Introduction
Since the beginning of the reform era, Evangelical Christianity in China has experienced a significant resurgence and the emergence of a large foreign missionary community. This trend is particularly pronounced in Yunnan province, where missionaries met with considerable success among ethnic minorities prior to the 1949 revolution. As a result, several ethnic groups living in Yunnan, such as the Lisu, Miao, Jingpo, and Lahu include significant numbers of Protestant Christians. Indeed, the mass conversions of ethnic groups in the Chinese southwestern periphery during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are celebrated among missionaries as landmark achievements.
As James Scott has shown, the spread of Christianity in ethnic southwest China was largely in keeping with historical trends of state–minority relations in the region. The adoption of ‘heterodoxy’—a religion other than the one associated with the hegemonic state—has been a long-standing tradition among upland Southeast Asian peoples in their attempts to resist the state's assimilation policies. Moreover, religions adopted by local ethnic groups often contained a strong millenarian character, including a message of redemption from state control and assimilation. Accordingly, Scott notes ‘the good fortune of the Baptist missionaries to have brought the Bible to a people who had long believed in messiahs’.Footnote 1 Such was the case with the Miao: according to the missionary Samuel Clarke, Miao converts readily identified Jesus with the ‘Miao king’, a messianic hero, destined to appear and slay the Han.Footnote 2
Indeed, as Stevan Harrell has noted, the missionaries' ‘civilizing mission’ in pre-1949 Yunnan was intended to ‘develop, sharpen and heighten ethnic identity’ and can be seen as a source of ethnogenesis.Footnote 3 Perhaps the most significant feature of a Christian-inspired construction of ethnic identity can be seen in the invention of writing systems for ethnic languages, thus granting minority people the significant social asset of literacy. According to Tien Ju Kang, ‘to be able to read and write became one of the worldly motives for being converted’. Indeed, in the early days of missionary involvement in Yunnan, Christian minority women could sometimes be seen carrying scriptures in a special sack, symbolizing the double achievement of both faith in Christianity and literacy.Footnote 4
Today, Yunnan's identification with ethnicity is central to the nature of missionary work in the province, as missionaries are often engaged in projects relating to cultural preservation, particularly in the realm of linguistics through the production of dictionaries and thesauruses in ethnic languages and the promotion of bilingual education.Footnote 5 However, an examination of Evangelical attitudes towards ethnicity and ethnic identity reveals a deep ambivalence. As a number of scholars have written, Evangelical and Charismatic Christians often attempt to downplay many elements of ethnicity, replacing communal and territorial attachments with a narrative of individualism and globalism.Footnote 6 According to Oliver Roy, individually based religions, such as fundamentalist Islam and Evangelical Christianity, tend to be hostile towards religion which is ethnically, culturally, and spatially based. Rather, they aim to deculture and de-ethnicize religion, by moving away from the cultural context towards the purely spiritual realm. This attempt to create what Roy calls ‘pristine religion’ is described in the following way:
Religiosity is in both cases more important that religion…the self and hence the individual, is at the core of the cotemporary religiosity…Religiosity is a personal experience, not a legacy. A born again believer is by definition skeptical of the religion of his family and forefathers.Footnote 7
The break created between religion and culture is a distinct feature of the missionary agenda in the global age. Thus, ‘in order to circulate the religion's object must appear universal, disconnected from a specific culture that has to be understood in order for the message to be grasped’.Footnote 8
Roy's theory of ‘pristine religion’ may be employed to explain two major aspects of the current missionary movement in Yunnan: its emphasis on individually based faith and its complex relationship with the concept of ethnicity. In the context of Yunnan's minority people, peripheral on both a national and international level, de-ethnicized Christianity offers its believers a new international group with which to replace the old ethno-national one. The same can be said of Evangelical Christianity in Yunnan. The search for the pristine is reflected in the widespread use of the term ‘nominal’ among contemporary missionaries to describe minority Christians who converted prior to 1949. ‘Nominal’ Christianity is contrasted with ‘true’ Christianity, exemplified in the personal salvation and faith narratives of the missionaries themselves. By focusing on individual rather than ethnic- or tribal-based faith, Evangelical Christianity serves to dilute and diminish ethnic identity in ways that are beneficial for the Chinese state. Accordingly, missionaries promote an external and folklorized version of ethnic culture, one that focuses on costume, song, and dance. This version of ethnicity bears a striking resemblance to the one that is promoted by the state, which simultaneously works for deep cultural change.
Public representations of ethnic identity in China focus almost exclusively on external manifestations, such as elaborate architecture and colourful festivals, with relatively little attention devoted to minority belief systems and non-material cultural manifestations. According to Marzia Varutti, the representation of minority costumes and ritual objects serves to essentialize and folklorize, ‘reducing cultural complexity to its minimal terms',Footnote 9 and Thomas Borchert writes that the state is only interested in ‘those minority religious activities that have viewable components’.Footnote 10
Moreover, ethnic representation is designed to avoid challenging state policies, particularly in the realm of modernization. According to Stevan Harrell, ‘the things that remain are those that foster ethnic pride but do not impede progress’, with support given to ‘festivals, costumes—the inevitable dance in a circle’.Footnote 11 This version of ethnicity is particularly pronounced in Yunnan, a province promoted as a destination for ethno-tourism.Footnote 12 In what has been termed ‘internal Orientalism’, representations of minority people are geared towards presenting them as ‘living fossils’ of the human past, thus serving as the primitive backdrop to Han modernity.Footnote 13 Representing the Han as far more advanced than China's other nationalities serves to strengthen the legitimacy of the Chinese state as the vehicle for modernization for all its ethnic components.
Thus, in contrast to the opinion that the missionary penetration of China is viewed by the state as a dangerous threat that must be actively countered, I suggest that, with regard to ethnic Yunnan, the international nature of Evangelical Christianity may actually be beneficial to the state and its attempt to confine ethnic identity to the realms of folklore. Here I follow Stevan Harrell's definition of ethnicity in the Chinese context as an identity arising out of the need to deal with a centre intent on ruling, defining, and educating.Footnote 14 Harrell presents the differences between the Christian and communist centres, revealed through their alternate civilizing projects spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Adding to Harrell, I contend that in the early twenty-first century, these two civilizing projects have more in common in their dealings with the ethnic identity they themselves helped to create than has been previously assumed. Indeed, the common ground is extensive enough to enable a relatively peaceful coexistence in present-day Yunnan.
Methodologically, this article is based on fieldwork conducted in Yunnan in the cities of Kunming and Shangrila, and several fieldtrips to surrounding minority regions, primarily in Yunnan but also in Guizhou and Sichuan. Throughout my time in southwest China, I conducted interviews with 43 missionaries and converts, and held many more conversations with foreign and local Christian informants. It should be noted that the level of accessibility to these different groups varied greatly. Foreign missionaries and members of the established minority Christian communities discussed in this article were relatively accessible and provided the bulk of the information provided here. Due to the sensitivity and the borderline legality of missionary work in China, finding access to recent minority converts was fairly difficult. Often, when approached, their mostly Han or foreign pastors discouraged their congregants from having contact with me, for fear that exposure would attract unwanted attention from the authorities. In addition, several missionaries noted that they wanted to avoid linking converts to foreign missionary activity both for security reasons and to avoid giving the impression that the growth of Christianity was not an exclusively indigenous process. Nevertheless, I was eventually able to interview six Lisu, Tibetan, and Naxi converts who provided invaluable information for this research.
