The “Theological” Creation and “Sociological” Foundations of “The Jesus Family” in Modern Shandong

Abstract

With regards to the Sinicization of Christianity (基督教中國化), there has always been a tension between “Chinese Christians” (中國(人)基督徒) and “Christian Chinese” (基督徒中國人). This paper intends to respond to this tension through the analysis of The Jesus Family (耶穌家庭), an important representative of the indigenous church movement in modern China. The Jesus Family had its own unique theological propositions and ecclesial practices. Particularly noteworthy was its emphasis on the living community of believers. Below, we present research on The Jesus Family, analyzed from two distinct aspects: those of “Jesus” and “family”. If the return to “Jesus” reflected the movement’s restorationist theological position, the “family” can be seen as reflecting the movement’s sociological advocacy for the practice of communitarian Christian principles. We argue that these aspects of The Jesus Family—emphasizing the values of personal intimacy with Jesus alongside communitarian principles—were key to its flourishing precisely within the unique context of modern Chinese social turmoil and history. In this light, The Jesus Family—both in its theological and sociological dimension—eludes simple classification as the product of “Chinese traditions” or “Christian orthodoxy.” Rather, it appears as the product of the interaction between the two, and we argue that in this, one sees also how the process of the Sinicization of Christianity relies on both traditional Chinese culture and Christian orthodoxy as inseparable and playing mutually interdependent roles.

1. Introduction

The Sinicization of Christianity has been a central issue in the Chinese studies of Christianity. Although scholars have used different concepts such as contextualization 处境化, indigenization 本色化, and localization 地方化 to explore the issue, their concerns have largely centered on the question of how Christianity can be better integrated with traditional Chinese culture (Zhang 2014). There are two broad approaches in scholars’ discussions about the Sinicization of Christianity. One is the normative perspective: scholars who take this approach tend to focus on the relationship between Christianity and traditional Chinese culture in terms of abstract theology or theoretical discourse. The other is the practical perspective: scholars with this perspective tend to examine how Christianity takes root in Chinese local societies. Accompanying this division has been the tension between “Christian Chinese” and “Chinese Christians”, which has been present in many of the scholarly studies on the Sinicization of Christianity from both normative and practical perspectives. Scholars who hold the former view feared that Christianity itself would undermine so-called “Chinese traditions” and as a result sought to preserve what might be viewed as longer-established “native” cultural traditions. The other side of the equation has usually feared instead that it is the so-called “Christian orthodoxy” that risks being undermined or tainted by Chinese people or cultural norms, often emphasizing the orthodoxy of the faith. From a theological or theoretical perspective, the central concern of scholars exploring the Sinicization of Christianity is: if Christianity could be culturally adapted to Chinese culture, would it be met with a totally different fate? And how many concessions can Christianity make if it is to remain true to its own theological presuppositions? (Ching and Küng 1997, p. 170.)

