Editor’s Note: This essay is part of the series “Polycentric Christianities in a Diverse Sinophone World.” Xiaoli Yang reflects on the experience of “not fitting in” as a missiological lens for Sinophone Theologies, drawing together personal story, Scripture, poetry, Chinese Christian witness, and Global Christianity to consider how God works from the margins.
Stories Matter
Our stories matter, for they are authentic, embodied, and sacred. The theological doctrine of imago Dei underpins this claim. To embark on a transformational journey of faith, we must talk about our own stories. Here I offer my story of feeling out of place—a neutral sense of “non-fitting” or even a more judgmental “misfitting.”
Have you ever felt that you don’t fit in anywhere? The non-fitting, or rather isolating sense of misfitting, can visit and sit with you, whether expectedly or unexpectedly, when traveling to unknown lands and people, sitting in a room full of people, or even talking with family, friends, and loved ones at a dining table. The feeling I am referring to here is not narcissistic nostalgia, nor the natural inclination of feeling unfitted that profoundly affects Enneagram Type Four. On the contrary, it derives from a deep yearning to belong, connect, and commune—to be accepted and loved—as we are made in the image of a relational Triune God.
I was born in northern China, but I spent my early childhood in a western part of the country and subsequently grew up in a southern metropolitan city. Anyone who has visited this country would be familiar with the cultural and dialectal disparities between regions. I recall that my Cantonese-speaking schoolmates in southern China always assumed my heritage was northern because of my standard spoken Mandarin. But on my visits back to the north, people would always assume I was from the south because of my shorter stature compared with northerners.
Having spent the last 36 years in Australia, I still experience these incongruent in-between moments as I travel between Asia and Oceania. The mismatch touches race, culture, faith, and vocation. It is the “yellowness” of my Asian heritage in a white-dominant hierarchical social structure even though Australia claims to be a multicultural society; my “Chinglish” expressions and prayers in English and Chinese-speaking worlds that sound odd to both; my deep love of Chinese culture and history that is often stereotyped by Western media but neglected by the current Chinese generation; my commitment to catholicity in a post-secular society with increasingly polarized church traditions; my vocation to appreciate life and nature aesthetically as a poet in exile from the mainstream materialism and pragmatism; my feminine sensitivity to spiritual movements in a tight-lipped Anglo-Saxon culture; my vocation as a pastor in a traditional Confucian culture deeply impacted by complementarian theology where the leadership of males over females is assumed; my profession as an academic and a practitioner that shapes me as a bridge to be walked over; my deep thinking and feeling labeled as “too emotional” by some or “too intellectual” by others; more so, my lament over the internal racism from people of my own race, which is hidden, subtle but no less aggressive.
In 1995, I scribbled my first English poem that articulates this in-between experience:
You live
between
lines
Being pushed
in and out
as a stranger
Squeezing
between
Even tears have
no weight
You are deaf
though grasping voices
You are mute
though knowing words
Communication
seems necessary
but never
ever
works
The “betwixt-and-between” situation of marginalization describes the predicament of not belonging to either culture yet participating in both. One has to navigate a new sense of being through the pain of not fitting into either. “To be in-between as an immigrant is to-be-neither-this-nor-that, to-be-both-this-and-that, and to-be-beyond-this-and-that.”2 Poetry was born, not in the center, but at the margins; not in the status quo, but outside the box. Ironically, the poem was award-winning in a poetry slam competition. The common experience of living in-between becomes a centerpiece that forms communities together. I often say to those who feel they don’t belong, “Welcome to the nomad club!”
Turning to the World and the Good Book
Now, having traveled to most continents of the world, ministered in about 20 nations and engaged with people from different cultures, ethnicities, and religions, I am privileged to receive and learn from a multitude of voices that have enriched my life profoundly. In Africa, I found this phrase alongside a symbol of animals: “Not all those who wander are lost.” I also enjoyed watching herds of zebras, their black-and-white stripes strikingly similar, yet each pattern distinct. Emmanuel Yartekwei Lartey rightly asserts that all human beings are like all others, some others, and no other in some way.3 Indeed, it is paradoxically in the sameness that the difference can be read and in the difference that sameness can be discerned. Through my many travels and encounters, I have discovered that the non-fitting place is precisely where I am meant to be as a disciple of Jesus among God’s people.
The Bible is full of people who did not fit in yet were greatly used by God. Noah built an ark while being laughed at by his contemporaries; Abraham left his home not knowing where he would be next; Joseph was cast out by his brothers; Moses was a typical hybrid personality oscillating between cultures; the major and minor prophets of the Old Testament stood outside the centre of power in the nation of Israel or the foreign empires and often bore the cost of their divine calling. Paul was deeply cross-cultural but rejected by Christian communities in the beginning as the most unlikely apostle. Strangely, all these marginalized people were chosen and used by God for their generation and the generations to come. Jesus never fit in either, whether within the religious and political power structure, his own hometown, or even his own circle of family and friends. He was not apologetic about it either. From the beginning, he was rejected and had nowhere to lie but in a manger. His life was a wandering journey filled with ‘non-fitting’ encounters and episodes: he surprised his opponents as much as his followers, including his own family. His death outside the city gate was the final acme of not fitting in. Yet he exemplified what it meant to fit perfectly into God’s will to accomplish his purpose for our salvation.
