Chinese Religion, and the Excluded Middle

1. Intro - How we explain the World

Hello, tonight I'm writing about a topic that has been the source of much misunderstanding and miscommunication between Westerners (especially missionaries or those whose work involves them with Eastern religion one way or another). It's called the "Excluded Middle." (For those interested in more reading on this topic, here's a link to an essay by the late missiologist/anthropologist Paul Hiebert, to whom credit for the concept of the excluded middle is typically attributed.)

In the West, we have a more or less binary view of the universe/all-that-is:

Blue: Unseen/Supernatural world, dealt with solely in a religious context.
Green: Seen/Natural world, dealt with by science, etc. (Light Green: Mysterious, but not religious)

Notes:

1. I'm talking about 2015
It was not always so in the West; pre-christian/pagan Europe would have looked a lot more like the Chinese Religion chart we're covering later. Up until modern science, the light green area would have included things like alchemy.

2. This is the West as a Whole
I've drawn the blue section that small to demonstrate how for much of the modern-day West, religion is considered extraneous to normal everyday life. Those of us who grew up in the Bible belt sometimes don't realize how secular most of the West is. By the same token, yes there are a few westerners running around who espouse hinduism or some other non-western-origin worldview. But they'd probably be the first to tell you what a non-typical-westerner they are, so we don't need to consider that kind of outlier here.

3. This is Showing how We Explain Reality
As believers we know God is not separate from His creation, nor is He uninvolved in our day to day lives. However, this chart is referring to how we explain the world around us, not our teleology. (The "how," not the "why.") When you encounter repeated car trouble, you may pray about it and wonder what God is teaching you through it, and you may try going to a different auto mechanic, but you do not blame it on your deceased Uncle Joe who's angry you didn't put flowers on his grave this year, or a rival at work secretly stealing some of your hair and attacking you with voodoo.

4. Most People Do Leave Room for the Mysterious
I've included a little band for the "unexplained," those mysterious phenomenon which lots of people find fun to think about and talk about. Go out far enough into the American countryside to encounter folk culture, and this gap widens considerably. I did this to show that really in the West we have our own category here, the big difference is that we draw a firm line (represented by the thicker black line) between that kind of thing and anything religious. If, in certain churches, as I mentioned in a previous post, you start getting blurry lines there (believing in God but also carrying "lucky" tokens, putting a cross over your door not just as a sign of faith but also to keep "evil" out, etc.) then you are descending from orthodox doctrines into the slippery slope of folk theology, which typically leads towards an increasingly fear-based way of thinking with less and less resemblance to orthodox, scripturally-based faith.

So that's the West, in general. But in strict Modernism, and today for both atheists and the "science replaces god" people, you have the most simplistic possible view of the universe:

I could reduce it even further by simply writing "Synapses firing to no purpose."

Looking at this chart, perhaps it becomes apparent why it's so difficult to have conversations about the existence of God with those who hold to this way of thinking. To them, there is only the dark green part steadily filling up the light green part, no need for any blue at all. They must have life experiences or realizations of some kind that totally shatter this too-narrow illusion of reality to open up to the idea of a supernatural world, otherwise they simply ascribe anything "weird" to that buffer category as one more thing science will eventually explain. (This is what I call the "Science of the gaps" theory)

2. Chinese Religion - A Different View of the World

So that's "The West." When approaching "The East," a lot of Western people expect some mystery, some things that operate according to different rules than they're used to. Asia is that place where odd, inexplicable things can happen. However, and this is important, for westerners all those inexplicable things typically go into the "Mystery" category that is not religious and not really supernatural. Though it's not politically correct now, you've perhaps heard or read about various tribal/traditional religions described in older literature as "superstition," "mumbo-jumbo," and similar deprecating terms. The implication is that they aren't based in any kind of reality, that between the scientifically explainable world (creation, for believers) and God in heaven there is no "middle world" that civilized, educated humans need take into account.

Outside of many churches we might describe as charismatic, even Bible-believing Christians are usually very hesitant (in the West) to ascribe anything they observe to those kinds of spiritual forces the Bible clearly teaches exist, let alone those on which it does not comment.

