The Complex Idolatries of Southeast Asia
Editor’s Note: How to Reach the West Again is Timothy Keller and City to City’s book on starting a new missionary encounter with Western culture. We invited ministers from around the world to respond to, extend, and engage that vision.
Western cultural shifts have been documented, discussed, and dissertationed to the nth degree. In fact, this self-reflection is a sign of the modern era. For many traditional Asian civilizations, though, worldview discourse has been less abstract, more often related through history and practice. This means it’s a little harder to analyze or trace worldview development in Asia.
In religious terms, the West uses conversion language to describe religious belief, regardless of the religion (ex. a convert to Buddhism). The notion of conversion is in itself a uniquely Christian idea. In much of Asia, non-Christian faiths typically focus more on conforming to practices of the particular faith. For example, Muslims and Buddhists in Southeast Asia are less likely to try and convert people and more likely to encourage them to pray a certain way, dress in a certain manner, or stop doing a particular activity.
The notion of conversion is in itself a uniquely Christian idea. In much of Asia, non-Christian faiths typically focus more on conforming to practices of the particular faith.
This thinking has seeped into church life. In a Bible study with a group of Christian Southeast Asian Chinese women, one woman was suddenly struck by her inability to be “good enough.” She married a Christian man and had been very involved in the church for 10 years. She and the rest of the church thought her to be a Christian. But it was Christian identity by obedience and sense of family. She had silently struggled for years because she couldn’t be obedient enough. By God’s grace, she came to accept the gospel of Christ and had a conversion experience. My guess is there are many millions of Asians like her who identify as Christian but rely on obedience to a set of practices and involvement in a local church. The same could also be said of most cultural Christianity.
At the same time, globalization and information technology have complicated our once-tidy map of cultures around the world. On a flight from Nairobi to Dubai, I sat next to a young man raised in a Somali settlement in Kenya. He is devoutly Muslim, but he idolizes Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs. He is morally conservative but was absolutely obsessed with the TV show Game of Thrones. There is no way these influences don’t change him.
Almost nobody is purely “local” anymore. Their music, movies, television, consumer products, and food are chosen from a global palette of options. In Southeast Asia, the interaction of cultures is highly advanced in the cities. Any attempt to characterize worldview shifts will only apply to portions of the population. Late modernism combined with globalization produces many modernities.¹ As Keller noted, the fractured and polarized way of seeing things is a global phenomenon, not merely a Western one. The urban-rural political and cultural divide is deepening the fault lines around the world.
Almost nobody is purely “local” anymore. Their music, movies, television, consumer products, and food are chosen from a global palette of options.
The growth of global Christianity is much-vaunted, but many are concerned that this growth is a mile wide and an inch deep. The South Korean church is hemorrhaging the younger generation. In many Sub-Saharan African nations where the percentage of those identifying as Christian is very high, it is Christian heritage for most people and not an engaged belief in the gospel. Although Christianity is newer in many parts of Asia and has not reached the scale of embedded maturity that it has reached in the West, Asian Christianity also has elements of a post-Christian world. In other words, Christianity isn’t going through a life cycle on different timelines around the world; rather, the onset of cultural urbanization and aggressive secularization has drawn people away from spiritual growth and towards spiritual complacency. In Southeast Asian cities, religious belief is still active, but it seems to lack the magnetic pull of consumerism. Our understanding of “sacred” is morphing. Spiritual awe and transcendence is being replaced by a spirituality of self-interest (driven in part by consumer-style worship and prosperity teaching). Individual spirituality is elevated with little regard for what is true.
While individualism is on the rise, people maintain strong collectivistic tendencies in some areas. Cultural tendencies for collectivism and deference to authorities has led the minority church to feel unrooted in societies that do not honor Christian practice. Furthermore, spiritual expression is undermined by secular civility in the name of harmony.
In Southeast Asia, harmony is a dominant cultural value. However, this harmony is achieved when the majority population or those in power define religious and moral values for everyone and denounce anyone who does not conform. When Christians seek to carve out space for unique beliefs and practices that differ from others, they are quickly dubbed as “disrupting harmony,” and their ideas are quickly jettisoned. Again, this has encouraged Christians to further isolate themselves from society, decreasing meaningful engagement with non-Christians. This arrangement works for those with established careers and settled families, but those who are just entering university or the workforce are unprepared for their Christian faith to be challenged by co-workers and classmates and will be pressured into unethical practices.
