A reflection on missionaries, the sudden passing of my father, and Chinese ancestor practices

Baba (Dad), you visited me at my apartment in college, and you said to me, “You’re all grown up now.” 

If 1950’s Evangelicalism had saints, Hudson Taylor would be one of them. Taylor, the founder of China Inland Mission (CIM), was known for dressing and eating like a Chinese. He based his missions in rural areas, away from port cities that already had a Christian witness. He, like other Protestants of his time, believed that only those with explicit faith in Christ were saved, that those who died without hearing and accepting the gospel were lost.

I became a Christian in the early 1980s, in the wake of Hudson Taylor. I prayed for the Chinese at the home of a former CIM missionary, who left when China kicked missionaries out in the 1950s. In the mid 1980s, I went on a summer mission trip to China.

Baba, you wanted me to go to China, and you paid for the trip. Did you know I was going as a missionary?

When I was in China that summer, I received a telegram saying that my father was “terminally ill” and to return home right away. Though my dad would pass within days, I was able to see him before he died.

As a young Christian, I dealt with the sorrow of his death and the sorrow of his eternal destiny. While wrestling with this heaviness, I went to a pastor for counsel. After sharing with him my story and my anguish, I asked him where my dad might be now. My pastor said, “We don’t know.”

The words, “we don’t know,” were a source of comfort. We don’t know where my dad is, but we can entrust him to God.

Baba, your sudden passing rocked not only my faith, but also Grandma’s. She was so devastated, she stopped doing the ancestor rituals.

I honestly do not have a memory of myself bowing or not bowing at my father’s funeral. I remember being relieved that most of the rituals were done by my older brother. 

Around that time, the father of a friend of mine also suddenly died. She was a Christian, my age, from my hometown. Her father, like my dad, was buried at Chinese Cemetery outside of Stockton, California. I remember watching her, her mom, and her entire family, dressed in black, on the ground, on their knees, all bowing to their father before he was put into the grave.

I remember thinking, she shouldn’t be doing that.

Western missionaries to China, like Hudson Taylor, decided in the 19th century that Chinese ancestor rituals were “worship” and therefore forbidden. To become a Christian requires you to renounce your family’s ancestor practices. Christians worship God; they do not worship ancestors.

This was the decision of 400 Protestant missionaries, who met in Shanghai in 1877 and 1890. Their decision continues to affect contemporary Chinese churches. 

Baba, after you died, Grandma stopped doing the rituals. A couple of years later, she was baptized Christian.

The Shanghai missionary conferences consisted of Western Protestant missionaries. Chinese Christians did not have a say in interpreting the ancestor rituals. On the other hand, the Catholic Church reversed their ban in 1939, which led to a 1964 gathering of Chinese bishops in Taiwan to lay the foundations for the enculturation of ancestor veneration. An official liturgy designed by Chinese bishops was approved in 1974.

There was a ritual, however, that was still prohibited—the burning of joss paper.

There is a poignant scene in the Taiwanese movie, American Girl.  A mother and a daughter are burning joss paper for ancestors. As they take turns putting joss paper into the fire, the little girl says, “Do you think this is enough for them to buy a new house?” 

Her mother casually responds, “I think so.” After a brief pause, mom adds, “We have to do this now. Mommy won’t be able to do this after she gets baptized.”

Without looking at her mom, the daughter asks, “Are they going to become poor?”

Paper continues to burn. The camera pans to mom, “Come, give mommy a hug.”

Baba, in my memory, when I was little, it was always just grandma and me doing the rituals. She never explained what we were doing. She just told me what to do. 

The Catholic bridge from veneration of saints to veneration of ancestors is at the same time brilliant and messy (God, Jesus and the Ancestors: An Ethnography of the Ancestors’ Rites in the Taiwanese Catholic Church, Marco Lazzarotti, 2023).

Many practitioners of Taiwanese folk religion do the rituals without explicitly being taught what they mean. Some Catholics only learn the underlying meaning of ancestor rituals when they are taught how Catholics adapt them.

A non-Catholic might report seeing a ghost on such and such a road, sitting on a fence. A Catholic might say, yes, I also saw the ghost. After becoming Catholic, ghosts don’t just disappear, but they are interpreted differently.

Many Taiwanese Catholics are the only Catholic in their family. The enculturation of ancestor practices allows them to participate in this important part of family life. On the other hand, some Catholic families will not baptize their first born son because he is needed to continue the traditional ancestor practices.

These examples show the messiness of Taiwanese Catholic daily life. The lifting of the ban, however, goes a long way towards Catholicism being accepted as a Chinese religion.

Baba, you and mom and grandma are buried side-by-side in Chinese Cemetery. Are the three of you together now? 

This year marks 40 years since the sudden passing of my father. I still ponder the question, “Where is my dad?” I ponder this, not just for him alone, but for all my Chinese relatives who have died without explicit faith in Christ.

Church traditions do not all agree, but I have arrived at the following: 

I agree with the early church that souls are in an intermediate state while they await resurrection and final judgment.

I disagree with the theology of “particular judgment” that says souls are immediately judged after death and immediately sent to heaven, hell, or purgatory.

I agree with John Wesley and C.S. Lewis, who believed in inclusive salvation. Though salvation is exclusively through Christ, salvation is inclusive of people who respond to God through the hidden grace and light they have been given.

I agree with the Roman Catholic permissible theological opinion of “hopeful universalism.” Though there is no guarantee of it, Catholics may hope and pray that all human beings will ultimately be saved.

Baba, Grandma said that you didn’t do the ancestor rituals. Did you do them as a child?

Before my grandmother passed, she was living in a convalescent home for several years. During that time, her two daughters took turns visiting her and bringing her familiar food.

These acts were motivated by love. After grandma died, the traditional way of continuing that love was through food offerings and burning joss paper for them. Whether or not my aunties were explicitly taught this, the underlying belief was that ancestors needed to be provided for in the next life. Conversely, the ancestors watched over the family and blessed them.

When I visited the ancestral home in Taishan, Guangdong, China, I saw how the architecture embodied this. The ancestor altar was at the center of the biggest room, up on the second floor. Offerings were made on the first floor with the smoke of the incense rising up to the altar above.

Baba, there’s a portrait of you in the ancestral home. You are wearing a western-style suit and tie.

Today, no one lives in the ancestral home, and the roof has collapsed in some of the rooms. The descendants of that home are thousands of miles away. In my generation, the old ways are mostly not practiced, and the ones that continue, are done in a more relaxed way. 

My dad’s younger sister, the last of their generation to pass, did not want to continue the old practices. She did not want a funeral. She asked me, a Christian minister, to do a simple graveside service. We gathered as cousins to love and honor her. We shared memories. We said a few prayers. And we commended her to the loving embrace of God, in hope of resurrection.

Baba, my wife and children did not have the opportunity to meet you in this life, but they have heard your stories and seen your pictures. They’ve visited you at Chinese Cemetery, and they have been to your ancestral home. They hope, someday, to meet you face to face.