Imagine China becoming a different place.
A repressive government relaxes its grip on society, bringing new personal freedoms. A budding marketplace of ideas offers answers to questions that had previously been off-limits. Isolation gives way to hunger for global interaction. Foreign organizations that had long been considered enemies are invited into a new conversation about their future role in China.
How to respond?
This is the situation the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) faced in 1979 as China launched its reform and opening policy under Deng Xiaoping. Other denominational bodies that had previously worked in China found themselves at a similar crossroads.
In her review of Crossing the River by Feeling for the Stones: Mennonite Engagement in China, 1901–2020, Joann Pittman highlights several characteristics of the MCC’s response that merit closer reflection. The story that unfolded, comprising the latest chapter in the Mennonites’ more than 100-year history in China, offers valuable lessons about being adaptable in changing times while remaining true to one’s own character and calling.
Be Yourself
Like many foreign entities at the time, the MCC was drawn to opportunities in education as China rushed to catch up with the rest of the world. English was an urgent need, providing a natural inroad for groups from America and other Western nations. As Pittman points out, however, the desire to place teachers in China was more than an expedient move on the part of the Mennonites: “The Mennonite Central Committee approached this opportunity openly, rather than pretending to be something they weren’t.” With a long educational tradition, they responded out of who they were.
Among the principles the MCC laid out for its involvement in China was the commitment to meeting needs as identified by the Chinese, followed by the observation, “We are not coming to restructure their programs and institutions, nor are the Chinese coming to restructure our society.”
Authentic Values
In contrast to the “changing China” narrative that has characterized much evangelical discourse on China over the past four decades, the MCC evidenced a humble mutuality in its approach. Rapid change was already underway in China and would continue at breakneck speed over the ensuing decades. Yet it would be a change on China’s terms, not instigated or dictated by those coming to serve in China.
While honestly embracing their own evangelical legacy, with its imperative for gospel witness, the Mennonites also found in their heritage values of “hosting, listening, waiting, learning, inquiring, affirming.” They chose to lead with these values, not to the exclusion of active witness, but in demonstration of a welcoming Christian community, living in a manner that would resonate with the culture in which they served but also stand out by virtue of its authenticity.
A Learning Posture
They also saw their role in China not in terms of a goal to be fulfilled but as a process of growth, both for themselves and for the Chinese with whom they served. Atypical of many American evangelicals, whom historian Mark Noll describes as “profoundly marked by an eager ability to mobilize for specific tangible tasks like evangelism, institution building, and political action (sometimes for ill, but often for good),” they came to China not with a predetermined set of outcomes, but with the “expectation, joy, and wonder of growth.”1
While bringing solid convictions about who they were and what they believed, they demonstrated vulnerability in the realization that they had much to learn. The Lord’s work in their own lives was ongoing. Their sojourn in China was part of that work, and they would be changed in unexpected ways. As Pittman writes, “They wanted their teachers and staff in China to adopt a posture of learning from Chinese culture and churches. They aimed to learn from, not just about.”
History Matters
With a realistic view of history, they openly acknowledged past tensions between China and their own country. Their presence could never be viewed apart from these fraught historical realities. To pretend otherwise would be to question the validity of the stories told by those they came to serve. Rather than overwriting these stories with more comfortable narratives of their own, they chose instead to enter into a dialogue that had the power to bring understanding and forgiveness.
The theology of presence that has long been central to Mennonite tradition undergirded the MCC’s efforts in China. Emphasizing human understanding and appreciation, it provided a starting point for engagement, not with propositional truths but with a genuine desire to know another. This desire itself demonstrates the love of Christ. Significantly, this posture was not adopted pragmatically as a necessary strategy for China; rather it was a genuine outflow of the Mennonite experience in the US and in other countries where they served. They endeavored to be the same people at home and abroad. This theological and cultural consistency contributed to the authenticity of their message.
Wisdom for the “New Era”
Finally, as Professor Xiyi Yao notes in his foreword, the fact of this book’s existence demonstrates a rare willingness to reflect on lessons learned, both positive and negative. Yao says it is exactly this kind of reflection that is needed in China’s “new era.”
Whatever China becomes, the MCC experience offers valuable lessons for those seeking to engage authentically. They acknowledged China would change on its own terms and that China would change them as well. Trusting that the Holy Spirit was also at work in China, they recognized that their role was less about what they would do and more about the kind of people they would be as he performed his work in them.