The rise of global religiosity
Malcolm Waters writes that religions, particularly universal religions like Christianity, Islam, or Buddhism, can be conceptualized as globalizing and homogenizing forces which often assert that humanity is (or should be) one single community. Waters continues by describing the way in which religious universalism offers direct and personal contact with God, creating what he terms a ‘secularized and privatized religion’.Footnote 15
A similar point is made by Anthony Giddens who has written about the ways in which global religion diminishes the importance of locality, tradition, and territory, and gives rise to the universal and an emphasis on the religious self.Footnote 16 As other scholars have noted, this is particularly true of Evangelical Christianity, a religion that, in the words of Philip Jenkins, attempts ‘to be all things to all men’.Footnote 17 The theology of globalism promoted by Evangelical missionary work is discussed by Elisabeth McAlister in her writing about mission work in Haiti. She argues that ‘evangelical conversion allows for territorial detachment … loosening of nationalist and even familial bonds’.Footnote 18 The supremacy of the global over the local and ethnic is clearly defined by Paul Hiebert: ‘In the church[,] believers are members of one new people … The Christian's new identity as a member in the family of Christ is eternal and takes precedence over all earthly identities.’Footnote 19 Thus, the particularity of Christianity lies not in mere detachment from a specific cultural context but rather in the fact that local contexts are replaced with a culturally neutral, global Christian identity. As Nishan Najarian emphasizes, the act of withdrawal from local culture, a process of ‘social disintegration of the link to the past’, may be seen as a call upon converts to follow the process the missionaries themselves have performed by detaching themselves from their native cultural context and coming to work in China or elsewhere.Footnote 20
The global nature of Christian identity is also revealed in a study of Chinese Christians conducted by Yang Zhong. According to Yang, close to 80 per cent of Christians interviewed identify first as Christians rather than as Chinese. Yang explains that ‘this certainly does not mean that they reject their Chinese identity, but it does show that their first identity belongs to their Christian faith—a finding unlikely to endear them to nationalistic Chinese or to the government’.Footnote 21 Indeed, the trans-ethnic nature of Evangelical Christianity has led some researchers to emphasize the inherent contradictions and hostility between state authorities and foreign Christian influence.Footnote 22 I wish to offer an alternative perspective. I argue that, with regard to Yunnan, the globalizing and de-ethnicizing nature of contemporary Evangelical Christianity may in fact be a reason for increased state tolerance of missionary activity. Thus, by offering minority people a religiosity based on a globalized community of individuals, ethnic identity is diminished, a process that ultimately ties in with the goals of the state. Moreover, unlike Roy's description of globalized fundamentalist Islam, and much like the efforts made by the Chinese state, missionaries in Yunnan do not entirely negate expressions of ethnic culture. Rather, they encourage a shift in identity in which ethnicity is cultivated but pushed to a peripheral position and replaced with a non-ethnic, Christian core.
Introducing nominalism: Mona and the missionary vanguard
The first missionary I met in Kunming was a student in my Chinese language class in the Eastern Languages College. Mona was an American woman in her forties who had spent nine years in China and was getting ready to leave.Footnote 23 The language school Mona and I attended was located in a neighbourhood in the north of the city, one of two major concentrations of foreigners in Kunming and home to a number of Christian-owned cafes, a bakery, a Christian bookshop, and souvenir shop. Unlike the language colleges in the city centre catering to young students, my classmates were mostly middle aged with families, frequently involved in some form of welfare or community work, ranging from running orphanages to training youth football teams. While the students concentrated around the city's universities were, for the most part, secular, the vast majority of foreigners I met throughout my fieldwork and who resided in the northern neighbourhood were believing Christians. The religious nature of the neighbourhood was clearly reflected in the language school student body; I was the only Israeli and, to the best of my knowledge, the only non-Christian in my class. Other classes were much the same. In fact, throughout my year in the college I met only one other student who was apparently not a believer in Christianity.
Being self-conscious of my otherness, I had not at all expected what happened in my first conversation with Mona. It was during a break and we were sitting in the classroom waiting for the class to begin. Knowing I was from Israel, Mona asked me if it surprised me that so many Christians felt such a strong connection to Israel and its history. I asked her what she meant. As a Christian, she explained, Jewish history and the Jewish relationship to the past, particularly ‘with the fathers—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’, was of paramount importance. To my surprise, as she mentioned the names of the Biblical patriarchs, her eyes began to well up with tears. Overcome with emotion, she then went on to explain that a personal connection with Israel and with the Biblical patriarchs was so central to her faith that she viewed those who had no such relationship as ‘not true Christians’.
It was through Mona that I was first exposed to what would turn out to be a recurrent theme among the Christians I met—the question of being or not being a ‘true’ Christian. Moreover, Mona's definition of true Christianity was intertwined with a missionary ethos of exemplifying the vanguard of Christianity and being among the few believers who ‘answer the calling’ and dedicate their lives to spreading the gospel. The opposite of that ethos is their definition of other Christians, including many of the local Christians of Yunnan, as ‘nominally Christian’.
The issue of being a ‘nominal Christian’, initially mentioned in the context of Israel and the patriarchs, became all the more interesting when it began appearing in conversations regarding Yunnan's ethnic minority Christians. Mona and her husband had no particular connection with minority Christians, but were of course aware of the Christian identity of several of Yunnan's ethnic groups. After enthusiastically citing the large and increasing numbers of Christians in China, Mona explained to me that those who have been identified as Christian for a number of generations usually become ‘nominal’—Christians in name only as they have not undergone a personal process of becoming ‘reborn’. In other words, their Christian identity is based on tribal tradition and ethnic categories, such as being Da Hua Miao (also known as A-Hmong) or Nujiang Valley Lisu, and not on a personal experience of faith.
The ambiguity surrounding ‘nominal’ Christians is formally expressed in the Joshua Project, an Evangelical website dedicated to the worldwide mapping of Christianity among ethnic groups. In the statistical section devoted to each ethnicity, two numbers are given: the percentage of ‘Christians’ and the percentage of ‘Evangelical Christians’. According to the Joshua Project site, a Christian is ‘one who professes to be a follower of the Christian religion in any form … based on the individual's self-confession’.Footnote 24 The term ‘Evangelical’ has a more specific definition, with an emphasis on personal faith, the centrality of the Bible, and a belief in the effort to evangelize all of humanity. All nations of the world are categorized as either ‘reached’ or ‘unreached’. Significantly, an unreached group is defined as one that comprises less than five per cent Christians and less than two per cent Evangelicals. In other words, while any form of Christianity is recognized, a minimal rate of Evangelical Christians is necessary before the status of ‘reached’ is attained. In the overall progress scale, a group with less than two per cent Evangelicals but more than five per cent Christians is categorized as being at the stage of a ‘formative/nominal church’. When over two per cent are regarded as Evangelicals, the group is considered to be at the highest phase of ‘significant/established church’.
