The Rise Of Spiritual Nationalism Among Urban Elite Christians In Contemporary China

This paper explores the intersection of spiritual renewal and grassroots nationalism within contemporary Chinese Christianity through the case of Wenzhou “boss Christians”—an emerging group of Christian businessmen who have spearheaded the growth of independent churches in the coastal Wenzhou area. Prompted by their success in the new entrepreneurial world, these elite male Christians strive to gain spiritual prestige and moral superiority in the Chinese church by employing a spiritual narrative of their post-Mao economic success and by articulating and spreading a new vision that they call “God’s China vision”. By elevating the status of Wenzhou city as a regional center of the world mission, they have started to fashion themselves as part of a new generation of charismatic urban church leaders. In active response to the Chinese state’s nationalist discourse of modernity, they are convinced that China will rise not only in the economic sphere but also in the spiritual realm. The paper highlights a grassroots project of spiritual nationalism and links it to a redemptive process in which elite Chinese Christians seek to address and overcome victimization and suffering afflicted by secular state modernity. It concludes that post-Mao Christian development has come to be closely connected to national memories and nationalist imagination, countering the Chinese Communist insistence on secular nationalism.