Unexpected Developments in North America

- should biblical edification come from individuals, or from the church?

By Liu Tongsu

North American Fellowships that focused on Mainland Chinese Christians have a serious shortcoming. Biblical teaching often times originate from individuals who do not emphasize church involvement.

The creation and growth of this style of edification have to do with the peculiar environment at the time when this ministry was at its infancy. At the beginning of this ministry, many local churches were not prepared to face such numerous seekers and newly baptized Christians who brought with them very different cultural background from the more established Christians. Therefore, the leadership of individual Christians, Campus bible study groups, and narrowly focused church-like organizations such as fellowships, became mainstream in this ministry. The influence of established churches was therefore minimal.

However, if we further investigate this phenomenon, it would not be difficult to discover that its creation and growth was influenced by church tradition and the society's cultural background. Today, the limitations of this edification approach and the resulting resistance preventing mainland Christians to fully enter into church life, have been clearly demonstrated.

The Force Behind the Movement

Since the time of the Reformation, most churches have a traditional assumption: God has provided a literal bible. Under the bible are equal and independent Christians, each of whom has his own independent interpretation of the bible. The union of these equal and independent bible-interpreting Christians is the church. A pastor and his associated organization is but a group of people authorized by these Christians to represent them to exposit the bible...

This tradition is founded on individual Christians first and church second. Although this tradition established the bible's absolute authority, individual Christian's independent interpretation of the bible is key to the transference of bible authority to personal (?) authority.

Clearly this tradition originated from an aversion towards the despotic and stiff class structure of the medieval church. While this approach corrected the bad habits, it failed to take into consideration the entire picture.

A similar approach was raised by the classical libertarianism, which was strongly influenced by the spirit of Reformation. Classic libertarianism emphasized the absolute independence and equality of individuals, from which a society must be established. The individual under the Constitution has absolute freedom, and administrative organizations (the government representing the society) have only the power to execute law.

Classic libertarianism significantly influenced the destruction of medieval feudal system and class structure; however, in a modern society, it has much limitation. The modern society is highly coordinated; the society is not simple combination of isolated individuals, but social people whose survival depends on the society and who are obligated to fulfill their respective roles accorded them by the society.

In practice, absolutely independent and equal individuals only exist in abstract analysis. A real individual must live within societal relationships. In other words, an individual's survival must be carried by his societal relationships.

I cannot introduce here all social theories based on social welfare. I would only mention two societal movements of the Twentieth Century - National interference (represented by F. D. Roosevelt's Great Society) and the welfare state (represented by North European states). These two social movements have a common assumption: the society has a greater presence compared to the mechanical combination of individuals; and this greater organic body may independently set boundaries upon individuals, including the existence of individuals in this body. Individual right is not absolute, but should be limited and modified in accordance to the society's structure and need. These two societal movements demonstrated that the society not just depends on individuals, but defines individuals.

Many North American pastors mentioned to me, a pastor from Mainland China, their surprise in seeing the behaviors of Mainland Chinese Christians. They have presumed that people coming from extreme socialist societies would be collectively minded. On the contrary, these people coming from Mainland China turned out to be extreme individualists.

The truth is, this generation of intellectuals and professionals, who came from Mainland China to study in North America, grew up in a culture that rejects traditional nationalism. The avant-garde Westernization theory popular among this generation has, to a large degree, ignored Western societal movements, and copied almost verbatim the pre-Nineteenth Century classical libertarianism.

This is because on the one hand, they regard individualism as an exact black and white opposite of national dictatorship; on the other hand, they have idealized individualism because they have not personally experienced it. The concept of individual rights from classical libertarianism has become this generation's absolute belief.

Biblical Principles

"My spiritual life is something between myself and God, and is no one else's (including the church and brothers' and sisters') business." This is a concept widely held by North American Mainland Chinese Christians. This concept has a causal relationship with the traditions and backgrounds I have discussed previously. If an individual can be above the church (society), of course he could interact directly with God without any dependence on the church. However, is this what the bible taught?

If the God that the bible described is an abstract theory or intractable spirit, then our relationship with God can certainly be individualized. But the God of the bible is God become flesh; He manifested His life through His body. How can we experience His life apart from His body (Church)? (Who can experience life outside of a body?) Where can we go to build up a relationship with God? (If there were a relationship, it would not be a life relationship.)

A limited man wants to independently receive the limitless God; isn't he already put himself on the pedestal of God (who is limitless)? In fact, the correct acceptance by a limited individual of God's limitless life must be through the common body of Christ. Therefore, his experience of God's life must not be absolute or independent; rather it must be conditioned through Christ's body.

It is like a cell can possess a complete set of DNA, but the DNA it possessed must not be repelled by the entire body; otherwise, the DNA has to be a mutant DNA. In addition, even if a cell possessed a complete set of DNA, a cell cannot survive on its own. Without the support of the digestive, circulation and other bodily functions, a cell cannot independently receive nutrition; without the wholesome protection afforded by the body's immune system, a cell can also not protect itself.

