I title this blogpost after a book quite similar in content to this video which I am about to review. I'm not sure if the book has had any bearing on the production of the video, but I wouldn't be very surprised if it did. The content is very similar - drawing a line of relation between Ancient Chinese history and Christianity, with Chinese characters as proof. The book goes into much more detail and bases its thesis on the interpretation of the word Sinim (Isa49:12) to be China, but I am reviewing the video, so we won't go there.
First, I have to laud the effort put into this attempt to evangelise, for after all, it is our call as Christians to announce the good news.
With a title 'Who are the Chinese?', I was expecting a documentary on perhaps the Chinese diaspora or the history of China. That the video did deliver in the first half. The turning point begins when the video talks about the development of Chinese characters, from bone oracles to the modern day Chinese characters. Craftily introduced at that point is how Chinese characters tells a story which alludes to the Bible storyline. My contentions with the video are mainly at this point.
The video talks about how the Chinese character for boat 船, can be broken down into the characters for boat舟, eight八, and mouth口. This therefore, the video insists, must be a reference to the Biblical account of the Flood, where Noah and his family (eight of them) were saved by God in the Ark. There are several other examples, but my argument is twofold:
- This is a fine example of eisegesis, the reading of one's personal ideas into a text, or in this case, a character. As there are no given explanations on the components of the character, any explanation can be provided by anyone. I could give an explanation which has nothing to do with Biblical narrative: 船 is basically a picture of a big boat with 舟being the body of a ship, while the remainder on the left looks like a superstructure of a boat, giving you an image of a houseboat, quite like the ones you see in Hong Kong harbour. My father provides an alternative to my alternative: the word 沿 means a river bank and therefore 船 would simply be a picture of a boat by the bank. You get the point.
- There are some cases where the archaic form and the modern form of the character varies too greatly to make such connections. Take for example, the word for flood 洪, which the video puts up as evidence, varies too greatly from it's archaic form seen at 21:06 of the video. To be able to make such conclusions, the breaking down of the character has to be consistently do-able with the archaic form, not just solely with the modern form, since the assumption would be that the archaic form is closer to the Biblical period the video is suggesting.
The baseless claims of the video in regards to connecting the Biblical narrative to Chinese characters is all in all a weak link in the attempts to make the Gospel of Jesus known to the World, because if the credibility of the argument on which the whole evangelistic attempt is built on is shot down, then the evangelistic message goes down with it too.
Towards the end of the video, you have several testimonies on how Jesus had changed their life, how Jesus had saved their business, and how Jesus had made them feel joy. I wouldn't presume to know exactly how these people converted or know them personally, and would therefore not dare question the veracity of their testimonies. However, I would question the content of their testimonies and its effectiveness (independent of the video's first half). There is no mention of how they realised that they had rebelled against God. There was no mention of how the had realised that they were under condemnation for their rebellion. There was no mention of how they had come to believe in Jesus' promise to save them from that judgement, and the forgiveness which comes with it. The core message of Christianity that people should and must hear is absent. Again, I do not question their salvation for only God can speak in regards to that, but as far as effective testimonies go, the ones in the video barely testify to what Paul describes in 1Corinthians 15 as matters of first importance.
To conclude, using a springboard (ie., any issue, like environmental concerns, politics, war, etc.) is good when you want to talk about the Gospel. It makes the transition smoother, and it shows people how the Gospel affects these issues. However, it would help very much to use credible springboards, not ones which break when you step on to it. Give your audience no reason to disregard your message other than the fact that they find the Gospel offensive. Also, when you testify about the Gospel, make sure it is the Gospel truly you are testifying about - take great care to ensure that what you are saying about Christianity is really what the Bible says about Christianity. Then preach it boldly!
Edit (13/7/2012): I just realised you can't find the English version through the search function on Youtube, so for the sake of those who would like to watch the video for yourselves, click here. You can also download the video I mentioned, and five others, it seems from the distributor here.
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