Jiang Zemin's 2002 Interview on Christianity

Over the past few years, I am increasingly hearing of people citing Jiang Zemin's supposed 2002 interview with David Aikman where he declared that he would like China to be Christian.  Normally, after citing that, people would go off on how Christianity's moving eastward towards China, how China's the most Christianized country in the world, blah blah blah.  What people fail to bring up, however, is what follows. Aikman asks Zemin why, to which he responded that in the West, it was Christianity that allowed it to acquire power and prosperity.

In a sense, I do commend Jiang Zemin for that comment because he was clearly interested in the material well-being of the Chinese.  He was not alone in at least conceiving a link between economic prosperity and Christianity.  One of the first to explain it in sociological terms was Max Weber in his The Protestant Ethic and the "Spirit" of Capitalism where he argued that because of the Reformed doctrine of calling, people did their work better and thus, transformed the national economy.  This is the famous Weber's Thesis.  Historically, we do see some link.  London, Amsterdam, Geneva, Zürich, Frankfurt - these were all Protestant cities.  But this is not quite so clear now.  Japan and China are not Christian (including Catholic, by the way), and neither is India.  Brazil is not majority-Protestant.  It should be noted that in 2002 when Zemin said that, China was a rising power, but at the time was not a prominent economy.  The entry of China into the world's economic elite came very recently under the presidency of Hu Jintao.  In any case, this much is clear: Zemin was not interested in a Christian China insofar as being a Christian is good; he was interested in a Christian China because it was a means to material prosperity.  At the time, the historical evidence seems to suggest that.

But more concerning about Zemin's statement was how many Christians cite that as a sign that China was, somehow, changing for the better.  If "better" meant material prosperity, then of course China's moving in the right direction.  But for Christians, "better" does not mean economic prosperity!  And in no way does economic prosperity indicate the level of faith!  From whence did such a heretical idea come by?

Actually, it's not a new idea.  For much of world history, religion and history walked side by side.  In the Old Testament, wars against other nations were really theological wars as well.  When Israel went to war against Jericho, it was more than just a land-grab.  It was God vs. Whoever-the-god-of-Jericho-was.  If the Egyptians went to war against Babylon, it would be the battle of the Egyptian pantheon against the Babylonian ones.  The losing nation not only walks away with their pride damaged, but also with the idea that their gods have been defeated by the opposing ones.  This idea was never really removed from Christianity.  Even in the Middle Ages and leading up to the Enlightenment, there was a doctrine of Providence that permeated international politics.  The Spanish Armada and attempted invasion of England under the reign of Elizabeth I, for example, was a pitting of Catholic theology against pre-modern Anglican theology.  That England won was often interpreted by the English as a sign that their denomination was the "right one", and therefore Anglicanism remain entrenched in the country.

I think this view is often held by many today when it comes to wealth.  It's easy to think that churches that have more people, more money, swankier buildings, more exciting praise music, etc. have somehow "got it" more than other churches.  But that's fiction!  Because when we use the things of this world to evaluate the things not of this world, we will end up with biased data.  Why?  When we use X to evaluate Y, X becomes our standard for evaluation.  In other words, how we view Y must be based on the perspective from X.  Put it concretely, if we use number of attendees to evaluate doctrinal orthodoxy, then what is orthodox becomes dependent on whether it attracts the most number of attendees!  As a result, doctrinal orthodoxy caters to personal tastes and preferences.  One day I like God to be wrathful and vengeful!  Then the "liberals" would be those who emphasize God's goodness and love.  The next day I like God to be rigorous and logical.  Then the "liberals" would be the mystics.  The third day I like God to be loving.  Then the "liberals" would be the one emphasizing a God of justice and wrath!

That there are Christians (and yes, I've heard them) would cite Jiang Zemin's interview with great favor and hope suggests that we may not understand our own religion as well as we should.  While I do believe that Christianity is good, it is good only because God is good.  That God is good does not mean we Christians will enjoy material goodness because material goodness is only good insofar as how God views it.  There is nothing per se wrong about owning a Vanderbilt mansion in the Hamptons so long as the money you made was not made from illegal means, and that the mansion was purchased at a price agreeable to the seller and buyer.   But for the Christian, the goodness of owning that mansion must be held captive to theological considerations.  Questions such as "is it good to own a mansion when I already have a nice studio apartment next to Central Park?" are important!

That's why Jiang Zemin, on a final consideration, does not seem to understand the radicalness of Christianity.  As Christians, we profess to believe and worship the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  This is the same God who commands the Israelites to honor their father and mother.  This is the same God who teaches us to sell our possessions and give to the poor.  This is the God who really is not good for Wall Street.  You don't want this God near Wall Street, Paternoster Square, Shenton Way, or the Banhofstrasse. In fact, Matthew and Zacchaeus were tax collectors!  What a "socialist"!  But the China we know today does not even know how to honor their parents from a Confucian point of view, much less a Christian one.  The poor are becoming increasingly marginalized in Chinese society.  And in a country where it is becoming increasingly commonplace for men to have mistresses in multiple cities?  Certainly on a material level, China is becoming wealthier and more people are better off.  There is an increasing middle class - crucial to any prosperous society (strangely, in America, government policies left or right seem intent on reducing this middle class).

But for Christians, we need to be concerned that the cost of this wealth is an increasing disregard for the sanctity of life (abortions are continually rising as well as divorces), not to mention families that are often separated because the father needs to work in the cities while the mother and children remain in the countryside.  A Discovery documentary followed the life of one such worker who returns home once every year; his daughter doesn't recognize him as her dad.  How sad!  But capitalism (and socialism) would not call it "sad".  The father, on the contrary, has made a prudent decision to maximize his own utility subject to his own income constraints.  We can't say that as Christians!  Conscience bids us to consider that as something unalteringly faulty!

If Christianity is the means to an economic prosperity whereby families are broken and life is demeaned, then I pray to God that China remains as secular as can be.  In fact, if Christianity means just that, then perhaps doctrinal orthodoxy or true faith requires that we abandon that brand of Christianity! But if Christianity promises to transform a people so that they can love and serve our God and each other, if Christianity promises to transform a people so that they can profess a sincere love for Jesus and live out that love in service of all peoples around the world, then yes - I pray that China becomes a Christian nation.  But let us not be glib - this is a Christianity that no country currently holds a monopoly over.  I don't think we Americans know what it means to be Christian.  Not because we don't know the Gospel, but because to live it, we need to give up a lot.

And as Americans, we don't give up things easily.