With this as a starting point, many scholars, especially intellectuals of Christian faith, also hold different views on the issue of the relationship between Christianity and traditional Chinese culture. Roughly, there are three views. The first is to advocate complete indigenization. Scholars who agree with this view hold that ethnic Chinese should not forget their own cultural traditions. For example, Wang Zhixin (王治心) hoped that Christianity could help preserve Chinese culture, believing that there existed a reconciliation between Christianity and Chinese traditions (Z. Wang 1998). The second could be summed up that “as Christians, we cannot deviate from our faith”. For example, Zhang Yijing张亦镜 thought that Chinese traditional culture could be incorporated into the Christian way (Li and Zhang 2017). The third (middle) way claims that Christianity and Chinese culture can coexist harmoniously because all truths come from the same source; therefore, Chinese culture also has its values and correctness, but because of the many shortcomings in the cultural tradition that cannot be ignored, it is necessary to learn about Christian culture. Wu Leichuan 吴雷川 has argued that Christianity has itself been hidden in Chinese culture for a long time, but it had not been revealed, and that the teachings of the ancient sages and Christianity could complement each other (Liang and Chai 2011). However, the above views all presuppose a general view of Christianity: Christianity as a foreign religion that has made and makes few cultural concessions. As a result, many of these discussions have gone—as the discussion above shows—beyond purely academic arguments and taken on political connotations, with some intellectuals concerned with what Christianity can do to produce minimal political consequences (Zhang 2014). However, the normative perspective overlooks the fact that Christianity has indeed “landed” on Chinese soil, making many theoretical discussions somewhat impractical. Many scholars, especially those in sociology or anthropology, have produced rich research on the topic of “localizing Christianity in practice”. Nevertheless, the tension between “Christian Chinese” and “Chinese Christians” remains implicit in many scholarly writings, as many scholars are concerned with whether the Christian faith can bring about a radical change in the ethical life of believers. For example, based on his observation of a rural Catholic community in northern China, Wu Fei 吴飞 argued that Catholicism did not provide believers with a technology of the self that allowed them to complete their inner reconstruction, and as a result local Chinese Catholics appeared to be virtually indistinguishable from non-believers (Wu 2001). Along these same lines, Zhang Jieke’s study of a group of rural Protestants in Wenzhou also argued that Christianity did not bring about fundamental changes in the ethical life of believers (Zhang 2022). In contrast, Li Huawei李华伟—studying the Li Village in western Henan—argued that Protestantism had creatively transformed vernacular forms of Confucian ethics (Li 2013, pp. 261–70).

At the heart of the above debate is the question of which is more fundamental in the process of the Sinicization of Christianity, “Christianity” or “China”? But these competing understandings of religious and national traditions and their relationships risk presenting in a rather mechanistic light (Huang 2015). Our paper intends to address this tension between “Christian Chinese” and “Chinese Christians” through an analysis of a Chinese indigenous sect: The Jesus Family.

The most thorough academic account of The Jesus Family has come from the religious studies scholar Tao Feiya, whose 2004 book A Christian Utopia in China—The Jesus Family (1921–1952) was based on his 2001 doctoral dissertation at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and was republished in 2012 by the People’s Publishing House in simplified Chinese, with the title adjusted to A Study of Christian Utopias in China—The Case of The Jesus Family in the Republican Period. As the premier analysis of The Jesus Family, we rely strongly in our study on Tao’s work as a source for the historical portion of our analysis. For the theological dimension of The Jesus Family, we refer to the studies of Liang Jialin, Daniel Bays, and Murray Rubinstein, among others. As prominent scholars working on Christianity in China, we draw on their work in order to inform our analysis of the local expression of Western theological thought embodied in The Jesus Family from different perspectives. Finally, for the sociological angle, we draw particularly on the work of Romig—an early researcher who has systematically discussed The Jesus Family—and Zhao Zichen—an outstanding Chinese theologian of the 20th century—among others. These two scholars’ work—situated in the social sciences and philosophy and encompassing both the specificities of The Jesus Family and the wider scholarship around Chinese Christianity at large—inform our account of the affinities between the organizational model of The Jesus Family and traditional Chinese culture, as well as Western theological thought.

We chose The Jesus Family as the object of our analysis because it has been thoroughly Sinicized, that is, it was a typical native Christian sect in modern Chinese history, born in the context of the “Self-Reliance Movement”. This movement was seen as an effort to gain independence from foreign mission churches in order to have independently and locally run churches and was often framed in terms of its ecclesiastical governance—especially with regards to economic autonomy from Western missions (Tao 2012, pp. 43–46). This climate of seeking greater self-reliance gave rise to a variety of more experimental church forms and theological practices such as the Little Flock1 (小群教会); The Jesus Family model stands out as simply one of the more unique examples among many Christian communities of the time.

