A Malaysian Chinese Perspective On 1 Corinthians 15: 1 – 58
David Chong Wui Howe
Context
At the annual Ching Ming festival, Chinese families make their way to the graves of departed relatives in order to clean up the sites, repainting tombstone inscriptions and make food offerings to their ancestors. By burning joss sticks, paper money, houses or even paper aeroplanes, it is believed that souls of the deceased would be continually provided for. In return, the deceased ancestors would reward their filial piety with protection and prosperity. It is considered socially unbecoming for a Chinese family or person to neglect this important event.
Even though these religious beliefs are held by the majority; the ancestral cult has been advocated by Confucius based upon “the devotion and affection toward living parents, and on the continuance of devotion and affection after death.” Hsiao or filial piety is considered the basis for the Five Cardinal Relations, which prescribed specific duties to participants of each relationship. Historically, Ching Ming festival commemorated the death of a noble scholar Jie Zi Dui (600 BC) who was killed for refusing the emperor’s recruitment to serve in his corrupt courts. Others said that it was an agrarian fertility feast at the beginning of spring. As time went by, it has evolved into a festival to remember the departed and reinforce family solidarity. However, the elements of culture and religion are intertwined into the Chinese social fabric that it had become quite difficult to distinguish them.
In the past, Jesuits and liberal Protestants have accepted ancestral veneration as a merely social ceremony while Franciscan and evangelical missionaries have opposed it as religious idolatry. Without a united response, Chinese Christians are still ambivalent about their participation in the Ching Ming festival and the resulting perception of turning one’s back on the family remains a formidable missiological barrier.
With the influence of Buddhism, the concept of accumulating merit for the deceased through meditation and chanting the sutra gained currency as a way to help them achieve enlightenment and escape the cycle of reincarnation (samsara). Due to Daoism, the performance of certain rites is believed to help the deceased to pass through 10 halls of judgment in hell with 18 levels of excruciatingly detailed punishments. The Chinese also have a complex view of the afterlife where each person has three souls. Upon death, the souls are dispersed and resided in different places – the Western Paradise (reward) or Yin World (judgment), in the ancestral tablet and in the body of the deceased. These religious beliefs have also provided further rationale for the practice of ancestral veneration as providing for the needs of ancestors in the afterlife, seeking their blessings and offering sacrifices.
Within this socio-religious context, Chinese Christians face the challenge of demonstrating filial piety and family solidarity without compromising with idolatry, reserving worship to the Lord of heaven and earth alone.
David Chong Wui Howe
Context
At the annual Ching Ming festival, Chinese families make their way to the graves of departed relatives in order to clean up the sites, repainting tombstone inscriptions and make food offerings to their ancestors. By burning joss sticks, paper money, houses or even paper aeroplanes, it is believed that souls of the deceased would be continually provided for. In return, the deceased ancestors would reward their filial piety with protection and prosperity. It is considered socially unbecoming for a Chinese family or person to neglect this important event.
Even though these religious beliefs are held by the majority; the ancestral cult has been advocated by Confucius based upon “the devotion and affection toward living parents, and on the continuance of devotion and affection after death.” Hsiao or filial piety is considered the basis for the Five Cardinal Relations, which prescribed specific duties to participants of each relationship. Historically, Ching Ming festival commemorated the death of a noble scholar Jie Zi Dui (600 BC) who was killed for refusing the emperor’s recruitment to serve in his corrupt courts. Others said that it was an agrarian fertility feast at the beginning of spring. As time went by, it has evolved into a festival to remember the departed and reinforce family solidarity. However, the elements of culture and religion are intertwined into the Chinese social fabric that it had become quite difficult to distinguish them.In the past, Jesuits and liberal Protestants have accepted ancestral veneration as a merely social ceremony while Franciscan and evangelical missionaries have opposed it as religious idolatry. Without a united response, Chinese Christians are still ambivalent about their participation in the Ching Ming festival and the resulting perception of turning one’s back on the family remains a formidable missiological barrier.
With the influence of Buddhism, the concept of accumulating merit for the deceased through meditation and chanting the sutra gained currency as a way to help them achieve enlightenment and escape the cycle of reincarnation (samsara). Due to Daoism, the performance of certain rites is believed to help the deceased to pass through 10 halls of judgment in hell with 18 levels of excruciatingly detailed punishments. The Chinese also have a complex view of the afterlife where each person has three souls. Upon death, the souls are dispersed and resided in different places – the Western Paradise (reward) or Yin World (judgment), in the ancestral tablet and in the body of the deceased. These religious beliefs have also provided further rationale for the practice of ancestral veneration as providing for the needs of ancestors in the afterlife, seeking their blessings and offering sacrifices. Within this socio-religious context, Chinese Christians face the challenge of demonstrating filial piety and family solidarity without compromising with idolatry, reserving worship to the Lord of heaven and earth alone.
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