So today for our last stop in looking at modern Chinese religion, we're going to look at charismatic Christianity. In fact, we should say charismatic Protestantism, because it's primarily as in the rest of the world a Protestant phenomenon. Why end with a foreign religion? Well, because it just so happens that today in the year 2017, this is the religion which is growing the most rapidly in China and so we have to look at it and understand it, see how it is in continuity with past trends, past manifestations of the religious in Chinese society, and how it may possibly differ as well. Our guide will be Melissa Inouye, "Miraculous Modernity: Charismatic Traditions and rajectories within Chinese Protestant Christianity." Charismatic Protestantism has in fact much in common with the redemptive societies that we looked at the last time: charismatic founders and leaders; supernatural healing; a preoccupation with endtimes—apocalypticism; direct communication with the divine; and a "lay salvationist impulse." That's a lot in common. Not surprisingly, it also plays the same role of resistance to the scientistic modernity. And here I refer to T.M. Luhrmann's book <i>When God Talks Back</i> —we'll refer to it again later. It's about American fundamentalism in contemporary American society and we will see that they're, often a lot in common there too. So maybe not just Chinese tradition but popular religion and its characteristics as such. However, one key difference with redemptive societies was that the latter practiced spirit writing, while charismatic Protestant groups speak in tongues. Another, of course, is that these spirit writing societies produced an unending flow of new scriptures, usually vehicles of traditional morality and sociology. They were predominantly male movements, usually with elite involvement. Here the contrast could not be more complete: the charismatics, predominantly female, have their Bible and pride themselves on taking it literally, especially as regards faith-healing, exorcism, and miracles. This leads to the creation of tight-knit communities. We never can forget, religion is always not just about healing but it's also about the creation of society. So it's very important to underline that this kind of group practice leads to the creation of tight-knit communities "bound together through shared experiences, texts, and assembly" —getting together. "The practice and discourse of charismata maintains the boundaries of the community." How so? Well, these are particular practices that many people, especially educated people, will consider to be beneath their dignity —they would never get involved in it. And so in fact, these practices of the less educated or the uneducated or even illiterate maintain group boundaries, "building trust through shared vulnerability and mutual affirmation." While the Chinese charismatics were definitely a part of the world-wide Pentecostal movement of the early twentieth century, many of the charismatic churches founded by Chinese were in fact critical of the missionary church, and Inouye rightly rejects the idea that Pentecostalism was an imported mode of religiosity. No, it's native! She says: "The really significant distinction is not between 'Chinese' and 'Western' religion, but between popular practice and formal orthodoxy." And we will be talking a lot more about that contrast. This explains the "natural overlap" between charismatic Protestantism and Chinese popular religion, both of which emphasize divine efficacy, <i>ling</i> 靈. As I've said over and over again, the key question in Chinese popular religion about its gods is <i>lingbuling</i> 靈不靈: can they or not produce effects that we can see, starting with healing? So both emphasize divine efficacy and miracle narratives, understood, I quote, as "God's miraculous presence in the everyday world." So let's try and deepen this contrast between popular and elite religion, between charismatic and bureaucratic religion, institutionalized. This—what we've just seen— also explains the following contrast made by Gotthard Oblau with the official Protestant church in China today. I quote: "The charismatic structure from below is rural, dominated by volunteer workers"—gift society— "of little formal education with mainly women in leadership roles. The bureaucratic structure from above, in contrast, is mostly urban, dominated by well-educated people with many theologians and mostly men in leading positions. While groups within the charismatic structure are mainly Pentecostal… preaching and teaching in the realm of the bureaucratic structure is dominated by the modern rationalism of evangelical or, at the very top, liberal theology." In Inouye's own words, outside the official church, Protestant groups are, I quote, "characterized by lay-centered organizational structures and religious practices such as healing, exorcism, visions, particularistic divine protection (of individuals), involuntarily emotional worship, and speaking in tongues," otherwise called glossolalia, a form of possession. "All of these phenomena are encompassed within the term 'charismata'," which comes from the Greek <i>charis</i>, meaning grace, gift, "which scholars of Christianity use to describe the experience of divine 'gifts' or power attributed to the presence of the Holy Spirit." So we have a contrast between charismatic and bureaucratic; local community—state organization; lay volunteers—paid clergy; grassroots—hierarchy; female—male; popular—elite; personal—public; experiential—rational; supernatural—moral. Following Nanlai Cao, Inouye points out that "charismatic Christianity is (in fact) not limited to rural areas." Nonetheless, in urban areas like Wenzhou, one of the most Protestant parts of China, there is "tension between the practices of the largely female, low-to-middle-income, charismatically oriented church membership and the male, well-to-do, theologically oriented church leaders." And yet, these two apparently opposing forms of Protestant Christianity can also coexist, as can be seen in the following example of a state-sanctioned church in Hefei 合肥. I quote: "Just as one might expect in a congregation officially registered with an atheist party-state, the pastor's exegesis of the Bible had emphasized moral behavior as opposed to supernatural forces, exhorting the audience that true meaning in life comes from service to one's fellow beings. Although most members of the audience left directly after the service, a sizeable number lingered. In about a dozen small circles spread throughout the sanctuary, they huddled together, praying. In one circle, a middle-aged woman stood in the middle of a group of women, tears streaming down her face, eyes shut, hands clasped together. Against the low muttering of the women's voices, the voice of one woman who seemed to be speaking on behalf of all the others rose and fell in curious bursts of intensity. Every few words were expelled forcefully, as if she were rebuking someone. When at last the praying ceased and the group dispersed, I asked one of the women what they had been doing. 'Exorcising,' she said, in a matter-of-fact way, 'driving out demons'." Chinese popular religion.
