China is always in the news these days and our University is a part of it. It was reported in our Seminary’s “Campus News” that GS (professor of theology at our Seminary’s west coast campus) traveled to Hong Kong and China in June, 2007.
The article quotes Dr. S making statements about Chinese culture and the history of Christianity in China. Before hearing what he said, let’s look at why he is qualified to speak authoritatively on those topics.
First, he taught a short course to 34 conservative evangelical students from Australia, New Zealand, North America, Indonesia, China, and Hong Kong.
Second, he traveled to China! According to the article, he spent his time in China “visiting [our university's] alumni”.
Finally, he arrived in Xi’an, China and looked at the Nestorian Tablet.
Now, let’s hear some of the things the article had to say.
He reports that “the atheistic Communist regime that came to power in 1949 has effectively ripped the soul out of Chinese society.”
Wow! We all suspected that this was true but now we have it from an insider: Chinese society has had its soul ripped out over the last sixty years. The one person who would be in touch with the soul of the Chinese people if there were one tells us that there is no such thing. Sad. So sad. But true. And expected. I mean, you would expect to hear this from a conservative evangelical since we all know it’s true. But to hear it from an expert on China is humbling.
But what about this Nestorian Tablet? The Nestorian Tablet is a large stone inscription written in the 8th century telling about the Nestorian “Christians” who presented a version of Christianity to China that led to the conversion of many including some Emperors.
Dr. S is quoted as saying this about the Tablet:
According to [Dr. S], the “version of the Christian faith it records is highly contextualized—so much so, in fact, that it contains no reference to the atoning death of Christ.”
“Contextualized” is a generous word to use of a “version” of “Christianity” that doesn’t even mention the atoning death of Christ.
I took the trouble to look up a translation of the text on the Tablet so that you can see how warped “Christianity” can become when it is utterly contextualized.
On what distinguished these “Christians” from other people, the Tablet says:
they do not keep slaves, but put noble and mean all on an equality; they do not amass wealth, but cast all their property into the common stock; they fast, in order to perfect themselves by self-inspection; they submit to restraints, in order to strengthen themselves by silent watchfulness…
Describing a high ranking convert, it says:
although he was a private chamberlain, he assumed no distinction on the march; … he distributed the wealth conferred upon him, not accumulating treasure for his private use; he made offerings of the jewelry which had been given by imperial favor, he spread out a golden carpet for devotion;… moreover, practising the discipline of the Illustrious Religion, he distributed his riches in deeds of benevolence; … the sick were attended to and restored; the dead were buried in repose; even among the most pure and self-denying of the Buddhists, such excellence was never heard of; …
Obviously, this is the furthest thing from the True Context-Free Christianity that we conservative evangelicals practice. It has always upset me that everybody wants to put the label “Christianity” on themselves even when their message has nothing to do with Christ or His Ministry.
But, I have some theories related to this.
First, it is said that Chinese culture is much more community-oriented than ours. We have Christian values such as selfish ambition and individuality. They have communist “values” such as sharing, community, and self-sacrifice for the sake of others.
I wonder whether the Nestorian “Christians” might have intentionally distorted the message of Jesus in order to make it appeal to the Chinese. This might be justifiable. Paul talks about being a Roman in Rome. Maybe they were secretly trying to get on the good side of the naturally depraved Chinese so that they could later present the Truth.
On the other hand, it is possible that these Nestorian “Christians” had gotten their highly contextualized version of “Christianity” before they arrived in China. In those days, the Holy Spirit had not had time to steer the church away from all of the heresies that were floating around. We have the advantage of two thousand years to be led by the Holy Spirit away from the highly contextualized Christ of the first century, away from the early “Christian” practice of sharing everything, and toward the True Context-Free Christ.
If I’m right about this, then it is conceivable that Chinese culture has been influenced by their “Christian” philosophy, which was little more that communism put into the mouth of Jesus. That’s scary. That all the evil over there might have been the result of a corruption of the Truth of the True meaning of Christianity.
Let this be a warning to all of us. Don’t be sucked in to some contextualized version of Christianity! Always check your doctrine against the most recent conservative evangelical commentaries! Be particularly wary of the ancient, context-laden versions of Christianity in which people cared more about the hungry and the poor than they did about the atoning death and resurrection of Christ.
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