Chinese Heritage in British Christianity: More than Foreigners’, edited by Alexander Chow – a Review. # 196. 01/04/2025.
Out of Many, One People.
Welcome, to fairly new ground for this blog, which has not previously directly covered Chinese people in Britain. But this book is a good introduction as was its enjoyable launch. Many thanks to the organisers.
‘Chinese Heritage in British Christianity: More than Foreigners’, edited by Alexander Chow – a Review
First of all, I must declare a marginal interest. My wife, from a Hindu family in Malaysia, became a Christian in part because of reading Enid Blyton’s ‘Life of Jesus’ borrowed from Ipoh public library. But alongside of that, Chinese Christian school-friends provided important encouragement, care and fellowship. (Indeed, the gospel spreads under the radar of most formal and systematised mission coverage). So, I have warm feelings towards Chinese Christianity.
It was a joy to be present at the presentation of the book at its launch last Friday, and informative and enriching to read the book.
The Context.
The book’s context was in large part shaped by post-2021 migration from Hong Kong which led to a substantial increase in the numbers of both Chinese people, and Christians in Britain (who were increasing by 0.7% annually 2011-21, and by 14.4% from 2021-23). One consequence is tension between those from Hong Kong over against those with mainland backgrounds, leading to a Cantonese/Mandarin divide. These backgrounds tend to dominate the book, with less reference to other diasporas, notably in south-east Asia. Yet Singapore in particular is significant, both for Anglicans, where Bishop Moses Tay played a central role at the 1997 Lambeth conference in leading resistance to the organisers’ pressure over same-sex relationships; and also in the wider perception of ‘Chinese’, where it was the venue for the 2018 cartoonish film ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ (which included a passing side-swipe at ‘prosperity’ theology).
The other backdrop to the book is Covid, which as well as disrupting church life and relationships, also led to an upsurge in anti-Chinese racism – a reality that is referred to at several points in the book.
The Content.
The book is divided into three Parts’. In ‘Re-examining the Past and Present’ Alexander Chow gives a historical survey of British Chinese Christianity. A fascinating and sobering study of ‘Chinese History in English Churches: Monuments, Memorials and the Questions they Raise’ by Renie Chow Choy reveals the insouciant honouring in church memorials of British military aggression in China, notably in the Opium Wars. Yinxuan Huang gives an uncontroversial account of ‘Contemporary British Chinese Christianity: Religious and Social Characteristics’, based on his research for the Bible Society.
‘Reforming Identity and Spirituality’ begins with an overview by James So: ‘Forever Foreigners: Missio Dei for the British Born Chinese’, outlining the issues facing Chinese Christians here. It would have been illuminating to have the generalisations spelled out in case studies. Mark Nam’s partly autobiographical ‘Called by Name: A British Born Chinese Perspective on Identity and Calling in the Church of England’, which, against the book’s overall stream, calls on Chinese Christians to join the Church of England. Calida Chu locates the specific post-2021 situation in ‘Beyond the Lion Rock Spirit: A New Expression of British Hong Kongese Christianity’.
‘Re-Imagining Community and Church’ begins with the book’s most downbeat article ‘Beyond the Balance Sheet: A Ministry Reflection on Mainland Chinese Student Ministry in the UK’, delineating the difficulties of such ministry, but also with the spiritually mature recognition that ‘success’ is not our ultimate criteria. ‘Be Not Conformed to This Land: A Pastoral Theology for Migrants’ by Kam Yu is also challenging – an account of an ultimately unsuccessful partnership between a Methodist church and a post-2021 congregation of Hong Kong immigrants. The articles by Alexander Chow and Josh Shek I will cover in ‘Takeaways’.
Themes
* Faithfulness.
‘”Fuzzy Christians” are rare in Chinese churches’ (p 60) is a conclusion from Yinxuan Huang’s survey – over half engage at least ‘almost weekly’ in private prayer, bible engagement and communal gathering. Overall 50.3% identify as Evangelical, with 9.3% Charismatic/Pentecostal and 7.4% Liberal. His very thorough survey summarises the ‘4-D’ shape of Chinese Christianity in Britain as dynamic, decentralised, devoted and diverse (p 65).
In the text this results in thoughtful and creative use of scripture applied to the situation of British Chinese Christians. James So sees in 1 Peter 2 the delineation of ‘a new Christian ethnicity’ (p 86). Mark Nam portrays Moses not as bi-cultural but as brought up as an Egyptian and severed from his cultural heritage but restored to that Hebrew heritage through his ‘divine encounter with God and his re-adoption under God’s covenant’ (p102). Calida Chu sees in the book of Numbers a paradigm of ‘God-on-the-move’ for migratory Hong Kongers. All the authors offer extensive lists of footnotes, which point to a fascinating but daunting roster of books that I fear will take me several years to read.
* Identity.
As the title suggests, having Chinese heritage but living in Britain raises issues of identity which is a recurring theme throughout the book, both by authors with fairly brief experience in Britain to those whose families here go back a few generations. A number of themes appear. In different ways authors express the need to negotiate a dual identity. There is a common adherence to retaining a Chinese identity, perhaps sustained by experiences of racism, even though there are also frequent references to the diversity of experiences of being Chinese. However, Alexander Chow’s remark that ‘To put it simply, the British Chinese churches exist today because mainstream British populations didn’t welcome or engage these earlier generations’ (p 19) is putting it too simply, and fails to recognise the pull of cultural affinity that draws migrant groups, including Christians, towards the familiar. Interestingly, marrying someone of another ethnicity – widespread amongst African Caribbeans, and a live issue with South Asians – is hardly referred to, though it occurs frequently amongst Chinese people in Britain.