Once established, The Jesus Family showed great resilience in China. The Jesus Family emerged in China in the first half of the 20th century, emphasizing the gifts of the Holy Spirit in its theology and practice of faith and sociologically known for its communist model of social life. The Jesus Family lasted 31 years, founded in 1921 by its predecessor, the Saints’ Credit and Savings Union (聖徒信用儲蓄社) started by Jing Dianying in the Ma Zhuang (马庄) Village of Tai’an (泰安) county of Shandong (山东) province. In its heyday, The Jesus Family had established 102 “families” of various sizes throughout the country, spanning throughout all of Shandong province, as well as in Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, Gansu, and Inner Mongolia. In 1952, it was dissolved by the Chinese government, though its influence had spread far from its Ma Zhuang origins to other bordering provinces (Tao 2012, p. 2). In fact, while the name of the church has fallen into disuse, many of the theological and social underpinnings that animated The Jesus Family can still be found today in some active churches in parts of Shandong, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, and Gansu.

In short, The Jesus Family has taken root in China firmly, and its nature as a “Chinese sect” has been clearly affirmed. Regardless of the extent to which Daniel Bays’ judgment that Christianity is already “China’s Christianity” can be established (Bays 1999—the connotation and nature of which will not be discussed in depth here), it is worth noting the general extent to which it has been acknowledged that at least a few Christian churches or sects with a significant Chinese identity have emerged within modern Chinese history. A prominent example would be the Little Flock under Watchman Nee’s (倪柝聲) influence and The Jesus Family (耶穌家庭) founded by Jing Dianying (敬奠瀛).

Before the formal analysis, in order to facilitate the reader’s understanding of the content of this paper, we give a brief overview of The Jesus Family. Jing Dianying (1890–1957) was considered the heart of The Jesus Family. Growing up in rural Tai’an, Shandong province, he was the fifth child in his family, having lost both his mother and father within a period of two years between the age of thirteen and fifteen. His private education instilled a deep reverence for Confucianism in his early years, and at one time he was also intensely enthusiastic about the idea of seeking immortality. After attending church school in 1912, Jing Dianying appeared to have remained very critical of Christianity until 1914, when he converted under the influence of a missionary named Nora Dillenbeck 林美麗 of the Methodist Episcopal Church (Tao 2012, pp. 123–29).

By 1919, Jing Dianying began to propose the idea of establishing a community of believers in Mazhuang, and after more than a year of preparation and raising shares, he founded the “Saints’ Credit and Savings Union” on the 1st of January 1921 (Tao 2012, pp. 71–78). This union functioned both as a small store and church, with people using it from the start as a site for various different religious activities, from social gatherings to holding collective prayers. Jing Dianying during these years was also highly influenced and inspired by the “Home of Onesiphorus” 泰山孤貧院, an organization founded by American Pentecostal missionaries L.M. Anglin (安臨來) and his wife in 1916, later founding his own called the “Silkworm and Mulberry-Tree House for the Learning of the Way” (蠶桑學道房) in 1926 (subsequently renamed the following year) (Tao 2012, pp. 83–93).2

Whilst there is a continuity of thought from the Saints’ Credit and Savings Union to The Jesus Family, there is also a fundamental difference. In terms of faith, the Saints’ Credit and Savings Union was not much related to missionary work and society, and—crucially—still operated within the Methodist Episcopal Church’s system. The Jesus Family, on the other hand, was to some extent a more locally orientated denomination in contrast to mainstream churches, with the so-called “charismatic” 靈恩 expressions of faith even considered by some older, established churches as “heresy”. More importantly, in the Saints’ Credit and Savings Union, believers were still only considered “shareholders”, participating in activities only on a shareholding basis, neither living communally nor engaging in productive collective labor. The Jesus Family, on the other hand, constituted almost the complete opposite, where believers not only owned property together but also worked collectively and lived communally (Tao 2012, pp. 91–93). This is the key reason why in Tao Feiya’s study The Jesus Family has come to be defined as a kind of utopia.