It should be noted that while the Joshua Project does ascribe a certain amount of value to ‘nominal’ churches, this is not always the case among missionaries on the ground. In an extreme example cited by Jenkins, an American Evangelist is quoted as claiming that there are no Christians in Lebanon, despite the fact that according to official statistics, over 50 per cent of the Lebanese population are either Maronite or Orthodox Christians.Footnote 25 Indeed, the parts of the Joshua Project dealing with China (based on Paul Hattaway's Operation China Footnote 26) are considerably more inclusive in categorizing people as Evangelical than many of the missionaries active in Yunnan. It includes some of the minority people in Yunnan that Evangelicals consider to be nominal. For example, while Mona thought that the Lisu of the Nujiang valley were mostly nominal, the Joshua Project defines them as 45 per cent Evangelical and 80 per cent Christian.Footnote 27
Nominalism and ethnicity: two case studies
Despite the criticism implied in the categorization of ethnic Christians as ‘nominal’, the construction of an ethnically based Christian identity was hardly an unintended or surprising outcome of early missionary work. Quite the contrary: it was precisely the appeal to ethnic preservation in face of Han discrimination and oppression that appealed to the masses of Miao who turned to Christianity. The irony lies in the fact that the heightened ethnic identity created through the conversion process conflicts with the end goal of contemporary missionaries—that of constructing an identity centred around a personal faith in Christianity. Thus, the label ‘nominalism’ reveals an aspect of controversy—what is peripheral to the foreign Christian may be central to some of the converts, who view the preservation of culture and retaining of cultural autonomy as a central motivation for adopting Christianity. To a certain extent, it may be argued that the missionary project has, from an Evangelical perspective, backfired: the stepping stone to conversion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has become an obstacle to ‘true’ faith in the early twenty-first century. Accordingly, missionaries I interviewed voiced severe criticism of the mass conversions by Kunming's current missionaries. They expressed the opinion that such conversions are socially and ethnically based, and therefore they are, at best, only partially valid and overwhelmingly superficial.Footnote 28
It should be noted that the missionary discussion regarding ethnically based conversion is largely related to an analysis of what has been achieved in the past. As far as I could discern, mass conversions of entire villages or ethnic groups no longer take place in Yunnan. While the state tolerates individual conversions to Christianity, it will not allow collective movements based on ethnicity or clan. Although such restrictions are not part of official policy (according to which all missionary work is prohibited), many of the Christians I spoke to perceived attempts to proselytize large numbers of people as taking a step beyond the unofficial limit of tolerance.Footnote 29
Nevertheless, missionary criticism of pre-1949 ethnically based conversion reveals that state policy is not the only reason why conversions have become individually based. Mass conversions are no longer sought because they do not coincide with Evangelical thinking, with its strong emphasis on individual experience and attempts to limit and contain non-religious forms of identity. To further explain this uneasiness I now turn to an illustration of contemporary Miao Christianity through short case studies of ethnic identity and faith among the Miao of Yunnan and Guizhou.
The Da Hua Miao of Wuding
To witness Miao Christianity today, I decided to take a trip with two friends to the area of Wuding, just north of Kunming. According to Tien Ju K'ang, Miao settlement of Wuding is fairly recent: the Miao arrived in 1877 from Guizhou shortly after being badly defeated in a conflict with Chinese Qing forces. The recent arrival of the Hua Miao in the region has led them to populate the highest areas of the mountains. As a local Yunnanese proverb states: ‘Those who came late, went to the top’,Footnote 30 implying that the later waves of immigrants were unable to settle in the already occupied fertile lower reaches of the mountain and were condemned to endure a harsher life in higher altitudes. Thus, while Wuding city is only an hour or two from Kunming by bus, the underdeveloped and rather poor villages of this mountainous area are quite remote, with some accessible only by foot.
From the bus route north of Kunming, the prevalence of Christianity can be seen from the window as the Miao areas surrounding the city of Wuding are approached. Standing out as dominant structures, each village has its own church covered with white tiles and crowned with a prominent red cross. In Wuding, we cautiously asked about churches in town. Rather than pointing them out, the people we spoke to suggested that we visit the local Public Security Bureau and ask the personnel to show us around, revealing the fact that religion, particularly when foreign visitors are present, is an issue of state concern and monitoring. I decided to decline their offer and proceeded up the mountain by an auto rickshaw, to the Christian village of Huapo.
As in other villages, Huapo's church stood out as the largest building in the vicinity. It was locked when we arrived in the late afternoon, but the villagers who came to greet us quickly opened its gates and called for the local minister, who invited us in. The interior of the church was extremely simple, with nothing more than wooden benches, a preachers’ pulpit, and the occasional written slogan on the wall. The pastor, a short middle-aged man named Zhang, was more than happy to talk with me about their community. We sat in the church and he began by telling me how the people of the area had been converted to Christianity approximately 100 years ago by an Englishman named ‘Bolin’, the Chinese name adopted by the missionary Samuel Pollard. Before Pollard arrived, Zhang explained, ‘we had nothing—no writing and no culture (wenhua)’.Footnote 31 Indeed, the Pollard script is proudly displayed both in and outside the church and signs in the village are all in both Chinese and Pollard-script Miao. While the displaying of the script serves as a symbolic sign of Miao culture, it has relatively little practical function. Although I was not able to discern what percentage of the people in Huapo are able to read it, it appears that, as a rule, they use the Chinese Bible for study.
To explain their desperate situation before the arrival of the missionaries, Zhang recited a narrative of Miao history, mentioning their continuous war with the Han and the gradual movement from their Central Chinese homeland to the south of China and into Southeast Asia. The connection between conversion and social marginalization was laid out simply by Zhang. When I asked why it was that the Miao accepted Christianity, Zhang said they had been badly discriminated against by the Han ‘who didn't think of us as human’ and stressed how Christianity provided both a sense of self-worth as well as an outlook of universal compassion. The emphasis placed by Zhang on the missionaries as bestowers or revivers of culture as well as their historical memory of persecution underlines the way in which Miao ethnicity has been formed in reaction to the Han civilizing centre. Thus, Christianity was presented by Zhang as a road to Miao revival—a much-valued affirmation of culture and self-respect.
It was getting late in the afternoon and Zhang invited us to spend the night in one of the rooms on the church roof, which were built to host parishioners from more remote villages who sometimes come in for holidays and events. Zhang was a self-taught man and his knowledge of Christianity came solely from reading and rereading the Bible. As with many of his generation, he had never attended a seminary. I was therefore quite surprised to discover that he was rather knowledgeable about Jewish dietary restrictions. He had originally invited us to his home but immediately added that he was aware of my inability to eat pork. He could, of course, serve us something else but what about the cooking utensils that had previously touched lard? Perhaps it would be inconvenient? I gladly agreed that it would be best for us to eat our own food. Later that night he came with a friend to visit us in our room carrying tea and a bowl of baked potatoes.
As we sat and ate Zhang's potatoes I tried to understand the nature of their faith. Both Zhang and his friend were quite adamant about the fact that their Christianity was not syncretistic in the least—they do not worship their ancestors or hold on to any of their previous deities. In fact, the people I spoke to throughout the Wuding region, including the impressively knowledgeable Zhang, knew virtually nothing about the religion they had followed prior to conversion.
I asked Zhang about their relationship with other non-Miao Christians. When we first met he told us that the Da Hua Miao do not engage in missionary work as they are too poor to do so. Later he corrected himself, noting that they do occasionally send missionaries to other Miao groups outside China, for example, to the Miao residing across the border in Laos and Vietnam, where they are usually known as Hmong. He did not know of Hua Miao missionaries who have moved beyond the Miao/Hmong community. At the same time, a connection is maintained with other non-Miao Christians. Once or twice a year Korean missionaries, of which Yunnan has many, arrive at the village to encourage and support their Miao co-religionists. Zhang himself has been to Hong Kong twice for Christian conferences, funded by a friend of his from Guangzhou. However, despite the affinity and solidarity expressed towards Christians of other ethnic backgrounds, Zhang proudly told me that ‘like the Jews’, the Christian Miao do not marry outside their ethnic group, implying the centrality of maintaining their ethnic borders.
Although Zhang did not express a particular interest in modern Israel, he was excited about our connection with the Holy Land. Above all else, he seemed to particularly enjoy that we were able to point out our cities of origin on the maps in the appendix to his Bible. The words ‘Galilee’, ‘Carmel’, and ‘Jerusalem’ used in an everyday context gave him great pleasure. As our evening of tea and potatoes drew to a close I asked what, to him, were the basic features of Christianity. In response, Zhang emphasized above all faith in a single God ‘and not in false idols’ (xujia de ouxiang) as the most important principle of the religion. I later noted that he made no mention of Jesus or personal salvation throughout our conversation.
