Last year, I was invited to Nairobi, Kenya, to lead a training session at an English-speaking church on how to share the gospel with Chinese neighbors. The local pastors and brothers and sisters told me they were seeing more Chinese people come to the city for work and business, and their burden to share the gospel with them had grown accordingly. Yet what troubled them was that many of these new immigrants seemed to live in another parallel world. They were difficult to reach. Most lived in upscale apartment complexes with strict security, sometimes passing through several checkpoints, and had little everyday interaction with local people. They were far more likely to socialize within their own Chinese circles.
For the local church, an even greater difficulty was that the brothers and sisters neither spoke Chinese nor understood China, Chinese culture, or Chinese religious backgrounds. As a result, Chinese neighbors living in the same city were physically close but seemed separated by mountains and seas. They had invited me to conduct the training because they wanted to better understand the inner world of Chinese people—the “soil” into which the seed of the gospel would be sown.
During the icebreaker, I asked everyone to guess: What percentage of China’s population would you say is Buddhist? Most guessed 66 percent, and some guessed as high as 90 percent. For many in the room, China seemed to be imagined primarily as a Buddhist country. When I showed them survey estimates—for example, that only about four percent of Chinese adults formally identify Buddhism as their religious belief, though broader measures of Buddhist belief and practice are much higher—many in the room were visibly surprised.1
I then explained that even the four to thirteen percent figure is likely overstated. In China, many who describe themselves as “believing in Buddhism” would more accurately be said to come from a culturally shaped folk-religious background. They know little, if anything, about Buddhist doctrine. They simply go with their families to temples during festivals such as Chinese New Year to burn incense, make wishes, and hope for peace, safety, and success.
This kind of cultural folk-religious background often appears in gospel conversations between Chinese diaspora Christians and non-Christians. When someone says, “I already have a faith—I’m Buddhist,” as a polite way to decline further gospel conversation, a follow-up question about which Buddhist teachings they actually believe will often elicit an answer such as, “Actually, I don’t really believe that much. I just occasionally bai-bai and hope the bodhisattva will bless me with peace and prosperity.”2
This suggests that official counts of Buddhists and Daoists may overestimate their share of the population, while the proportion of atheists may be underestimated. In Chinese society today, atheism remains arguably the most influential framework shaping belief and unbelief. The thought patterns formed by long-term, deeply embedded atheistic education and scientism remain a major epistemological threshold that Chinese diaspora Christians must cross in evangelism, as well as a stronghold that apologetics must address.
My Own Journey to Faith
My own experience of coming to faith, growing in faith, and later being called into full-time mission work is, in some sense, a reflection of my generation of Chinese intellectuals.
I grew up in an atheistic educational environment deeply marked by scientism. At that time, the greatest goal in life was to study hard, get into college, and leave the poor, high-altitude, bitterly cold Tibetan region of Sichuan where my parents worked. In that context, I naturally embraced a materialist, atheistic worldview.
Although my Chinese and English grades in high school were consistently stronger than my science subjects, I was shaped by the slogan of the day: “Master math, physics, and chemistry, and you can go anywhere without fear.” Teachers and family members alike urged me to choose a science major. Like most of my peers, I firmly believed that science and technology could save the nation. Within that worldview, Christianity and other religions were all regarded as anti-scientific superstition.
After graduating from college, I joined a chemical research institute and worked in scientific research. From the outside, my future looked promising. Inside, however, I felt desolate and empty, and could only numb that emptiness through karaoke, mahjong, and gambling. The profound disillusionment I felt after the June Fourth events of 1989 plunged me even deeper into darkness. I began reading books on philosophy and religion, trying to find the meaning of life.
In 1990, I had the opportunity to serve as translator for a British expedition team traveling to the source of the Yangtze River, where Sichuan, Qinghai, and Tibet meet. Of the 30 people on the team, 27 were Christians. Over the course of more than a month of hardship, we traveled along the Sichuan–Tibet road, hauling inflatable boats through snowstorms and mudslides. These British Christian volunteers, who were doing short-term charitable work in Tibetan areas, encountered many difficulties and obstacles.
Because of the circumstances, they had no opportunity to present the gospel to me systematically. But I lived alongside them every day. I saw how they prayed in adversity, how they played guitar and sang hymns of praise in their tents, and how they showed sincere, selfless love to Tibetan people without expecting anything in return. That kind of life stood in stark contrast to the education in hatred I had received. It was the first time I realized that such a life existed in the world—a life I had never possessed yet deeply longed for.
In August 1992, I arrived at the University of Alabama with only US$42, beginning my pursuit of the “American dream.” At first, in the campus Bible study group, I often debated Christians over evolution, creation, and other typical apologetic questions of the time. What ultimately moved me, however, was the selfless love and service of these Christians. I gradually came to see that the kind of giving in their lives, which sought nothing in return, flowed from their faith in God.
At the same time, the Bible began to expose the bitterness, hatred, and darkness deep within my own heart. In October of that same year, at an evangelistic Sunday service at First Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, the elderly pastor preached on the cross of Christ and the love of God. I was moved to tears. When the invitation was given, I found myself walking to the front of the sanctuary, praying with the pastor, and receiving Jesus Christ as the Lord of my life.
Although the question “Is Christianity anti-science?” was not the greatest obstacle in my own journey to faith, my background in science and engineering meant that, in later years, the topic of “Christianity and science” became a very effective entry point when sharing the gospel with my compatriots.
