First of all, I would like to give thanks to Bishop Richard Shimpfky & Rev. Becky Shan who have invited me. I am a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and I serve also as the Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Chinese Society in my university. I have traveled more than 20 times in China in the past decade and I noticed significant changes there. I am happy to share with you my reflections about the Social Changes and Spiritual Needs of China Today and you are free to respond and ask questions after my sharing.
President Bush announced on May 1 that this month is the month to celebrate the Asian Traditions in this country. This signifies our great intention to develop a closer relationship with the Asian peoples, including the Chinese. A couple of weeks ago when Hu Jintao, the vice-president of China who was expected to succeed Jiang Zemin as Chinese President next year, visited San Francisco on May 2, SF mayor, Mr. Willie Brown mentioned to Hu the fact that one third of the population in San Francisco are Asians and the majority of them are Chinese. Hence, these Asian resources are our assets in California from which our churches in America can work for more inter-cultural and inter-religious dialogues.
During his visit to China in January 2002, President Bush has made a speech at Qinghua University, Beijing. He told the Chinese people that there were 95% Americans who believed in God. Bush was explaining the fact that Religion was very important in the lives of the people in America. Bush might not notice another fact that there were almost 95% of the Chinese people who not only believed in gods "xinshen" in their minds, but also worship them "baishen" by their actions. Worshipping God is more significant, perhaps as it bears witness to what the Chinese people are believing in their hearts or minds.
The American media (TV, radio, newspapers and web-sites etc.) have long been giving us an impression that China is still very backward, people in China are still suffering from religious suppressions and are void of any human rights. There is not any religious freedom nor any protection of human rights in China today. There may be some truths in it. However, at the same time, we do hear many testimonies about religious revivals and blossoming in China in the past couple of decades.
According to an official report in 1997, membership in the five officially recognized religions in China was about 100 millions, including 18 millions Muslims, 4 millions Roman Catholics, 10 millions Protestants, in addition to the two largest religions in China which are Buddhism and Daoism. These government figures would normally be regarded as very conservative; the more accurate estimate would range from two to five times the official figures. For instance, the official numbers omit the extensive network of family-based "House Churches" and other unregistered prayer communities; scholars had suggested an estimation of 30 to 40 millions Christians in China today.
In 1998, a delegation of Chinese scholars from the State Bureau of Religious Affairs and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences visited my Department of Religion at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The delegation was surprised to find that there was a course on 'Chinese Popular Religions' listed in our university curriculum. In China, popular folk beliefs were considered as superstitions, not religious beliefs. There was a long discussion at the meeting, examining whether such traditional folk practices should be counted as religion in China today. At the end, the delegation admitted that if they so broadened the definition of religion to include folk beliefs in China, the religious population would rise as high as 95% and interestingly, it is the same figure President Bush suggested for believers in the United States.
How do we account for the differences? My experiences in China have helped me to understand better the situations in China. I have met many Chinese scholars in the past 15 years and most of them told me that they were rather happy with their situation in China. They had reminded me of the great changes happened in China in the past few decades. We know there are 30-40 millions Christians in China now. Do you know how many Christians (Protestant Christianity) were there in 1949? There were only 700,000 Protestants in China in 1949. If we compare the figures, we will find that the growth is 50 times and the rate of growth is really great. Chinese scholars also reminded me that they did not have much freedom to move around, to join any social or religious group, nor to worship in church 30 years ago. But, miraculously, they can do almost anything they like now, so to speak, they have more public space which they did not have before. They enjoy much religious freedom than they could imagine 30 years ago. One thing they know they have to be careful, i.e. they must not criticize the government or challenge her authority, or they would be suppressed as what was done to Falungong today.
As a professor, I often attend conferences in China. Twenty years ago, no one would dare to organize any conferences or seminars on Christianity. But now, there are more than 10 conferences a year on the study of Christianity or related topics. I could normally afford to join a couple of them only. For instance, there is one annual conference organized by the Center for the Study of Christianity which is a research branch of The Institute of World Religions at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. The CASS is the top research institute in China. The Director of the IWR, Dr. Zhou Xinping is a very good friend of mine. He studied Christian Theology in Germany and got his Ph.D. in the late 1970s. He is also the Director of the CSC and he has developed a network among scholars all over China who are working on Christianity and he invites them to this annual conference. I have attended three of them in the past years. It was a great experience as we could find Chinese scholars talking and discussing freely their ideas in all aspects about Christianity. There was another conference I attended in Beijing last October (Oct.16-18, 2001), organized jointly by this center and the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History at the University of San Francisco, a Jesuit University in California. The conference was in memory and in celebration and of a Jesuit, a Catholic missionary called Matteo Ricci who went into the city of Beijing 400 years ago and he did a lot of work in cultural and religious dialogues between the East and West of his time. Two years ago, there was the conflict aroused between the Vatican Church and the Chinese government over the issue of Canonization of Martyrs in China on October 1, the national day of the People's Republic of China. Nevertheless, the conference went on very smoothly, and there were lots of discussions and sharing among 120 well-known scholars from the Western and Chinese academia in the conference.
