Dual Personality and Truthfulness

- On the issue of dual personality encountered in the Ministry for Mainlanders in North American

By Liu Tong-Su

The term hypocrisy indicates a difference between one's outward behavior and one's inward self. As Mainlanders who have went through the Cultural Revolution, we have a very personal appreciation of hypocrisy. The prevailing political environment had forced everybody to wear an official mask in public, while living a different lifestyle in private. Such dual personality has become a very important characteristic of China's society and culture. When people with such dual personality come to North America and participate in church activities, even as they enter into ministry, this characteristic is also introduced into the church, causing great confusion in the ministry for Chinese Mainlanders

The way to survive

After the second "downfall" in the seventies, my father was "exiled" to one of the poorest counties in Shanxi Province, where he witnessed a phenomenon he had never heard of. On one hand, everyone, from county officials all the way down to individual peasants, was shouting hard to criticize the capitalist individual business man and free trade. However, on the other hand, tens of thousands of people would show up in regularly scheduled flea markets to freely buy and sell products resulting from their own labor.

Every time my father and his secretary went to the flea market to investigate, somebody would immediately call local officials, who would then use a loudspeaker to notify everyone to be prepared to "welcome" the provincial officials. As a result, all my father would likely see were a few sparsely attended state-run stores and collection centers.

The striking difference between the superficial appearance and real life greatly shocked my father, who was a faithful believer of communism. However, to the common folks who survived that era, wasn't that a normal way of life?

During that era the social structure and the apparent way of life were imposed upon the people by political edict. Under such pressure, everyone has had to face the difficulties merely to survive: if I do not accept this lifestyle, then I might not survive; if I do, then I might not live as my own self.

Consequently, one's survival instinct provided one with a practical attitude to cope with such environment. This kind of lifestyle was accepted in order that one might survive. At the same time, one would put up an appearance to appease the officials, and under the appearance one's original lifestyle was preserved. Therefore one lives with a dual personality; true living was conducted under the cover of the official way of life.

When we claim that we accept the Christian faith, how many of us are merely accepting an outside system of dialogue? How many have merely learned the language, but have no real transformation in life? In the Chinese churches in North America, eloquence is a major characteristic among Chinese Mainlanders. Even for those seekers who only attended church for two to three months, they may display an amazing affinity to adapt to commonly used church vocabulary and spiritual phraseology.

However, is that true faith? Our past cultural background enables us to intuitively grab and master the church language and dialogue, with the presumption that as long as we are fluent in the use of this language, we may survive in the church. But true faith is life itself, and only those who possess a transformed life can truly live in the church. If one only accepts an exterior language system but his inner self remains untouched, one is a false believer, and can only survive superficially in the church.

What is troublesome is that the possession of such exterior language system not only enables the owner to survive independently of inner spiritual life, but it can grow through forced occupation, resulting in the suppression and suffocation of our spiritual growth. Many pastors felt that counseling the Mainlanders is like chopping a cotton ball with a knife: no matter how hard they try, they only appeared to cut into the subject, but in fact nothing was severed. One of the reasons for such a phenomenon is the existence of a dual language system.

As soon as someone puts on an independently surviving exterior language system, this system immediately becomes a self-protecting outer shield. The shield has a filtering capability. Whatever spiritual nutrition comes by, it can filter out the life-giving content but only absorb the language with a superficial meaning. Due to the presence of this filtering system, the more the nutrient, the thicker the outwardly attached exterior language system becomes. This system in turn sets up more barriers to prevent the inward life from getting the desired nutrient.

The stage for promotion

In the past several decades, accepting a uniform exterior language system has become a necessary condition to survive in the Chinese society. A perfect example is certain high-ranking leader of the country. He suffered a downfall during the Cultural Revolution. Although the Cultural Revolution was approaching its ending in 1972, and a reform blueprint was emerging in his mind, he still submitted a report of self-criticism to the Central Committee. In the report he continued to use the official language that prevailed during the Cultural Revolution, praising the Cultural Revolution even when in fact it was going downhill. He was restored to head up the Department of State, and achieved significant results. Even though he was again removed from his position in 1976, his efforts gave him the second chance of restoration and set the stage for China's forthcoming reformation.

Nonetheless, this type of positive examples is not sufficient to change the nastiness of the overall system. The existence of this dual language system not only condones human hypocrisy, but it encourages the lying habits of those with political ambition and those who aim to please for their own gain. For example, the Great Leap Forward was not a lie to begin with. However, when unrealistic and false reports that aimed to please the ruling class continued to win praises and rewards from the top, the Great Leap Forward quickly degenerated to a boasting game and a race of lies. Such examples were commonplace.