Contrast this with how a typical Taiwanese person might view the world:

So here you can see, the world for a Taiwanese believer in traditional religion is a much more complicated place. The majority of Taiwanese would look at the world in this way to a certain extent, even if they do so by rejecting parts of it. ("I don't really believe ancestral spirits come into our world and bother people" is a statement only someone raised in and recognizing this worldview can make; a Christian Westerner does not believe that either, but they wouldn't ever say it because the question itself does not exist for them.)

Note the "Gates." In a folk/traditional religious world view, there are portals of various kinds between this world and the unseen/spirit world. Some of these may simply be natural objects of significance- a notable boulder, an impressive tree- that are "linked" to the unseen world (thinking of them as having spirit-wifi access might be a good analogy), as certain kinds of animals are considered to be as well (especially the "tricky" ones, like foxes). In Chinese traditional religion, however, there are "higher" portals or gates between this world and the spirit world that are open at various times or in various ways. One very notable example is during Ghost Month, when the gates of hell are said to open to let spirits of various kinds come into our world and potentially trouble the living in various harmful ways. (There is a long list of activities deemed "risky" during this time due to possible attack or negative influence from the spirits)

In the West, we might think of something like an Ouija board as a similar kind of "portal," and often Christians who lack a robust understanding of "spiritual warfare" -really just the wider reality the Bible clearly teaches that we live in- will instinctively revert to a very folk religious way of thinking when confronted with the occult. That might be the easiest way to visualize Taiwanese traditional religion for a Westerner, however- imagine if you lived in fear of the occult every day, and your culture lacked a "highest God" who could hear your prayers and who cared about you. Your only option would be to invoke what powers you knew of to protect yourself. Throw in the very strong mandate regarding ancestor worship, and that's basically how religion works in Taiwan.

Notes for the Chart:

1. This is a general attempt at contrast, not a highly accurate parsing of Chinese belief
It would require a hugely complicated chart to even begin to explain a vanilla version of the world according to Chinese folk religion, and to some extent it would be impossible because many people embrace multiple conflicting belief systems, feeling logic is inadequate to deal with the divine and it's better to be safe than sorry if one turns out to be true. This is a rough sketch, and if you want to find fault with it, it would be easy to do so. (If you feel I've really made a basic error, please leave me a comment and explain how so.)

2. "Grey Areas"
Another Western thing to do is place things in clearly divided categories. Things like Qi/Chinese medicine (somewhat related topics) and even business profit are not purely natural, scientifically explicable phenomenon, but are connected to the invisible/intangible and spirit worlds. More on this later...

3. I'm not clear on the Chinese pantheon, but few are, even adherents
What I have observed is that few people try to grasp the recognized hierarchy of gods and approach them accordingly. People in different walks of life and from different families and ethnic backgrounds worship different collections of big and small gods. There are gods associated with certain places/areas (The city of Taipei has a patron god, for example, every patch of rice fields has a little earth god shrine, and some say every house has a little spirit), gods associated with certain trades (the sea goddess Matsu, very important in Taiwan, is connected to anything that has to do with the ocean, like fishing, and much more besides), and gods associated with certain roles. (Guanyu is a warrior god of justice and protection, worshiped variously by those who wish for protection for their business, and by both police and triads/gangs)

4. Chinese "Heaven" is hard to explain
In Chinese thought, the idea of 天 (Tian, "heaven," but that's a misleading translation, it's not a place people go after death) is more like the divine order which maintains the universe, decides justice, decrees fate, and is over all things. Apparently Tian varied and still varies between being thought of more like a highest God (getting close to a transcendent monotheistic God, which some claim it originally represented), and more like an impersonal divine force, depending on the time period and the variety of Chinese religious thought/philosophy. "God's in His heaven, all's right with the world," might be getting a little bit closer to the idea for Westerners, if you imagine that the terms God and Heaven were identified closely enough to be interchangeable. But this all gets confusing because at the same time there's the diverse pantheon of gods, as mentioned above.
How those gods and Tian divide up responsibility for governing the affairs of men (not even to mention various Chinese flavors of Buddhism with Buddha/manifold Buddhas being present as well, alongside Chinese traditional religion) is far beyond the scope of this post, but I think I'm not entirely wrong in say it's rather like a Roman Catholic idea of the Saints and Archangels and Mary doing a lot of the helping, protecting, and blessing for individual people, while God can of course also be prayed to directly, but is farther away and less accessible, ruling and sustaining all, and taking care of managing the big picture. (I hope I have not falsely represented Roman Catholicism by that description, but that's quite orthodox compared to what I observed in Mexico...)

