Shamans serve as mediators between the human world and the spirit world. They communicate with spirits to achieve certain aims for individuals or communities, such as physical healing or alleviation of a disaster.

Unlike Buddhist monks or Hindu priests, shamans embrace spirit possession, said Chansamone Saiyasak, founder of Mekong Evangelical Mission in Thailand. “Shamanistic practices address basic needs, from health and security to social belonging and self-esteem, similar to Maslow’s hierarchy,” Saiyasak said.

In other parts of the world, an encounter with mystical forces beyond human comprehension may occur through consuming psychedelics like ayahuasca, a South American Indigenous concoction with hallucinogenic properties, or when seeing a sangoma, a South African witch doctor, to connect with an ancestor.

In Asia, engaging with spirits or divine entities is an activity that is often centered on the role of the shaman. Seeking counsel from a shaman is often seen as a legitimate and effective way to deal with everyday matters in life, from deciding who to marry to removing bad luck and healing diseases or illnesses.

Belief in the supernatural is widespread in the region: A majority of adults in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam say they believe in a god or unseen beings, according to Pew Research Center. Having an otherworldly experience is commonplace as well. “We often experience evil spirits before we experience the Holy Spirit,” said author Justin Tan in a CT piece on the Hungry Ghost Festival.

Christianity Today interviewed seven scholars on how shamanism shows up in certain Asian contexts, what its key sources are, how it has influenced their churches, and what Bible verses challenge it.

In South Korea, shamanism is growing in popularity as younger shamans work through YouTube and other social media platforms to assuage citizens’ anxiety for the future. In Japan and Thailand, animistic beliefs form the bedrock of shamanistic rituals. In Indonesia, people may regard pastors as “spiritual shamans” who wield special powers. And in the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam, folk religion, folk Catholicism, and Daoism (Taoism) have helped shamanism to thrive because many of their rituals encourage people to appease a spirit or venerate a deity.

While shamanism has helped to develop a greater awareness of the spirit world across many parts of Asia, engaging in shamanistic rituals or practices invites syncretism, opens up room for evil spirits to influence a person’s life, and goes against God’s injunctions on spiritism and sorcery, say these Christian leaders. Their responses can be found in the drop-down list above or linked below:

Indonesia Kristian Kusumawardana, head of the bachelor’s degree program in theology at Bandung Theological Seminary

Japan Martin Heisswolf, author of Japanese Understanding of Salvation: Soteriology in the Context of Japanese Animism

Philippines Dave Johnson, editor of the Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies at the Asia Pacific Theological Seminary

South Korea Yohong Roh, instructor of religious studies at Louisiana State University

Taiwan Tony Chuang, author of Religiosity and Gospel Transmission: Insights from Folk Religion in Taipei

Thailand Chansamone Saiyasak, president of Mekong Evangelical Mission

Vietnam Saralen Tran, Christian education lecturer at Hanoi Bible College

The post Shamans, Sorcerers, and Spirits: How Christians in Asia Grapple with the Supernatural appeared first on Christianity Today.

I grew up in downtown Taipei and visited temples several times a week before I became a Christian. I never sought physical healing or experienced possession, but I watched my cousins and friends experience these things.

For example, long lines are normal at Xingtian Temple, located near the heart of Taipei. On one visit four years ago, I saw 50 to 100 people lining up to receive healing, a blessing, or some other ritual from two shamans. A young adult who looked to be around 20 years old appeared to be having a demon driven out by a female shaman. He shook profusely as she chanted. Most of the chant sounded like gibberish to me, but there were a few other shamans reciting what looked like Laozi’s Daodejing behind them.

Seeing a shaman is generally accepted in Taiwan because it is done out of practicality. If a person is believed to be tormented by a ghost, shamanistic rituals are seen as the fastest and most common way to get rid of it. In a land that accepts ghosts, spirits, and demons as part of normal living, shamanism is also a regular part of life. It’s not strange for someone to say that they went to a shaman to deal with an unwelcome spirit.