We next split the two key words that constitute the name “The Jesus Family” as discussion points. These two words also represent the most unique dimensions of The Jesus Family. The first being “Jesus”, which can be described as an expression of its Christian faith or “theology” particular to the church, while the second is “Family”, emphasizing the sociological dimensions of its followers and their particular attributes of communal life, from parenting and division of labor to expressing how such a family survives and thrives during times of social turbulence.

2. “Jesus”: The Jesus Family as a Christian Community

As a Christian community of faith, one of the most easily identifiable characteristics of The Jesus Family was its strong “charismatic” orientation. The reason for having the word charismatic in quotation marks is intended to emphasize that the term itself needs further clarification and definition, because it cannot simply be equated with its North American counterpart in describing charismatic churches and their operations but only has some charismatic characteristics.

A poem composed by Jing Dianying might well express the above theological argument. Although Jing Dianying did not like to “preach with characters”, he began as early as the time of establishment of the Saints’ Credit and Savings Union with adapting folk songs for sermons, and he also wrote a lot of poetry himself. The most concerted effort with regards to poetry was his work titled “The Jesus Family” (耶穌家), a conscious distillation of the main aims and ideas of the organization. The poem featured 12 verses, of which verses 1–7 were mainly related to explicating the organization’s ideals, from social structure to interpersonal relationships and productive life. The first lines of each verse were clearly intended to reiterate the expectations of The Jesus Family, with regards to core values of love, faith, joy, hope, peace, grace, and truth. Verses 9–12 reference the three siblings, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, as exemplary saints for The Jesus Family in their belief, love, and service to the Lord. Verse 8 expresses more completely the view of The Jesus Family regarding the practicing of their faith and religious experience (Tao 2012, pp. 107–12):

The Jesus Family is filled with the Spirit.

Believers see strange visuals and speak in tongues.

All will be poured out by the Spirit at the end of time.

Believers dance and sing spiritual songs, and make the greatest joy.

Jesus heals the sick and casts out demons and shows his divine power.

The Holy Spirit itself testifies and sees,

saying that the new wine is full.

But it is like a play.

耶穌家靈充滿,

見異象說方言,

末日都被靈澆灌,

跳舞靈歌發至樂,

治病趕鬼顯神權,

聖靈親自作證見,

說什麼新酒灌滿,

簡直是戲景一般。

The word “spirit” (靈) in the verse is used consistently throughout the previous seven verses as a key term, regularly used to designate an important feature of the faith, namely the pursuit of strong emotional feelings.

The strong emphasis on the charismatic in The Jesus Family was not only due to the influence of L.M. Anglin安臨來 (see Tao 2012, chp. 3) but also, in part, as a result of its geographic location in the province of Shandong, which was in the midst of a revivalist movement. According to one of the most prominent Chinese evangelists of the time, John Sung (宋尚節)3, “the churches in Shandong were mostly charismaticized” (Liu 1962, p. 60), leading most Western missionaries to regard the area skeptically and negatively. The views of Chinese church leaders themselves were also divided, with Wang Mingdao4 offering a fierce criticism in a special article entitled “The Charismatic Movement in Biblical Light” (M. Wang 1995). Zhao Zichen (趙紫宸), one of the leading Protestant theological thinkers in China of the early twentieth century, added to this disdain by accusing preachers of spiritual sects of being uncouth and even half-mad, openly deriding the efforts of charismatic churches and church groups including not only The Jesus Family but also others such as the Assemblies of God5, The Jesus Family, and the Little Flock. These groups, in his words, were “really only equal to the former idolatrous activities” (Zhao [1935] 2015a, p. 295). Zhao nevertheless did also manage to note some of the merits of these charismatic churches in terms of moral persuasion and their injunctions to love one another.

