theologically conservative and evangelical movement within American Christianity. Hence, Lin’s favorite books indicate what many sociologists, historians, and theologians, and even the Pew Research Center have confirmed: Asian American Christians are predominantly theologically conservative evangelicals, as opposed to liberal mainline Protestants, Roman Catholics, or Eastern Orthodox.
The Question
Why are most Chinese American Christians, today, theologically conservative evangelicals? Why have Chinese American Christians overwhelmingly embraced the authority of Scripture and such doctrines as inerrancy?
Why have they insisted so strongly that Jesus is the only way of salvation? And why is evangelism and conversion so central to their understanding of the church’s mission? Some might say that it’s just because Chinese American Christians simply believe what the Bible says and share its ‘eternal perspective.’ I think the answer is more nuanced.
Five Reasons
1. The Political Climate in China in 1949 & Contextual Theologies
The origin of Chinese American Christianity goes at least as far back as 1853 to the oldest Asian American church in North America. Today it’s known as the Presbyterian Church in Chinatown, a PCUSA congregation (it’s also where my wife and father-in-law both grew up attending).
Before the 1949 Communist victory in China, Chinese nationalism was strong even amongst the Chinese outside of China. The Chinese abroad still largely viewed the Chinese state as the center of Chinese identity. Sharing the fervor of the Chinese Republican Revolution in 1911, Chinese Christians in America placed their hopes in a new and modern China, and liberal Protestant theology was the best contextual fit for these modernistic hopes. That theology approached Scripture with modern scientific assumptions, embraced skepticism concerning the supernatural elements of Christianity, focused on Jesus’ moral and social teachings, and fostered a more ecumenical spirit.
“Chinese Christians in America placed their hopes in a new and modern China, and liberal Protestant theology was the best contextual fit for these modernistic hopes.”
However, when the Communists won the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the hopes of many Chinese nationalists were shattered. In fact, the center of Chinese identity and culture shifted from the central state of China, to the periphery. Instead of looking back to China as their home, many of the Chinese abroad felt like homeless pilgrims.
Conservative Protestant theology became a more suitable contextual theology for these pilgrims. Conservative theology emphasized an other-worldly home and an eternal perspective. It upheld the miraculous, and it proclaimed a strong message of hope and certainty in the future based on a more literal reading of Scripture. The this-worldly hope for a present modern home in China was destroyed, and an other-worldly hope for a future spiritual home in heaven emerged.
2. The Religious Climate in America since the mid-20th century
In America, the mainline churches, in which most of the Chinese American churches started, were beginning to lose interest in this home mission field. The conversion rates were minimal amongst the Chinese in America, and the idea of sending converted Chinese Americans back to China for missions was squashed because of Communist China. Also, along with the rest of the nation, the mainline churches embraced an assimilationist racial ideology. The assumption was that less attention and resources needed to be allocated to ethnic mission churches, since these people groups would eventually assimilate anyway.
Simultaneously, the mainline churches, which were shifting further left on the theological spectrum were in the twilight of their cultural dominance. On the other hand, neo-evangelicalism was birthed in the 1940s, and would soon become the predominant expression of American Protestantism.
Hence, not only were Chinese Americans leaving the mainline denominations that were losing interest in ethnic home missions and becoming more liberal, but evangelicalism was becoming a popular and inviting alternative in America.
3. The U.S. Nationality and Immigration Act of 1965 & Chinese Christianity Abroad
This act lifted the severe restrictions that were placed on Asian immigration. The result was that the Chinese population between 1960 (237k) and 1980 (806k) more than tripled. Today there are more than four million Chinese people in America.
As the Chinese immigrated from Asia, many of them brought their Christian convictions. The shape of Chinese Christianity in China and amongst the Chinese in other parts of Asia was largely conservative and evangelical for a variety of reasons. After all, J. Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission was the largest mission agency in China. Also, the mostly conservative Independent Church Movement thrived after the Communist takeover. These ministries along with such conservative denominations as the Christian & Missionary Alliance and the Southern Baptists even continued to be fruitful amongst the Chinese diasporic populations in Southeast Asia after 1949.
As the Chinese Christians immigrated into America after 1965, many of them started their own churches because there were too many differences between the pre-1965 Chinese Christians in America and the post-1965 ones. While the older and established Chinese churches in America were filled with Cantonese speakers, the new Chinese Christians immigrating to the U.S. were Mandarin speakers. Additionally, the new immigrants were generally of a higher socio-economic status because the Nationality & Immigration Act of 1965 gave preference to highly-skilled and educated immigrants.