 3. The Excluded Middle

Now think of the conflict in worldviews we have. On the one hand, you have science handling the task of explaining anything we can reliably observe and a transcendent Christian God who cares about and engages in the affairs of men, and on the other hand you have a whole "middle world" of spirits and the spirit world which plays an intimate role in the affairs of men, with a Creator or Highest God far off and not practically involved. The Western worldview, based partially on the revelation of scripture itself but also on other secular factors, simply discards the "hidden" reality of this world and also any "lower" divine realm altogether. Most of the rest of the world does not. Sharing the gospel effectively in a traditional/folk religious culture may require understanding this fact.

Given this view of reality, by way of analogy, a "vanilla" western approach to sharing the gospel to a traditional religious adherent might sound similar to one janitor at an overseas Microsoft office telling another janitor to call Bill Gates and ask for a promotion (in a culture that doesn't reward such audacity). You are telling someone who believes in a whole tiered hierarchical system in which even dead relatives must be appeased and in which the gods, if they be willing, provide assistance purely on a transactional basis (worship and sacrifice, in exchange for blessings or protection), that the God higher than the entire hierarchy wants to have a personal relationship with him. If the Holy Spirit has not already been preparing their heart, it may take some time for them to wrap their head around that notion. They will be more interested in knowing whether your God is more generous or powerful than their current gods, what kind of benefits He's offering in exchange for their loyalty. (Thus, sadly, the prosperity gospel is rampant and popular in Taiwan. In one sense, it's simply monotheistic idolatry)

Western missionaries are often put into a difficult position, therefore, of being asked to explain how Christianity as a belief system handles situations which we have never previously acknowledged as existing in the world. And sometimes it can be unnerving. Exorcisms are already shaky ground for most of us, but at least any Biblically-literate Christian knows they were happening in the New Testament, though their life in the West is not likely to have provided them with experience in that sort of thing. But what happens when entirely alien scenarios unfold? "How will your God protect me from ancestral spirits bringing bad fortune to my business if I don't set out the spirit offering tables?" is probably not a question for which most American pastors have a quick answer. The knowledge does not fall into one's head the moment one lands in one's ministry field, I can tell you that much for sure.

Thus, the default quick answer, very often, is "I have good news: there are no: [ancestral spirits, gods, evil spirits, curses, etc...] who can harm you, because they don't exist." (Or worse, "because the Bible says they don't exist.")

"Ok, now let's figure out a culturally relevant way to share the gospel."

Even if it's true that no spirits of the dead are roaming around the town waiting to inflict misfortune on those whose rice offering is too scanty, this reply does little for the inquirer. That's because he wasn't asking you about his world, he was asking you about your God. If the question is whether God can and will protect him when he needs protection, the answer is yes, God can and will do that according to His will, and no spirit- evil, ancestral, or any other possible kind of spirit- is outside the will of God. Teach him to read the Bible for himself and he can decide whether his cultural opinions regarding the afterlife are reconcilable with Scripture. And it's likely he'll do a much better job of explaining the gospel inside his culture, having accepted it inside his culture, than you would. Taiwan is full of Christians who never understood the gospel until they lived in the West. There the gospel made sense, but returning to Taiwan, they find it difficult to share with people not similarly familiar with western ways of thinking. There are many reasons for that, not only the one we're talking about here. But it seems something must be done to share the gospel inside Taiwan's traditional culture that seemingly has not yet been done.

