Reading :: Making Christ present in China

Making Christ present in China: Actor-network theory and the anthropology of Christianity By Michel Chambon

In this ethnography, Michel Chambon examines churches in the Yanping District — state-licensed and underground; Catholic, Protestant, and three-self — to understand how Chinese Christians take up Christianity and translate it in their practice. 

The book is substantial, but not exactly in my field of expertise. So I’ll only say a few things about it. 

First, although Christians encourage us to understand Christianity as an underlying truth, it’s also common knowledge that Christianity is adapted to the environment that hosts it. For instance, most of us know that Easter is celebrated with iconography emphasizing Christ’s resurrection, but also symbols of fertility (eggs, rabbits). Catholic holidays are littered with this casual synchretism. Although Christianity has been applied to colonize non-Christian countries, those countries also reinterpret Christianity in terms of their own cultures and beliefs. Chambon provides more evidence for this fact. Interestingly, he points out that Thanksgiving — a specifically American and not necessarily religious holiday — has been taken up by Chinese believers as a Christian holiday and linked with Chinese customs that predate it. This uptake apparently came from South Korea, where US troops brought it during the war. And it is so broadly accepted that the people Chambon interviewed were surprised to hear that it wasn’t celebrated by Christians worldwide.

Second, Chambon also examines the uptake of symbols. One mildly surprising symbol was the piano, which churchgoers took to be the quintessential Christian instrument — so much so that they couldn’t imagine a church without it. They could imagine a church without a cross, but not without a piano. 

Although I enjoyed this discussion, I was not convinced that actor-network theory was a necessary part of the analysis. I also didn’t think the book was especially dense — honestly, I think it could have been much shorter. 

Still, if you are interested in how beliefs are taken up and translated in new environments, I recommend reading this book.