Observers have noted how charismatic movements in Shandong, including The Jesus Family, were certainly influenced by Pentecostal missionaries on the one hand, whilst also retaining a strong affinity for local cultural traditions. Bays (1988) pointed out that the flourishing of charismatic movements during this time owes much of its success to building on the varieties of prior folk religious movements or customs already extremely common in Shandong rural society, including séances, interpreting calamities as providential signs, or acts of possession and healing through exorcisms. In his study of the “True Jesus Church”, Murray Rubinstein similarly argues that one of the key reasons for the rise of charismatic sects in Taiwan was the strong congruence between Christian doctrinal and liturgical forms with traditional Chinese religious practices. He argues, for example, that in Taiwan the True Jesus Church’s emphasis on the gifts of the Holy Spirit shares certain similarities with spirit possession and spirit mediums prevalent in traditional folk religions (Rubinstein 1996).

Another distinctive theological characteristic of The Jesus Family was its strong restorationist tendencies. Restorationists have classically believed that the most complete model of Christian teaching and organization has already been fully explained and exemplified by Jesus and the apostles, with clear guidelines recorded within the New Testament. For strict adherents, the implication is that much of the ensuing two thousand years of church history and development—including all its doctrinal, liturgical, and theological constructs—could largely be rejected as not only superfluous but even wrong in having led Christianity astray from its origins. Instead, adherents would advocate for the restoration of all the descriptions and practices of the early church and the return of Christianity to its most primitive form, abandoning all doctrinal definitions, denominational organizations, and theological traditions (Liang 1999, p. 148). The restorationist character of the theology and ecclesiastical practices of The Jesus Family was particularly evident in its emphasis on the necessity of “broken property” 破產 (Tao 2012, pp. 79–81), the concept that all participants should renounce ownership of property and share everything collectively. The model The Jesus Family drew from for their church is portrayed well in this passage from Acts chapter 4:

“And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold. And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.”

(Acts 4, pp. 32–35)

Indeed, Jing Dianying not only wanted to follow in the footsteps of more radical Reformers who advocated for a strong “return to scripture” such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, but he was also explicit about a “return to the apostles” (Tao 2012, p. 92). Namely, this manifested itself in a return to the liturgy and the constitution of the church in strict accordance with the New Testament. At the same time, Jing emphasized the adoption of a literalist approach to the Bible and interpreting scripture according to the Holy Spirit. Abandoning all earlier exegeses and previous biblical research, Jing instead advocated direct reading of the Bible and practicing biblical teachings (Tao 2012, p. 109). This method focused on a simpler, easy-to-implement faith and practice, one which did not require complex discursive and academic arguments and would have had a stronger appeal to the tastes of the rural people in northern China compared to prior rationalized models of faith presented by other Christian congregations (Huang 2012, pp. 112–13).

Another characteristic of restorationism is its exaltation of the Bible as an authoritative text, and—although this is certainly part of the historical legacy of the Reformation—as Murray Rubinstein points out in the case of the True Jesus Church, a strong tendency toward biblicism, quoting scripture, and invoking biblical authority in everything parallels in many ways the common Chinese practice of showing reverence towards canonical texts and memorizing passages from the sages (Rubinstein 1996). The mainland Jesus Family, in many ways analogous to the True Jesus Church of Taiwan, clearly exhibits this trait as well.

It is also worth pointing out the close integration between the church’s charismatic style and the prominence given to eschatology. Central to eschatological visions is often the determination that judgment day is imminent, wherein believers would frame their religious experience as one bearing witness to the end times of man at both its best and the worst, where the Holy Spirit and the evil spirits interact frequently in a perpetual state of transitory flux (Land 1993, p. 18). It is precisely at these end times, with the pervasiveness of disturbing evil spirits, that the work and power of the Holy Spirit are given such an important place. Given the great social upheaval in China at the time, it should perhaps not be surprising that this eschatological outlook was adopted by not only The Jesus Family but a variety of rival sects under similar pressure and in fierce competition with one another. A good example would be the recurrent use of the biblically charged metaphor of the “ark” (方舟) as a means to frame The Jesus Family’s followers as the redemptive few. Jing thought that The Jesus Family was the true church of the eschaton, and only by joining The Jesus Family could people be saved and attain eternal life (Tao 2012, pp. 159–62). It is also important to point out that the eschatology advocated by The Jesus Family was also in tune with the eschatology of the folk religions of Shandong, which became an important emotional basis for its acceptance by the local people (Lian 2011, p. xxxi).