Taiwanese people who seek help from a shaman are not morally depraved. Neither are they desperate people who are willing to go to any lengths to attain something. Their attitude toward shamanism is no different than someone choosing a hammer from Home Depot: “The hammer works, it’s a reputable store, and it offers a fair price, so it’s good enough for me.”

Many shamanistic practices in Taiwan enlist the help of demons in the spirit world. In this sense, I highly discourage any participation in such rituals. Yet when we ignore shamanism’s real presence and strong impact in Taiwan, we risk losing both Christians and non-Christians. This is because shamanism answers daily concerns that the church does not address, particularly in the “middle realm” of ghosts, spirits, and dead ancestors according to American missiologist Paul Hiebert.

Taiwanese Christians can promote James 5 healing specifically as an alternative to shamanistic rituals for both healing and spirit possession. As Scripture says, “Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven” (James 5:14–15).

In Taipei, a large and growing Christian community is Bread of Life Christian Church. The Pentecostal congregation regularly holds prayer and healing services. When people are healed in those church services, it is celebrated and adds to God’s renown, as he is seen to work efficaciously through these church ministers.

When Taiwanese people believe they are possessed by ghosts, they now have an alternative to the shamans at Xingtian Temple. They can visit Christian ministers, who can cast out ghosts or bring healing just as effectively. To the average Taiwanese person, it doesn’t matter whether the ritual is done in the name of Jesus or the name of Holy Emperor Guan; the most important thing is that it works.

Shamanistic ideas or practices have shaped the contours of Taiwanese theology in evangelical circles and beyond. When shamans down the street are driving out ghosts and speaking to spirits, churches are compelled to develop a richer angelology and demonology that could answer questions about these entities. Likewise, when people turn to folk-religion rituals for physical and spiritual healing, churches theologize more fully on what healing looks like in a Christian context.

Tony Chuang is the author of Religiosity and Gospel Transmission: Insights from Folk Religion in Taipei. Read more in our series’ lead article, Shamans, Sorcerers, and Spirits: How Christians in Asia Grapple with the Supernatural.

The post Shamanism in Taiwan appeared first on Christianity Today.

I asked for health, wealth, and good grades. Then I’d snack on the crackers that had been offered to the ancestors and deities in the shrine. Life was good. My hardworking parents provided for me, my grandparents watched me, and my ancestors blessed and protected me.

At the time, I had never heard the gospel, and what I did hear about Christianity from my grandparents was negative: Christians were out to get my money, and Christianity simply was “not our way.” Our way was Chinese folk religion, which mixed elements of Confucianism and Daoism (Taoism) with a plethora of deities, ancestors, and shamanistic rituals.

My mother always taught me about the efficacy of prayer to a deity called Jesus, so I prayed to him along with the others. It was not until high school that a classmate told me the gospel and I gave my life to this Christian God.

About 30 years later, I wrote Religiosity and Gospel Transmission: Insights from Folk Religion in Taipei to explore how folk religion shapes the worldview of Taiwanese people so that Christians can share the gospel effectively. Today, Christians only make up 6 percent of Taiwan’s population, while adherents to folk religion compose 44 percent, according to Pew Research Center. Taiwan has the third-highest percentage of folk religion followers in the world.

While my research focused on my home of Taiwan, Chinese folk religion is a widely held belief system among ethnic Han Chinese around the world. The specific practices may differ across geographic contexts, but the ideas and religiosity, such as feng shui or the unseen realm, of the people are quite similar.

Through interviews with 25 people in the streets and temples of Taipei on their thoughts on religiosity, I began to see two key questions that Christianity needed to answer for Taiwanese people enmeshed in the world of folk religion, whether they believe it deeply or not. How does Christianity engage with the spiritual realm? And how does it help the everyday life of the Taiwanese?

The gospel to believers in the spirit world

Chinese American sociologist C. K. Yang noted that Chinese folk religion is a diffused religion—meaning that it pervades everyday life, intruding secular spaces in a way that institutional religion does not often do. For instance, in ethnic Chinese communities around the world, it is common practice for stores to offer up food and incense to certain deities at their grand openings to ask for blessing and prosperity.

