Duty plays a big part in the thinking of Chinese people - and many Chinese Christians. And this is primarily due to the long influence of Confucianism throughout Chinese history...

Confucianism sought to bring order and harmony to society by focusing attention on reviving the rites of the ancestors (li), and so becoming a cultured person (ren). The theory is that others will see the superiority of the cultured life and emulate it - and thus the cultured person's dignified behaviour is the cornerstone of society.

However this means that all the focus is on external behaviour - and not at all on the internal motivations of a person. Over many years, this has generated a society where the highest virtue is to remain dutiful and fulfil one's obligations, regardless of the personal cost. In contrast, in Western culture the highest goal is self actualisation (as in Maslow's hierarchy of needs).

And you can see the difference in East and West coming out in what is admired in the movies that people watch (particularly dramas - not action movies). In the West when someone breaks out of stifling and constricting social obligations and pursues what is really in their heart, that is seen as virtuous. Western movies are all about living the real you, about being authentic, about pursuing what you want - regardless of what others think about you. In contrast, movies in the East honour the father who fulfils his duty at great personal cost. The policeman who heroically does what is required of him. The employee who, though torn apart internally, who still fulfils his obligations.

In the East, this can translate to a Christianity that is all about duty. And obligation. And loyalty. People are admired because they fulfil their duty to God at great personal cost. The focus is on the sacrifice that people make. Perhaps you have heard statements like the following?

• "Look at that man, he has cancer, and yet he is setting up tables for church."
• "Look at that woman, she is in hospital dying, and yet she is still doing her duty by sharing the gospel."
• "Look at those missionaries, they give up so much to serve God. I could never be like them."

And these statements would be said with great reverence. With awe and humility before these people, in recognition that we have not yet attained such a level of godly self effacement.

However what is missing in all of this is the affections. Because the Eastern approach puts the focus on the external behaviour. On dutiful, even sacrificial obedience. In this approach, what is going on inside is irrelevant - or perhaps it is even better if you are personally wanting the exact opposite to that which you must dutifully do. And so it is even more heroic if, on the inside you long for a comfortable lifestyle, yet dutifully you pursue the hard road of being a missionary - and al that for God.

However far from requiring dutiful obedience, God is actually interested in our affections. He wants for us to love him (Deut 6:5), he commands us to delight ourselves in him (Psa 37:4), to worship the Lord with gladness (Psa 100). But not only that, God actually condemns dutiful obedience. Consider Deuteronomy 28.


The problem here wasn't that they weren't serving (external behaviour) - they were doing that. The problem was that they did not serve the Lord their God with joy and gladness (internal affections). And as a result they faced the judgement of God.

Consider also 1 Peter 5. Here Peter is appealing to elders of the church. Here the negative judgement from Deuteronomy is put in terms of a positive command.


We are to serve not because we must, not out of a sense of duty. But because we are willing, as God wants us to be. We are to be eager to serve. God is interested in our motivations in ministry. If we do the work of ministry begrudgingly, if we do it out of a sense of duty and not of joy, then we have a defective ministry. God is not honoured in your service, and you need a change of heart.

In Desiring God, John Piper describes a husband bringing flowers to his wife on their anniversary. She is overjoyed and thanks him - but imagine if he says, "don't mention it, it's my duty. Even though I didn't want to do it, I sacrificed my money and time, and bought these flowers for you. It's only what I have to do." That is an insult to her honour! She would be more honoured if the husband loves her and see it as his joy to bring her flowers.

Ultimately if we are serving God out of a sense of duty, if it is a great sacrifice for us, then it reveals what we really treasure. If it is a great sacrifice for us to serve God, it shows that we really value possessions or pleasure most of all - and not God. But when he is our very great treasure, then choosing him over lesser things is no sacrifice at all.

Jesus calls it hypocrisy when people honour God with their lips, but their hearts are far from him (Matthew 15:8). The sense of duty is deeply embedded in Chinese culture - and many Chinese Christians operate out of a sense of duty and obligation to God. However God is actually dishonoured when all our service is to us is duty. God desires that we serve him - with joy and gladness!

[ PS: a good book to read here is Desiring God, by John Piper. Read it online for free here! ]

The advertising services industry spends millions of dollars researching and producing ads that will tap into, and shape the desires of the watching public. So they're pretty good at working out what people's interests are.

I came across a paper presented by Xue, Zhou and Zhou back in 2003 entitled, "Visual Strategies in US and Chinese TV ads". They compared the way advertising is done in the US and China - but along the way also looked at the products and services advertised on TV. And when they did so, they noticed some significant differences in the things being advertised.

I looked around in vain for statistics on Australian TV advertising. If you know where I can find it, let me know, because that would be interesting to compare. So instead here is the table with the proportion of advertising for US and China.

Product/service	China	USA
Cars and car parts	6.5%	15.5%
Beauty and personal care	8.0%	11.5%
Clothing and shoes	5.0%	0.5%
Food and drink	19.0%	14.5%
Household appliances	25.0%	2.0%
Medicine	18.5%	6.0%
Travel	0.0%	0.0%
Service and retailers	4.5%	30.0%
Industrial products	2.0%	0.0%
Household care	2.0%	3.5%
Pet products	0.0%	0.5%
Miscellaneous	2.0%	15.5%
Combination	4.0%	0.0%
Computers	1.0%	0.5%
Mobile phones	2.5%	0.0%

Here I've put the data for China into a pie graph, so you can see the relative proportions of the different things being advertised. Notice particularly the large amount of advertising for 'Household appliances' (25%) and 'Medicine' (18.5%).

