My aunt was a devout follower for many years. She accepted Christ because of illness. In the early 1980s, she suffered from persistent toothaches and tried many anti-inflammatory drugs, but nothing worked. There were no dentists in her town, but only barefoot doctors were seeking medication.
The toothache caused her so much that she couldn’t sleep. By chance, she began to believe in Jesus and joined the church. My aunt said that after believing in Jesus, the bad teeth eventually fell and the pain stopped. She believed it was God’s grace. She often shares this story as testimony. At the time, she didn’t have a bike so she had to walk four kilometers per week to attend village services every Sunday.
My eldest son believed in Jesus because of repeated health issues. In our folk beliefs, people will say that she was a simple target for the dirty spirit. Before she became a Christian, she frequently visited the shamans in the neighboring village for healing.
Jesus had great power, and was able to give her peace and protect her from evil spirits.
One of her neighbors became a Christian and told her that Jesus had great power, could give her peace and protect her from evil spirits. Her health improved after she believed in Jesus and joined the church folk dance team.
I once met Christians in northern Anhui province (west of Shanghai) and spoke with him about his journey to faith. At first, he didn’t believe in the gospel and thought it was just a story. In the 1990s he left home with fellow villagers and worked in the factory. It was his first time leaving the house, so he felt intensely homesick.
A fellow villager then invited him to the church. Church leaders came from nearby places in their hometown and had the same accent, lifestyle and food preferences. Many of the church members came from nearby villages. He felt he was home immediately. This led him to join the church. Gradually, his resistance to Christianity declined. Eventually he became a dev-dominated follower.
Gospel relationships related to various needs
He was a great scholar, but he didn’t understand the meaning of studying or life itself.
But another friend of mine is a very different story. He was born in the late 1990s. Growing up in a wealthy family, he had no shortage of expensive, smart electronic gadgets. He performed well academically at school and entered the prestigious Southern University, majoring in the popular fields of electronics engineering. However, since his parents were strict with him, especially in his studies, he only read textbooks and had no other hobbies. This made him a person who was struggling. He was a great scholar, but he didn’t understand the meaning of studying or life itself.
His college and major were both first class, but neither was his true favorite. After graduation, he did not return to the northern city where his parents wanted to go to him. Instead, he chose to stay in a city in the south, far from them.
His major had a strong job prospect, so he earned a good income. However, working in electronics meant working overtime frequently. If a client needs help, he must wake up in the middle of the night to deal with it.
Despite his own living space and economic independence, he was still concerned about the meaning of life. He felt that life was not worthy of joy, or fighting, or making him happy. The feeling of emptiness crept over him often at night. He thought about religion and explored the spiritual community of Buddhism and Taoism before testing the Christian Church. However, it didn’t take long before he left.
He explained that religious groups often share common characteristics: a set of rules and regulations. This reminded him of the strict discipline his parents had imposed on him during his school year. That was something he found difficult to accept. He came to church for meaning because of existential emptiness and loneliness, but he did not find what he was looking for.
At work, he had to deal with his clients and employers. In the church, he had to deal with leaders as well. He could not discuss topics of interest to him and rarely heard any discussion addressing his concerns. Often the message he received was that all his problems were his own fault, but there was no answer as to how to solve them.
He was sick or not spiritual, but the church always treated him like such a patient.
For example, it was said that the sense of meaninglessness in life was due to the incompetence of God or Jesus. But what is God? What is Jesus? He said these things can only be understood after they were believed. He felt trapped in a circular debate. He was sick or not spiritual, but the church always treated him like such a patient.
Applying the Gospel to a new reality
The above example reveals one problem. It’s not that Christianity has changed, it’s that people have changed. The revival of Christianity in the 1980s and 1990s was built around a model of response to suffering. This model worked in an environment of poverty and material scarcity, and people were unable to cope with the hardships. Therefore, the message about miracles and healing was very fascinating.
Furthermore, in the face of overwhelming suffering, vulnerable individuals could only find protection by belonging to a group. Therefore, obedience to the church has become the norm. In this traditional practice, the church was greater than the individual. It shaped a patriarchal model focused on healing in church governance. Whether suffering could be material, physical or uncertain, this model met the real-life needs of followers by providing a ready-made lifestyle, reducing individual vulnerability through the community, and providing comfort and safety.
But today, the generation suitable for that traditional model is aging, and the development of Christianity has hit a bottleneck. Because that paradigm no longer meets the needs of a new era.
The generation born in the 1990s grew up in an urbanized environment. This means that crises like illness and poverty are usually not the norm during their upbringing. City freedom means that there is no longer a need to resort to traditional kinship-based communities for access to resources. Today, one individual can live very well in the city on his own.
These are looking for meanings for life, personal values, and worthwhile goals to pursue.
Without the pressures of poverty and physical crisis, traditional Christian models no longer meet the needs of high-educated, upwardly mobile urban areas. These are looking for meaning in life, personal values, and meanings for goals worth pursuing. Traditional church models are not available at all.
Two notable developments over the past 20 years highlight the changing times. This is the “Super Girl” talent show (Super Girl”), which is the turning point in soccer fan culture for the Millennium and today’s “Suzhou League” (Suu Cho’s Football). Both are grassroots celebrations of individual joys and mark the exits of an epic tale.
In the Supergirl era, if the epic tales were still taller, in the Suzhou League era, they voluntarily resigned. This is an era in which individuals step into historical stages. It’s the time to ask, “How can I make me better?” When epic stories no longer function as a self-defining background, the question arises: how individuals can become themselves.
This is not just an issue of existentialism raised in the 20th century. That’s also the problem we face today. However, existentialism raised the question without providing an answer. If the church can answer at all, then we may need a new kind of church first.
Take the parable of Jesus the 99 sheep, and bring the ones who lost the sheep. In the past, the emphasis was on the dangers and vulnerabilities of lost sheep. It was necessary for the shepherd to find it and return it to the flock for safety.
The problem is not how to quickly return to the flock, but how to actually become a sheep.
But today, one sheep is already in lush pastures, and may be temporarily freed from wolves and tigers. It’s not even an assumption that it’s sheep and requires a flock. So the problem is not how to quickly return to the flock, but how to actually become a sheep. Elimination of external threats exposes an internal crisis for individuals.
This does not mean that we no longer need our community. Extreme individualism is still a dead end. However, these days, individuals no longer need a community to define their own values. Communities no longer function like parents who assign value to individuals. Instead, communities are now dim or blurry backgrounds, with individuals focusing on the stage and stars.
This model change is something the church has not yet prepared. Traditional churches that have established models that are suitable for different contexts are unlikely to change. The more relevant type of church needs and needs to be re-emerged and willed among the younger generations. In all times and circumstances, people still need meaning. The meaning must go beyond life and beyond this world. This is the challenge of Christianity. That’s also the crisis. All we can do is pray for God’s guidance and be prepared for change.
Originally published by Christian Times, it was translated by Charlie Lee into the Chinese Christian Daily. It was republished by Chinasource and published here again with permission.
Li Daonan is a regular author of the Chinese news service o (Christian Times), covering both current events and faith-related perspectives for Chinese-speaking audiences. Li has a Masters in Western Philosophy, and his writing focuses on how urbanization affects traditional societies and influences the role and function of Christianity in social transformation from the perspective of religious sociology.
