Abstract
This chapter follows Nanping Christians outside of their places of worship in order to examine how they interact with the surrounding society. I focus on one collective, costly, and growing social involvement of Chinese Christians: the opening of church-run homes for the elderly. By exploring how Christians financially create, legally justify, and concretely manage their elderly homes year after year, the chapter reveals that they operate under the umbrella of two specific entities, distinct but paired, that channel their entire action. It is the Church and the pastoral clergy. I argue that, through their social engagement, Nanping Christians co-act under the specific governance of their pastors, the Christian clergy, and create a semi-transcendent being standing within and beyond their networks, the Church.
“Only the Church is strong enough to carry the Gospel without stumbling.”
(Delbrêl 1995: 34)
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Notes
- 1.
不是老人变坏, 是坏人变老了.
- 2.
Cf. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-05/china-s-rural-poor-bear-the-brunt-of-the-nation-s-aging-crisis?=supchina accessed on October 23, 2017.
- 3.
The new home is named “99,” a name referring to longevity. By contrast, the Gospel Church always chooses names for its institutions that relate to love and care.
- 4.
南平市基督教仁爱大楼, 上帝是爱, 主后二00 一年五月四日奠基.
- 5.
福建省南平市基督教 1866.
- 6.
During the interviews I conducted, I often heard that young people in Nanping refuse work that pays less than 3000 RMB (455 USD) per month. Workers within the local clothing industry makes between 3000 and 5000 RMB per month (roughly 455–758 USD).
- 7.
As a reminder, this network covers more than twenty places of worship and engages around 3000 worshippers on a regular Sunday.
- 8.
For instance, all the wooden chairs of the Ren’ai Home dining hall were marked “Nanping Gospel Church.” They were initially used for the second-floor chapel of the Gospel Church, but when the chapel got new furniture, these chairs were given to the elderly home.
- 9.
During my fieldwork in Nanping, I lived most of the time in an apartment on the fourth floor of this tower, initially used by Mr. Liao himself. This residence gave me a unique chance to be an observant participant of the nursing home.
- 10.
Based on my interviews, this concern was widespread in Nanping Prefecture in the early 1980s and late 1990s.
- 11.
https://www.mhsonline.org/consultants accessed on November 3, 2017.
- 12.
Performing proper funeral rituals appeared as extremely important. Christians are well-known for rejecting many practices used by non-Christians. Therefore, Mrs. Ye was specifically recognized as a Christian funeral practitioner who is able to properly organize everything. It is worth noticing that she refuses to work for non-Christians, and that she is hired for deceased Christians linked to the six Nanping Christianizing assemblages.
- 13.
This massive participation in funeral services was a recurrent and popular activity for many elderly Christians of the Gospel Church. Besides their weekly service on Thursday morning, elderly Christians easily joined one or two funerals per week to pay respect and practice piety. They typically gathered at 7 a.m. at Church; a few buses picked them up there, and after the mortuary service, they came back around 11 a.m.
- 14.
China’s Charity Law—Cishan fa 慈善法—was adopted on March 13, 2015, but took effect only on September 1, 2016. This new law contains provisions for the establishment and registration of charitable organizations, extends the possibilities for fundraising, and at the same time strengthens the regulatory monitoring. See: Religions & Christianity in Today’s China 2016, No. 2.
- 15.
For example, I witnessed a similar pattern in the Fuan Catholic Elderly home and in the one ran by Chinese Catholic nuns in northern China. See Chambon (2019).
- 16.
Once, Taoist priests invited me to give a hand by playing a musical instrument during a ritual, and I refused. I did not want anyone testifying later about that among Nanping Christians and jeopardizing the trust I was granted.
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Chambon, M. (2020). Revealing the Pastoral Church Through Elderly Care. In: Making Christ Present in China. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55605-1_4
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