This means that instead of disenchanting folk religion like it has the rest of the world, modernity has had a vastly different effect on Chinese religiosity. Folk religion ensures that secular institutions and social groups are “imbued with a rich folklore of a supernatural character,” Yang wrote in Religion in Chinese Society. “The social environment as a whole had a sacred atmosphere which inspired the feeling that the gods and spirits, as well as man, participated in molding the established ways of life in the traditional world.”

The pervasiveness of folk religion in everyday life and social institutions—including government offices and schools—has made it a key part of Taiwanese consciousness, as much so as modern-day politics. This does not mean that all Taiwanese are still “enchanted by the supernatural,” as philosopher Charles Taylor puts it in A Secular Age, but that the “supernatural” has become part of an accepted experience of the people.

In this context, a presentation of the gospel should directly address the forces of ghosts, spirits, local deities, and ancestors that make up Taiwanese people’s lived realities.

For instance, on certain days of the year, the streets of Taipei are crowded as people carrying statues of local deities parade from one temple to the next. Mao-Hsien Lin, a leading expert on folk religion in Taiwan, explained that the parades are spiritually analogous to the patrol of police officers, as their purpose is to “get rid of evil [spirits] and calm the people’s hearts.”

If the gospel fails to do the same, it would be perceived as useless in Taiwan. Based on the interviews I did, demons and evil spirits are a real concern today in many parts of Taiwan. So the church needs a better theology and practice of exorcism. The gospel must be seen not just as insurance for the afterlife but as protection in this life against real or perceived spiritual forces.

One practical example is telling non-Christians about the power of Jesus’s name to drive back demons that may be attacking one’s house or the power of prayer to do things that no spirits or deities could do.

Taiwan’s charismatic churches are already known for doing this. Because the unseen realm is normal in Taiwan, most churches in Taiwan “have always understood the supernatural aspect of faith as recorded in the Scripture in a literal sense—which can be tasted and seen in the present day,” according to Judith C. P. Lin in The Charismatic Movement in Taiwan from 1945 to 1995. It’s what led the charismatic movement to grow so successfully on the island, she argued, noting that an estimated one-third of Taiwanese Christians have lean charismatic.

In both charismatic and noncharismatic groups, Taiwanese Christians regularly pray for deliverance, miraculous healings, and protection amid demonic warfare. These gospel practices reveal to Taiwanese people the power of God, ways to pray, the danger of spirit-mediums, and other issues are related to their everyday life.

This approach has been taught in churches, especially since the 1980s. Yet in my interviews, few people mentioned Christians speaking to them about the unseen realm. Perhaps this approach could be used more frequently for initial gospel encounters, as a gospel that adequately addresses the spiritual realm will see more responses in Taiwan.

The gospel’s implications on daily life

Another important aspect to consider when reaching Taiwanese nonbelievers is what they are seeking when they approach the gods and deities of folk religion. While gospel presentations in the West focus on more abstract concepts like how Christianity provides forgiveness of sins, new life, and hope for eternity, Taiwanese people are more interested in practical, everyday concerns.

For instance, they ask the god Guan Sheng DI Jun to help them get promoted. They ask the earth God to protect their home from thieves. They beseech Yue Lao to bring them a romantic partner.

Gospel presentations to Taiwanese people need to address how or if the gospel can help them in these practical ways. Today, many Christian teachers exhort us to gospel living—how we as Christians can live according to the grace and responsibilities given to us—but what about the gospel in daily life?

When your business is not doing well, what is the gospel’s answer to that? When you live in a crime-ridden neighborhood, how does the gospel protect you? When you are 38 years old and unable to find a spouse, where does the gospel come in? The easy answers of “have more faith” and “turn to Jesus” are not concrete enough to address the real concerns that people have.

Some Christians who have attended church for a while start to understand how the gospel can apply in specific situations. But non-Christians are not aware of this. In my interviews, I found that many Taiwanese non-Christians viewed the abstract gospel as “irrelevant,” “stupid,” or “arrogant.” Some even mistook it for another mystic chant. Until the gospel starts explicitly addressing situations in daily life, most Taiwanese non-Christians will likely remain uninterested and unconvinced.