Many Mainland Christians come to church with a similar political attitude. They think that ministry is the art of speaking an "official" language. One Mainland Christian commented after he listened to a message from an old minister: "I can do better than this if I only read two more books!" Such a viewpoint is quite representative among Mainland Christians. In addition, quite a few Mainland Christians told me that they are quite suitable to become ministers. What is their claim to be qualified to become a minister? "Ability to speak." To them, ministry is not about transforming life, but about manipulating speech. One who is fluent in the official language, and is capable of writing political reports, will be able to minister.

Many Mainland Christians are diligent in learning the spiritual vocabulary, mastering a few exegetic methodologies, and imitating several prayer formats. Then they felt they are qualified to be co-workers, even ministers. The fact that there are many spiritually shallow Mainland Christians, who look down upon ministers, and newly ordained Mainland ministers, who belittle their seniors, is because they are proud of their ability to master the exterior language system. They have failed to realize that the substance of faith and pastoring comes from one's inward spiritual life.

Reading between the lines

Rumor through the grapevine is another strange by-product of China's peculiar societal environment. On the one hand, grapevine rumor was generated due to government monopoly of China's media; on the other hand, articles from the official source become an important source of grapevine rumors. Often times, grapevine rumors are attempts to decode official pronouncements, broadcasting the messages hidden between the lines of the official document.

For example, during the October of 1970, it was rumored that Mr. Chen Bo-Da (member of the standing committee of the Chinese Political Bureau, leader of the Cultural Revolution Group) was about to ousted. At that time, the congress was in session and most of the participants still failed to figure out the conflict betweem Chen and Mao. However, those in Beijing who were sensitive to the political climate already made a negative prediction regarding Chen from the official report on his activities during China's National Day.

An even more famous example was the movement to criticize Lin Biao and Confucius. The rumor mill interpretation was that the apparent attacks on the dead tiger, Lin Biao, and the ancient sage Confucius, was actually directed towards Mr. Zhou En-Lai who held significant real power. Therefore, grapevine rumor is in fact a game of decoding the system of dual-speak. Compared with our discussions of "the way of survival" and "the stage for promotion", grapevine rumor has a far greater effect of political corruption. Within the two previous conditions, people used their hypocrisy to deal with a potentially real political system; with grapevine rumor, people already made up their mind that there is a different set of language behind the official facade. In this case, individual hypocrisy becomes justified because one is merely using one's hypocrisy to deal with official hypocrisy.

Unfortunately, someone may bring the same grapevine rumor suspicion to the church. Under teaching that is originally truthful, they try to discover another set of language. When being taught to tithe offering, he can smell monetary greed and the motive for collecting money; when being taught to obey spiritual authority, he can discover motive to monopolize and signs of dictatorship; when discussing repentance of sin, he will find out that it is in fact geared towards some individual, who is going to be dealt with...

No teaching can be effective for these people, because they treat spiritual admonishment as a disguise to cover up private gain. They place all their attention on finding the hidden motive behind the teaching- and as soon as they find what they considered as "private gain", they can reject spiritual teaching in good conscience and continue to live in their sin.

The honest sees truthfulness in people, and the hypocrite sees hypocrisy in people. When a person with a dual personality comes to a church, he will habitually fabricate a dark world behind every member. He may even broadcast his fabrication to strengthen his own dark world: (Look! So and so is just like me!)

The damage done by grapevine rumor is in its broadcast. No only does it strengthened the hypocrisy of the broadcaster; what is even more horrible is that it broadly corrupted the faith of others.

The way of truthfulness

Without truthfulness there is no truth; without truthfulness there is no life; without truthfulness, all ministries are ineffective. No matter which truth one learns, if it is learned with an attitude of hypocrisy, then one only learns false truth.

Truthfulness is urgently needed in the ministry for North American Mainland scholars. Right now our ministry has many damaged areas, all related to our lives' lacking in truthfulness. Based on this discussion, I have two suggestions on pastoring Mainlanders:

1. Do not rush to assign ministry service or church position to Mainland Christians simply based on their exterior eloquence, to prevent a tendency of paying attention only to exterior language; rather, go slowly to assure the consistency of inward life with outward speech.

2. Do not encourage them to be involved in public ministry such as moderators in an assembly, but focus on individual truthfulness to God and to themselves in private, such as prayers in inside chambers.

My pastoral experience has shown that those who paid attention to exterior language may have great superficial progress, but those who have truthfully dealt with God and themselves will exhibit transformed lives.

The author came from Mainland China. He is now a pastor in New Life Chinese Church, New York City and an associate researcher in NYACK seminary.