Village Christian Faith Motivation Research

In recent years,the spread of Christianity in some rural areas of China has beendeveloped rapidly,more and more farmers join the Christianity.The universalphenomenon has aroused social extensive attention,especially in the academiccommunity.Anthropology, especially the cultural anthropology as the subject toresearch the human cuiture created by the various ethnic groups and reveal the natureof human culture,should make its own reasonable explanation for this phenomenon.To outsiders,the religious behavior of these rural christians is superstition.It isignorant,backward and contrary to the trend of social development.However,with theeconomic and social development,the Christian religious activities not only failed tostop,but also develope rapidly.So,we can not simply take religious activities assuperstition,religious activities are different with superstition. As a foreign religion,the meeting point existed between Christianity and rural believers, the true motives ofrural believers, their choice between Christianity and between their Christian beliefsand folk beliefs.These has aroused my interest for research.So,I decided to study thefaith motivation of the rural believers through field visit,to understand which roleChristianity faith plays in the minds of these believers.With the boom off of the Christian localization,scholars of various disciplines putmore attention on Secularization of Christianity.They made a systematic study onabstract sense of Christian culture and thought.But these studies lack of the majorityof the first-hand field research materials,hence not empirical.In addition,The studiesof domestic anthropologists about Christian are in the initial stage,while the studiesabout rural Christian are more less.Looking at the status of the domestic religioussociology,it is not difficult to find that current researchs are more than pure theoryresearch and countermeasurity research, inevitably tend to macroscopic andformalized. On the other hand, the most of the existing research results discuss and research the Christian faith as a whole, lacking of problem awareness, the conclusionare often similar. However, the local cultural phenomena must be obtained from the"local knowledge" answers. It is clear that the Christian spread of different parts hasbeen impacted not only by the national and external environment and the thebackground, it has been impacted by local social and cultural background. Therefore,if we want to research the Christian in deep level, we must further investigate theimpact in the small social and cultural context,put the development of Christianityinto the regional society and culturel to explain.The paper is divided into seven parts.The introduction explains severalresearch-related concepts and research methods. The second chapter introduces thestatus of Christian study at home and abroad in recent years. The third chapterdescribes the selection of survey. The fourth chapter briefly discusses the overview ofthe M-Village Christian Church.The fifth chapter discusses the faith motive of therural Christians from two aspects,that are driven from a practical utilitarian interestsor the pursuit of the spiritual beliefs. The sixth chapter analyzes the practical reasonsas well as reflection on the causes.Finally, summaries the full paper.Specifically, select M village Christian church in Handan City of Hebei Provinceas the object,through taking the participant observation, interview, literature collectionto study the motivation of the local civil Christian faith activities,understand the innerworld of these believers, analysis what role the Christian faith plays in the minds ofbelievers, examine the motivation of the faith of believers, in order to find theproblems and then manage them.According to the theoretical thinking and empirical data, here below listed theconclusion of this paper：The faith motivation of rural Christian believers can be divided into twocategories, that is, driven by practical and utilitarian benefits and the pursuit ofspiritual beliefs,driven by practical utilitarian interests is the majority motivation ofrural believers, they often turn to the Lord’s help when themselves or their familyfaceing misfortune and difficulties and some practical benefits can not be met.Theywant to met some real practical purpose, with the color of a typical pragmatism.The pursuit of spiritual beliefs include general spiritual needs as well as pursuit of theultimate faith liking the western Christian style, they pursue a spiritual sustenance.