Conclusion

Abstract

This chapter revisits the four interpretive motifs of this book: socialization, politicized culture, Christian conversion, and worldview conflicts. Traditional cultural endorsement of filial piety and the sanctity of parenthood comes in clash with Protestant values that attribute human existence to God. Consequently, more often than not, Christian conversion is only the beginning of a troubled mother-daughter relationship. The tension can sometimes be compounded by the fact that the parents’ generation owned a set of moral values shaped by a drastically different formation than that of the younger generation. In some cases, the daughters’ conversion may influence their mothers positively with regard to the Christian faith. Intergenerational storytelling, to a certain extent, has preserved part of Chinese history during the most censored and apathetic phase.

The body, hair and skin, all have been received from the parents, and so one does not dare damage them—that is the beginning of filial piety (xiao).

—Master Zeng (Zengzi, 505-436 B.C.), The Classic of Filial Piety (Xiao jing) (Revered as one of the Four Sages of Confucianism, Zengzi was an influential Chinese philosopher and disciple of Confucius)

For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. … Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.

—Matthew 10:35, 37 (NIV)

…in Christ, she must be the final place where freedom is rediscovered, and the one responsible for the rediscovery of the values freedom expresses.

—Jacuqes Ellul, Les Combats de liberté