According to an article in 1996, there are some significant indicators for the growth of religious studies in the past 15 years. There had been more than 40 research units established in the past 15 years, including departments of religious studies in the various universities and research centers within government departments. There had been numerous publications on religion, about 180 scholarly books, 70 translation works, 15 dictionaries and over a thousand articles published in the past 15 years. I liked to go to the bookshops every time I visited China and I could find many new books on religion. There are indeed too many of them that I could not catch up buying and reading them all. These are good signs of religious freedom which the Chinese people are enjoying. And the trend is that once China had adopted an open policy towards religion, it would be doubly difficult for her to turn her back again.
In the past decade, there was a new mission emerged in my Religion Department at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. We had assumed a new task of training professors for universities in the Mainland. Up to now we have already accepted 8 Ph.D. students from China, four on Taoist Studies and 4 on Christian Studies. Some of our students were already professors and associate professors in China. Of course we also have some young scholars in their 20s and 30s. One of my students was an associate professor when he came from the History Department of Shandong University. After his graduation in 2001, he was now appointed as a full professor at Shanghai University in Shanghai. Hence, it is our vision that in 10 years' time, our religion department shall have alumni all over China, teaching Religious Studies in some leading universities in China. Our job would be very crucial and significant indeed.
Now I may tell you a bit about how Chinese intellectuals look at Christianity today. While President Bush was visiting China in January this year, I sent out a brief survey to 15 Chinese scholars whom I have been working closely with in China in the past years. I asked them one simple question: "What do you think would make Christianity appealing to Chinese scholars today?". I have a list of 4 items for them to comment:
How did the Chinese scholars respond? It was interesting to find that none of these scholars chose from items 'a' nor 'b', i.e. to identify 'Christian Theology' or 'Christian community' as significant elements. And it turned out that the Chinese scholars chose only between 'c' & 'd', i.e. 'Christian Gospel' and 'Christian Ethics or Social Services'.
The reasons, if I may explain are as follows:
Before we come to the spiritual needs of the Chinese people, we should note that there is a significant difference between the Chinese and Western conceptions of religion. To the Chinese people, 'Religion' is not an abstract, metaphysical speculation. Chinese people do not like entertaining (except for discussion with Western theologians) questions about the existence of God, about Trinity, the Human and Divine Nature of Jesus, nor the incarnation or resurrection of Jesus. Even when the Chinese people were asking about 'original sin', what they had in mind was indeed 'the moral relationships in the human world'.
For Chinese people, 'Religion' deals with practical issues about life, such as:
Now I come to the spiritual needs of Chinese people today What the Chinese people needs most today can be summarized in three Christian concepts: Love, Faith and Hope. Again, these Christian terms have to be understood in relational terms: being the relationship with oneself, with one's fellowmen, with one's society and nation, and with the world as such.
Love: The Chinese people need to learn to love themselves. To see that their lives are valued, as the children of God. They need to learn to love their fellow members as Christian brothers and sisters do. The Chinese people are still living under the shadow of hatred they experienced during the cultural revolution and they have lost their fate in the communist ideology after the Tienanmen incident in 1989. Chinese scholars are eager to learn more about the love of God and how to live a genuine life of sacrifice. As I have reported from my brief survey, Chinese scholars are more open to the Christian gospel of love and to follow the example of Jesus, esp. the sacrificial love expressed in the life of Jesus and among Christians today.
Faith: The Chinese people need to learn to have faith in oneself (To develop self confidence), to develop faith in one another and in God too. They need esp. to know how to trust one another and to respect the rights of others. Chinese Christians have been experiencing God as the Lord of history in the past 50 years. Even though there were no more Western missionaries in China since early 1950s, God had not forsaken the Chinese Christians. God was and is still working in China, in the hearts of the Christians. A couple of months ago, I met a woman pastor from China in San Francisco. She told me that she had been serving in a church in China where there were only 300 Christians attending five years ago, but now the number has grown up to more than 3000. God is doing wondrous works in China. That is what the Chinese people need to know.
Hope: The Chinese people need to develop their hope in the future of China too. They are hopeful because of China's joining the global community through WTO, and because China would be hosting the Olympic Games in 2008. These have brought great hope among the Chinese people. Indeed, Chinese people are hard-working, family-oriented as well as peace-loving people. They are hopeful in the future while they are working in solidarity with the global community for world peace.
Chinese people are rational and practical. They attend to moral and ethical problems, more than their concern for metaphysical issues. Christianity is appealing to them so far as it appeals to their lives and so far as it works. That's why the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes and Psalm 23 are most welcome to the Chinese people.
As we are pondering what to do to help Chinese people today, here are a few suggestions we may consider:
Here ends my sharing. Thank You.