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Over the past few months I’ve put together some posts on Confucianism (clicking on the links will take you to that post):

• Confucianism – is it a danger?
• Confucianism – the philosophy that won’t go away
• Confucianism – what it’s all about
• Confucianism – and filial piety
• Confucianism – and leadership
• Confucianism – and the person

If you want to read more about Confucianism, you can access translations of the Analects of Confucius yourself here. The Analects is a collection of Confucius’ teachings, collected by his disciples after his death, and is probably the most important text in the Confucian canon.

Through these posts, it’s probably become obvious to you how Confucianism could influence how Chinese Christians think and behave, and how Chinese churches function in a whole range of different areas.

What I’ve done here is drawn many of those themes together so you can see, on the one hand the features of Confucianism, and on the other, how it could influence a Chinese church.

Aspects of Confucianism	Possible implications for Chinese churches
The past is prized	What has been decided in the past at church is not open to question
Elderly people are venerated and should be obeyed and shown reverence	Youth leaders should always listen to and obey older leaders at church
The cornerstone of virtue is filial piety	Godly children are those who obey their parents
Social harmony is sacrosanct	A high premium on uniformity and outward shows of unity
Outward conflict is avoided at all costs	Conflict is suppressed and denied at church
Rules of society are deeply ingrained inside of people	There are a lot of unwritten rules at church
People are motivated by shame	Christians feel a strong need to redeem themselves when they do wrong
The Chinese psyche is set up for approval seeking behaviour	People behave in church in the way expected of them
Doing your duty is the greatest good	Christians focus on doing their duty to God outwardly – and not on the affections

It’s important to remember that many Chinese Christians won’t acknowledge the influence of Confucianism. This is not because they are lying, but simply because many of them won’t actually have received any formal training in Confucianism. For them, they are not being Confucians – it’s just a normal and unquestioned part of how things should be done. It’s just like how “being true to yourself” is just an unquestioned part how things should be, for someone who has actually been influenced by Western individualism. Because of this you can’t go about accusing people of being Confucians – that’s simply not helpful. The best thing to do is just be aware, and let it help you understand why things are done a certain way.

Realise also that the influence of Confucianism among Chinese Christians is not
uniform. Some individuals will be more influenced by Confucianism than
others – so you can’t assume that what influences one person is the
same, or to the same degree. Don’t jump to conclusions too quickly! However I’ve had the opportunity to share about Confucianism at a few different
places now, and many Chinese Christians are amazed how Confucianism
makes sense of so much of their experiences at home, as well as at church.

And finally it’s important to understand that Confucianism isn’t worse compared to Western individualism. No – it’s just as un-Christian a philosophy as Western individualism, postmodernism, or modernism is. All cultures – including those influenced by Confucianism – need to be critiqued by the gospel – but don’t think that the answer is to adopt Western individualism. Western individualism, and churches influenced by that, have a whole different set of problems! It’s just that Confucianism is not well understood, though it is the philosophical environment in which a lot of Chinese Christians operate.

[ PS: note that Confucianism hasn't just influenced Chinese culture - it is a significant influence on the Korean and Japanese cultures as well! ]