Cultural Barriers in the Local Church

[VolkHenry]

This is a question that I have pondered for some time. Could cultural barriers and differences be a significant factor for why so many western Christians end up having bad experiences in the Lord's Recovery.

When I was 13/14, my family attended a Ghananian Assemblies of God church in Cincinnati, OH. My father worked at a chicken processing plant that had 99% immigrant workforce on the line. (My father and two excons comprised the other 1%). A sister that he worked with there invited us to attend a revival service at her church. The majority of the members were from Ghana, although there were some from Kenya and other parts of Africa. We had such sweet fellowship with the Lord at that church. The presence of the Lord and the work of the Holy Spirit was very precious and powerful there. Undoubtedly, the Lord sent us there for a season to learn and experience his move for us at that time. However, if we had stayed longer the fellowship would have been sullied.

In the course of time, the cultural barriers and differences became more and more of an obstacle to our further involvement. I was playing in the church praise band, and my mother began to be involved in the women's prayer group. While the fellowship was good, we could only participate so much. We were white rural midwestern countryfolk. At a certain point, our backgrounds couldn't "blend" (to use the LR term) together.

I wonder if any brothers or sisters have had a similar experience in the Local Church with aspects of Chinese culture.

[aron]

Hi VolkHenry,

I posted on this subject in a thread called "The Asian Mind/The Western Mind", and it has quite a few posts. Copied is one below.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I've been tooting this horn about the dichotomy between Eastern and Western cultures being at the root of the problems in the Recovery for years. Waking up to the realization that I had grown up in, and given my life to propagate, an incognito Chinese church was deeply disturbing, but the conviction only gets clearer as the years go by.

I stumbled in here today by chance. Wasn't even aware this forum existed. Reading this thread almost gave me goosebumps, to finally hear some traction for this understanding. In a discussion that I didn't personally initiate, no less. Actually, most of what I've had are monologues, not discussions. Nice to see that someone else can connect the dots.

Once you see this dichotomy clearly, I believe you'll recognize that nearly every gripe from disgruntled ex-members or frustrated current members has its roots in Asian cultural values that got institutionalized so deeply into the practices of the Local Churches that they create an atmosphere of expectations so rigid they are just as effective at enforcing conformity as posting a bouncer at the door, or a requiring a profession of doctrinal faith that one must sign in order to be fully received into the circle of fellowship. Some of the Asian cultural elements relate to standards of conduct that are pushed as if essential to the Christian life. Others elements are Eastern cultural values that make their way into doctrinal stances on minor truths, and then get stressed like major ones. The manifestations are numerous, but the root is the same. We (they) failed to distinguish between Lee's culture and his portion of Christ.

On the one hand, I believe this is the glaringly obvious "elephant in the room" that even the current leaders in the Recovery acknowledge has been wreaking havoc and hemorrhaging the life-blood of what, by all rights, should be a thriving organism. Whether they see the elephant for what it truly is or not is not for me to say, but I've been encouraged just to hear they acknowledge the problems it causes for them. And that encouragement is not rooted in cynicism toward them.

On the other hand, though, there is a reason why so many members can't see the elephant, and why the leaders (in my view) should be given some slack for failing to evict it. I bumped into it daily, got trampled by it with bothersome frequency, and wrestled with it on and off for over a decade before all the loose threads of my chronic frustrations got tied together by the common thread of Asian culture, at which point the resultant tapestry finally came together. It was a relief in the small sense that the puzzle finally got solved and yielded a coherent picture. But it was devastating at the same time -- my faith got rocked and my Christian life got shipwrecked by the disappointment. Blindness is not always willful, and the more painful the picture, the more innate subconscious defense mechanisms there are to prevent you from seeing it.

Plus, it's a complex picture, not a simple line-drawing. I blame no one for not being able to connect the dots without help. It took me about 30 pages even just to put my thoughts on the topic together when a brother asked me to connect the dots for him by giving detailed explanations rather than generalizations. It's like walking someone through calculus, when you can jump 5 steps at a time, but they need each little one spelled out for them separately in order to see the connections at first. I'll probably share pieces of that effort here as the discussion progresses, but I'm leery of becoming one more disgruntled bozo with an angry manifesto. (Sorry if that that offends anyone here; I trust most of you here, like me, have been there for a time, even if you've moved past that phase.)