Through the above analysis, we can conclude that the theological claims of The Jesus Family mixed elements of Christian theological thinking and Chinese popular religions. After Pentecostalism, restorationism and eschatology were introduced to Shandong, these ideas were either mixed or harmonized with local beliefs, and finally a new theological form was born.

3. “Family”: The Jesus Family as a Rural Community

If the restorationism advocated by The Jesus Family focused on the past, the eschatology, also advocated by The Jesus Family, focused on the future. But in addition to the “past” and the “future”, The Jesus Family also had to deal with the “present”. This present needed to be regulated by the past, by the paradigms of biblical times, and to be guided by the future and by the eschaton, meaning that the eschaton serves as judgment criteria of all the values and meanings of the present. In other words, the restorationism and eschaton exalted by The Jesus Family on a theological level were merely used to explain and understand the present and to guide believers in how to act in the present.

In terms of sociality, one of the most prominent features of The Jesus Family was that they practiced a communal and communist life. Work and day-to-day living were carried out in groups, to the extent that even the raising of offspring and conjugal life, practices that conventionally in China were performed within separate consanguineous family units, became communal in arrangement. Individual family and ties were weakened, whilst an emphasis on the perpetuation of the community as a whole was emphasized (Romig 1950). In terms of management system, there was a patriarch 家长 at the headquarters (Taian) of The Jesus Family. Similarly, in various locations, there were “small families” 小家 as branches, and each small family also had a patriarch家长 as the leader. Under this system, the secular life of believers was completely dominated by patriarchs (Tao 2012, pp. 175–83).

The collective life in The Jesus Family can be seen as a way of responding to the social situations of the time. This is directly related to the perception, awareness, and response of Jing Dianying and The Jesus Family movement, in terms of how their advocacy for certain strictures or values is indeed a reflection of their historical context and the social issues within which they were located. The era in which Jing Dianying grew up is the time of the so-called “the most profound changes never before seen in the past three thousand years”, said by Li Hongzhang, a famous Chinese politician of the late Qing Dynasty. Jing grew up during the shift from an imperial system to a national state, and he was forced like many others to confront the huge gap between what had been imagined as the glorious history of the nation and the reality of the dismal international and domestic situation. It was in the wider Northern China region in general, and Shandong in particular (where Jing lived), that the Boxer Rebellion movement was first conceived and created along similar psychological dynamics as those already mentioned as prevalent in many civil and religious movements. The hardships of life, the economic poverty, the social upheaval, and the spiritual unrest which were the general circumstances from the late nineteenth century until the late twentieth century, and the lived experiences of almost everyone, also increased the perceived strength of the villagers in rural North China for the great changes. Indeed, in the tradition of The Jesus Family, “suffering” was a recurring and mutually reinforced trope. Whether in the real physical sense of the term, or in the theological sense of suffering for the Lord, the term was put into constant use, giving it a sacred meaning (Tao 2012, chp. 6).

