In search of an Asian path

Christianity's message is winning converts, especially among the poor. But a question persists: Can it adapt to local needs?

A CHRISTIAN THINKER ONCE remarked that the Roman Catholic Church would never be truly established in Africa until the Holy Mass was "drummed and danced." His point, delivered crudely, was that Christianity would not take root in any culture unless its message was filtered through a prism of local custom, art and ceremony. In the aboriginal belts of central India, where conversion of native tribes to Christianity has in recent times been increasing rapidly, the statement has found literal expression. Many new believers have adapted to Christian worship while retaining their own traditions. They use drums during services and dance solemnly as well. Asian artists exploring religious themes have provided a rich body of work melding Christian themes and Asian images.

Once, the region was a "mission field" to be carefully tilled, tended and, eventually, harvested. No longer. Western missionaries still probe faithfully for converts but, by and large, Christianity in the region has become self-perpetuating. Christmas in Asia -- from the festive lights in Hong Kong to towering hotel Yuletide trees in Beijing to a creche in downtown Singapore -- is largely a secular (mainly retail) event. However, observing the birth of Christ as a religious celebration will be nearly 145 million Asians, 40 million more than just a decade ago.

At times, 20th-century Christianity in Asia has seemed on the road to extinction, but it has shown remarkable resilience. For instance, few would have given it much chance of surviving in China after the Communists expelled all Western missionaries in 1950. Three centuries of work before then by hundreds of evangelists had produced only a few million believers. Moreover, beginning in 1966 with the Cultural Revolution, the Communists' limited tolerance gave way to active persecution.

A turn toward openness after Mao Zedong's death in 1976 brought a revival of religious tolerance. Conservative estimates suggest there are now about 10 million Christians in the country. This despite the fact that foreign missionaries are still technically banned (although in practice a large number proselytize subtly as "English teachers"). Nevertheless, a negative official reaction remains toward a religion seen as primarily Western.

South Korean Christianity has taken hold largely through the proselytizing of Koreans. As recently as 1950, fewer than 10% of South Korea's 45 million people professed to be Christian. Today the figure is 29%, and Christianity probably will supplant Buddhism as the country's leading religion by 2000. Steeples dot Seoul, which reportedly has more churches than drug stores. Today, nobody considers it remarkable that the president is a practicing Presbyterian or that the man who might replace him, Kim Dae Jung, is a devout Catholic.

Christianity in Asia has come a long way. For the first Christian missionaries in the region, the problems were basic. The most successful of them instinctively knew that they had to use words, images and ideas that local people would understand. Preaching to the educated elite of China's Ming Dynasty in the 16th century, the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci presented Christianity as an ethical and moral system on the same plane as Confucianism. He and his colleagues made great strides in converting sectors of China's elite. Similarly, Roberto de Nobili, a 17th-century Italian missionary who dressed like a Hindu holy man, urged Church fathers not to impose their culture on India. Early on, an Asian form of Christianity was born.

Even then there were limits to how far Christianity could go in assimilating local culture and absorbing concepts from other religions while remaining recognizably Christian -- at least to Western Church leaders. Ancestral worship has been among the most enduring of controversies surrounding the extent to which Christianity can and should be "Asianized." Ricci claimed such worship was an essentially secular expression of Chinese filial piety. But the Dominican and Franciscan missionaries who followed him considered it a form of pagan idolatry. In 1742 the Pope declared it was contrary to doctrine and demanded that all missionaries forbid it among their followers. Ricci may have been the first cleric to butt heads with higher Church authorities in the interest of sensitizing Christianity to Asian ways. But as the recent excommunication of Father Tissa Balasuriya in Sri Lanka has shown, he was not the last. Eventually the Church came around. Pope Pius XII decreed in 1939 that Chinese family rituals were indeed secular.

Not that a pronouncement from Rome was ever likely to stop such a deeply traditional practice. Richard Madsen, a sociology professor at the University of California, believes that the survival of the Catholic Church in China has had a lot to do with the tacit acceptance of ancestor worship even while it was officially banned. After their takeover in 1949, the Communists were confident of wiping out Christianity because they assumed the sheer Chineseness of people would outweigh fealty to a "foreign" religion. Christianity's comeback proved them wrong.

Early missionaries in China were dealing with a country that already had a tradition of sophisticated philosophies. The Philippines was different. Unlike China, no powerful bureaucracy prevented direct evangelizing. The missionary effort began in earnest when the explorer Ferdinand Magellan left a wooden statue of the Christ child with a local tribe. Forty-three years later Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, who cemented Spain's hold on the archipelago, found the figurine still being worshipped.

