Seeking the Christian Tutelage: Agency and Culture in Chinese Immigrants' Conversion to Christianity.
This paper explores the social mechanism through which assimilation and ethnic identification can be conceptualized not as mutually exclusive, but instead as intimately involved. Based on an ethnographic study of a Chinese immigrant church, this study finds that aspects of Chinese culture, particula...
| Published in: | Sociology of Religion Vol. 63; no. 2; pp. 195 - 215 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Oxford University Press / UK
Summer 2002
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=510237169&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 510237169 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 10694404 SOG jtl: Sociology of Religion issn: 10694404 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Summer 2002 vid: 63 iid: 2 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / UK artinfo: ui: 510237169 10.2307/3712565 ppf: 195 ppct: 20 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.4MB tig: atl: Seeking the Christian Tutelage: Agency and Culture in Chinese Immigrants' Conversion to Christianity. aug: au: Ng, Kwai Hang su: Chinese people Conversion to Christianity Religious life of immigrants Religious life Acculturation United States sug: subj: United States Chinese people Conversion to Christianity Religious life of immigrants Religious life Acculturation ab: This paper explores the social mechanism through which assimilation and ethnic identification can be conceptualized not as mutually exclusive, but instead as intimately involved. Based on an ethnographic study of a Chinese immigrant church, this study finds that aspects of Chinese culture, particularly its understanding of the self, its imageries of deities, as well as its emphasis on practical blessings, have shaped the content of the religion in such a way that Protestantism is transformed into a local faith in the process. The central argument of this paper is that in the process of converting to mainstream religions in the United States, immigrants come to learn the “American way” through a creative deployment of their own cultural categories, symbols, and practices. The notion of agency as the conceptual link allows researchers to see assimilation and ethnic identification as different aspects of the same process of immigrants' social reidentification. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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