BOSS CHRISTIANS

THE CHINA JOURNAL, NO. 59, JANUARY 2008 BOSS CHRISTIANS: THE BUSINESS OF RELIGION IN THE “WENZHOU MODEL” OF CHRISTIAN REVIVAL Nanlai Cao� In the last quarter-century the southeast coastal city of Wenzhou has become the largest urban Christian center in China. Popularly known as “China’s Jerusalem” (Zhongguo de Yelusaleng Ё೑ⱘ㘊䏃ᩦދ), Wenzhou is home to an estimated 700,000–1,000,000 Christians (Protestant) and over 1,200 churches.1 The Reform- era development of Wenzhou Christianity has accompanied Wenzhou’s development from an impoverished rural town to a dynamic regional center of global capitalism, the rapid growth of many small and medium-sized family- owned manufacturing enterprises, the emergence of the city as a world outsourcing hub, and the rise of an entrepreneurial class in the same region. A � I am very grateful to Andrew Kipnis, Philip Taylor and Nicholas Tapp for their support and help during the process of my thesis-writing. I thank Peter Ng, Barend ter Haar, Mandy Scott and Lim Chee-han for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of the paper. Luigi Tomba and the three reviewers have also provided valuable suggestions for revisions. An earlier draft was given at the conference, “Religion and Social Integration in the Chinese World”, held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Special thanks to Shi Chenxuan for sending me Chinese materials. The research was funded by the Australian National University, the Religious Research Association and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. 1 Mo Fayou, A History of Wenzhou Christianity (Hong Kong: Alliance Bible Seminary Press, 1998), estimates that a decade ago at least 12 per cent (600,000) of the local population was Protestant Christian. Given this percentage of Christians and the city’s population growth in the past decade, the Wenzhou Christian population has easily reached 700,000. According to some local church leaders’ estimates, the figure is 1,000,000. Christian growth in Wenzhou relates in part to the laissez-faire governance of religion in the reform era. See Nanlai Cao, “Christian Entrepreneurs and the Post-Mao State: An Ethnographic Account of Church–State Relations in China’s Economic Transition”, Sociology of Religion, Vol. 68, No. 1 (2007), pp. 45-66. 64 THE CHINA JOURNAL, NO. 59 new entrepreneurial class of Christians, known as “boss Christians” (laoban jidutu㗕ᵓ෎ⴷᕦ), has emerged and spearheaded local church development.2 These boss Christians are private business owners who were among the first to get rich under the reformist state. As a result of Wenzhou’s rural past and dramatic urbanization, the overwhelming majority of them are of rural origin.3 Like non-Christian Wenzhou bosses, they started their businesses from scratch in the beginning of the reform era as village entrepreneurs, but as Christians they publicly acknowledge having been blessed by God in their business success.4 Though Wenzhou’s economic success has received nationwide acclaim, Wenzhou bosses have been frequently stereotyped as uncouth, uneducated new rich (baofa hu ᲈথ᠋), sarcastically characterized by the saying “they are so poor that they only have money left”.5 In part, the spirituality of the boss Christians is an attempt to prove this stereotype wrong and in this sense reflects a desire common to many new rich across China. Many of the boss Christians are both successful private entrepreneurs and influential Christian leaders. They explicitly promote the production and management of church development in consumerist and entrepreneurial terms. During my fieldwork in Wenzhou, some boss Christians proudly talked about “the Wenzhou model of church” (Wenzhou moshi de jiaohui ⏽Ꮂ῵ᓣⱘᬭӮ) as a parallel to the renowned Wenzhou model of economic development. 6 This article takes “the Wenzhou model of church” as a central metaphor for examining the cultural linkage between the entrepreneurial outlook of the boss Christians and local church development. By examining the linkages between economic and religious practices, this article might remind the reader of Max Weber’s famous argument in The 2 On bosses-led Wenzhou churches, see Chen Cunfu and Huang Tianhai, “The Emergence of a New Type of Christians in China Today”, Review of Religious Research, Vol. 46, No. 2 (2004), pp. 183-200, and Nanlai Cao, “Christian Entrepreneurs and the Post-Mao State”. 3 In 2004 only 19 per cent of local residents were non-agricultural hukou holders (Wenzhou Statistical Yearbook, 2005, p. 59). 4 For an extended discussion of Wenzhou’s village entrepreneurs, see Gong Mu, Duan Jia and Chen Shu, Wenzhou de nongmin qiyejia (Wenzhou’s Village Entrepreneurs) (Nanning: Guangxi Renmin Chubanshe, 1987). Boss Christians also acknowledge having been blessed by the reformist state, and many of them as church leaders have learned to work with rather than against the local state. Nanlai Cao, “Christian Entrepreneurs and the Post-Mao State”. 