GCBJM Vol. 2 No. 1 (SPRING 2023)
Culturally, I am a Chinese Christian who grew up in a Confucian cultural context. Theologically, I am a Baptist who is convicted that congregationalism is the most biblical form of church polity. Out of my love for the Chinese church, I intend to identify three challenges arising from a Confucian worldview that could potentially hinder church health. Out of my desire to see churches grow toward health in the Confucian context, I intend to meet those Confucian challenges with a congregational solution. In this article, I will build a congregational case for a church plant in the Confucian context to illustrate the elder-led and congregation-rule model of church governance beneficial for the development of churches in East Asia. This article consists of two sections. In section one, I will identify three cultural challenges for churches in the Confucian context. In section two, I will build a case for planting a congregational church in the Confucian context by offering some contextualized solutions to answer the aforementioned challenges. This article will land on the intended conclusion: congregationalism is not only applicable for starting a church in the Confucian context but also beneficial for the long-term health of churches in East Asia (EA).
Does congregationalism work in the Confucian context? Once the two benchmarks of congregationalism are understood, namely autonomy and democracy,1 many Chinese believers would say no due to its cultural incompatibility.2 To further this conversation, three major challenges in Confucian culture3 need to be identified at first.
Paternalism simply indicates some limitation on the freedom or autonomy of an agent for any reason. In terms of policy, paternalism stands in contrast with personal choice—paternalists tend to control, intervene, and restrict individual choices.4 To be fair, Confucianism is a softer version of paternalism as an approach to government. Originally, the Confucian paternalism was not about hard control or coercion. Instead, Confucian paternalism assumes people do not know what is best for themselves and therefore are not likely to act in their own best interests if they are left to their own choices. As a result, the properly informed and organized authority knows what is best for people, and therefore makes better decisions on their behalf.5 Gradually, however, Confucian paternalism was led to a submissive attitude to authority of all types in Chinese culture from students to their teacher, citizens to their king, and children to their parents.6 Inevitably Confucian paternalism yields a few ramifications to the EA church. First, church leaders tend to have the “final say” for church decisions since Chinese believers would naturally submit to their pastoral authority by the influence of Confucian paternalism. Secondly, the chance for power abuse among EA churches is probably higher than that in the Western church since the EA church leadership is less regulated due to the Confucian tradition.7 Thirdly, it is not easy for church members to offer their advice to church leaders since the paternalistic authority should not be challenged.
A second byproduct of Confucianism is the “face” culture which is paramount in every aspect of EA society.8 Essentially, Chinese mianzi (face) functions as an ethical system in the collective culture. Every Chinese person seeks acceptance, approval, affirmation, recognition, and praise from other people by gaining mianzi.9 The mianzi culture that is built upon Confucian humanism prompts every Chinese person to seek a better “self” by the judgment of their community.10 This “harmony-driven” mianzi culture steers Chinese people to avoid confrontations at all costs.11 The mianzi culture can impact the EA church in several ways. First, while it is always good to pursue harmony in Christ, mianzi makes it hard for EA believers to confront sins found in other believers, let alone the practice of church discipline. Secondly, mianzi culture sometimes stand in the way of the church body to seek God’s will corporately. For example, a majority of the church may agree on a questionable proposal, but a minority in the church body may remain silent because of their instinct for maintaining “harmony.”12 Thirdly, mianzi also makes it difficult for an EA believer to inform or even confront his/her pastor/elder in cases of problematic teaching or conduct unless the problem is obviously heretical or immoral.
At the influence of Confucianism, people in EA are accustomed to submitting to authority of various kinds. That coupled with the political restrictions for democracy in EA, people in that cultural context naturally fall short of the mentality of “democratic participation” and “autonomous rule”. The lack of experience and imagination in democracy can limit EA believers’ understanding of what they could do should they possess the democratic power for making autonomous decisions. In sum, the three identified Confucian challenges could be roadblocks to health of the EA church and congregationalism. Without addressing these cultural obstacles, there is little chance to see congregationalism succeed in EA. In the following space, I will answer those Confucian challenges while building my case for a congregational church plant in the Confucian context.
This case is built with two aspects: the qualities of a congregational leadership and the expectations of a new congregation. Each aspect provides some practical guidelines to address the Confucian challenges while advancing the congregational agenda.