Yet that identity is everywhere seen as secondary to a Christian identity, thus the use of the biblical passages mentioned above. In this respect the experience of being a stranger, enhances the security of being in Christ. Calida Chu writes: ‘God, who is on the move with God’s people, is the source of comfort for migrants, and the church community is their extended family in the new land’ (p 118). Her section on ‘Walking through the wilderness with Deus Migrator’ helpfully connects migrant experience with the very nature of the God we worship. (My Blog # 164 ‘Migrants as a Means of Grace’ 18/06/2024 looks at how Israel’s experience of ‘the heart of a stranger’ should underlie the spirituality of all Christians).
Two takeaways.
In a collection of generally high standard articles, two struck me as of outstanding value and relevance for the church in Britain and further afield, and which deserve widespread attention well beyond specific interest in Chinese Christianity. Alexander Chow’s ‘Beyond the Immigrant Church vs Local Church Dichotomy: Towards an Internetworked Church’ is an exploratory attempt to theorise the central ecclesiological question of the place of ethnically specific churches in the overall economy of Christian mission, fellowship and worship in this country – an issue which long established churches have still given little serious theological attention, despite the proliferation of such churches in the last seventy years. His ‘internetworked church’ is something of a work in progress, but is innovative in recognising that a post-Covid world has enhanced the potential of digital technologies for creating an increasingly wide variety of expressions and interactions. In this respect I liked Yinxuan Hang’s reference to Chinese ‘nested congregations’ within an English speaking church (p 56). (My blog # 95 on ‘One Church, Many Cultures – Different Models’, 01/11/2022, looks at one possible model for combining unity and ethnic diversity in one locality). But James So’s ‘landscape . .of different homogenous churches which . . . rarely share any significant interaction’(p 75) is simply false in my experience to what is happening in London.
Bert Han’s short but stimulating ‘Conclusion’ essay also addresses the church formation theme, receiving Harvey Kwiyani’s rebuke to ‘monocultural churches’ but arguing for ‘church’ as not a ‘home’ but a ‘village’ gathering and giving space for different forms and expressions. But my conclusion after several decades of working tirelessly to develop a cohesive ‘village’ consisting of varied churches is that the ‘homes’ will always (and perhaps rightly) follow their own separate agendas, unless there is some form of episcopal authority over the ‘village’.
The stand-out article in whole collection, and which was for me the most inspiring and faith-enlarging, was Josh Shek’s ‘A New Family: Pauline Adoption and its Contribution Towards a British Chinese Christian Identity’, drawing on his Ph D research at London School of Theology. Shek seeks to upgrade the significance of adoption as God’s children as a consequence of Jesus’s death on the cross, not replacing but alongside the legal framing of substitutionary atonement in western theology. His dense article roots this in Pauline passages, noting that derivatives of ‘shame’ are twice as frequent as those of ‘guilt’ in the New Testament. He draws out the significance of adoption for Chinese culture in terms of ‘concerns about familial acceptance, public honour and right relationships’ (p 182). But the emphasis on adoption has much more widespread beneficial consequences, so that whilst addressing particular concerns of Chinese people more broadly it may also ‘contribute towards a widening of the evangelical perspective on salvation by helping cultivate a mixed economy of soteriological appreciation’ (p191).
Both these articles are important as offering from a Chinese perspective ecclesiological and soteriological understandings which are of value to the whole church. Whilst theologies from other ethnic perspectives, such as ‘black’ theology, albeit for strong historical reasons, can be presented adversarially (see Blog # 58 reviewing Robert Beckford’s ‘Duppy Conqueror), these articles are developmental – adding to and taking forward the whole worldwide project of theology.
Ways Ahead.
This collection is consciously presented as the first not the final word from British Chinese Christianity. As a white, English outsider can I suggest ways in which I personally would be interested to see it taken forward?
* Chinese success.
In Britain Chinese pupils on free school meals outperform all other pupils regardless of ethnic or social background. In the USA, preferential admissions to university for predominantly black students got taken down because it discriminated against the burgeoning number of highly qualified East Asian school students. Singapore has been startlingly successful. The ‘Tiger Mother’ phenomenon has real consequences. Similarly Chinese churches are confident and growing, and often unembarrassed by the theologically suspect ‘Homogenous Unit Principle’ because it leads to more people being saved.
So how should Chinese Christians reflect on this cultural trait, which can lead to sino-centric exclusiveness as well as creating personal legacies of stress and depression. In relation to a British culture and church life which is too easily content with decline or mediocrity, what does Chinese Christianity and culture have to give to revitalise this country? And how might Chinese Christianity benefit in a more mellowed culture. (Amy Chua, the ‘tiger mother’, has said that by the third generation Chinese American young people have taken on the lethargic self-indulgence of their American peers).
* ‘Reverse Mission’?
I found the book disappointingly silent on the impact British Chinese Christians can have here, beyond simply increasing the numbers in churches. Many African Christians have a vision for (re)converting the British. The difficulties of this may be greater than first realised and the results less obvious than hoped for, but I think they have had a positive outcome in simply making Christianity more ‘thinkable’ for young people in Britain. But unlike Africans, Chinese people share with contemporary Britons a non-religious hinterland. Amongst British Chinese 62.4% are ‘No Religion’ as opposed to 17.3% Christian and 9.%% Buddhist (p 53). In contrast to Africans, faith in the unseen is not natural to either group. Surely this should give Chinese believers a greater affinity and more potential in evangelising the deeply secularised British.
This book provides a helpful state of play account of British Chinese Christianity, and offers us in these pages valuable spiritual, biblical and theological understanding. Looking ahead therefore, what a blessing it could be if vibrant British Chinese Christianity was more consciously and deliberately motivated to turn its attention to evangelising the long-established people of this land.