Three years after coming to faith, I began using the newly emerging Chinese internet to converse with Chinese intellectuals about faith. One of the hottest debates at the time was whether Christianity was, in fact, anti-science. Later, whether I returned to China to visit family or traveled there for work, many churches and fellowships invited me to give public lectures, most often asking me to speak on topics related to science and faith. Still later, in evangelistic lectures and outreach meetings at Chinese diaspora churches and fellowships, I frequently began with this subject and eventually led listeners to the heart of the gospel: “Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
The History of “Scientific Apologetics” in Chinese Diaspora Churches
My experience is not an isolated case. It bears the unmistakable imprint of a generation’s shared experience.
Looking back over the mission history of Chinese diaspora churches during the past several decades, we can see that Chinese churches long became accustomed to approaching Chinese intellectuals through scientific questions when sharing the gospel. Three or four decades ago, evangelistic meetings and gospel lectures often centered on the flaws of Darwinian evolution, the Big Bang theory, the complexity of genetic coding, and similar topics.
A group of pastors and speakers with science and engineering backgrounds attempted to use modern scientific discoveries to argue for the existence of a Creator behind the universe, helping listeners break through the intellectual barriers of atheism and then pointing them toward the gospel of Christ. As a result, they became some of the most influential and compelling speakers in Chinese churches at the time.
This emphasis on the relationship between science and faith was also fully reflected in the apologetic resources used by Chinese churches.
Over the past 30 years, Song of a Wanderer by Li Cheng (Pastor Bingcheng Feng) has been one of the most influential apologetic works in Chinese churches. As a biologist who later received theological training and pastored a church, Li Cheng used extensive scientific argumentation in the book to address the questions of that generation of intellectuals. Song of a Wanderer can be described as an important “paving stone” that helped science and engineering students and scholars of our generation break through scientism and turn to the true God.
In 2022, ReFrame Ministries published Above All Things, one of the volumes in the New Song for Wanderers series based on recent scientific discoveries. Some Chinese pastors have recommended it as “a new-era apologetic resource following You Zi Yin (Song of a Wanderer).”3
The formation of this apologetic and mission strategy had a historical inevitability, because nearly all the Chinese students and scholars who went overseas in that era carried a strong background of atheism and scientism. Precisely for that reason, however, the strategy also bears clear limitations of its own time.
Shifts in Apologetic Strategy for a New Era
Entering the twenty-first century, especially in ministry among students born in the 1990s and 2000s, Chinese diaspora churches now face a mission context that has undergone a profound paradigm shift.
Many in this younger generation have been shaped far more by postmodern thought than by modernism or scientism.
My own experience confirms this. About 20 years ago, when I was invited to preach at churches and fellowships in various places, nearly every host would assign “science and faith” as the topic. But over the past decade or more, more and more hosts have explicitly said that I no longer needed to speak on that subject.
The reason is that many in the younger generation no longer assume that religion and science are necessarily locked in opposition. They often say, “I’m not exactly a believer in evolution either. I simply don’t care about those debates.”
For them, scientism is no longer the greatest obstacle to faith. Loneliness, anxiety, pressure, and the sense of emptiness that comes from a lack of meaning in life have become far more immediate struggles.
Today’s young international students and scholars often have a more globalized way of life and a more Westernized pattern of thought. In this context, if we continue to use the apologetic method of 30 or 40 years ago—critiquing evolution as a form of “pre-evangelism”—we will often appear out of step and may even miss the real point of communication.
Thus, our mission strategy is also moving from purely rational argument toward a response to the question of life’s meaning. In my own evangelism and gospel ministry in recent years, I have increasingly addressed themes such as “life and faith,” “the longing of the heart,” and “a better homeland.”
Of course, this does not mean we no longer need to discuss the relationship between science and the Christian faith. Among young Chinese students and scholars today, the belief that “Christianity is anti-science” remains an important reason many reject the faith. At the same time, within Chinese churches there continue to be voices deeply shaped by forms of rigid fundamentalism that foster an unreflective hostility toward science. Therefore, how to understand rightly the relationship between science and Christian faith remains an important question that mission-minded churches must continue to consider.
Christian apologetics and evangelism should always remain highly sensitive to the cultural backgrounds and contexts of seekers, striving for contextualization. The same is true when we address questions of science and faith.No matter how the times change, and no matter how science develops, the human heart’s longing for love and redemption does not change. In mission among Chinese intellectuals, apologetic work related to science continues to have important strategic value. It helps us dismantle prejudice, build dialogue, and open lines of communication.
But we must remember even more clearly that the ultimate goal of all apologetic work is to demolish every stronghold that keeps people from knowing God—and those strongholds are by no means limited to scientism—and to lead people to the Savior who created all things and died on the cross for sinners.
Therefore, on the hard soil formed by the interweaving of scientism and postmodern thought, we must continue sowing the seed of the gospel in ways marked by greater gentleness, reason, compassion, spiritual vitality, and embodied witness.
- Pew Research Center, “Measuring Religion in China,” August 30, 2023. Pew reports that about 4 percent of Chinese adults formally identify Buddhism as their religious belief in the 2018 Chinese General Social Survey, while 33 percent say they believe in Buddha and/or a bodhisattva in the 2018 China Family Panel Studies survey; the report cautions that these measures capture different forms of identity, belief, and practice.
- Bai-bai is a colloquial term used in many Chinese communities for popular religious practices such as burning incense, making offerings, bowing, and praying for protection, peace, or prosperity. A bodhisattva is an enlightened being in Mahayana Buddhism who compassionately helps others; in popular Chinese religious practice, the term is often used more loosely for a figure to whom people pray for blessing or protection.
- Jidian and Xiao Zao, Above All Things: The Romance and War between Christianity and Science 《万有之上——基督教与科学的奇缘》, Godoor, accessed June 9, 2026. See also ReFrame Ministries, “游子新歌 New Songs of Wanderers,” which lists Above All Things as no. 10 in the series.