Biblically qualified leadership is essential to every church. This is most certainly true in a congregational church plant in EA where church leadership often falls short of the biblical qualifications (1 Tim 3:1–7; Titus 1:5–9).13 Unlike strategies that set a low bar for the church leadership in hopes of a rapid and reproducible momentum for church planting,14 a congregational church plant requires solid leadership at the beginning which will encourage ongoing self-governing, self-propagating, self-supporting, self-teaching, self-expressing, self-identifying, and self-theologizing.15
Church planters need to meet the biblical qualifications for church leadership to begin the new church plant because they initially function as pastors/elders for the new church plant.17 At least one man on the church-planting team needs to be a gifted Bible teacher/preacher and have some level of theological training.18 This is vital for several reasons. First, the new church begins on a solid ground by learning God’s Word so that believers are always pointed to the ultimate source (Scripture) to find answers and seek agreement. Secondly, the church planters should model for the future pastors/elders how to fulfill the primary pastoral responsibility (teaching the Word) by rightly handling Scripture (1 Tim 4:16; Titus 1:9, 2:1).19 Thirdly, church planters model for the future pastors/elders how to lead by teaching and teach by leading.20 Gradually, EA believers could get a new taste of an “unusual” experience from the start: their leaders actually convince them by always going back to Scripture rather than by telling them what to do with an authoritative tone.
While the church is in its rudimentary stage, congregational church planters need to do two things without delay. First, they need to provide a coherent teaching on ecclesiology over a course of time. The new but growing congregation needs to have a firm grasp on the biblical notion of church. In particular, the new church needs to understand and embrace the biblical truth that the church both universally and locally holds the ultimate human authority dispensed by Christ (Matt 16:18–20; 18:17–20).21 Second, church planters should differentiate congregational leadership from the paternalistic leadership by intentionally leading the church to understand and implement congregationalism.22 Understandably, the congregational leadership will be a bit uncomfortable and unnatural to Chinese believers at first. But the notion of congregational authority anchored in Christ and Scripture will be gradually established over time if started well and maintained with persistence. Specifically, the church planters (as the interim leadership) must seek the congregation’s approval for major decisions. In other words, they need to establish the congregational pattern by repeatedly sending this message to the young congregation: the will of leadership cannot hover above the will of the church.23
Here is an example. Though functioning as the interim leadership at the outset, church planters are not pastors/elders officially because their leadership has not yet resulted from the corporate decision of the church. Instead of appointing themselves or others to be pastors/elders, church planters must set the precedent for the entire congregation to recognize and elect their own pastors/elders in the first place whenever the congregation is mature enough to do so.24 With that said, church planters may or may not be elected as pastors/elders.25 When the (first) pastor(s)/elder(s) are elected by the congregation, an ordination ceremony may serve the purpose of public recognition and endorsement of the congregational decision.26
“Congregation” should not be an empty word to congregational church planters. They must constantly remind themselves about one thing at the outset: the goal of starting this church is to raise up a group of mature believers who can represent Christ and govern Christ’s body responsibly. Congregational leaders exert their pastoral authority while also teaching a drastically different mentality than paternalistic leadership.
There are several things that church planters could do to challenge the old (Confucian) tradition and develop a new (congregational) tradition: (1) encourage believers to seek opportunities or find ways to serve one another in the household of God—especially those in need (Gal 6:2, 10);27 (2) help believers discover their spiritual gifts and use them in church ministries; (3) train believers how to make small decisions together so that the congregation takes baby steps toward making bigger decisions by seeking God’s will corporately through prayer and God’s Word;28 (4) create channels for honest feedback from church members. This deliberation is particularly important for the “face” culture. At leaders’ encouragement, church members might become increasingly more comfortable to raise constructive voices and overcome the barrier of saving face among the leaders. As a result, the more that is expected from members, the more responsible the congregation (all members) will be for their church governance.29 This equipper-mentality of church planters (later for pastors/elders) would naturally lead to assuming mutual responsibilities among the congregation, which will in turn help the church to grow in maturity.30
The biblical case for plurality of eldership is robust and desirable.31 The benefits of plural eldership are especially significant to planting congregational churches in the Confucian culture. First, there is no super pastor—no one knows it all nor can do it all. Two or more elders can provide mutual support, insight, counsel, and teaching. One can supply the skills lacking in another. A plurality of elders could prove to be a more effective, wise, complementary, and balanced method of shepherding God’s flock than a single leader. Therefore, from both biblical and practical perspectives, a plurality of eldership (two at minimum) should be installed at the birth of a congregational church as soon as possible.32 Second, plural eldership can minimize the “one voice” that results from paternalistic leadership.33 When each pastor/elder is held accountable by his peers, the inclination of Confucian paternalism is naturally minimized if not diminished.
While biblically qualified leadership is one important aspect to be considered for planting a congregational church in EA context, the congregation itself is another important aspect. Specifically, a new congregation (regardless of its size) is expected to have three essential components to their congregational DNA built in at the start to ensure a solid foundation of congregationalism to counteract the Confucian challenges.
