United by Fear: The Rise of Trumpism Among First Generation Chinese Christian Immigrants

Abstract

ABSTRACT Through close studies of pro-Trump Chinese Christians’ intellectual and popular writings, this paper presents a historical analysis that explains the popularity of Trump and the Christian Right agenda among Chinese American Christians. Chinese churches’ habitual reluctance to discuss politics had created a vacuum of political reflection quickly filled with the political agenda of a few pro-Trump pastors. Most of these pastors are first generation immigrants who carried with them the historical memory of Chinese house churches persevering under persecution from a powerful secular state, and they often did not re-contextualize this inherited narrative to new situations in America. The mode of spirituality they aimed to cultivate in America thrived upon the self-perception of being a persecuted minority of truth holders against an ominous force, embodied once by the Communist Party (CCP) and now by what they perceive as the American liberal cultural establishment.