4. Then, What?

Must we avoid syncretism? Yes we certainly must. I am not advocating in any shape, form, or fashion blending Biblical truth with traditional beliefs or confusing the two. But we can recognize that everyone comes to Christ from where they are, not from where we are. A step towards Christ from within Chinese traditional religion, or any local religion or different world religion, will not necessarily look like a step towards Christ from within your own background.

As I shared in a previous entry, everyone comes to Christ within their own cultural context. So if we want to take the gospel across cultural divides, we have to go to them not only geographically, but step inside their context and point the most direct path to the Kingdom we can, not one that snakes back away through our own cultural context beforehand.

This is just the basic idea, there are vast arrays of subcultures from which people believe on Christ

If we need for a local person to be educated regarding our Western worldview so that we know how to share Christ with them, we'll never really take Christ into that culture, only take people out of it. We have to continuously point them to Christ from wherever they currently are, even if that means their walk towards Christ looks much different from what we saw in our home culture

That's much more challenging than just translating our favorite gospel presentation into their language. But we have the Holy Spirit, and we have discernment, we have Christ Himself and His life in us, we have special revelation in Scripture which can keep us in the right path if we keep it in heart and in mind, and we have a calling from God to reach every culture with the gospel. That's sanction enough to figure out a few things along the way.

I increasingly feel our job is not to educate, but to introduce.

The Hard Grace of Failure

1. What Failure is Not

Who likes failing?

These days, maybe some people would be clever and say they do. But what they mean is not really failure in the sense I'm talking about. I'm not talking about delayed success.

Now I know in the past few decades, piles of profound motivational statements have been made about failure and how important it is. I don't have to recount a list, you've seen many of them I'm sure. Edison failed how many times before he hit on a successful design for the incandescent bulb? (It seems no one knows... I saw 700, 1000, 2000, and 10,000)

Speaking of fails... Edison begs to differ

Uh-oh, an escalation of inspiration. Someone call Oprah.

That is not the kind of failure I'm talking about. Those are not really fails, those are attempts, experiments. "Cross that one off the list and get the next one" is not failure, it's a kind of confirmation.

2. Failure of a Sort

Not winning the presidential election is getting closer to actual failure. Half the country is angry and disappointed, maybe more at the other side, but still many will be angry at you. The best you could probably do is try again and succeed in four years, but even then it's not the same. However, you'll probably still do ok. You can leverage your now-massive name recognition somehow. That's also not really failure, it's more like what used to be called a "pivot" in business-speak. (Maybe it still is. Maybe I'm also using the term incorrectly... I'm an engineer by trade, pivots are things that require memorizing force equations)

Taiwanese students know about failure. There's an national university entrance exam at the end of high school, and how you perform on it has a profound impact on the rest of your life. Doing poorly on that test (there are a few limited options for retesting, but it's not like the SAT where you can take it multiple times and use your best score) means a low-tier college, a low-tier job, and fewer alternate paths to success than in America (even America circa 2015). In the US, even with bad grades or a degree from a lower-tier school, if you hustle*, you can nearly always be successful. In Taiwan, you have to do that anyway to keep your job.

(*- Apparently the positive connotation of this word is not universal. I use it in the sense of getting out there and working harder and with more focus than the average person, not selling drugs or deceiving people)

There is also heroic failure. This is the kind of failure that is irreversible, but where the importance lay mostly not on success but on being willing to try. The firefighter that does not succeed in getting the last person out of a burning building may be haunted by his failure, but we do not blame him for it, we praise him for the attempt, for his courage, even for his grief over not having succeeded. (We wouldn't praise him nearly so much if he shrugged it off as one of life's inevitable tragedies)

Failure is not lead that can be alchemied into gold. In reading for this entry I stumbled across this quote from Elizabeth Hardwick, and felt it strikes a chord:

"Failure is not funny. It is cockroaches on the service elevator, old men in carpet slippers waiting anxiously by the mail slots in the lobby, neighborhood walks where the shops, graphs of consumption, show only a clutter of broken vases, strings of cracked beads, dirty feathers, an old vaudevillian’s memorable dinner jacket and decades of cast-off books—the dust of ambition from which the eye turns away in misery." (from Grub Street: New York)

So how about real failure? What about the firefighter who not only fails to find the trapped child, but fails to find the courage to go look at all? What about the child of brilliant parents who just can't manage to ever do well in school, year after year, regardless of her effort? What about the man who fails to get help for his addiction and drags his family down with him?