Magellan's arrival was the beginning of nearly four centuries of dominance by Spain, a colonial -- and determinedly Catholic -- power with superior technology and a sophisticated culture. More than anything else, the Spanish domination may explain the pre-eminent role of Catholicism in the Philippines. Nevertheless, in 476 years Philippine Catholicism has evolved on its own terms. One example: Every Wednesday churches around the country fill with devotees attending services for the Mother of Perpetual Help -- the Virgin Mary. Motorists steer clear of the Manila suburb of Baclaran. The bayside Baclaran church is a powerful magnet. Prayers and Masses are said throughout the day, and worshippers, especially those looking for favors or healing for a loved one, stream into the church from Tuesday midnight to the small hours of Thursday.

The practice illustrates the extent to which Mary is venerated in the Philippines. This devotion may actually have cultural roots that transcend religion, a deep-seated desire for access to power, in this case manifested through close connections to Jesus and God. Explains one priest: "In Philippine society, we have a culture of patronage. In order to seek favors from a person in power, we ask someone close by to whisper to him on our behalf."

Jesus aimed his message at "the multitudes," which probably explains why Christianity's appeal in Asia continues to be strong among the downtrodden. Catholic evangelist Mariano "Mike" Velarde in the Philippines connects with ordinary people and speaks to their concerns about everyday life and livelihood. Brother Mike's unpolished English, bright suits and down-to-earth interpretation of the Bible (not to mention his message that it is okay to ask God for material things) make him one of the most popular preachers in Asia.

Similarly, Christianity successfully attracts the most outcast of India's outcasts, the dalits, or untouchables. In the earliest days, missionaries divided churches or held separate services for caste and non-caste Indians. But it is hard to justify such barriers in a religion founded on the notion that everyone is equal before God. The dalits became such a large part of India's congregations that they were eventually accepted as equals, in effect freeing them from untouchable status (and ironically making them ineligible for government benefits).

Harvard University theologian Harvey Cox argues that for any religion to grow in a new environment, it must do two things: First, incorporate elements of existing religions that have a strong grip on the cultural subconscious of the people. And second, equip people to adapt to and live in rapidly changing societies. He finds both preconditions working in the extraordinary rise of charismatic Protestantism in South Korea. The largest single Christian congregation in the world, the Full Gospel Church, with some 800,000 members, is located in Seoul, a city of 12 million. Following Cox's view, Korea's anxiety over its financial problems would enhance Christianity's attractiveness.

Cox and others who have studied Korean Christianity say successful Churches incorporate characteristics of folk religions. The Korean word for God -- Hananim -- was once the name of a shamanistic deity. "The delicate question of which divinity is absorbing which is not always clear," writes Cox in his book Fire From Heaven. "Is Hananim displacing the God of the Bible? Or is Hananim just the name that Korean Pentecostals apply to that God?"

That of course is the question. When does "seeing God in all his creations" (trees, waves or clouds) become a woolly pantheism -- or downright paganism? When does exorcising demons turn into demonology? How far can Christianity go in a healthy absorption of local culture until it stops being even "Asian Christianity"? The questions vex both Roman Catholics and fiercely independent Protestant branches of Christianity that have no ultimate authority -- no pope -- to pass judgment on what is permissible and what is not (other than scripture itself).

In that sense, Asian Christianity is at a crossroads. Similar ideological battles to ones waged now between East and West over such things as rights of the community versus rights of the individual will of course be played out within religion as well. Says Balasuriya: "The [Catholic] Church is growing fast in Asia. But we do not want to be a mere outburst of the rich European Empire. We must be able to think out our own theology and view Christian life as coming from an Asian source."

As the Christian calendar enters its third millennium, is it too fanciful to speculate that the tables may be turned, and Europe will soon become a "mission field," to be plowed and watered by Asian missionaries? In many parts of Europe, Christianity is slowly dying. Der Spiegel magazine reports that for the first time atheists and agnostics outnumber believers in Germany, the birthplace of Protestantism. Already a trickle of Asian missionaries are going to the West to help fuel a revival. Will the new millennium be the "Asian Millennium," invigorated by the great spiritual traditions of the East?

-- With reporting from Beijing, Colombo, Jakarta, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Manila and Seoul

ASIA'S CHRISTIANS in millions (% of total population)

Although accurate numbers are hard to confirm, it seems apparent Asia's Christian community is growing fast in many places. Some suggest that the recent increases have been in fundamentalist Christian religions, which appeal particularly to poorer Asians