The days of ‘civilising missions’ of Christian Missionaries may be long gone, but Christian NGOs working in China are still able to spread Biblical messages legally despite strict laws banning the practice, according a visiting academic at The Australian National University.
Dr Miwa Hirono, a visiting fellow at the ANU Department of International Relations, has spent four years researching the role of Christian NGOs in China and whether they are still able to spread a Christian message against the wishes of the secular Communist government.
Dr Hirono said that despite Chinese laws, the overseas NGOs have become adept at passing on Christian values through building strong ties and being perceived as valuable by the communities they work in.
“The relevance of the ‘civilising mission’ in a contemporary context depends on what the locals think about the values and beliefs spread by the Christian NGOs, which many of the locals don’t even realise are Christian. If they think they are an imposition, then that resonates with the theme of a ‘civilising mission’. But some NGOs have a very good dialogue with the community, which leads to a very positive perception of what outsiders are doing for them,” she said.
One example she studied was a health project where the international NGOs were able to pass on Christian values without locals feeling like they were being evangelised.
“The NGO was using the health project as a vehicle to spread their values and beliefs through messages about not drinking too much and HIV / AIDS education in relation to Biblical values. In the past Christian missionaries used to be able to spread Biblical values quite openly, but now they have to rely on symbolism and development projects and come up with better ways to spread their values and beliefs in a legal way.
“But when I asked the locals what they thought about the meaning of the project that the NGO was undertaking, they thought it was just a health project with no religious meaning. The same project was understood in a different way by both groups – there’s a lost-in-translation aspect,” she said.
Despite the NGOs’ religious beliefs, her work - which has just been published in the book Civilizing Missions: International Religious Agencies in China - revealed that they were broadly reluctant to engage with local religious groups. “Christian NGOs cannot afford to engage with local religious communities in depth because of the political sensitivity of their status within China. Accordingly, Christian NGOs focus their attention and efforts on communities politically organised by the Chinese state,” said Dr Hirono.