For the record: I have no interest in WL, LC, or BB bashing. I bless the Lord for the privilege of growing up and giving my best years whole-heartedly to be receive what these people gained of Christ, and serve together with them. Some of you here, I feel, have some issues with bitterness that you would do well to seek help dealing with. God forbid that He eventually has to judge you with the same strictness and enthusiasm with which some of you here are casting stones. I have no interest in participating in that or providing ammunition for those who are just looking for rocks to throw rather than to build something with.

If there have been moral or ethical wrongdoings that set some of you off, I can't speak to that, as I never noticed such things in greater frequency or severity than are common to any institution, sacred or secular. I'm just talking about the personal offenses and reactionary cynicism that rise up when a person finds out they don't fit in to something they had hoped to be a part of at some point. I still struggle with disappointment that there seems to be no place for me among what those dear folks are doing. But I'm dealing with it, and staying positive is part of how that is best done.

In my view, one simply cannot understand the emergence of the Little Flock of Nee or its exported version without understanding the cultural conflict that fed it. The Boxer Rebellion was merely one of the most striking aspects of Asian resentment to Western cultural imperialism. When Nee developed his "local" or indigenous brand of Christianity, the populace was ripe to move, and move they did.

Eventually that culturally-steeped Christian church moved west, and what we see is it's issues, both good and bad. And there are good things in the experience, as the Unreg posted. If not, we'd not have participated. But the unwillingness to acknowledge cultural forces shows the weakness of the programme. It's always "They misunderstand us [Lee] because of culture" but never "we mis-judged them [Babylon] because of culture." And so the problems remain, and grow.

[VolkHenry]

Thank you for sharing. I just want to say that I have never been formally associated with the LC. However, I've followed Nee and Lee's ministries for a long time and I still do.

I think you're spot on linking the origin of these issues to the environment created by the Boxer Rebellion. Nee's brother in law, Lin Pu-chi, an Anglican priest, had significant disagreements with his ministry (and even publically wrote against him). From what I've read, he seemed to resent Nee's success (especially after Nee''s sister left the Anglican church to join the Little Flock). I think this was driven in part by envy, not just because of Nee's success, but because Nee was able to create a genuine Chinese church free of Western involvement. I find Lin's story very interesting. What resentment he held for Nee paled in comparison to his feelings about western clergymen, because of their condescending attitudes towards the Chinese clergy and believers. Lin was somehow able to balance his own Christian faith and Ruist (Confucian) philosophical outlook while remaining a priest of the Church of England.

Originally Posted by aron

In my view, one simply cannot understand the emergence of the Little Flock of Nee or its exported version without understanding the cultural conflict that fed it. The Boxer Rebellion was merely one of the most striking aspects of Asian resentment to Western cultural imperialism. When Nee developed his "local" or indigenous brand of Christianity, the populace was ripe to move, and move they did.
Eventually that culturally-steeped Christian church moved west, and what we see is it's issues, both good and bad. And there are good things in the experience, as the Unreg posted. If not, we'd not have participated. But the unwillingness to acknowledge cultural forces shows the weakness of the programme. It's always "They misunderstand us [Lee] because of culture" but never "we mis-judged them [Babylon] because of culture." And so the problems remain, and grow.

[Sons to Glory!]

The LC groups I was in, in Berkeley and two places in Ohio, were mostly caucasian. The leadership in Berkeley was all caucasian, and Ohio was mixed. And the few Chinese that were part of the group in Columbus were fairly westernized it seemed. So I never had an issue fitting in, at least in an outward way, as I am Caucasian too.

For me, I was never really repulsed by the LC's teachings, practices or culture when I was in. However, the Lord was sovereign to keep sort of preserve me from the biggest storms there, and moved me around. So when work transferred me into the middle of the desert where there was no nearby LC, after several years I didn't have the desire to return. And then when personal events moved me to the Phoenix area, I was specifically lead of the Lord to meet with the group in Scottsdale. Many in Scottsdale were ex-LCers, and had experienced liberation from that controlling and elitist system. And there God showed me that His love for man really was His primary MO, and this began to open scripture to me like never before. He also showed me that there were actually many outside of the Lord's Recovery that were more mature in Christ - and the true knowledge of God's purpose - than those in the LC! (kind of an understatement)