Robert Hunt (’82) felt the rumblings of change in China while serving as a professor at Trinity Theological College in Singapore from 1993-97. He witnessed “a real opening up of contact.” It wasn’t unusual for the institution to host members of the Chinese Christian church as guests. By the time he left, “the new leadership in China saw their country as a place of possibilities,” including a fresh tolerance for religion.
By some estimates, there may be as many as 100 million Chinese Christians. “Both ‘official’ – those registered with the government – and ‘unofficial’ churches are growing rapidly,” notes Hunt, a graduate of Perkins School of Theology and now the school’s director of Global Theological Education.
With more than 5,000 members, the largest “unofficial” church in Beijing doesn’t operate in the shadows, Hunt says, but it’s a mistake to parse the Sino-Christian movement using an American model. “They don’t enjoy freedom of religion as we understand it; our free-for-all notion is almost unique to the United States.”
Professor Robert Hunt
Hunt and Perkins colleague Sze-kar Wan, professor of New Testament and a native of China, took a group of 15 students to China in June. In addition to attending worship services, the group met with families and ministers, as well as students at the Nanjing Union Theological Seminary. “What challenged our students were the
personal testimonies of faith. Coming from a non-religious background, the Chinese talked about wanting to put their lives in the context of something bigger and transcendent,” Hunt says. “They didn’t emphasize the ‘personal relationship with Jesus Christ’ dimension of Christianity that we’re used to.”
But there were unexpected similarities between West and East as well, says Master of Divinity student Jacki Banks, the pastor of Methodist churches in Duncan and Velma, Oklahoma. “Worshiping there was pretty much like being in our church here; it was just in a foreign language,” she recalls. “The order of worship was almost the same, and they sing many of the traditional hymns. It was extremely moving, though, to hear a hymn like ‘A Mighty Fortress Is Our God’ in Chinese.”
For the visitors, clarity came through seeing the Chinese “in their own light,” Hunt says. “I think one of the non-students on the trip put it most succinctly: ‘Nothing I had learned about China in the United States has been relevant to understanding what I’m seeing with my own eyes.’ And he’s right. You have to see people in their own world and talk to them.”
Although globalization “flattens” the commercial sector, it creates a need for well-rounded spiritual leaders. Whether guiding a small-town flock or an urban megachurch, “pastors no longer serve in a monocultural world,” Hunt says. They not only must minister to churchgoers from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, but they need to be able to relate to peers of other faiths because “they will be working with members of mosques and Hindu temples and others” on community matters.
Because of this transformation within churches of all denominations, international study now plays a key role in a Perkins Theology education. All M.Div. students have the opportunity to participate in a 10-day to two-week cultural immersion course. The immersion program was launched in 2004 with three trips and approximately 40 participants. In 2009, at least seven groups – and a total of 60 students – will travel to Mexico, Europe, Asia or South America. There also will be a course offered in New Orleans.
Hunt, who also has lived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Vienna, Austria, believes there’s no substitute for personal contact to “understand the culture, respect it and learn to work from within it.” While teaching at the Seminari Theoloji Malaysia, a Christian seminary, from 1985-92, that work-from-within philosophy motivated him to study Islam. He has written several books, including What Every Christian Should Know about Muslim Ideals and Islam in Southeast Asia, A Study Guide for Christians.
– Patricia Ward