At the outset, two church documents need to be drafted to identify a local church: the statement of faith and the church covenant.34 The former is a list of succinct doctrinal statements which tell the world and themselves what this church body holds as common beliefs. The latter is a list of brief behavioral statements which provides basic guidelines of proper behavior in the church body. Because the church is new, church planters are responsible to draft a preliminary version of the two documents and seek suggestions and input from each member of the new congregation for improvement and refinement. Once finalized, church planters need to teach and explain each article to the new congregation.
These two documents also function as the threshold of church membership. Only those who have understood and fully accepted the articles of the two documents can be admitted into the church body as members. Importantly, these two documents need to be reviewed periodically by the congregation so the congregation will not only remain firm with their commitment to Christ and one another but also bolster meaningful regenerate membership.35 By treating the two binding documents seriously, all committed members will come to a realization: this is our church and we are responsible to honor our spiritual household.36 In turn, democracy and autonomy would spontaneously appeal to believers as they start to take ownership of their church by corporately contributing, revising, and maintaining these two binding documents.
Christ’s church involves responsibilities. It is important to have the new church circumscribe congregational responsibility and pastoral responsibility at the start, and it is best to have them distinguished in a written form.37 This is not meant to convolute the church “politics” with more bureaucratic paperwork. In fact, this written document (or oral agreement, if necessary) is meant to provide clarity concerning the responsibilities of church leadership and that of the congregation.38 Since the congregational authority is above the pastoral authority in congregationalism, a potential “conflict” seems apparent: how does a congregation practically follow their leaders while the leadership is under the congregation’s authority? The simple answer lies in the specified responsibilities—who is authorized to do what?39
Because the congregation possesses the highest human authority on the earth, the entire congregation is responsible for making major decisions: (1) evaluating and confirming the two church offices (eldership and deaconship), the church-sent missionaries, the church budget, the purchase or sale of church property, starting a new church plant, and any change to the two binding statements, constitution, bylaws, and vision;40 (2) carrying out the final stage of church discipline (Matt 18:17);41 (3) participating in the two ordinances; (4) judging the soundness of teaching and discerning Christ’s will through the church leadership.42As argued prior, the primary responsibility of leadership is teaching and safeguarding the Word of God through which pastors/elders guide and influence God’s flock. Supporting the church leadership, deacons serve as assistants to pastors/elders and are responsible for day-to-day administrative decisions.43 Only in that sense are deacons considered a part of church leadership.44
With the respective responsibilities clarified, the elders can lead and the congregation can rule with authority and confidence.45 There should not be a competition for authority. However, in case of a power struggle, pastors/elders always yield to the authority of the congregation as they must function as fellow members first and foremost.46 Built on a clear understanding of the distinct offices and their given responsibilities,47 the elder-led and congregation-rule model of congregationalism can be operational and functional even in the Confucian context.
Last but not least, all members in a congregational church are urged to serve from the beginning. Congregational governance is not about power but privilege. The church is authorized by Christ to serve God with the privilege of a holy priesthood (1 Pet 2:5). The priesthood of all believers is buttressed by a few theological reasons. First, each regenerate person indwelt by the Holy Spirit (Eph 1:13–14) is capable of relating to God and discerning His will directly.48 Secondly, each person is saved into the faith community where believers are sanctified through the vertical relationship with God and the horizontal relationship with one another.49 This redeemed group lives life together as a family of God through sharing materials, hearts, and pains.50 Thirdly, each believer who is baptized by the Holy Spirit into the church has some unique gifts to build the church up (1 Cor 12:13–27).
For these three reasons, a congregational church must find creative ways to encourage every member to share, participate, and contribute to the greater gain of the church body. When believers deliberately practice “one-another-ness” in a church such as loving one another, serving one another, teaching one another, forgiving one another, and even disciplining one another, it behooves EA believers to gradually weed out the pernicious side of the “face” culture while magnify the positive side of the collective culture.51 By espousing the priesthood of all believers, members of a new church plant will increase their sense of ownership by exercising his/her priestly duties.
In this article, I have built a case for planting an elder-led and congregation-rule church in the Confucian culture. Acknowledging the deeply rooted Confucian challenges in EA context, I have demonstrated how congregationalism could minimize those challenges. I conclude that congregationalism is not only feasible for a church plant in Confucian culture but also beneficial for the continued growth and maturation of the EA church as a whole in the long run.
Paul Luo is a native Chinese speaker who has been involved in the missionary works for Chinese people in Asia in the last two decades. Besides his primary role in teaching theology and providing tailored training to Chinese students, Paul also has had experience in planting three churches in two different cities in East Asia.