Even those stories could end in redemption. You can probably imagine movies where the low point is any of those situations, but somehow manages to end triumphantly.

Failure of the kind I'm talking about is irredeemable. It's not noble, it's not "failing upwards," it's not one small step in the long road to victory, it's not even the nadir, the lowest point, at which one begins to climb back up from the pit again. It's an unrecoverable loss. It is coming to the end and there being no road ahead, no further options. Final failure. We don't even like to contemplate it.

It's also absolutely necessary to understand ourselves and our salvation.

3. Failure to the Point of Surrender

Its necessity doesn't make it any more pleasant- the real, visceral recognition that one cannot be good, that one cannot bring anything good to God in exchange for salvation, that attempting to do so will always end, finally, in failure. Discovering that Pelagius was so very wrong, though we long for him to be right in some little corner of our personalities. Some tiny hook from which to hang our righteousness, some shiny trinket unique to us, expressing our unique value, to trade for some slight reprieve from the terror of total surrender. To finally realize that we have nothing with which to redeem any part of ourselves back from the Redeemer is a devastating kind of experience. Some reach a point and then simply refuse to look further or go deeper; the continued loss of self is too terrifying. But Christ said only by losing our life can we save it.

As believers we think we've grasped this. We can say along with Jonathan Edwards, "you contribute nothing to your salvation but the sin that made it necessary," and acknowledge that it is true, but until we've really tried and failed, we don't get it. We are like addicts in that state of denial who still believe they can quit if they just put their mind to it. Next time, for sure.

Truly recognizing your failure before God is an extremely unpleasant experience. If you have not had such an experience, it's possible you haven't tried to fully surrender to God. When you do, He will show you something you were holding on to, and you will try to argue you should get to keep it. And you are quite likely to base that argument on some goodness or good behavior on your part that justifies a trade. Finally realizing you have nothing to offer, that you are merely a recipient of grace upon grace, you may surrender, until you are called to surrender again in the future, more deeply. And on it goes.

So when Paul says in Philippians 3 that what he once counted as gain he now counts as σκύβαλον (dung, rubbish), he is speaking as someone who has emotionally grasped how utterly comprehensive is human failure. His credentials didn't matter, his zeal wasn't "a valiant if misguided effort," he had nothing, no ground to stand on. That's what he's saying in the passage: if anyone should have had a standing with God, a bit of a starting point from which to barter, any confidence in the flesh whatsoever, it would have been he, and he could see that it was all rubbish. Paul had nothing- except Christ, who is everything.


That recognition of our total failure to have, do, or be good -to bring anything at all to the bargaining table with God- is like a kind of death. Although we recognize it when we repent and believe in Christ, it's something we experience repeatedly in the sanctification process, part of maturing in Christ, as God burns away the dross. We believed truly then that we could not save ourselves; now we experience the fact more and more fully with each painful recognition and admission of our failure. 

If you want a god you can barter with, come to Taiwan. That's religion here.

This is yet another reason the prosperity gospel is no gospel at all. Without failure, without falling on our knees in recognition of our abject spiritual poverty, we do not learn to grow more deeply into God. God's blessings are but one way to experience Him. If we love God and not merely His blessings, we must continue down the path of self-abnegation that sometimes comes only with pain and brokenness. There is no promise to name and claim which skips over the valley of the shadow of death.


But the joy grows, if we are willing to surrender. When in the deep darkness of our new awareness of utter failure the door of grace opens, leading further up and further in, we become more and more willing to grasp the offered hand.To reject it either in pride or despair leads only to bitterness and fruitlessness in the Christian life; yet more fully and painfully aware of our failure, yet refusing to let His grace heal us that much more deeply. Instead we must be recklessly humble, casting aside the reasonable-sounding temptation to reject the gracious consolation of the one who allowed the pain. Bow and worship instead, for it was His pain which earned our grace.