CCM with Chinese Characteristics? Exploring the Role of Music in Overseas Chinese Evangelical Communities

One of the pillars of evangelical Christianity is the changing and diverse use of various media in spreading and evangelizing missions worldwide. In terms of artistic media forms, music is one of the most dominant media in evangelicalism (Reily and Dueck 2016). The combination of populism and pragmatism explains why popular songs are the most dominant art form for evangelicals. Music is highly portable; traveling evangelists could transport musical instruments and singers more easily than, say, a large sculpture, let alone a cathedral. The music of evangelicalism progressed from the accessible biblical hymns of Isaac Watts and William Cowper through the moving simplicity of African American Spirituals to the sentimental Gospel songs of Fanny Crosby and Philip Bliss in the nineteenth century. It broadened out to the catchy jingles of Ira Sankey and Charlie Alexander. The upbeat joy of Gospel music and the twentieth-century adaptation of almost all forms of popular songs into the so-called CCM: Contemporary Christian Music (Stackhouse 2022).

Today, the main theological resources of Chinese Christianity come from American evangelicalism (Ren 2024). Singing gospel songs together in the weekly Sunday congregation is a common religious practice in evangelical communities across the world and among them, in protestant church communities in the Chinese sphere and Chinese diaspora overseas. The hymns and songs sung before and after the sermon are usually based on scriptural teaching or pastiches of scriptural phrases. This paper relates to this element of religious practice, from the perspective of overseas Chinese Evangelical Communities, looking into the case of the Netherlands. The study, therefore, looks at the phenomenon of CCM not only from the perspective of the role of music in evangelical Christianity but also explores the relationship between CCM music vis-à-vis questions related to religion and migrant communities. The paper will explore the transnational aspect of the dissemination of CCM, and how it is effective in community building in a foreign environment (both culturally and linguistically). The ability of Chinese music to travel, especially in the internet age, is therefore pertinent to the effectiveness of CCM among migrants.

Since 1970, over 30 registered church communities (predominantly evangelical) were set up in large cities and small municipalities alike, across the Netherlands. The growing number of Chinese Evangelical churches in the Netherlands is pertinent to the religious landscape of this social group. Importantly, the members of these communitas, despite often being categorized under “Chinese” are a diverse group of people, coming from different geographical, political, and cultural backgrounds and often speakers of a different mother tongue. The four waves of Chinese migration to the Netherlands consists of people from Hong Kong and South China in early 1900 (Wubben, 1986), from Dutch colonies Indonesia and Surinam after WWII, later on again a wave of migrants from Hong Kong, South China as well as refugees from Vietnam in the 1970- 2000 (Pieke, 1988). In past decades this community has doubled in size with a diverse migration from various areas of China, Taiwan, Hongkong, and Macau (Li, 2011; Vogels, Gijsberts, & Liu, 2011). The community today consists of first, second, and third-generation Chinese, with different integrational levels, adding to the complex cultural diversity of this group.

Therefore, in this study, elements of intergenerational dynamics of the church communities and the diversity of culture, ethnic component language, and even political views are particularly interesting.  Examining the role of music in the gathering of several churches in Amsterdam, the paper seeks to answer the following: What is the role of music in the social cohesion of these church communitas? How does the shift from Cantonese to Mandarin Chinese as the lingua franca of the community affect the role of hymens singing as a religious practice? How does CCM with Chinese characteristics play a part in the dynamic of “homemaking” for Dutch Chinese? The paper therefore delves into several allies of inquiry, building on a mixed methodology. The study is grounded in data collected in participant observation among a sample of several churches in the province of North Holland, semi-structured interviews, and visual and semiotic research into a data set of Mandarin language-based video clips used by the communities for their congregations.

First, the author traces the role of gospel media in the context of overseas Chinese Christians. According to Sun, Protestant hymns experienced the following phases of development in China: 1- the completion and translation of Western Hymns  (1818-1860) 2) The compilation of hymns in Chinese dialects (1850-1870) 3) the emergence of hymns composition in the vernacular (1900-1936) such as the publishing of Putian song zan 普天颂赞 (Hymns of Universal grace, 1936); 4) the developments of hymns in overseas Chinese communities after 1949. 5) the developments of hymns in mainland China since 1983 (Sun 2021). The data collected on the use of such a compilation of hymns sheds light on how the process of Sinicization and popularization play a role in the worship through music in these churches. The paper therefore looks at translation of the message to Chinese, but also at aesthetic and cultural adaptions made to the videoclips to make them palatable to the target population. 

Another avenue of exploration is the singing practices at the gatherings, and the formation of church youth music groups in the Chinese community in the Netherlands, who perform at gatherings. An analysis of the involvement of young people in creating CCM, as well as observations on the communities in singing to recorded clips and live music, will also be used to answer the questions raised here above. 

Overall, the paper suggests that the role of CCM in the overseas Chinese community in the Netherlands based on these case studies is significant. The process of Sinicization does not end in the translation of the hymns in the last century but shows an ongoing and dynamic process of culturally, and socially designated adaptation and modernization. However, in the context of a migrant community Sinicization of CCM, as part of this larger process carries several complexities and challenges.