“To Do Immeasurably More:” Forging Transnational Ties Via the Chinese American Evangelical Social Imaginary

• In Event: Affiliations, Networks, and Identities: Transnational Chinese Religions in the Modern Period

Abstract

Studies of immigrant communities have long emphasized the role of religion in forging transnational ties between these communities and their homelands. Through a case study of the Chinese Mission Convention (CMC), a triennial conference that aims “to do immeasurably more by mobilizing attendees to fulfill the Great Commission in reaching Chinese, non-Chinese, and unreached people groups,” this paper explores how transnational linkages between Chinese American evangelicals and Christian communities in China are facilitated through a concept of the globe that CMC projects for its audience. Such representations of the globe are most evident in the language employed by Chinese American evangelicals regarding how they see the world. Terminologies such as “unreached people groups” and the “10/40 Window,” a section of the globe conceptualized as regions of the northern hemisphere between 10th and 40th latitudes spanning from the Middle East to China that are “least reached” by Christianity, configure and circumscribe a conceptual space that is mapped onto the physical world. This paper demonstrates how these concepts of the globe, which are mediated through the discourse of Christian missions, imagine China at the center of the globe and demarcates it in terms of “reached” and “unreached.” I suggest this social imaginary emplaces Chinese American evangelicals in a bounded space while also compelling them beyond those boundaries to forge transnational ties via Christian missionary endeavors. This paper is based on participant observation and interview conducted at CMC and Chinese American evangelical congregations.

Author

• Steven Hu, University of California, Santa Barbara