On a theological level, many of the new Chinese Christian immigrants also viewed the mainline denominations as bastions of impure theology, compared to their conservative independent churches or the theologically conservative missionaries who taught them in Asia. Hence, between 1952 and 1979, the number of Chinese churches in America grew from 66 to 366. Today there are likely over 1,000 with only a meager minority being in the mainline denominations.
4. The Nature of Evangelicalism
While many Chinese Christians came to the U.S. after 1965, by 1990 and into 2010 one could fairly say that most Chinese Christians in America became Christians after coming to the States. Historically, the most emphasized convictions of evangelicalism are its commitments to Scripture’s authority (biblicism) and to preaching a Christ-centered message (crucicentricism) for the sake of “winning souls” (conversion). These convictions are very attractive to Chinese Americans.
As the Chinese in America (both immigrants and ABCs) wrestle with their multiple identities in America, the evangelical conviction regarding Scripture’s authority comes in handy. While Chinese Americans want to be both Chinese and American, the Bible gives them an authoritative standard by which to negotiate their dual identities. For example, to be more American, Chinese Americans can reject ancestor worship as unbiblical and idolatrous. However, wishing to preserve their Chinese/Confucian values, it is common for Chinese Americans to interpret the 5th commandment more rigidly and with a greater emphasis than other American Christians. Furthermore, in the cross-centered ethos of evangelicalism, many Chinese immigrants find a radically loving God, unlike any other authority figure they ever knew. And for immigrants, the evangelical “born again” rhetoric offers language and categories for a new way of being in America.
It should also be noted that a big reason Chinese American Christians are predominantly evangelical is because evangelicals evangelize far more than non-evangelicals.
5. Asian American College Scene
Not all Asian Americans are the same. The “model minority” narrative is problematic in several ways. Still, it’s fair to ascribe the conservative evangelical orientation of the Chinese American church to Asian American evangelical ministries on campuses across the U.S.
Since the 1970s the campus fellowship/ministry phenomenon took off in response to the cultural upheaval of the 60s. Simultaneously, Asian college attendance tripled in America. In fact, on top of the campus ministries that were always meant to serve Asians specifically, such as Asian American Christian Fellowship (AACF), the two largest and most prominent evangelical campus ministries, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and Campus Crusade for Christ (now Cru), have both launched Asian American chapters on their campuses.
On college campuses, Chinese Americans are religious and ethnic minorities. For many, an Asian American and evangelical identity fusion occurs during college. Reading scientific textbooks in college fuses with InterVarsity’s insistence upon inductive Bible study. Finding like-minded Chinese American friends who like boba fuses with Asian American Christian fellowship activities.
“Such ministries not only attract a sprinkling of immigrants, but more importantly, they bolster both the evangelical identity and the Asian American identities of Chinese Americans.”
After spending such formative years within these rather homogenous Asian evangelical groups, the commonly shared life-narrative continues. Handfuls of Chinese American students secure stable jobs and middle class lifestyles in American suburbs with their top-notch science and engineering degrees. Such relative success often results in embracing the “model minority” status. “If we can succeed, anyone else can.” Furthermore, the suburban lifestyles they lead can shield them from confronting the realities of poverty and social injustice. Such a lifestyle easily lends itself to a kind of Christianity that bifurcates the spiritual from the material. The Christian life becomes all about personal spiritual piety and winning souls.
Another common phenomenon amongst Chinese American evangelicals on college campuses is an interest in New Calvinism. Chinese Americans are becoming close friends with conservative, Reformed, and pietistic Koreans, and devouring Tim Keller, John Piper, D.A. Carson, Wayne Grudem and TGC blogs. In fact, at UCLA, one of the largest campus ministries is Grace on Campus, a ministry of John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church. This campus ministry is almost 75% Chinese and almost 90% Asian, and many of its aspiring pastors go on to attend The Master’s Seminary.
Just search the theological education of those who pastor the largest Chinese churches in the U.S. The most common places of theological education are Talbot School of Theology and Dallas Theological Seminary, both conservative and evangelical. And it is not uncommon for ministers from these schools to point their submissive Asian American successors to these schools as well.
So What?
It’s time we reckoned with the contextual factors that have shaped our beliefs and identities. Insisting that our theological convictions merely stem from our plain and objective reading of the Bible is simplistic. Such an attitude disregards our possible blindspots. Context matters, and must be interrogated.
By interrogating the Chinese American historical context, one finds a variety of reasons why Chinese American Christians have predominantly been drawn to theologically conservative evangelicalism. For this, we have much to be thankful for, but may we never cease to critically examine this Chinese American Christian context with a spirit of humility and with a desire to reform it more and more unto the glory of God.