The next day, we met Zhang again after breakfast and were given fresh apricots from the tree in his yard for the road ahead. Setting out of Huapo in the morning, we walked on to a number of smaller, somewhat more remote villages, arriving at the first one around noon. Here too, everybody knew about ‘Bolin’ the English missionary, although the timeline of events was sometimes rather vague. Physical conditions in the village were poor and knowledge of the outside world, quite sparse. One 25-year-old man who was serving as the church leader of a tiny village higher up the mountain and poorer than Huapo, said he was not sure what Miao life was before Pollard, since ‘he was too young’.Footnote 32
When we descended to the village of Manpo we met Wang, another young preacher, who was undergoing official training at a Bible seminary in the nearby city of Chuxiong. Elaborating on what Zhang had told us about Miao history, he explained how the Miao had previously had a complex and comprehensive culture and writing system, but that this had been destroyed in the course of their long struggle with the Han. Significantly, Wang added that today relations with the Han are good due to the influence of Christianity which has taught them about forgiveness, thus they forgive the sins of the past and believe in the equality of all humans.Footnote 33 In Wang's view, while Christianity stands at the centre of Hua Miao ethnic identity, it is simultaneously a potential bridge across ethnic divides. Wang's perspective on the matter, very possibly the result of the influence of the state-run seminary he attends, stands in correspondence to a much-promoted official vision of ethnic unity (minzu tuanjie).
The idea that Christianity promotes more harmonious relations between different ethnic groups was mentioned to me by a number of local Christians. Mosi, a Han pastor from Henan whom I met in a Kunming market, told me he often ventured into minority areas to teach people about Christianity. Mosi's explanation for his interest in minorities was that ‘God loves them, because they suffered oppression from the Han’.Footnote 34 Mosi presented his activity in minority regions as atonement for the troubled ethnic relations of the past and an affirmation of Christianity's trans-ethnic nature. Indeed, it should be noted that, unlike the ethnically homogenous Christian communities created by early missionary work among Yunnan's minorities, newer communities in ethnic urban centres such as Shangrila and Lijiang are often ethnically mixed and include both Han and ethnic minority congregants.
Like the church leader Zhang, some of the elderly men in Manpo were happy and welcoming at the sight of visitors, but they were truly excited to discover our nationality and were inclined to shake our hands profusely. In fact, after a number of days in the Wuding region I began to feel as if the Miao Christians considered us not merely as visitors but as co-religionists. Both ministers I met were clearly aware of the basic differences between Christianity and Judaism (as mentioned, Zhang was even fairly well versed in the basics of Jewish law); however, there was no mention of difference and no hint of dispute was ever brought up. The feeling of a shared faith was most pronounced when we decided to make our way out of the area. Pastor Wang decided we should be escorted from Manpo down the mountain to the township where we would catch the bus to our next destination, the Yi town of Sanyinpan to the north. One young man volunteered and we walked together for over an hour, until the town was in clear sight. As we walked down the mountain, we discussed different issues of faith. Like Zhang, his focus was very much on faith in God whom he always referred to as ‘Shangdi’ and never as ‘Yesu’ (Jesus). When we parted he used the blessing I later learned Chinese Christians use with each other to say goodbye: ‘Shangdi zhufu nimen’ meaning ‘God bless you’.
The story of Christianity among the Miao of Wuding is closely intertwined with the Miao narrative of history. To the Miao, the message brought by the early twentieth-century missionaries was one of cultural resurgence and provided a way of dealing with the harsh discrimination of the Han authorities. Ironically, it may argued that the conversion narrative legitimizes discrimination by explaining it as the result of past cultural inferiority. Indeed, both Zhang and Wang placed special emphasis on the written script as a major feature of civilization and an important symbol of knowledge and ethnic identity, a point of view that coincides with Chinese notions of wenhua.Footnote 35 Like many other upland Southeast Asian groups, the Hua Miao believe that they once had a writing system but that it was lost during their ongoing struggle with the Han and their flight south.Footnote 36 Interestingly, the myth of recovering a lost cultural heritage, expressed in the Pollard script, is accompanied by acute forgetting of the pre-Christian past. Zhang's assertion that the Miao ‘had no culture’ before the missionaries arrived is an expression of the fact that, for Zhang, Christianity has become synonymous with being Miao, thereby relegating the non-Christian past to a vague, unknown, and irrelevant pre-history.
Indeed, while their ethnic identity as Da Hua Miao was central to their conversion, the specifics of Christian theology and the issue of personal salvation were never mentioned. Zhang's ethnic Christianity was clearly evident through the comparison he offered between the Miao and the Jews. As noted, many of the Christians of Wuding expressed an interest in and emotional connection with us as visitors from the Holy Land. However, unlike Mona and other missionaries, Zhang also identified with Jewish ethnicity, in particular the prohibition against marrying non-Jews. In stark contrast with the global and ethnically mixed nature of missionary Christianity, Zhang proudly stated that the Hua Miao do not intermarry with other groups. While Zhang and Wang identified with the Christian message of universal equality, this did not seem to include assimilation. On the contrary: their faith in a single God differentiated the Miao from other inhabitants of the area.
Shimenkan
Towards the end of my time in southwest China I made a visit to Shimenkan, the place where the mass conversion of the Da Hua Miao all began, just across the border of Yunnan in Guizhou. The village is predominantly Hua Miao, although it is also home to some Yi, Hui, and Han. Before the arrival of the missionaries, Shimenkan and the region of Weining were known as ‘the Tibet of Guizhou’, implying that the region is both remote and inaccessible.Footnote 37 However, in the early twentieth century, the village was transformed by the missionaries into an important centre for the Miao and one of the most developed areas in Guizhou, boasting the region's first modern schools and hospitals. The rapid development of the area, which is sometimes referred to as the ‘Shimenkan phenomenon’, has attracted considerable attention in recent years from Chinese scholars,Footnote 38 many of whom consider Shimenkan a great success story and a model for developing rural ethnic regions. Their focus is primarily on the advanced, modern educational methods introduced by missionariesFootnote 39 and on the protection they gave locals against the oppression of authorities.Footnote 40
Today, long after the missionaries left, Shimenkan has largely reverted to a small, rather dusty, and remote village. A few monuments remain to tell the story of the pre-revolutionary missionary presence. The old European-style stone school is still in use, along with a number of buildings where the missionaries resided. The village also contains a newer church but, unlike the churches in the Wuding region, it is only open on Sundays. Perhaps the most impressive of the sites in Shimenkan is the elaborate grave of Samuel Pollard adorned with epitaphs in Chinese, English, and his own devised Miao script. To this day, the grave is a site of occasional pilgrimages of devout Christian Miao and the odd foreign visitor.
These, however, are all relics of the past. In fact, looking for Christianity in Shimenkan felt more like archaeology than anthropology. Unlike the villagers of the Wuding region, the men and women of Shimenkan took no particular notice of me (with the exception of the Public Security Bureau) and my land of origin did not stir up any reaction, interest, or emotion. People I met in the village were aware of the village's past importance and of the conversion of the Da Hua Miao to Christianity, but had little to say about it other than referring me to the appropriate relics. After encountering some trouble locating Pollard's grave, I met Ma, a young man who volunteered to show me around. He had recently returned from Shenzhen where he had spent six years working as a migrant worker. His time in Shenzhen meant that he had acquired good Putonghua, which made things easier for me as I was having difficulty understanding the local accent. On our way to the grave he told me he too was a Christian but had not attended church in a very long time. He added that many of the farmers in the region also found it hard to attend regularly due to lack of time.Footnote 41 Ma had heard of Samuel Pollard and knew the grave site but he had no knowledge about the man, his religious ideas, or the practices he had replaced, other than the fact that he had come from England.
