The Ironies of Bringing Christ to the Motherland: The Interaction Ritual Chains of Chinese-Canadian Evangelicals over Short-Term Missions to China

This chapter examines short-term missions’ (stms) impact upon its participants’ sense of social solidarity by interrogating the intersections of their religious (i.e. evangelical), ethnic (i.e. “Chinese”), and national (i.e. “Canadian”) identities. stms are trips that entail an individual travelling...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Tam, Jonathan (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Brill [2020]
In: Annual review of the sociology of religion
Year: 2020, Volume: 11, Pages: 138-156
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Canada / Chinese people / Evangelical movement / Religious identity / Ethnic identity / National consciousness / China / Missionary journey / Voluntary service
IxTheo Classification:AD Sociology of religion; religious policy
CC Christianity and Non-Christian religion; Inter-religious relations
KBM Asia
KBQ North America
KDG Free church
RJ Mission; missiology
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:This chapter examines short-term missions’ (stms) impact upon its participants’ sense of social solidarity by interrogating the intersections of their religious (i.e. evangelical), ethnic (i.e. “Chinese”), and national (i.e. “Canadian”) identities. stms are trips that entail an individual travelling to engage in a type of voluntary social service, often in tandem with proselytization. My multi-sited ethnography follows four stm teams deployed to China and Taiwan by Chinese Canadian evangelical churches in 2015. I accomplish this by applying interaction ritual chains theory. My findings reveal that youths negotiate complex meanings in their transnational experiences and contradictions which I call “ironies” emerge. I propose the theoretical modification of “entangled chains” to interaction ritual chains and discuss its implications for understanding social solidarity.
Contains:Enthalten in: Annual review of the sociology of religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/9789004443327_009