Chinese conversion to evangelical Christianity: the importance of social and cultural contexts

Sociology of Religion, Fall, 1998 by Fenggang Yang

Since the 1960s, the sociological study of conversion has focused largely on the conversion process of individuals to cults or new religions in North America (e.g., Lofland and Stark 1965; for reviews, see Greil and Rudy 1984; Snow and Machalek 1984; Kilbourne and Richardson 1989). Criticizing the narrow and distorting focus on joining or leaving "fringe" or "deviant" religions, recently a few scholars have instead studied "everyday conversion" to mainstream Protestantism, Catholicism, or Judaism (e.g., Davidman 1991; Kaufman 1991; Suchman 1992; Davidman and Greil 1993). However, the subjects in these studies are more accurately labeled, often by the researchers themselves, as either "returnees" to the religion of their roots or "switchers" across denominational boundaries within Christianity (see also Newport 1979; Roof and Hadaway 1979; Hoge 1981; Sullins 1993; Musick and Wilson 1995).

The growing phenomenon of conversion to Protestantism among peoples of Catholic Latin America and non-Christian Asia has received far less attention by sociologists of religion. In contrast, anthropologists and historians have done more studies of the "great transformation" of conversion to Christianity among peoples on all continents (see Hefner 1993), especially "the rapid spread of evangelical Protestantism in vast areas of the underdeveloped societies" (Martin 1990:vii; see also Horton 1971, 1975; Kammerer 1990). In American society, most post-1965 immigrants are from Asia, South and Central America, and many of the new immigrants have joined conservative churches, such as Pentecostals among Latin Americans and evangelicals among Korean and Chinese immigrants and Southeast Asian refugees (e.g., Smith-Hefner 1994). In this paper I argue that the conversion experiences of people from third world countries in political and social turmoil differ from those described in the existing literature. In particular, I focus on the conversion of Chinese immigrants to evangelical Christianity. I argue that their conversion involves factors beyond individual personality, personal crisis, and interpersonal bonds in small networks. To understand Chinese conversion it is necessary to examine social contextual issues and institutional factors, both in their immigrant experience in the US and in their pre-migration experience in their home country.

Debates concerning the growth of conservative churches have involved discussions of conversion in regard to the reasons for and the sources of growth (Kelley 1972; Hoge and Roozen 1979; Finke and Stark 1992; Roozen and Hadaway 1993; Bibby and Brinkerhoff 1973, 1983, 1994; Perrin and Mauss 1991; Perrin, Kennedy, and Miller 1997). However, these debates have ignored the increasing evangelical Protestantism of non-white (and non-black) people. Although the numerical significance of immigrant converts to conservative Protestantism is not yet clear, the theoretical importance of such conversions is beyond doubt. These are not "circulating saints" switching from one evangelical church to another, but converts from other religious traditions; institutional factors are important for their conversion, but there are more important contextual factors beyond American society. Chinese conversion to evangelical Protestantism is a case in point.

This study of Chinese converts to evangelical Protestantism in the United States is based on interviews and ethnographic observations in the Greater Washington, D.C. area. Following a brief description of the ethnographic site and methods, I analyze the significance of various factors of conversion among my sample of Chinese immigrants: assimilation motives, proselytization efforts of evangelical institutions, social and cultural changes in China, and Chinese responses to modernity in American society.

THE CHINESE CHRISTIAN CHURCH

Between 1993 and 1994 I visited all Chinese churches in the Greater Washington, D.C. area (about 20 at that time), attended their Sunday services, and interviewed their pastors and lay leaders. Almost all the churches are conservative in theology and nearly half are nondenominational, a common pattern among Chinese churches in the United States (Pang 1995; Yang 1995). Following this I conducted an in-depth ethnography over a two year period of the Chinese Christian Church of Greater Washington, D.C. (CCC): participating in its various meetings and activities, thoroughly reading church documents and records, and interviewing church leaders and members from various backgrounds.

CCC is a typical Chinese church in several ways: it grew out of a fellowship group, and is conservative, nondenominational, and mid-sized. It was established in 1958 by a group of Chinese students and new immigrants with support from the International Students Inc., an evangelical student ministry organization. This was the second Chinese church in the Washington area. The first one was the Chinese Community Church, a mission church supported by mainline American churches with an emphasis on social services to Cantonese-speaking Chinatown residents. To distinguish themselves from the interdenominational Chinese Community Church, the founders of the new church named their church the "Chinese Mandarin Church," emphasized evangelism, especially to Chinese students and new immigrants, and insisted on independence from denominational affiliation. It changed to its current name in the early 1970s.