This has resulted in some looking to American Christianity as a stabilizing force. As America becomes increasingly post-Christian, the church there is retreating from society, further damaging their missional impact.
We have also seen Christians place their hope in politics or economics to provide stability. This happened a couple of years ago in Malaysia when a new political coalition that represented minorities won the national elections. Christians celebrated the deliverance of the country, even from the pulpit, adding to further divisiveness. In the West and the East, we need to develop a theology of culture that addresses two bodies of people: the church and society at large. Our rhetoric has been to say we are citizens of heaven, but we do not live like it. We need a theology that helps Christians acknowledge they live both in the world and in the kingdom of God but are devoted to Christ in both realms. We have so spiritualized our faith that we have left Christians to interface with the world on the world’s terms. It is an implicit Gnostic dualism.
In the West and the East, we need to develop a theology of culture that addresses two bodies of people: the church and society at large.
Keller states that the Western church’s model was to assume that people would come to church, losing their missional edge. This is a global problem. I talked to one pastor in Southeast Asia who stated it bluntly: “There was a time when we had to go out and share the gospel with people, but now that we have our building, people can just come to the church.” Yet his church has been stagnant for many years. There was a time when the church stood out as a good option for help, fellowship, and answers. The information revolution has ensured that now our options are limitless, and people can opt to dull the pains of brokenness or loneliness through various forms of entertainment rather than seeking spiritual solutions. In essence, it is a process of secularization by avoiding the harder questions of life: purpose, the good, eternity, etc.
The prosperity gospel has thrived in Asia because it better comports with traditional religions that emphasize placating deities to gain favors. The church grew quickly in Asia through revivalist efforts, but little has been done to address deeper worldview beliefs. Pastors are treated like shamans or holy men. Success is determined by high position and status symbols. Children are discouraged from attending discipleship activities because it will detract from their studies. Church services are more focused on creating an emotional high and providing encouragement than countering the aggressive “discipleship” of the world. Around the world, we cannot make disciples merely through Sunday morning services, good preaching, and fellowship activities.
In the case of Asia, Confucian filial loyalty keeps Christians involved without true belief. Asian churches with Confucian cultural heritage typically show many characteristics that derive more from Confucianism and even conflict with Christian characteristics. All of us are quicker to accept Christian values that resonate readily with our cultural heritage. The harder work is allowing the gospel to critique our cultural heritages in a constructive manner. For example, many Chinese churches survive on filial loyalty and obligation, but these values conflict with a gospel of grace.
In our experience in Malaysia, intentional small group time is essential for disciple-making (counter-catechesis). Our church noticed young urban professionals were entering the workforce unprepared to face challenges to their faith. We started a small group for this population, but we worked hard to keep it from becoming merely a social activity. Instead, it was a chance to lay the foundation for a more biblical worldview. The goal was to provide tools for ongoing flourishing in the faith. We spent time on the overarching narrative of the Bible and tools for studying it, and then studied books of the Bible from both the Old and New Testament. Attendees were encouraged to facilitate and participate in the discussion. It was exciting to watch the Christian faith go from something passive and consumeristic to an active and lived faith. All the while, the group encouraged prayer for colleagues, friends, and family members who do not believe.
It is a small anecdotal example, but that is how Christianity has transformed millions—through deep, Christ-centered community that takes God and his word seriously.
1. Peter L. Berger, “The Cultural Dynamics of Globalization,” in Many Globalizations: Cultural Diversity in the Contemporary World, ed. Peter L. Berger and Samuel P. Huntington (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 1–16; Pervin Banu Gokariksel, “Situated Modernities: Geographies of Identity, Urban Space and Globalization” (United States -- Washington, University of Washington, 2003); Robert W. Hefner, “Multiple Modernities: Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism in a Globalizing Age,” Annual Review of Anthropology 27 (1998): 83–104.
About the Author
Michael D. Crane is a professor of urban missiology at a seminary in Southeast Asia. Michael is also co-director of RADIUS Initiatives and is currently serving as the chairman of Gospel City Network. In addition to numerous articles and book chapters, Michael has written Sowing Seeds of Change: Cultivating Transformation in the City and co-written City Shaped Churches: Planting Churches in a Global Era.