After we visited the grave, Ma offered to take me to see the school. We hitched a short car ride with some people we had met at the grave site who had come out for a day trip from the nearby city of Weining. The old part of the school comprised a few low, Western-style stone buildings built by the missionaries in the 1920s. Ma proudly repeated to me that the school was the first to exist in the entire region and was well known for its high standards before the 1949 revolution. In the school yard two stone tablets in Chinese and Miao tell the story of Shimenkan's glory and the construction of the school buildings. The tablets were apparently quite recent: Ma, who was in his mid-twenties, told me they were not there when he had attended the school as a child. Their placement in the school yard is a testament to the growing legitimacy of ethnic culture in contemporary China and also of a more positive view of pre-revolution missionary work by local authorities.
I left Ma after our visit to the school as he was pondering the possibility of putting his language skills to use and becoming a tour guide. I walked up the street to find a place to spend the night, finally arriving at a dormitory for workers passing though. The teenage girl running the place was also Miao, as were many of the guests. When I asked questions about their religion they all shrugged their shoulders and gave me a puzzled look. They were Miao and Christian but had nothing much to say about it.
In Shimenkan I found nothing of the religious devotion of the Wuding Miao. Among the Hua Miao of Shimenkan it would seem that religion has become synonymous with ethnicity to the extent that the religion's theological and doctrinal content had become largely irrelevant or unknown. The meaning of Christianity in Shimenkan was focused on the triumphs of the past, the modern facilities brought to this remote corner of Guizhou by the missionaries. Thus, the introduction of Christianity to the region is associated with the short but significant era of glory when the region was transformed from a remote backwater to a beacon of modernity.
As in Wuding, the Miao alphabet featured prominently in Shimenkan as an ethnic marker of symbolic rather than practical meaning. It would seem that for Ma and the other residents of Shimenkan, the true content of Christian influence is expressed in their ability to modernize and develop, despite the marginalization of the past and the ethno-cultural advancement implied in the introduction of a Miao writing system. The fact that Shimenkan preceded the rest of Guizhou, including predominantly Han cities like Guiyang, in the establishment of modern schools and hospitals is portrayed as a Miao triumph over discrimination and inferiority. Thus, the missionary history of Shimenkan has been subsumed by the state narrative of modernization and development.
Ma himself is a case in point. As a Da Hua Miao, Christianity was part of his identity and personal past, yet the term ‘Christian’ remained entirely unrelated in his mind to issues of theology and was associated primarily with ethnicity and the achievements of the past. Like many young rural men, Ma sought ways in which to integrate into China's new economic system. Living as a migrant worker in Shenzhen gave him a linguistic advantage and when we met, he was contemplating whether or not Shimenkan's tiny tourist industry could become a possible avenue for employment. Thus, while the Miao script displayed in the school yard was a source of ethnic pride, my young guide's true asset was his knowledge of standard Chinese as it offered him the greatest chance for personal advancement.
To summarize, the centrality of an external civilizing mission takes on different forms among the Da Hua Miao in Wuding and Shimenkan. For the villagers of Wuding, the central event in their narration of history is the transition from the imperial/Confucian to the missionary ‘civilizing project’ with the arrival of Pollard and the invention of the Miao script. Indeed, their religious identity contains a strong sense of gratitude towards their deliverance from the hands of Han oppression.
As my encounters with the Miao communities described above have shown, Christianity and ethnic identity are intimately connected. Thus, according to the clergymen of Wuding, the Hua Miao do not usually intermarry. This is not the case among non-Christian subgroups of the Miao, such as the Qing Miao of Anning, where acculturation seems to be well under way.Footnote 42 Similarly, the Pollard script seems to be largely limited to the Hua Miao where it is proudly displayed (although not necessarily used on an everyday basis). Likewise, in Shimenkan, where knowledge of Christianity seems quite diminished, the Pollard script and the image of Pollard himself are preserved as sources of ethnic pride. According to the head of the Summer Institute of Linguistics International office in Kunming, the same is true regarding the missionary-devised Lisu script: knowledge of the writing system is considerably more prevalent among the Christian Lisu than among their non-Christian kin.Footnote 43 The irony lies in the fact that, while local minority Christians seem to be more interested in their ethnicity than their non-Christian counterparts, foreign missionaries display ambivalence and, at times, hostility towards ethnically based Christianity and go to great lengths to emphasize the non-ethnic and individual basis of faith. To further understand the problematic of ethno-Christianity, I turn now to an examination of conversation I had with Mark, an American missionary living in Kunming.
The mask of culture
Shortly after returning from my trip to Wuding I went to meet Mark, an American Christian who has been active in China for over a decade. Mark was eager to hear about the way in which the Hua Miao articulated their faith, so I told him about the local Miao pastor's emphasis on the monotheistic principle. To my surprise, Mark expressed a deep dissatisfaction with what I had reported. To him, the ideas conveyed by pastor Zhang were evidence of the ‘nominal’ nature of Miao Christianity in the area. The essence of the Christian faith, he explained, was not monotheism but faith in Jesus, an understanding of the sinful nature of all humans and an acceptance of Jesus as the sacrifice leading to salvation. In Mark's interpretation, the fact that Zhang had failed to emphasize Christ, his death, and resurrection is a result of the fact that the Christianity of many minority believers has become ‘traditional’, a vague spirituality based on lineage or ethnicity. Indeed, from Mark's point of view, Christianity as a tradition cannot be considered true Christianity; a real Christian is one who has experienced a personal change through which he receives a ‘new heart’.Footnote 44
Unlike many of the missionaries I met whose religiosity was based entirely on experience, for Mark, experience had to be grounded in knowledge of scripture and theology. The lack of either produced ‘nominal’ Christians. Thus, as his reaction to my report on the Wuding Miao attests, Mark was troubled not only by the ethnic-traditional nature of Christianity in Yunnan but also by the lack of knowledge displayed by many second and third generation Christians and their inability to express the basic points of Christian theology. According to Mark, Zhang's words were indicative of the superficiality of Christianity in China as the vast majority of Chinese Christians—people like Miao in Wuding—do not have the ability to explain Christianity's basic tenets. In fact, the dangers of ignorance went beyond mere nominalism. Mark was distressed by the fact that a lack of theological knowledge has led many Chinese Christians to create a large variety of heterodox cults, often retaining certain elements of their original religious practices.Footnote 45
It should be noted that Mark was particularly vocal in his criticism of nominal Christianity compared to other missionaries I interviewed. They were somewhat less critical of the Christianity prevalent among minority Christians, emphasizing that nominal Christianity is a useful staging point from which true personal faith may be achieved. Nevertheless, as I have shown with regard to Mona, the identification of minority Christianity as basically nominal, and therefore clearly inferior to the true Evangelical faith, was widespread among virtually all the missionaries I interviewed. As such, Mark's arguments represent an extreme version of an exceedingly prevalent theological point of view.