Scripture shows a clear pattern: God persistently stands at the edges of established communities, working powerfully among those who don’t fit in for the deep work of transformation in them and the larger communities. This may be why prophetic voices are often uttered in the wilderness, not confined within any establishment.
“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book” (Psalm 56:8). Here, sorrows are tracked, tears are gathered, and all our encounters are recorded by the living God. It is a place of healing, comfort, and assurance. God transforms them into blessings for us and for those we encounter.
Living and Thinking Missiologically
When stories of lived experience and Scripture meet, they create a new missiological trajectory of hybridity and marginalisation. The book A Dialogue between Haizi and the Gospel of Luke: Chinese Homecoming and Its Relationship with Jesus Christ is an odyssey that brings two non-fitting figures into conversation beyond time and space. Haizi embodies hybridity as he navigates the rural/urban, East/West, poetics/philosophy, Yin-Yang, and ancient/contemporary divides in post-Mao China. Using Haizi as a poetic lens on contemporary Chinese culture and Jesus in the Gospel of Luke as a lens on Christian faith, the book invites readers to walk alongside a generation’s soul-searching journey and offer them the good news of Jesus Christ. With a missiological impulse and comparative theological methods, I sought to demonstrate God’s radical hospitality, the One who stands in solidarity with the outcast, the lost, the poor, and non-fitters. Through the shared expressions of homelessness in both Haizi’s poetry and Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, it became clear to me that God’s mission moves from the center to the margins and even uses the margins to challenge and reshape the centre.
The volume Chinese Christian Witness: Identity, Creativity, Transmission and Poetics demonstrates an open embrace of diverse expressions of faith, cultural adaptation, and mission work by Chinese believers over five centuries across China and global communities. It explores what happens across mainland China, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the United States. Some essays trace back to the 1600s; others are about the present era. The book covers traditions including Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Pentecostal, and indigenous Chinese Christian movements, along with reflections on both registered and unregistered churches in China. A wide range of missionary activity spans Chinese missionaries across Southeast Asia, Africa, and Pakistan; Han evangelism among Uyghurs in Xinjiang; and second-generation Chinese Christians in Australia.
“Chinese” here is not reduced to a particular national boundary, cultural expression, linguistic category, or ethnic identity, because Chinese Christians cannot be contained by such rigid categories. The project treats “Chineseness” as mobile and fluid, tracing how it moves through World Christianity and molds it for the future. It also steps away from thinking in terms of fixed nation-states, institutions, or denominational boxes. The book is structured around an open framework that takes a multidisciplinary approach, with radical inclusiveness of Chinese Christian witness in a variety of forms, including film, drama, poetry, Scripture, and hymns. The mosaic collection of essays therefore exemplifies the polycentric, polyphonic nature of Sinophone theology from a missiological lens.
The volume, Singing Theology from the Ground: Indigenous Hymnody and Global Christianity,” is another example that amplifies singing voices from less-heard communities—both Indigenous people and those of the Global South. It was inspired by the vision, given to the apostle John, of “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne” worshiping in the heavenly sanctuary (Revelation 7:9). When we listen closely to the many voices rooted in real, lived faith at the margins, we find wisdom that can reshape how we think about God, share the gospel, and grow in Christ, leading us toward a fuller, more welcoming vision of what it means to be one and to mature together as the church.
At the recent General Assembly of the International Association of Mission Studies, I presented a plenary paper entitled “Weaving as Witness in Oceania: towards a Poetic Eco-Missiology in an Age of Digital Idolatry.” Integrating bilingual poetry in Asian spirit and the twining technique “whatu” employed by Māori in New Zealand, the paper invites a contemplative posture in communion with the Creator and creation set in the Australian landscape. It is a transcontinental weaving of spiritual disciplines for missiological purpose in a digital age. The margin is not simply outside the center but can play a pivotal role in redefining the whole.
The Perfect Fit
Maybe not fitting in is a necessary preparation for being fit for God’s purpose in our lives. Maybe it is a perfect invitation to step into the open, wild, and free space in which we are meant to be and become in the grand orchestra of God’s metanarrative. Maybe it is a gift to be squeezed in-between or pushed to the margins so we can find what Henri Nouwen calls “a creative strength”, where God stands and prophesies over the center. We can then hold each other’s hands as brothers and sisters, confess our prejudice and prejudgment, forgive one another and be healed around the Crucified One who became a misfit in our midst. In doing so, we may be united in heart and welcome everyone with the solidarity and hospitality we received from God. In this new humanity, no one can say to another person: “You don’t fit in,” “You don’t belong here,” or “We don’t need you” (1 Corinthians 12:21), for we are one body of Christ working together for the glory of God. We are born to misfit so that our unique culture, race, gender, vocation, and style can fit into God’s purpose in the world for the sake of others, beautifully and distinctively.
- Yang, Xiaoli. “Lost.” Southerly 57, no. 4 (1997-98): 59.
- Phan, Peter C. “The Experience of Migration as Source of Intercultural Theology.” In Contemporary Issues of Migration and Theology. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
- Lartey, Emmanuel Yartekwei. In Living Colour: An Intercultural Approach to Pastoral Care and Counselling. Jessica Kingsley, 2003.