Folk religion provides answers and concrete rituals for situations that people encounter in everyday life. Through customs, rituals, and special holidays like Tomb Sweeping Festival, folk religion in Taiwan provides a sense of security and situation-specific assurances. It does not have complicated doctrines for people to grasp—all they need to do is visit the temple and pray to the deity.

Therefore, an abstract gospel does little for most Taiwanese. What many Taiwanese need is a more down-to-earth gospel that addresses the same things that folk religion deities address: daily lives and felt needs. These needs are not a side project for the deities but their sole purpose.

A contextual approach to gospel presentations in Taiwan should frame the Lord as better than the goddess Mazu in her protection of fishermen, better than the earth God in his protection of land, better than Guanyin in her compassion for people, better than Lord Superior Wen Chang in his concern for academia, and better than Yue Lao in his understanding of love.

That doesn’t mean Christians should water down the gospel or make it only about fulfilling daily needs. The gospel has eternal significance and brings a person into a relationship with the Lord. The gospel is also not about fulfilling one’s desires; rather, it is about fulfilling the desires of God. Taken to the extreme, this kind of prosperity gospel robs Jesus’ focus on the kingdom, John’s call to love, and Paul’s admonition to live a life worthy of the calling we have received.

In Jesus’ ministry, he encountered people and provided for both their external and spiritual needs. Jesus spoke about how to deal with a Roman soldier asking a civilian to carry luggage or other items (Matt. 5:41). He spoke about paying taxes (Mark 12:17) and how often to forgive people (Matt. 18:21–22). Abstract truth sometimes came with the fulfillment of daily needs and sometimes did not. Even in large-scale public meetings like the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught people how to act in daily life.

When evangelizing to Taiwanese people, it is important to discuss the challenging issues they are facing. Christians could ask adherents of folk religion about the last deity they visited and what they were seeking. Knowing the answers to these questions can help Christians explain how the gospel speaks directly to their concerns, how God can solve their problems, and how God can do more than any deity.

Sometimes God does not fulfill every felt need. But that does not mean the gospel does not speak on a given subject. For instance, the gospel teaches people not to worry about money or promotions but to “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt. 6:33). On the question of protection, the gospel teaches that God “will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways” (Ps. 91:11). For someone seeking a romantic partner, the gospel teaches us about love itself (1 Cor. 13).

To show that the gospel of Jesus Christ is necessary and vital amid a culture seeped in folk religion, Christians need to show that God is more powerful than the spirits and deities that threaten the Taiwanese people and that he is a better answer to the daily needs of their lives.

The result is a gospel that is truly “good news” for Taiwanese people and an appeal that can take root in this culture.

Tony Chuang is a pastor, conference speaker, adjunct lecturer, and business director from Taiwan who is currently living in Penang, Malaysia. He received his PhD from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

This excerpt was adapted from Religiosity and Gospel Transmission: Insights from Folk Religion in Taipei by Tony Chuang. Copyright © 2024 Langham Academic. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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I vividly remember the radiant smile on my middle-aged neighbor’s face as she told me this. It was at our third neighborhood house party, and she was excited. Twenty neighbors filled our house snacking on finger foods, chatting, and listening to me play Rachmaninoff on the piano.

We had moved to the quiet suburb of Park Ridge seven months earlier, away from the bustling streets of downtown Chicago that we were used to. Initially the idea of hosting big parties never crossed my mind, but in the mostly white, affluent neighborhood we found something missing: community.

Thus began a six-year journey of knocking on doors, meeting neighbors, and entering into their lives. Yet just as we were building strong friendships, COVID-19 hit and we ended up moving more than 9,000 miles away to Penang, Malaysia. With lockdowns, tighter security in our apartment, and a smaller living space, we had to change the way we interacted with our neighbors. Instead of big parties, we ministered to the individuals who entered our home. Instead of a largely homogenous demographic, we broke bread with people of all different religions, ethnicities, and socioeconomic levels.