5 Shi Jinchuan, Jin Xiangrong, Zhao Wei and Luo Weidong, Zhidu bianqian yu jingji fazhan: Wenzhou moshi yanjiu (Institutional Change and Economic Development: The Study of the Wenzhou Model) (Hangzhou: Zhejiang University Press, 2002), p. 373. 6 A number of articles examining the Wenzhou model of development as a regional model of the “socialist market economy” can be found in Shi Jinchuan et al., Zhidu bianqian yu jingji fazhan. BOSS CHRISTIANS 65 Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.7 Ironically, the Chinese translation of this work is sold in Wenzhou’s Christian bookstores and has been widely read by Wenzhou’s boss Christians. They see it as a “how to” manual that lends moral support to their dual identities as entrepreneurs and Christians rather than as a critical commentary on capitalism. My view of the relationship between economic and Christian practice differs from both Weber and the boss Christians. On the one hand, unlike Weber, I do not posit a causal relationship between religious ethics and capitalist practice, in either direction. I merely explore the overlaps and congruencies. On the other hand, unlike the boss Christians, I do not accept that the Wenzhou model of the church proves the uniqueness and superiority of Wenzhou Christianity, but rather see this concept as a metaphor through which boss Christians express their conflicting identities as entrepreneurs, Christians, Wenzhou citizens and new rich. Studies of Chinese Christianity have generally attributed the spectacular growth in church membership during the reform era to contextual factors such as the ideological vacuum left by the collapse of faith in Communism, the liberalization of state religious policy and the dismantling of traditional moral systems. In a systematic analysis of Protestantism since 1979, for example, Alan Hunter and Chan Kim-Kwong emphasize the role of the “spiritual crisis” produced by radical social and political changes.8 This explanation is confirmed by Daniel Bays, who concludes that “different forms of Protestantism can offer for intellectuals or the urban middle class identification with the West and modernization, or an eschatological prospect which may appeal to poor peasants left behind by the economic reforms”.9 In the most recent elaboration of this approach, Fenggang Yang argues that linking with Western modernity is the main attraction of Christianity to urban middleclass people. 10 Such analyses, while valuable for their wide perspectives, cannot explain how local believers participate in the constitution of Chinese Christianity. In this article I treat the Christianity of the Wenzhou bosses as a cultural fact deeply rooted in local society. 11 In so doing, I join the efforts of the anthropologists of Christianity to set aside any prepacked notion of what the 7 Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Talcott Parsons (trans.). London: Routledge, 2001 (1904). 8 Alan Hunter and Chan Kim-Kwong, Protestantism in Contemporary China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 170. 9 Daniel H. Bays, “Chinese Protestant Christianity Today”, The China Quarterly, No. 174 (2003), p. 502. 10 Fenggang Yang, “Lost in the Market, Saved at McDonald’s: Conversion to Christianity in Urban China”, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 44, No. 4 (2005), pp. 423-41. 11 For a historical and systematic account of Wenzhou Christianity, see Mo Fayou, A History of Wenzhou Christianity. 66 THE CHINA JOURNAL, NO. 59 Christian experience is.12 This allows me to explore how macro historical forces of social transformation have been concretized in the everyday practices of boss Christians. Rather than focusing on what Christians believe and why they do so, I examine what boss Christians do when practicing religion and how these religious practices relate to local business practices. In so doing, I build on Adam Chau’s study of a popular religion in rural Shaanbei, north-central China. Chau notes the importance of understanding diverse actors’ desires and actions in the process of collectively “doing” religion. 13 This “doing religion” approach is especially appropriate for Wenzhou, where local people are proud of their pragmatism, a way of life that emphasizes practical action (locally called “doing rather than thinking”).14 Drawing on nineteen months of ethnographic field research, I show how newly rich entrepreneurs provide the vital financial capital for church-building projects, evangelical organizations and church initiatives. It is these boss Christians, rather than preachers or pastors, who lead the governing committees of Wenzhou Christian organizations. These advantaged believers often promote the city’s fame as “China’s Jerusalem” and use the notion of “constructing ‘China’s Jerusalem’” to unite the local church communities.15 I further discuss how boss Christians use locally developed entrepreneurial logics when investing in infrastructure, establishing investor control over churches, managing church brands, networking and outsourcing the production of church activity. Local church development has benefited directly from the practical logic of boss Christians. 