Likewise, without the nutrition and protection provided by Christ's body, how can a spiritual cell receive the limitless life of God? How can it survive in a world infested by so many viruses of sin?

"To perfect the saints, to do the work of ministry, and to build up the body of Christ" (Ephesians 4:12). The perfection of the saints is to build the body of Christ. "To perfect the saints" is consistent with "building up the body of Christ"; it is different from what some people's belief that one just has to independently perfect individual saints, and when one put these saints together they became the body of Christ.

The key to simultaneously achieving "perfection of the saints" and "building up of Christ's body" is in "to do the work of ministry". To live within the body of Christ does not imply independent individuals attached to the body of Christ; rather organically become part of Christ's body as a member. To live within a body implies becoming a hand, a foot, an eye, an ear, a stomach, or a lung. It is to become a part, and not an imitation of the whole.

To become a member has two qualifications. First, a member must fulfill its function as a member; can a leg claim to be a leg without supporting the weight of the body? In practice, if one cannot fulfill one's function within Christ's body, one has not yet become a member. He has not yet truly live in Christ's body (maybe just an anatomical drawing) and by extension does not possess the life of Christ.

Second, as a part of the body the member must obey the authority of the head in accordance with its ratio within the body, and conjoined with other members of the body. Only those who practice his function according to the ratio within Christ's body are true saints.

From the very beginning, the salvation of Jesus Christ was inseparable from the concept of a Heavenly Kingdom; a kingdom is an organic body with necessary organization and structure. Salvation is not a pure individual event, but must take place within the context of the kingdom. The famous 13 people (and seventy) team of Jesus Christ is not a accidental happenstance, but a solid example of spiritual truth reduced to practice.

The issue at hand

The ministry of North American mainlanders centered on edifying individuals has the characteristics of wholesale teaching. That is, this teaching style can bypass the organic living body of the church and covered a large area of the individual. A life is a comprehensive, complex body. A comprehensive, complex body can only survive in a comprehensive, complex environment. That is why the life of a Christian can only thrive in the church, a full scale, long sustaining complex spiritual environment.

The reason that wholesale teaching can cover a large area of the individual is that it only partially or temporarily touches someone's life. More accurately, it only touched certain aspect or certain time period in an individual's life.

Of course, even though it only touched certain aspect and certain period in an individual's life, it is still part of the ministry. However, if such teaching can only touch some aspects and is temporary, it should be regarded as secondary. If this style of teaching is the primary emphasis in the ministry, the lives produced by such ministry would be partial and temporary, and therefore cannot merge into a full scale complex spiritual environment.

The wholesale teaching within the ministry of North American mainlanders are manifested in these three activities: (1) large scale evangelical camps; (2) publications, books, and written training materials; (3) independent fellowships and bible study groups. These three activities were promoted through God's hands and had served their purposes in ministry. However, when these activities replace the church and become the focus of ministry, their inadequacies also become fully exposed. Those edified entirely through publications and teaching manuals only experience life in an intellectual level; those edified entirely through evangelical camps can only be active in an emotional meeting; those accustomed to the narrow focus of fellowships and bible study groups will also find it hard to adjust to the full manifestation of life in a church... A teaching lacking in its comprehensiveness will not produce comprehensive lives.

Clearly this is not the fault of organizations, publications and campus ministries. These perceptive entities grasped the God given opportunities and whole-heartedly responded to God's calling. Looking through the lenses of their lives, the many churches ought to realize their inadequacy and setback.

It is because through the nineties many Chinese churches in North America were not willing to be broken, and adjust the form and attitude of their ministries; rather, they allowed the burdens of gospel and edification to be taken over by organizations, publications and campus ministry. Because of this we have a situation of the cart pushing the horse.

According to the red hot mainlander ministries of the nineties, and the vast numbers of people baptized, the churches in North America should have experienced rapid growth. However, have we witnessed concomitant growth in churches? Apparently, the rate of loss of Chinese mainland Christians baptized in North America is over 60%. In other words, for every two baptized Chinese mainland Christians one was no longer in a church. We cannot blame it on accidental factors; it only reflected the serious shortcomings in the style of edification received.

Even until today, we are still independently seek problems from the perspectives of individuals and churches, without realizing that the problem lies squarely on the separation between individual edification and church building. If our work of edification does not take place within a church, nor uses a church as backup, how could we produce Christians who can properly function within a church? If we consider edification of saints and church building as totally separate activities, the Christians we edified will necessarily have to face the issue of integrating into a church.

However, how can there be Christians who have not been integrated into the body of Christ? We cannot but ask ourselves: are the unchurched Christians we helped develop true Christians?

As for the other 40% who were "not lost", have they been truly integrated into Christ's body? Have there been some, who have never been linked with other members, nor have they fulfilled the function of, and the necessary attributes of being a cell of, a member of the body? Can they be counted as one who have lived in Christ's body?

For example, the cells of a hand must in practice be a part in fulfilling the necessary functions accorded the hand; whether skin, blood, bone, flesh, ligament...but those cells attached to the hand without taking part in its functioning are parts of a wart.