Significantly, Mark's views on ‘true’ and ‘nominal’ converts were not limited to the Miao or to Yunnan's ethnic minorities. In fact, much of his criticism was pointed at the missionary community in Yunnan, particularly the Americans. It was a point he returned to many times in our conversations: that many Christians working in China are spreading a shallow and meaningless version of Christianity, one that he defined as ‘nominal at best’.Footnote 46 Moreover, while local ignorance of correct doctrine led to shallow conversions, such unawareness was the result of the ignorance of missionaries regarding the particular conditions in Yunnan. Thus, the responsibility for nominalism could not be placed wholly on the converts and their motives since it was also the inevitable outcome of the form of Christianity they received. As Mark said on a number of occasions, ‘These American missionaries and their cursed naiveté come to China making a whole lot of noise, full of enthusiasm and no understanding of the local culture.’ Likewise, Mark added that missionaries arrive with no awareness of the delicate relations between church and state in China. Acting in ways that are inappropriately public and indiscreet, they get in trouble with the authorities, sometimes being kicked out of the country and subsequently creating a halo of martyrdom around themselves as people who have ‘paid the price’.Footnote 47
In his decade in China, Mark has observed that many of the locals with whom the missionaries come in contact simply ‘play along’, providing the answers that are expected of them. Conversions occur on the basis of pragmatic interests which often have very little to do with faith. For Mark, such activity is virtually meaningless and potentially harmful. The missionaries feel good about themselves, boasting ‘hundreds of converts’, and reporting inflated numbers to their churches back home when, in fact, no real conversion has taken place. The widely flaunted numbers of Christians in China, in books like the ones written by David Aikman and Tony Lambert,Footnote 48 are, in Mark's opinion, largely overblown, the big numbers serving to rally American churches ‘because that's what we like in America’.Footnote 49
Nevertheless, in Mark's view, the nature of American missionaries is only one half of the trouble with conversion in China. The larger problem is rooted in certain core elements of Chinese culture. Like many foreign Christians, Mark is critical of certain aspects of Chinese culture and the Confucian tradition, one that he considers to be entrenched among both Han and ethnic minority Chinese. A metaphor he frequently used was of culture as a ‘mask’, ‘sort of a crust—formed and hardened over time’.Footnote 50 ‘The mask’, often equated by Mark with the Chinese social concept of ‘face’, was, in his view, simply the ‘sin of pride’. The mask ‘covers’ the faces of the Chinese and is the result of their long cultural tradition of pragmatism and the centrality of the dichotomy between ‘useful’ (youyong) and ‘useless’ (meiyouyong), which inherently negates the importance of pure spirituality and makes all conversions suspect. For Mark, the objective of a Christian must be ‘to break the Chinese mask of “face and pride”’, thus revealing the hidden self, with its potential willingness to change. Thus, Mark's declared objective may be seen as an invocation to move beyond culture to create change and a movement to faith at a personal level.
Mark's ten years of experience in China have only increased his doubts about the ability to create change. Time and again he has come to realize the earthly motives of many spiritual presumptions.Footnote 51 A similar assessment of certain elements in Chinese Christianity is noted by Daniel Bays who argues that ‘Christianity was often considered [by potential converts] for its efficaciousness not its truth; for its guanxi with the supernatural, not as a statement of faith for an individual or congregation.’Footnote 52 Similarly, Jonathan Chao, a leading Taiwanese Evangelical minister, has accused Chinese culture of being devoid of faith in the divine:
Chinese culture lacks transcendence: that is, the Chinese people have been educated to become humanists. Hence, their God-consciousness has been minimized. The Chinese sense of human autonomy has suppressed the truth of the knowledge of God implanted in man (Romans 1:18). The atheistic orientation in contemporary China has created a spiritual desert in the Chinese heart.Footnote 53
Thus, in Mark's view, true Christians are rather scarce in China. However, small numbers do not seem to trouble him. In the choice between quality and quantity, he prefers the former or, in his words, he would rather have ‘a clear mountain stream’ than ‘a wide and shallow lake’. The fact that the stream ‘gets kicked against the rocks’ is not necessarily a bad thing. In other words, state control and occasional persecution are not entirely negative in Mark's eyes as they create the potential for a deeper form of Christianity for dedicated believers.Footnote 54 In contrast, excessive freedom can easily lead to shallowness. Mark cites today's Russia as an example, claiming that after the fall of the USSR and the end of communist persecution of Christians, a lot of Christianity suddenly appeared ‘like a big, shallow, postmodern lake.’Footnote 55
Often at our meetings, Mark mused upon the differences and similarities between China and the United States: ‘We in America are drowning in light. Here in China they are dying in the darkness.’ ‘Drowning in light’ was a reference to the fact that many Americans define themselves as followers of Christ (equated by Mark with ‘light’) but are actually immersed in the worldliness of consumerism, pop culture, and money-making capitalism (equated with ‘darkness’). At the same time, in China, the gospel remains essentially unknown. This is not a result of a lack of missionary work or printed Bibles but rather a reflection of the abovementioned ‘mask’, which blocks the acceptance of the Christian message and leaves the Chinese to ‘die in the darkness’. Accordingly, in both the United States and China, the road to faith involves overcoming the obstacles of culture, in its different forms.
In our last conversation during a follow-up visit to Kunming in 2012, we returned to the issue of culture in the context of Yunnan's ethnic minorities. Mark opened by saying that to him culture was ‘of middle importance’. While Christianity had not come to replace any specific cultural context, it has the potential to be ‘a disruptive element’. Of course, there is no need for minority Christians to change their costume or language, elements of ethnicity that are highly visible in Yunnan and are officially encouraged as part of the ethno-tourism business. Indeed, Mark appreciated the aesthetic value of many elements of ethnic culture: ‘Some of them are very talented at singing, especially the Miao, and when the missionaries came in the nineteenth century, they taught them how to sing in “voices”, and you know how pretty that sounds.’Footnote 56 Nevertheless, in Mark's view, conversion does imply certain social changes. The example given was of the Yi, some of whom, according to Mark, are matriarchic.Footnote 57 Societies of that nature are considered by Mark to be sexually promiscuous in a way that contradicts Christian tenets, as it lacks the institution of marriage.
While he did not advocate a full-scale rejection of culture and all its manifestations, culture was relegated to a peripheral role and then re-examined and reshaped to fit a new focal point of identity—the absolute truth of Christ. Thus, Mark's concept of cultural preservation and change included a clear division between acceptable and non-acceptable forms of ethnic expression. As Mark's reference to Miao singing suggests, he perceives song, costume, and other outer manifestations as the central attributes of ethnicity. Mark's marking out of the legitimate elements of ethnic culture are virtually synonymous with those provided by Simon, a missionary working with the Bouyei people. When asked what manifestations of ethnic culture are worth maintaining after conversion, Simon spoke of language, song and dance, and costume.Footnote 58
Significantly, Mark and Simon's approaches to culture are remarkably similar to Chinese state policy on ethnicity. For example, social institutions like matrilineal families are clearly marked as unwanted pre-modern relics of the past.Footnote 59 Indeed, in recent years some Chinese scholars have praised the role played by Christianity in minority regions, focusing on its contribution to the promotion of monogamy, eradication of substance abuse, raising hygiene standards, social and psychological stability, as well as eliminating ‘superstition’ such as faith in the spirit world—all elements in the Chinese state's official version of modernization.Footnote 60 Although these scholars do not discuss contemporary missionary work, their overall positive assessment of Christianity implies an ambience of shared objectives. Indeed, combating addiction and encouraging productivity and social stability are central features of the contemporary missionary agenda in China, as articulated by several missionaries I interviewed.Footnote 61 I found the connection between religion, productivity, and strengthening the family particularly common among missionaries in Tibetan regions who often criticize Tibetan Buddhists for lack of productivity, superstition, infidelity, and heavy drinking.Footnote 62
The uneasiness regarding nominalism expressed by Mark and other missionaries seemed to be pointing at minority Christians of the kind I met in Wuding. It would clearly apply to the Miao of Shimenkan. What then would be the image of a ‘true’ rather than a ‘nominal’ contemporary ethnic Christian? How would their ethnic identity be expressed following conversion?