12 A number of recent anthropological studies of local Christianities can be found in Fenella Cannel (ed.), The Anthropology of Christianity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006). 13 Adam Y. Chau, Miraculous Response: Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006). 14 The regional tradition of pragmatism can be traced back to the period of the Southern Song Dynasty about 850 years ago, when an influential school of thought known as Yongjia (the old name of Wenzhou) espoused the view that commerce was as important as agriculture, and that to enrich the people should be the fundamental principle of government. The “theory of pragmatism” (shigong xueshuo), founded by the Yongjia school, challenged the dominant Confucian view of the day that placed teachers and bureaucrats at the top of social rank and the merchant class at the bottom. See Cai Kejiao, “Wenzhou renwen jingshen chutan” (An Analysis of the Wenzhou Ethos), Bulletin of Zhejiang Normal University (Social Science Edition), Vol. 2 (1999), pp. 28-31. 15 See David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power (Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2003), Chapter 9, for a journalist’s account of Wenzhou Christians’ pride in Wenzhou’s reputation as “China’s Jerusalem”. An elderly Wenzhou church leader claims that he first used this term in the 1990s in an essay entitled “Wenzhou: China’s Jerusalem”, which later circulated in the overseas Christian world. BOSS CHRISTIANS 67 Investment in Space and Centralized Control In the last quarter-century, the Wenzhou church has focused on the building of its institutional structure and the establishment and expansion of religious space. According to a local church preacher, after churches were allowed to reopen in 1979 there was an initial wave of church-building to meet the needs of local church gatherings. However, since 1990 a competition has developed among local Christian communities to “build the most costly church, the most beautiful church and even the tallest cross”. In Yueqing County, Wenzhou’s most industrialized and prosperous area, most unregistered house churches have erected church buildings. The house churches in the center of the city have all purchased real estate; some have spent 5–6 million yuan and some even over ten million yuan to purchase their gathering sites, in defiance of the central state regulation of religious venues.16 This “fever for church-building” (jiantang re ᓎූ⛁) highlights the dynamic process of Wenzhou Christian development in which regional political economy, local cultural tradition and religious meaning closely intertwine.17 It also reflects the specific way in which local believers negotiate secular social identity and divine power simultaneously.18 Individual church members see the acquisition of new church property as an expression of faith, a main indicator of Christian revival and a reflection of the church leader’s personal capacity. Consequently, Wenzhou church leaders brag about the high costs of their church buildings and furnishings. When church leaders report their evangelical work at church meetings, the acquisition or construction of new church sites is frequently mentioned as both a main strategy and the most tangible outcome of their evangelization. For Wenzhou Christians, the notion of the Wenzhou church extends beyond Christian sites in Wenzhou itself to other parts of China and even other countries. A prideful local Christian saying explains: “Where there are Wenzhou businesspeople, there are Wenzhou Christians, and where there are Wenzhou Christians, there are Wenzhou churches”. Wenzhou Christians doing business in 16 Wenzhou Christian entrepreneurs actively seek the state’s recognition of their technically illegal house churches, by using their smooth social connections with local party cadres. See Nanlai Cao, “Christian Entrepreneurs and the Post-Mao State”. 17 The real estate craze is a reality across China today. Helen F. Siu, “The Cultural Landscape of Luxury Housing in South China: a Regional History”, in Jing Wang (ed.), Locating China: Space, Place and Popular Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), pp. 73-93, portrays and analyzes the transformation of a regional landscape in post- Mao Guangdong through the lens of the consumption craze for luxury private housing. 18 See Jeanne H. Kilde, When Church Became Theatre: The Transformation of Evangelical Architecture and Worship in Nineteenth-Century America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), for a discussion of the connection between church architecture and religious experience and practice. 