Within the ministry of North American mainlanders, how many are 'warts' attached to the church? Many churches used the numbers of mainlanders to amplify themselves, to increase the numbers of baptized people and church attendance. These numbers include many 'Christians' who cannot use their lives to support church functions; could we not consider them 'warts' attached to the body of Christ?

Furthermore, there are those who would not let their old self pass away, but continue to disobey the church's authority making trouble in churches. They can be considered 'cancer cells'. Cancer is a consequence of mutant cells growing in number without restrain; individuals who overexert their presence not according to his ratio within the body of Christ become the cancer cells inside the body of Christ. The lack of subordination, discipline, and teachability of Chinese mainland Christians in North American churches has been quite commonplace.

And then there are also some 'traveling preaching audience'. These traveling audience move among churches without committing to the demands from being part of Christ's body, and they do not obey the authority of the church. They claim to be loyal to the invisible church. Since when has God no longer abide in the visible body of Christ? Likewise, since when is there an invisible church that is separate from the flesh and bones of the visible church? "For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen" (I John 4:20) A lack of loyalty to the visible church implies a lack of loyalty to the invisible universal church. Loyalty to an abstract church has no substance, and it does not have a flesh and blood meaning of life. Loyalty to the church with your life implies that you commit your flesh and blood life to the church that God has placed before you.

Those who refused their loyalty to any church would say, "Which church is not God's church?" If that is the case, why do you refuse to commit to any one of these churches?

They would also claim, "If these are all God's church, why don't I have a choice to leave this church and go to another church?" By the same token, if these are all God's church, why do you have to leave this church to go to another church? If you continue to pick and choose not willing to commit to any church that God places you, then to you no church is God's church. Isn't it so? He who commit to all churches certainly has not truly committed to any one church.

The current complications

Christians are members within the body of Christ; this is pre-ordained according to the biblical concepts of creation and salvation. There have never been isolated individual understandings. Those who claimed to have individual understandings have their thoughts modified by Reformation thoughts and classic libertarianism.

We can witness in many churches the uniform voices echoed by those advocating individualism in their vocabulary, logic and their non-contextual interpretation of the bible. Those who promote individualism are in fact very 'un-individual'. They merely inherited certain traditions and unconsciously created new traditions in different groups.

In just over ten years, the North American Chinese mainland ministry has developed its own tradition. A negative expression of such tradition is the above mentioned individualism or libertarianism. Current difficulties in ministering to mainland Christians are not limited to their individual sinfulness, but also the partiality of this tradition that provides protection and support for individualism.

This power is very strong; it is hard to appreciate without personal experience. To North American mainland ministry, the new century becomes a point of departure from modernism to post-modernism. The modernists' intellectualism is being replaced by subjective feelings. The 'spiritual gift' movement that puts emphasis on feelings and emotions is a reaction towards the prior intellectualism.

However, these two apparently opposite movements have at least two common points. First, because they are separated from the flesh and blood body of Christ, both understanding and spirit may lose their true meanings. Just like concepts that are separated from real life can become empty semantic analysis, spirits that are separated from real life can become pure outlets of personal emotion.

Secondly, getting around the body of Christ, individuals not only may use self-initiated concepts to fill abstract words, but also may use subjective feelings as contents of imaginary spirit. The 'spiritual gift' movement in North American mainland Chinese ministry is a natural reaction to the previously prevalent intellectualism, but it is not a satisfactory answer. It is still at a loss regarding the relationship between individuals and the body.

The correct direction is not drifting upward, but rather dropping to reality. For now, whether it is the ministry as a whole, or for individuals, the key is how to integrate into the church.

Regarding the church, the author has the following suggestions:

1. Stop treating gospel outreach and edification as something owned by mainland ministry organizations, publications and speakers from Mainland China. Only in a church can Christian life be nurtured. This ministry must be owned by churches; organizations, publications and speakers can only provide secondary assistance. If you want to nurture your own (those truly living a church life), you must do it yourself.

2. Stop overtly rely on manuals and publications. In fact, the daily lives in church are the best teaching material. Living is the best way of learning how to live. The practical daily church activities (not those highly visible activities) will perfect practical lives. Comprehensive and long-lasting church life is the only path to edifying church Christians. Do not overtly uphold rapid advances; do not overtly emphasize breakthroughs; the modifying effect of comprehensive and long-lasting church life is much more fundamental to these.

3. Be willing to pay a great price. The foundation of any ministry is the cross. Because the North American Mainland Christians are first generation Christians in the special Asian cultural groups, the church must pay a price like missionaries to minister in that culture.

Based on my own eight years' experience ministering a church and fellowship focused on Mainland Chinese, it is not possible to develop this ministry if one is unwilling to bear this cross. Evidence of the nails of this cross is the sign of entering this ministry. Quoting Mrs. Joanna Su of "Overseas Campus" Magazine, "If you have not yet cried, you still don't know what is North American Mainlander ministry."

The author came from Mainland China. He is currently Pastor of New Life Alliance Church in New York and Associate Researcher in Nyack Theological Seminary.