According to Jing Dianying himself, his initial motivation for creating a community of believers in the spring of 1919 in Mazhuang was a direct result of his own experiences. Returning home from the Jinan Railway Station for New Year’s Eve of 1919, Jing had ended up asking a stranger to help him watch his luggage while he was standing in line to buy a ticket, but they were all initially wary of each other, fearful of being duped. Jing Dianying later recalled, “People have no morals, they do not trust each other, and their money and abilities are useless. At that time I felt that China was poor, and this was the great reason” (Tao 2012, p. 71). The Jesus Family could in this sense be further understood as a kind of attempt to construct a rural community based on mutual aid, trust, and solidarity in the midst of drastic social changes and a hostile environment. In fact, this can also help us to better understand the occurrence and development of The Jesus Family in Tai’an, where in the 1920s rapid population growth had begun to put pressure on the local economy, along with calamities such as a major flood in 1918 and a very serious locust plague in 1925 (Tao 2012, p. 73). More importantly, the political landscape of this period was also very unstable, with the area around Tai’an suffering successive wars and contests between warlords, so much so that some local gentry had to organize the Red Lance Organization 紅槍會, a local armed self-defense organization with religious nature active in North China during the Republic of China’s organization, to resist the soldiers and bandits in order to protect their families (Yu 2021). This further point can also help us understand why the heyday of The Jesus Family was during the 1930s–40s during the Second Sino–Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War.

Here, we can see that the theological and sociological dimensions of The Jesus Family are interactive and mutually defining. Under the influence of the aforementioned restorationist philosophy, The Jesus Family placed great emphasis on the transformation of the lives of believers, requiring them to “do everything for the Lord” and to love one another as they did in the days of the early church and urging the church to be able to “testify to the glory of God” (Tao 2012, chp. 5). The qualitative change in the lives of believers and the care for one another within the church were known factors that attracted others to convert (Huang 2012, p. 113).

Indeed, from the perspective of the influence of theology on the lives of believers, Zhao Zichen, as early as 1935, referred to the benefits of The Jesus Family’s emphasis on the expression of emotions as “guiding people to pursue good and do good deeds”, arguing that “the love of one another among believers” cannot be denied. He commented thus:

“These widespread ‘spiritual sects’ [屬靈派] and ‘family-centered sects’ [迷家派] in China nowadays are certainly a phenomenon of the spiritual demands of the people of this day and age. Although this phenomenon is purely superstitious, it is still beneficial because there is the improvement on people’s conscience. For example, superstitious people, believing in Jesus, are able to put aside the sin of fraud, and to sincerely and genuinely pursue good and do good deeds. These sects can heal the sick and cast out demons. These effects are certainly psychological and casting spells on people. These sects exaggerate one point to ten, but their believers love one another, like a family’s parent-child relationship.So we cannot deny everything of them.”

(Zhao [1935] 2015b, pp. 277–78)

The interpersonal patterns of The Jesus Family also have a certain affinity with ideas on the family of Confucianism. The influence of Confucianism on The Jesus Family is all-encompassing. As Romig (1950) has pointed out, the communist way of life in The Jesus Family was itself not foreign to Chinese people. For many centuries, ideas about family were the center of Chinese religions, society, and even cultural values (Romig 1950). Here, we only deal in part with the influence of Confucianism on The Jesus Family. Jing grew up in an extended family in the Confucian style and was deeply influenced by Confucian ideas on extended family. He also recognized that the patriarchal system was deeply rooted in his mind, and it seemed merely logical to him to adopt a patriarchal system in managing The Jesus Family. Being deeply influenced by Confucian culture, Jing may have had a very limited understanding of the democratic management of the church. At the same time, the loyalty and filial piety of Confucian traditions became the moral basis for the strengthening of the order of the family. The best illustration of this point is the concept of the respect for the old in The Jesus Family (Tao 2012, p. 323). After the patriarchal system of governance was established, Jing was seen by the followers as the most prestigious “old man” in the extended family of The Jesus Family. As the believers of The Jesus Family also came from an environment steeped in traditional Chinese culture, it was natural for them also to accept the family system (Tao 2012, pp. 180–81).

