Ben Law
The relationship between cultural identity and Christian faith is something I’ve thought about and explored deeply since going into full-time ministry a few years ago. As a British-born Chinese (BBC) individual raised in the UK working in a multicultural Chinese-heritage church, I’ve often wondered how much one’s cultural identity (or identities) plays into their relationship, engagement and understanding of God. Is who we have been made to be important to Him? To what extent does it matter in terms of being authentic with God and finding belonging in a spiritual community of believers?
Chinese-heritage churches have existed in the UK since the 1950s. However, the inclusion of the term ‘Chinese’ in their official names gives a somewhat misleading impression that these are homogenous communities for a particular people group. In fact, Chinese heritage churches today are multiculturally diverse; alongside people from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, you will also see people from other countries in East and Southeast Asia and beyond in the worshipping community. Many Chinese-heritage churches hold services in languages such as Cantonese and Mandarin, and this continues to be a necessary and fruitful mission. Without these, many East Asian people living in the UK would not have access to a church service where they could worship God or understand the Christian faith and the Bible in their native language.
One important sub-group that exists within Asian-heritage churches today (which will only continue to grow) are the 2nd and 3rd generation British East and South East Asian (BESEA) Christians including British-born Chinese individuals (BBCs) like myself. We are the children of parents who found a spiritual home within the Chinese-heritage churches, but unlike them, we have had a mixed cultural upbringing and don’t feel totally alien in modern British society. BBCs will often find themselves relating to aspects of both the local British ‘host’ and their Asian ‘home’ cultures. The extent to which they fit in with the local and heritage cultures will depend on the individual’s ability to assimilate to the wider cultural norms and expectations of both groups, but most often, those ‘in-between’ cultures find themselves not fully fitting in with either one. Instead, what emerges is a ‘hybridised’ cultural identity – sometimes called a ‘third’ or ‘middle’ space – where an individual will find themselves somewhere ‘between’ the two (or sometimes more) cultures with features of both evident in their lives. What complexifies this even more is the fact that ‘Chinese’ sub-cultures also look very different, and even amongst the 2nd and 3rd generation BBCs there are smaller groups with their own cultural norms and tendencies such as Cantonese-speaking BBCs who are very different from Mandarin-speaking BBCs. Nevertheless, all those who identify as being both British and Chinese will typically have a common shared experience of growing up in the UK but being raised in an Asian family, negotiating between conflicting Western and Eastern cultural values, and using English as their main language in everyday life, including in their Christian faith, which is a world apart from their parents’ or grandparents’ experiences of being ethnic minority immigrants in a foreign land.
Having now reached a point where Chinese-heritage churches are continuing to diversify, the question to consider is whether 2nd and 3rd generation British-born Chinese Christians have a future within Chinese-heritage churches, or whether it would be better for this group, who are in some sense ‘British’ by culture and language, to join in with other ethnicities and form mixed ‘intercultural’ worshipping communities. What does, and should, the future hold for us?
There are a lot of BBCs who still have an affiliation with Chinese-heritage churches. After all, many of them grew up worshipping there and found a community with others with whom they shared similar experiences and sentiments. This means that many BBCs become part of a community with others like themselves who struggle and connect in the same kinds of ways, and when that space doesn’t exist anywhere else in their lives, a strong sense of solidarity is forged. But there are challenges that make staying in a Chinese-heritage church more complicated. Firstly, English ministries don’t exist in all these churches largely due to a lack of resources or meaningful engagement. In those spaces, BBCs tend to struggle with participation in church life due to language, cultural and generational barriers. As a minority group within predominantly Chinese-speaking congregations, many upcoming BBCs may not receive much attention from church leaders (which is not necessarily the fault of the church) and many decide to explore attending local churches instead, where they tend to be more comfortable with the language and worship style but less comfortable having to adapt to co-existing as ‘other’ within other majority contexts. Nevertheless, it is good to see BBCs able to serve and find a place within local British churches, and this is important for those who feel called to flourish there.
One significant shift that took place was the pioneering of youth and young adult conferences that allowed BBCs across different Chinese heritage churches to connect and grow spiritually. Organised by COCM with churches collaborating together, many BBC Christians established a wider-ranging community with others who shared a similar experience of growing up in a Chinese heritage church. Initially, Asian Canadian and Asian American teams came to serve and encourage these young BBC Christians given their own similar trajectory and experiences, but in the past 15 years, these spaces have been able to raise up and empower BBCs and BESEAs to become ministry leaders within UK Asian-heritage churches, initially in youth and worship ministry, but now branching out into other areas of church life within and beyond Chinese heritage churches. Much of my own personal journey into ministry in a UK Chinese heritage church was shaped by my involvement with these conferences, and I have come across other BBCs that also share a similar sense of wanting to stay within Chinese heritage churches and to establish them for the future.
Now at a stage where BBCs are stepping into leadership positions within Chinese heritage churches, the challenge that remains is how to work together and remain united with our other Asian brothers and sisters in the Chinese-speaking congregations whilst also being able to minister to English-speaking Asian Christians and enabling them to express and live out their faith in Christ meaningfully, authentically and in accordance with scripture. This poses many questions for the future of UK Chinese heritage churches: do we continue to reach primarily East Asians who struggle to worship and understand the gospel in English, or might there be a different vision that God has for the next generations of British East and South East Asian Christians and churches to pursue?
As a BBC minister in a Chinese heritage church, my desire is for our generation of Christians to be able to use the position that God has given us between cultures to reach out more widely with the gospel that our parents’ generation could. There is much cross-cultural work to be done both inside and outside the Chinese heritage church, continuing to share the gospel with the next generation of British East and South East Asians and our families while also expanding to reach our British and other ethnic colleagues, neighbours and friends who can worship with us using the same language. My prayer is that 2nd and 3rd generation British East and South East Asians will be secure in their cultural identity as well as their Christian identity, knowing that God does not make mistakes in placing us where we are and raising us as bi- (or multi-)cultural individuals. We can draw encouragement from the likes of Moses, Daniel and Paul, all of whom were used by God as people able to navigate between cultures to fulfil His purposes for their lives. Might this be the calling of the English-speaking Asian-heritage church in the UK? May the Lord show us as we faithfully seek His face and will in our day and age.