God taught us through this journey that we can be missional no matter where we live in the world, whether it’s on a short-term mission trip to Haiti, in a Chicago suburb, or on a Malaysian island. As mission strategist Alan Hirsch writes in The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating Apostolic Movements, “as God sent the Son into the world, so we are at core a sent or simply a missionary people.”

Getting to know the neighbors

One year into our marriage, my husband Tony and I moved to Park Ridge to be closer to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he pursued a PhD, while I still commuted downtown to teach at Moody Bible Institute. With its high ratings for education, amenities, and safety, Park Ridge seemed like a great place to start a family.

Through my research, I knew Park Ridge was 96 percent white, but I didn’t truly realize how out of place we’d feel as a young, childless Asian couple until we moved there. When we went to the neighborhood parks or grocery stores, we stood out.

Despite the differences, Tony and I wanted to get to know our new neighbors. It was more than just wanting to make new friends: We wanted to be missional wherever we went. In Hirsch’s words, “We must actually become the gospel to the people around us—an expression of the real Jesus through the quality of our lives.”

For the first few months, Tony and I dedicated a few hours every week to knocking on doors and saying hello to our neighbors. Most of them looked surprised. Some people didn’t want to talk to us. Before we could say a word, one person said, “I’m not interested in whatever you have.” There were several who wouldn’t answer the door, although we could see them sitting in their living room.

But to our surprise, many of them were happy to meet us. When we knocked on a 90-year-old woman’s house, she said, “In my 40 years of living in this neighborhood, you are the first ones to knock on my door as new neighbors.” She quickly welcomed us into her home, gave us cookies and soda, and we talked for an hour. As a recent widow living alone in her house, she shared that she felt sad and lonely at times.

Courtesy of Esther Shin Chuang / Edits by CT

Some interactions were brief, but other encounters blossomed into meaningful conversations. When a middle-aged neighbor learned Tony was a preacher, he started sharing about his spiritual journey. We then talked for an hour about our faiths and different religions.

Then there was a man in his 60s, who was in tears when he answered the door. He told us that his mother recently passed away and started sharing about his heartache. That was the beginning of our friendship: He later became one of our closest friends in the neighborhood.

Over the next few years, we knocked on 122 houses (thanks to my Excel-obsessed husband, we have the exact numbers). Of those, 80 houses opened their doors and we visited 58 of those families more than once. Of those, we spoke in-depth with 16 households and became close friends with six of them.

After knocking on doors for two months, Tony and I decided to host a neighborhood party. We heard from neighbors that there used to be an annual neighborhood party until the host passed away, and people missed those gatherings. It also fit with our larger mission to bring the neighborhood together and to build a community.

Inviting neighbors into our home

Since I’m a concert pianist, I invited my neighbors to a free performance at our home. We printed out invitation cards and as we dropped them off at every door on the streets near our home, we prayed that they would hear the gospel one day. By then, we knew that most of our neighbors were not Christians.

I still remember how anxious I was before our first house party. Most of our guests were still strangers to us. What if someone crazy comes to our home? What if someone comes in and harms us? The funny thing is, I found out later that our neighbors had similar thoughts: “Who are these people inviting us to their home? Are they part of a cult?”

Everyone took a small leap of faith, and much to our astonishment, about 20 neighbors showed up to our first party. At our second house party two months later, we had 55 neighbors. We started asking guests to bring food to share so that they felt ownership of the event and so that we could keep the parties financially sustainable.

Courtesy of Esther Shin Chuang / Edits by CT

When Christmas came, we held a white elephant gift exchange. Neighbors began looking forward to the next neighborhood house party, which took place several times a year. We started asking our Christian friends to join the parties, and they not only served our neighbors but began spiritual conversations, prayed for them, and even met with some of them afterward.

We also got more and more bold in our house parties. Tony shared that we are Christians and that we are here for them. “If you need help with moving the trash can or picking up mail while you’re traveling, we would be happy to do that,” Tony said. “If you would like us to pray for you, we would love to do that too.” They began taking us up on our offers.