Indeed, Christian churches in China place special emphasis on the concept of the church as a family. This is evident in the widespread adoption of a large number of mimetic Chinese kinship titles, such as “Shu Shu (叔叔) and Bai Bai (伯伯) especially for the spiritual elders in the churches in some locations in China, as well as the common use of the concept of “brothers and sisters” (弟兄姊妹) to understand the relationships among believers. For Chinese Christians, or for Christians who are predominantly Han Chinese, one of the most direct and easily understood concepts of the church as a community and a collective imagination was the concept of “family”, especially in the form of an extended family with father and son, parent and child, as the core relationship, rather than a nuclear family with husband and wife as the center. This combination of Christianity and the Confucian concept of “family” remains a common phenomenon to this day (Huang 2012, pp. 83–92).

4. Conclusions

The Jesus Family was a Christian community of faith and even a spiritual movement, with its own distinctively Christian characteristics and goals, which cannot be equated with other village building efforts at that the time; this would overlook its strong religious engagement and commitment to theological understanding and practice. At the same time, the character of its religious engagement has to be seen in the context from which it emerged and developed, shaped by a specific historical background and a set of social concerns, which also obliges us to see it in other ways as much a church as a social movement. In short, regardless of how we assess its theological and sociological commitments, The Jesus Family—as a form of Chinese Christianity that has managed to persist within modern Chinese history—is an example of Chinese Christianity trying to balance Christian orthodoxy as accepted by its believers with being influenced and shaped by its unique socio-historical context and cultural traditions.

Our analysis of The Jesus Family is intended to respond to a long-standing question: which is the more fundamental element in the process of the Sinicization of Christianity, “Chinese” or “Christianity”? The Jesus Family, both in its theological and sociological dimension, cannot be simply classified as the product of “Chinese traditions” or “Christian orthodoxy” but rather as the product of the interaction between the two. At the theological level, The Jesus Family is a manifestation of local Christianity. This framework emphasizes the fact that all Christian forms, including Latin or Western Christian traditions, are a concrete presentation of local societies: specific people encounter God in specific cultural contexts or social structures and thus create a specific way of faith, theological expression, and ecclesial forms. The tension between Chinese Christians and Christian Chinese in the literature is the result of an essentialist and static treatment of culture. In fact, there is never a static “Chinese culture”, and there is never a “pure Christianity” that some people take for granted. One may attempt to discern some of the main points of Chinese culture or to articulate the “core Christian essentials”, but this does not mean that there is a “standard version” that can be universally grasped. Rather than relying only on an ideal version of Christianity or Chinese culture, it is more nuanced and realistic to look at Christianity in practice in a specific place and among specific people.

At the sociological level, The Jesus Family was the creation of the mixture and interaction of Christian thought and indigenous cultures. Followers’ perception of social issues under the great changes mentioned above, and especially their experience of their own hardships, can be seen as an emotional resource that can easily be combined with the resources of Christian faith and deeply embedded Confucian ideas of the ideal society that many believers had been brought up in. As mentioned earlier, many indigenous church organizations such as the Little Flock and The Jesus Family were indeed influenced by the social thought of the “Self-Reliance Movement”, but these organizations which shared many similarities with local cultural traditions cannot simply be seen as a radical form of an anti-foreign and self-reliance movement and thereby neatly labeled as nationalist. Instead, what is more worthy of analysis is to stress how these particular iterations of faith were birthed from their specific contexts, including their subsequent interactions with this environment. These sects are best viewed as a native Christian sect, and therefore Chinese, but without necessarily being an expression of nationalist sentiment.

Likewise, in the case of the Sinicization of Christianity, both Chinese cultural tradition and Christian orthodoxy are essential elements. It was in the spiritual practice and daily life of The Jesus Family, in its prayer that values the “grace of the Holy Spirit” and in its community life that cared for its neighbors, that a vital and impactful theology could emerge. We can see both the elements of “theological theories” and “native cultural traditions” at work within The Jesus Family, forming an inseparable and mutually dependent relationship. We would contend that The Jesus Family is precisely the embodiment of the practice of the “Sinicization of Christianity”, as part of the lived experience, rather than a mere abstract discussion in a conceptual and doctrinal sense.