And this next graph shows you the figures for China (red) and USA (green) for comparison. You can see from this that the amount of advertising in China for 'Household appliances' and 'Medicine' is much greater than what you'd find in the USA (2.0% and 6.0% respectively). It also highlights some other areas which, percentage-wise look relatively small, but where China still has proportionally more advertising than the United States (eg. 'Food & drink', 'Industrial products', 'Computers', and 'Mobile phones').
What does this reveal about the passions of consumers in China? Perhaps the philosophical materialism of Communism - the idea that the only thing that exists is matter - means that people cling much more to this life (healthcare) and the attainable luxuries of this world ('Household appliances', 'Clothing & shoes', 'Mobile phones')?

[ PS: what do you make of the figures? ]

At NDCCCS we've been preaching through the book of Ezekiel. I recently spoke on Ezekiel 25-32, when the Lord God addresses the surrounding nations, such as Moab, Ammon, Philistia, Tyre and Sidon. And as is usually the case, you come up with more stuff than you can use in a talk.

In chapters 26-28 God addresses the nation of Tyre on the cost to the North of Jerusalem - and one of the interesting things about this section is what God has against Tyre. If you read those three chapters, it becomes clear that Tyre is a very cosmopolitan place. They are heavily engaged in international trade, and people from a whole catalogue of nations come to Tyre to do trade with her (eg. 27:12-23). Tyre is famous for its trade.

In chapter 28 the Lord God outlines why judgment will fall on Tyre - and it is primarily because of her pride (28:1-5). However there is also something else. Several times, God also condemns them for the way in which they conducted their trade. Here is verse 16, where he mentions the violence of their trade:


And verse 18, where God also condemns the unrighteousness of their trade:


The thing about commerce, business and finance type jobs is we figure they're generally pretty upright. As long as you're not doing anything illegal, the way you do business is a neutral thing in terms of Christianity.

However Ezekiel 28 warns us that this isn't always so - in the case of Tyre at least, they conducted their trade in a way which God charaterises as violent and unrighteous. Perhaps it was the way in which they took advantage of people in their commerce. Or the way in which they leveraged their superior position for gain at the expense of others. We can't really tell, but it is possible for the way we do business to be so violent as to incite God's anger.

Might there be business practices today that would fall into this category? I would imagine so. I don't know enough about the business world to say what they are, but this is probably something that Christians who work in the finance and business world need to consider carefully - instead of merely following the ways of the business world. Sure, that may be the way to maximise shareholder value and please your boss - but just because there are no laws against it doesn't mean it is alright.

Would God consider your company's business practices violent? or unjust? Would God consider what you do on a daily basis violent? or unjust?

You may not have come across a great deal of Christian critique of today's financial systems and practices. But that doesn't mean that Christians in the business world should be content with ignorance and uncertainty. Instead, you should be troubled that business practices could be seen as violent, or unjust in God's eyes. And be all the more eager to think through God's perspective of modern business practices.

[ PS: read any good Christian critiques on the business world? ]

Peter Ong in the States has dug up a fascinating article recently published in the Review of Religious Research (June '08) called "Race and Adolescent Depression: The impact of race and gender". Richard Petts and Anne Joliffe, two researchers at the Ohio State University, examined a large study of the health of almost 20 thousand American teenagers (the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health), looking for links between race, religiosity and depression.

What they found, particularly for Asian teenagers, was quite worrying.

Because you would expect that when teenagers become more involved in religion, they would show less symptoms of depression (such as loss of apetite, inability to shake off the blues, feeling hopeless about the future, feeling sad, feeling lonely, feeling that your life is a failure, feeling that life is not worth living). And you would expect that particularly for those who may have recently migrated to a new country, having the support of a church would actually help with feelings of depression.

They found that indeed this does hold true - but only for certain races. They found a negative relationship between religiosity and depression for white and black teenagers (that is, going to church regularly is related to lower depression). They found no relationship between religiosity and depression for latino/a teenagers.

But most surprising and troubling of all was they found a positive relationship between religiosity and depression for Asian teenagers. That is, an Asian teenager who goes to church one or more times a week reported more symptoms of depression than Asian teenagers who don't go to church. And they found this was particularly true for Asian females. Here is what they observed:


What is going on? Remember that white and black teenagers who also attend church regularly do not have these same feelings, so this is not to do with the sense of being "in the world but not of it" that a Christians would feel. Instead it must be something else. And Petts and Joliffe suspect that it has to do with the tendency for Asian groups to reinforce culutural principles that are different to what they find in mainstream American society.


You can read the full article online for yourself here and look at their figures for the different races. Unfortunately the study was not able to determine exactly what kind of churches these Asian teenagers are going to - whether they are going to Asian churches, or non-Asian churches. I would guess that the majority would be going to Asian churches, just like in Australia - but that's just a guess.

Yet even so, how worrying is it that it is noticeably better for the mental health of Asian teenagers to stay away from church. This research should give us serious pause to consider the effect of our ministries on the mental health of high schoolers. What is the long term effect of the way things are done in our churches? are we really being a blessing to them?

[ PS: Moore College has this journal, but if you're looking for this in the ATLA database, the Review of Religious Research has a one-year embargo, so it'll appear in ATLA next June... ]