A Lisu evangelical in Kunming
I met Zhan, a relatively recent Lisu convert, through Mark's translator Benjamin, a Han Chinese who owned a Christian bookshop and served as the leader of a local house church.Footnote 63 Although Mark spoke passable Chinese, he felt that he often needed Benjamin's aid to convey complex theological ideas. It is interesting to note that a hierarchy of sorts existed in this case, beginning with Mark, an American Christian, followed by his Han-Chinese translator Benjamin and ending with Benjamin's congregant Zhan, a Lisu. That Zhan was chosen by Benjamin to speak with me is quite likely an indication that his leader believed he was firmly grounded in Evangelical Christianity and would express himself appropriately. It is precisely for this reason that I have chosen to present Zhan here, as a convert whose Christian identity was perceived by his church leaders as a reflection of ‘true’ rather than nominal Christianity.
Like Benjamin, Zhan was born in Dehong, where there is a sizable Lisu community.Footnote 64 The Lisu are a minority in Dehong where the majority of inhabitants are Dai believers in Theravada Buddhism. Unlike the Lisu of the Nujiang valley, the Lisu of Dehong have not been heavily influenced by Christianity and remain, for the most part, animists. However, Zhan comes from a Christian family; his parents converted through the efforts of a Lisu missionary who came to their village from British-controlled Burma some time before 1949. According to Zhan, initially the man from Burma was the only Christian in the village but in time he converted the entire population.Footnote 65 From Zhan's perspective, Christianity functioned as a liberator for the people of the village, especially in the economic realm. The upkeep of religious rites prior to conversion included frequent and expensive sacrifices, placing a heavy financial burden that Zhan's family was happy to be rid of.Footnote 66
After the 1949 revolution, Christianity was severely repressed and Zhan grew up in virtual ignorance of the religion. His description of his family is a good example of Oliver Roy's argument regarding the natural scepticism of born-agains towards their fathers and forefathers.Footnote 67 Thus, Zhan credits his parents for their conversion but, at the same time, regards it as essentially insubstantial, noting that they were Christians of the kind that ‘know there is a God’ but not much else. Indeed, Zhan's understanding of his parents’ faith is highly reminiscent of the criticism voiced by Mark regarding the Miao Christians I had met in Wuding and their ‘nominal’ faith.
When Zhan came of age, he decided to go to Myanmar and become involved in the jade trade. While he was there, he came across a Han Chinese church and ‘became a Christian’. After four years in Myanmar he moved back to China, to the border town of Ruili, married a Dai Christian, and met Benjamin whom he later followed to Kunming. Today, Zhan works at the bookshop and studies the Bible. His goal is to eventually move back to Dehong and work there as a church leader.
Much like his teacher, Benjamin, and his teacher's teacher, Mark, Zhan continuously emphasized the importance of personal faith and presented his faith in strong, uncompromising terms:
Only God knows what will happen. He is the sovereign (zhu) who runs the world, so faith is the most important thing. It's not enough to say that you're a Christian because of your family, you need to know what Christianity is about and choose it on your own.
Zhan identified himself as Lisu, an identity that was clearly important to him. Yet his relationship with Lisu culture is complex and, as a Christian, he will not participate in traditional Lisu festivals of the kind he took part in when he was growing up: to him all contain an element of ‘superstition’, using the common, often officially invoked, Chinese word ‘mixin’. Giving the example of the Knife Ladder Festival, an event in which barefoot Lisu men climb a ladder with knives as rungs, Zhan contended that there is clearly some form of magic involved, ‘otherwise, how is it done?’. Although Zhan did not elaborate on the issue of magic, I was given the impression that he was inferring that the climbers enter a form of trance or hypnotic state that enables them to climb without cutting themselves, marking the ceremony as absolutely off limits for a believing Christian.
He would, in theory, take part in ethnic dances, but only if they were ‘absolutely clean’ (‘gangan jingjing’), in other words, not sexually promiscuous (which seems not always to be the case among traditional Lisu). On occasion, he spent Chinese New Year at the house of his Dai in-laws. Although not particularly devout, as Dai, Zhan's in-laws identified as Theravada Buddhists and practised some minimal form of Buddhist ritual around the New Year. While the whole family spent the holiday together, Zhan's Dai family were aware of the fact, and have come to accept, that their daughter and son- in-law will not participate in any of the ceremonies.
Zhan grew up speaking Lisu, but the fact of his marriage to a Dai woman and living in predominantly Han Kunming, means that his life was conducted in Chinese. In fact, Zhan not only spoke Lisu, he was also literate in the ‘old Lisu’ script, otherwise known as the ‘Fraser alphabet’ after its inventor, the English missionary James Fraser. According to Zhan, everybody in his village can read the Lisu script. As with the Miao, the script is taught in church and not in the school system. However, Zhan's young son, at the time five years old, spoke no Lisu or Dai and was proficient in Chinese only. When asked about the issue of language, Zhan seemed to be more interested in English, both for himself and for his child. He expressed admiration for Benjamin and his ability to speak English fluently, a skill Zhan had yet to acquire. Interestingly, Zhan felt that knowledge of English could help him further his understanding of the Bible, despite knowing that the English Bible is also a translation. Ideally, Zhan said, he would like his son to speak ‘Chinese, English, Lisu, and Dai’ (in that order). In actuality, however, his life in Kunming offered the child no opportunities to study his parents’ native tongues.Footnote 68
Unlike the Miao Christians of Wuding and Shimenkan, Zhan's Christianity was not formed in reaction to discrimination or ethnic survival in the face of an oppressive Han centre. Rather, Zhan's faith resembled that of Mark and Benjamin, his foreign and Han teachers: it was based first and foremost on personal choice. Indeed, his conversion process and his training to be a church leader took place in an entirely Han Chinese context, first with the Chinese Christians in Myanmar and later with Benjamin in the predominantly Han city of Kunming. Moreover, Zhan's Christianity included a strong element of criticism regarding ethnic tradition and a call to move beyond culture and towards a global community, expressed in the importance he ascribed to the study of English.
As mentioned, Zhan eventually planned to move back to Dehong to preach the gospel. His aspiration to become a missionary seemed the natural outcome of the admiration he has for his teachers Benjamin and Mark, and for James Fraser, the early missionary to the Lisu. What was most impressive to him about people like Fraser, and evidence of his sincerity, was the fact that: ‘He had a comfortable life in England but he chose to come to this primitive (luohuo) area.’ However, Zhan had not yet decided where exactly in Dehong he would like to live. According to him, the government's tolerance of his activities would depend on the ethnicity and religion of those he would preach to. He explained that he had three options upon returning to Dehong.
The first, and easiest, option would be to return to a Lisu community already defined as Christian, like the village in which Zhan grew up. There, among ‘nominal’ Christians like his family, Zhan could help spread the more faith-based, Evangelical Christianity he has adopted. According to Zhan, in such a case, with the village already known to be Christian since pre-revolutionary times, there would probably be no problem with the authorities at all.
A somewhat more daring option would be to move to a non-Christian Lisu locality. Zhan would then be in danger of being identified as a missionary and engaging in officially illegal activity. However, since the Lisu are a heavily Christianized minority at the provincial level, his preaching among non-Christian Lisu might be tolerated. In this context, it would seem that state tolerance may sometimes be seen as a reflection of the reality on the ground and the fact that the Lisu, as a whole, are associated with Christianity.
