Struggles Without and Within

By Esther Liu

My Personal Story

Growing up in the early 1960s in Taiwan, I lived uncomfortably between two seemingly incompatible, even contradictory worlds: a physical and scientific world versus an animistic and superstitious world. At home, I was raised by a mother who was trained in Western medicine. At school, I was taught strictly science and evolution. Sickness was caused by viruses and bacteria, not evil spirits. Misfortunes in life were results of one’s own actions and decisions, not decided by fate or unseen spirits.

However, just a short walk away from my house and school, I entered into a completely different world. It was a world littered with temples and shrines for the local gods and goddesses. Either big or small, those that had reputations for “working miracles” were always filled with people, praying, hoping, and negotiating with some higher power about something in their lives. It is also a world where many people would give birth, get married, be buried, move, travel, or open or close for business only after they had consulted a fortune-telling expert in “counting days and times.” Anything and everything was alive with spirits; I had to learn to live with them.

For most of my young life I chose to believe in science and all the advancement it had brought to the human race, but deep inside the nagging voice of another world, of another reality, was never too far from my thoughts and heart. When my oldest sister’s life ended abruptly one night (she was seventeen), I experienced firsthand how death could not only take away the one who died, but also destroy all who were left behind. Medical advances did not save my sister, and science could do nothing to lift the thick, black cloud that has covered my entire family since then. Where did she go after death? What is the point of living if we are all going to die at the end, only some sooner, and some later? Why is there so much pain, suffering, and untimely death around us? Questions were raised but could no longer be answered by science or logic. Being introduced to the Good News of Jesus Christ a few years later in high school only deepened the struggles within: how could a “foreign/western” God be the solution to life? What had “sins” to do with the ugliness and meaninglessness of this world? Most importantly, why had an all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful God sat around and let the people he created suffer?

Then, in my last year in college after four years of Bible studies with Christian friends, I thought that I had finally found the answers when I experienced the liberating power of God’s salvation. I went from believing in science to believing that spiritual freedom was the answer to all human pain and suffering. The truth of the Gospel was so real and powerful that I decided to give up my doctoral study in science and transfer to Fuller Theological Seminary to be trained as God’s servant about four years later.

As the years went by, however, I got more deeply involved in people’s lives, and the longer I served, the more restless I became. Too many devoted and faithful Christians struggled with sins, with their marriages, with their families, with emotional issues, and their own hurting past. Too many good and “born again” Christian leaders who prayed, studied the Bible, and served in the church lived unfulfilling lives. In frustration, I turned to Christian psychology and counseling, which seemed to open new doors into understanding and finding solutions for the human condition and suffering in this fallen world. I wondered, “Is psychology the final answer to it all?”

My “intellectual juggling” was paired with the struggles in my personal life. As a Chinese, a woman, and a Christian, I was a minority among minorities living in a strange land. The journey toward understanding who I am and especially who I am in Christ has been truly long and hard. I took a sabbatical from public ministry from 1996 to 1998, tired from the struggles without and within. It was during that period of time that I finally realized I needed to integrate my deeply rooted cultural background, years of science training, all my theological understanding, and counseling experience into my understanding about personhood and about God.

The more I studied the Word of God (especially the life of Jesus), the more I realized that God does not see me as just a physical being (as evolution science has taught me to believe), or just a spiritual being (as I learned in many churches), or just an “emotional being” (as some men would categorize women), or just a social being (as my Chinese cultural roots would dictate). God created me in his own image and likeness: complex and dynamic, multi-dimensional and wonderfully integrated. I am all of the above and more! I did not come from a vacuum, but from a specific time period, family, and culture. Instead of a single dimension and stagnant being, I am constantly growing and changing and being changed by my interaction with people, with other cultures, with my environment, and with God. This article (and the next nine in this series) is the fruit that emerged from a very personal desire to be whole and to live as one integrated being, as well as from a deep longing to see God’s people living abundant lives as Jesus promised in John 10:10.

Story of the Chinese Churches in North America

Based on the research data and over fifteen years of personal ministry within the church, I believe that I am not alone in my journey. According to the North American Mission handbook (1) there are over one thousand Chinese churches in the United States (another two hundred in Canada) at the present time. As the growth rate of Chinese churches has been outpacing the growth of the Chinese population in the United States, only 8-10% of Chinese in the United States are Christians (2). This data translates into many small and struggling churches. The same phenomenon can also be observed in Canada.

With the impressive growth in the number of Chinese churches in North America after 140-plus years of history in the background, some questions and concerns remained. First, how effective has the Chinese church ministry been or will it be, since only 8-10% of the Chinese population in North America is Christian? If the church ministry has not been effective, then why? What kind of Christians have the Chinese churches been producing? Finally, how could the Chinese churches improve and change so that their ministries reach out to more Chinese in the name of Christ?

I would also like to point out two other unique phenomena of Chinese churches in North America: first, according to Philip Teng (3), 50% of Chinese churches have been produced through schism. This is also part of the reason that most Chinese churches are so small, lack harmony, and continue to struggle in ministry. When people first came to America, they struggled spiritually, politically, and culturally. However, Chinese churches, lacking a wholistic (4) approach to ministry, have neglected the linguistic, cultural, and political differences among her people. According to Liu’s research on the Chinese churches in the Los Angeles area, Chinese churches often had inadequate church programs to deal with real people in real culture facing real life difficulties (5). When conflicts arose due to those differences, emotions ran deep and wide. Ugly splitting of the congregation often followed.