As time passed, our neighbors who were once strangers became our friends. We got to know them over spaghetti dinners and BBQs. We attended classical music concerts and comedy shows. My next-door neighbor became one of my closest friends, as we both enjoyed making pottery together. When I was pregnant, my neighbors threw me a baby shower. I saw that they had become a big blessing to us.

As we did life alongside our neighbors, hardships inevitably came. When one woman was going through multiple miscarriages, Tony and I visited her with flowers, cried with her, and prayed for her. When another neighbor grappled with the loss of her father, we listened to her and prayed with her. In moments of vulnerability, we shared about the one who can give them true peace and comfort.

While most neighbors rejected our invitations to visit our church, two neighbors ended up coming. The aforementioned man in his 60s started regularly attending our church and is now part of a faith community. Although many of our neighbors are still non-Christians, one told me, “You both are the first Christian friends I have. I can tell that you really have this love in you and that you’re true Christians.”

A transition to a new neighborhood

Our neighborhood house parties stopped abruptly when COVID-19 hit. During the pandemic, we decided to move to Malaysia, as Tony received an offer to oversee a manufacturing business in Penang. We sensed God was calling us to move there, so we said our sad goodbyes to our beloved neighbors outdoors and six feet apart.

When we first arrived in Penang, I expected to get to know my neighborhood the same way I did in Park Ridge. But there were two problems: First, we moved during the pandemic when Penang was under a strict lockdown that left most people stuck at home.

Second, we lived in an apartment building with an around-the-clock security guard and elevator fobs that only gave us access to our floor. Due to the security measures, there was no way for me to roam around our building and visit our neighbors.

I struggled with this. How can I love my neighbor as myself when I can’t even meet them?

As the COVID-19 restrictions lifted, I started making new friends who lived nearby and invited them to my home. I hired Indonesian housekeepers to clean my home once a week. Musicians and dancers crammed into our apartment for concert rehearsals.

I then began to see how different my new “neighbors” were from my neighbors in Park Ridge. In Penang, my neighbors weren’t the people living in the same building as me, but rather those who stepped through the threshold of my home. My new neighbors come from different religious, ethnic, and financial backgrounds. Whereas Park Ridge was fairly monocultural (affluent and white), Penang was multiethnic and multireligious.

Only about four percent of the population in Penang are Christians, trailing behind Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus. Reflective of Penang’s multiculturalism, my new neighbors included Indian Hindus, Indonesian Muslims, Chinese-Malaysian Buddhists, and more.

In the two years we’ve lived here, we haven’t hosted a big house party like we did in Park Ridge because of the limited space in our apartment. But Tony and I hosted smaller gatherings. I cooked Korean food for the wives of rich businessmen who are now my friends. With my part-time cleaner, I’d invite her to share a meal with me or pack some food for her to take home. At times, I used my translation app to tell her, “I’m a Christian and I care about you because I know God loves you.”

Our babysitter, a single Indian Hindu woman in her 60s, told me about her health problems and her family struggles, and, to my surprise, she let me pray for her. Most of these people who come to my home are not Christians. But as we become friends, the gospel is naturally brought up in our conversations.

My neighbors in Park Ridge and Penang couldn’t be more different. But I realized that God’s heart for them is the same. Whether affluent or impoverished, well-educated or uneducated, American or Malaysian, they are all people God loves and cares about. God doesn’t show partiality toward them, and they are all people we are called to love. That is why, regardless of the environment, Tony and I consistently invite our neighbors to our home and into our lives. When we open up our living room and our hearts to them, many of them do so in return.

The question I ponder today is not “Who is my neighbor?” but “How can I love my neighbor?” Be it through my cooking, house parties, piano playing, or a listening ear, I am striving to love my neighbors as myself. I hope to embrace the neighbors God brings into my life with love, kindness, and care, for God has also embraced me with his hesed, his faithful and steadfast love.

Esther Shin Chuang, who holds a doctorate in worship studies, is an award-winning concert pianist, worship leader, and faculty at six seminaries throughout Southeast Asia. She and her husband are pastors at Georgetown Baptist Church in Penang, Malaysia.

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