The third, most risky, and therefore most attractive option for someone like Zhan, who aspires to be on the frontline of missionary work, would be to preach among the Dai, where the Christian community is extremely small. The Joshua Project divides the Dai of Dehong into two major groups: the Tai Mao and the Tai Pong. Despite reports of 34 Tai Mao who converted to Christianity in 1993 as a result of encountering a Taiwanese mission group, the percentage of Christians in both subgroups does not exceed 22/100 of a per cent of the population.Footnote 69 In recent years, the state has been quite supportive of Buddhism among the Dai and the accompanying revival of Buddhist culture. According to Susan Mccarthy, officials are attempting to limit and control, but not prohibit, the flow of Theravada monks from Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos to work among the Dai.Footnote 70 According to Zhan, trying to spread Christianity among the Dai would almost certainly be considered a threat to social stability and could get him into serious trouble. With their strong Buddhist identity, one may also assume that the Dai themselves may not be receptive to Zhan's attempt to convert them to Christianity. Although we did not discuss the subject of Dai attitudes to Christianity at length, it seemed to me that Zhan was confident that this work can be done and that his message will be heard.
Zhan's description of the borders of authorized activity reveal the way in which the state has created an unofficial set of classifications regarding the promulgation of Christianity. I have already mentioned the relative leniency of the authorities in Yunnan compared to Beijing or other Chinese heartland areas. According to some Christian activists, the same is true within the province, with stricter standards and more surveillance for urban Han compared to rural Christian minority people.Footnote 71 Among minorities, those who are officially or semi-officially defined as Christian are allowed the largest degree of religious activity. People of the same minority group who have not yet been converted, like many of the Lisu of Dehong, represent the middle ground: the Lisu as a whole are well known for their large Christian population, making evangelism tolerable in the eyes of the authorities, even when conducted among non-Christian Lisu.
Working among a non-Christian minority groups is the most problematic scenario, particularly when the group is officially identified with another religion, as with the Buddhist Dai. However, Zhan is extremely resolute in his faith and was willing to go wherever he considered he is most needed, regardless of the authorities:
You can't recognize a real Christian from the outside; a real Christian is one whose heart is pure. Christians who deny their religion when they're tested [referring to those who abandoned Christianity after the Communist takeover], are not real Christians. What's important is to let the government know that they do not make the decision, God does.
While Zhan was introduced to me as an ethnic minority Christian, our conversations invariably revolved around the centre of his life—his faith in Christianity. Despite the importance that he attributes to his Lisu identity, ethnicity does not seem to be a major factor in his personal decision-making. Although clearly aware of state policy towards ethnic groups in Yunnan, Zhan presented his decision of where to live largely in light of his ability and willingness to persevere in the face of difficulties and state harassment. Proximity to his own family and issues of ethnic culture preservation, education, or even familiarity and comfort were never mentioned. Furthermore, Zhan used the language of the state to describe Lisu festivals, referring to them as ‘superstition’. Finally, his personal life choices reflect the reality of ethnic amalgamation. Like other mixed couples I met in Yunnan, Zhan and his Dai wife naturally chose to speak Chinese to their son, thus leading him on the road towards Hanization. The global nature of Christian identity is evidenced in Zhan's interest in English, placing it, as he does, above Lisu in the languages he would like his son to learn, which also reveals his inclination to place his global Christian identity above his ethnicity.
As Zhan observed, Christianity in China is often criticized in two ways: as a Western religion, which implies foreignness in the Chinese context, and as a religion of minority people, which implies inferiority. As a minority Christian, Zhan felt he needed to respond to both accusations—to both, this was that Christianity is neither Western nor Lisu, nor does it belong to any one locality or nation. It is global and transnational and, as such, it lies well beyond mere culture and ethnicity.
Conclusion: moving beyond ethnic culture
In his article on Pentecostalism in Asia, Gotthard Oblau stresses the idea that the message of the gospel is ‘change oriented’ and focuses on ‘the human power of the individual’.Footnote 72 Marking change, movement, and rebirth as the major aspects of the gospel simultaneously implies reference to the forces and dynamics of lesser importance or negative influence: tradition, attachment to the past, and ascribing to identity markers in which the individual is not as central as the group. Thus, missionaries today express a will to create what Oliver Roy terms a ‘pristine faith’, one that is free of ethnic distinctiveness and is based almost entirely on individual experience. Oblau's emphasis on change and individuality brings to mind Mark's view of culture as something ‘of middle importance’ when seen in the overall context of personal conversion. Furthermore, the relatively marginal significance of ethnic identity is made clear in the willingness and, indeed, enthusiasm of missionaries to live outside their cultural context, crossing ethnic and national lines for the purposes of their missionary work. Thus, in accordance with Oliver Roy's understanding of global religiosity mentioned above, while missionaries speak of the community of the church, they do so in transnational and global, rather than national or ethnic, terms.
Christianity in Yunnan may be described as a religion with a conflicting double character. On the one hand, it is ethnic in nature and has been since its introduction in the late nineteenth century. On the other hand, contemporary missionaries reflect their uneasiness with precisely the attributes that made Christianity most attractive to minority peoples, namely its ability to protect ethnic communities from assimilation and oppression. As I have attempted to show, the complexity of the relationship between Christianity and ethnicity is rooted in the experience of Protestant missionaries in Yunnan since pre-revolutionary times. Today, criticism of conversion based on grounds other than individual personal salvation has increased to the point where many of the descendants of pre-1949 converts are looked upon by some as only partially genuine. The tone of criticism can be seen in the words of the ‘three generations’ of Evangelical Christians mentioned above. To Mark, the American minister, ‘nominalism’ is a result of lack of knowledge, over-enthusiastic and superficial missionary work, and the ingrained pragmatism of locals. As such, it permeates Chinese Christianity and is the rule rather than the exception. Benjamin, Mark's Han Chinese student and interpreter, considers the early stage of his own conversion to have been insufficient, powered primarily by earthly rather than spiritual motives. Finally, Zhan, Benjamin's Lisu student, is critical of the pre-1949 conversion of his parents as he believes that it reflects only a minimal understanding of God rather than a full-blown acquaintance with Christian dogma and faith.
The opinions of Mark, Benjamin, and Zhan exemplify the gulf between current Evangelical Christians and the Miao communities of Yunnan still operating under the ‘mask’ of culture and viewing their religion through the prism of pragmatic ethnicity and empowerment. As my experiences among the Hua Miao Christians in both Wuding and Shimenkan, and the Qing Miao of Anning reveal, Christianity, and religion in general, are closely connected to the markers and symbols of ethnic identity, primarily to the scripts invented by the missionaries and widely displayed as symbols of cultural capital. Indeed, ethnic Christians, like the residents of Shimenkan, view the successes of the past as a validation of their ethnic culture in the face of the Han state centre. In the case of the Hua Miao, ethno-religious identity is such that, at least according to Pastor Zhang, intermarriage with other ethnic groups is discouraged. Thus, Christian Miao, categorized by Mona and Mark as ‘nominal’, seem to ascribe more importance to their ethnicity than their non-Christian kin, such as the Qing Miao. In contrast, the newly converted Zhan represents a new model of religiosity, one that ascribes secondary importance to ethnic culture.
In an attempt to balance the drive towards an individually based religiosity and the need to indigenize Christianity and provide room for ethnic expression, missionaries like Mark and their local students like Benjamin and Zhan apply what Stevan Harrell has termed ‘the hegemony of definition’:Footnote 73 an attempt to define the nature and limits of ethnic identity. The elements of ethnic culture they emphasize include costume, song, and language—representations of ethnicity that generally coincide with the image of ethnic minorities produced by the state. In addition to the correspondence between the missionaries and the Chinese authorities on the symbolic level, new converts like Zhan exemplify the crossing of ethnic lines, with a concomitant diminished potential for ethnic tension and, indeed, a process of rapid assimilation Hanization.