68 THE CHINA JOURNAL, NO. 59 other places are eager to establish their own churches and are reluctant to cooperate with local Christians in their church-building projects. A Christian businessman who does business in a North China city said: “I advocate that we Wenzhou people build our own Wenzhou church in other places (waidi ໪ഄ) to establish a brand. Through this brand, others will say the Wenzhou people are powerful (lihai ढ़ᆇ); they can build such a luxurious church elsewhere to let others attend. This is very good testimony”. This Christian boss is the vice-head of the Wenzhou chamber of commerce in that northern city, and told me how he used the chamber’s network to spread the gospel in the city in order to “let the city be blessed by Wenzhou people”. He firmly rejected the request from the city’s two committees (lianghui ϸӮ),19 the government-sanctioned Protestant organization, to erect a church building together with a local church. By building an independent church, he hoped to hang out the sign of “the Wenzhou church”. According to him, “building churches is more influential than evangelization” and “using the name of the Wenzhou people and of the Wenzhou church to cultivate a positive image is more meaningful”. In the end, the two committees approved the purchase of land for this new Wenzhou church project in this North China city. In line with this cultural logic, there are also large Wenzhou churches in Europe, particularly in Italy, Spain and France, the three main destinations for Wenzhou migrants.20 These costly immigrant churches are a source of great pride for local Christians in Wenzhou. Instead of being integrated into Western or even other overseas Chinese Christian communities, the “Wenzhou model” of churches in Europe operates on a basis of autonomy and maintains close transnational ties to the church communities back in Wenzhou, resembling the business dealings of Wenzhou immigrant enclaves in Europe.21 These immigrant Wenzhou churches regularly invite Wenzhou preachers to preach in Europe in Wenzhou dialect, and pay their travel expenses.22 19 7he China Christian Council (Zhongguo jidujiao xiehui) and the Committee of the Three- Self Patriotic Movement (sanzi aiguo yundong weiyuanhui) are colloquially called the two committees (lianghui). Established in 1954, the two committees are the officially-recognized Protestant bodies in China. They functionally overlap and are often viewed as one organization. 20 David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing, Chapter 9, also notes the rising number of Wenzhou Chinese churches in Europe. 21 See Wang Chunguang and Jean-Philippe Béja, “Wenzhou ren zai Bali: yizhong dute de shehui rongru moshi” (The Wenzhounese in Paris: A Unique Model of Social Integration), Chinese Journal of Social Science, Vol. 6 (1999), pp. 106-19. 22 Usually, the Wenzhou preachers and church leaders travel on business visas with invitation letters issued by immigrant Wenzhou Christian firms overseas. This convenient arrangement circumvents certain restrictions imposed by the Religious Affairs Bureau on cross-border religious exchange, and greatly facilitates the circulation of people, resources and ideas between the Wenzhou churches overseas and those back home. BOSS CHRISTIANS 69 The Big Church Dream and Its Fulfillment Many Christian leaders are also real estate bosses, who are commonly known in the church community as having “the gift of buying church buildings” (mai tang de enci фූⱘᘽ䌤). They have profited from dealing in real estate in Wenzhou and across China. Simply sharing and promoting a big church-building plan can be thrilling for those real estate bosses who like to dream big. Brother Luo is a Christian boss who has an investment company in Shanghai and made a fortune through investing in real estate.23 Luo always carries a portfolio in his leather business case that contains a project description entitled “Proposal for constructing a ten- thousand-person church in Shanghai”, and he is always ready to share this big plan with great zeal in meetings and encounters, formal or informal. Thinking about this great vision makes him too excited to sleep at night. On a number of occasions, he has also shared a dream of building a church in central China so large that it could make the Guinness Book of Records. The big-church dream reflects the popular ideology of petty entrepreneurialism and consumerism in Wenzhou society that emphasizes extravagant new spending on housing and other conspicuous consumer goods.24 The big-church dream also reflects the Wenzhou desire to worship in large group settings for a fervent spiritual atmosphere (locally called huo re ☿⛁).25 Boss Christians both finance and promote big-church dreams. They often promise a great amount of money well before the idea of a bu