This is a phenomenon that Chinese church leadership ought to look at honestly and openly. How can Chinese churches address their people’s needs in a more wholistic way? How can Chinese churches produce more mature disciples of Christ who can live and thrive in unity with one another as the body of Christ?

Second is a long-standing but much-neglected topic: the retention and growth of their next generation. Helen Lee’s article on Silent Exodus pointed out that many of the young Asian Americans “find their immigrant churches irrelevant, culturally stifling, and ill equipped to develop them spiritually for life in the multicultural 1990s” (6). The most alarming data is that those who left their parents’ ethnic churches rarely joined any other churches.

The following statistical data only show the disheartening details of how Chinese churches have been consistently losing 80-90% of their youth. In 1974, close to 60% of Chinese in the United States were American-born Chinese (ABC), and about 37.3% of ABCs were in Chinese churches (7). By 1980, there were one million Chinese in the United States, and 53% of the Chinese population was ABC. However, the ABC Christian population dropped to 22% of the Chinese population (8). The latest data available from Samuel Ling in 1996 (9), then director of the Institute for Chinese Studies at Wheaton (IL) College, estimated that only about 4% of ABCs, who constitute 50% of the United States Chinese population who are citizens, were integrated into the Chinese church.

Looking at the ABC ministry issues from another angle, one finds that there is also a severe shortage of ABC pastors, and the number of churches seeking ABC pastors far exceeds the number of candidates. The problem is exacerbated by the dropping out of ABC pastors, which has been a subject of alarm for pastors and church leaders (10).

According to the 2000 census, there were 2.4 million Chinese in the United States (11), and ABCs were still about 50% of all Chinese citizens in the United States. The question would be how many ABCs are now Christians and why have they decided to leave (12)? How can the Chinese churches stop this “silent exodus” that has happened for the past few decades? What does the leadership in Chinese churches (mostly OBC) have to do to retain and grow our next generation?

There are many factors contributing to the struggles of the Chinese churches observed above, ranging from deep rooted cultural baggage to the influence of western theology to leadership deficiencies within the Chinese churches. In the next article, I would like to discuss three specific factors that center on spiritual formation. It is far from complete, but a limited discussion in the area of wholistic Christian formation will be given.

Here is just a simple list of three factors: the first factor that I observed is a predominantly “Word-centered” ministry that confines Christian faith and growth to an intellectual exercise and minimizes the process of sanctification to be personally experienced and lived. Second is the shame culture combined with skepticism about counseling and psychology that deny the emotional part of the being and stifle authentic relationships. Third, ignoring the generational and cultural gap between ABC (American-Born Chinese) and OBC (Overseas-Born Chinese) has also been tearing families and churches apart. Addressing these issues directly and wholistically at the body, soul, mind, emotional, and social and cultural level is essential for cultivating a true follower of Christ among Chinese living in North America.

The Invitation

Through the following nine articles, I would like to invite you to join me in starting the journey back to “Shalom” (wholeness and wellness) and to the abundant life that God intends for us to live. Step by step, we will let Jesus’s own life examples inspire us, and let God’s light shine into the darkest places of our souls. We will name the darkness and be freed from its grip, we will receive God’s Word in a new and wholistic way with all its life-changing and forming power, and we can celebrate the goodness and great mercy of God!

References
1. A. Earl Parvin, Missions in North America [handbook online] (North American Missions, 2003, accessed May 2006) chapter 6; available from www.anamissions.org; Internet.
2. Mary Robert Daban, “Harmony, Identity, Pragmatism: Chinese Christians in North America” [translated and abbreviated article online] Tripod 24, no. 135 (Winter 2004), www.hsstudy.org.hk/webpage/tripod; Internet.
3. Philip Teng, “Chinese Churches in the Eighties: A Projection,” Chinese Churches Today (Hong Kong) (January 1980): 4.
4. “Wholistic” instead of “holistic” is used in this serial of articles for the following two reasons: First, the word “holistic” has been used and many times over-used or misused in various contexts. People read about “holistic” with preconceived assumptions that are far from what is intended to say here. Second, “wholistic” directly conveys the meaning of “Shalom”: the wholeness and wellness which I believe is what God wants all Christians to experience and to become.
5. Liu, “A Comparative Study,” 60.
6. Helen Lee, “Silent Exodus,” Christianity Today 40, no. 9 (1996): 50.
7. Owyang, “The Chinese Church,” 139.
8. Pang, “Build Up His Church,” 11.
9. Samuel Ling, [database online] (Institute for Chinese Studies, Wheaton (IL) College, 1996, accessed May 2006); available from www.chinahorizon.org or www.AsianAmericancenter.org; Internet.
10. Justin Der, “ABC Pastor Discouragement and Dropout: A Study Based on the Responses of 64 Pastors” [information online] (Stanford University, 2001, accessed August 2006); available from geocities.com/justinder/abc.html; Internet. See also Samuel Ling, The Chinese Way of Doing Things (San Gabrield, CA: China Horizon, 1999), 15-48, 100.
11. U.S. Census, 2000.
12. According to James Theodore Pricskett, “Toward Retaining ABC Youth in the Chinese American Church” (ThM thesis, Fuller Theological Seminary, 1997), 49, one of the biggest reasons that ABC left the OBC churches where they had grown up was the cultural differences.