CARING AND IDENTITY: A CASE OF YOUNG ADULTS IN THE CANADIAN CHINESE CHURCH

Abstract

The culture of the twenty-first century can be characterized by discontentment and hopelessness, especially among emerging adults or Millennials. They are generally lost in their orientation in life and are in search of who they are. There are many challenges to identity. Relativism has caused the loss of anchors in life; and individualism in neoliberalism promises freedom but does not deliver. Postmodernism also entails a paradigm shift in the demarcation of the human life cycle. This phenomenon prolongs the transition between adolescence and adulthood. Furthermore, people are suffering under the power of a neoliberal economic system. Men and women are stressed and exhausted by their everyday lived experience. For those who grew up in the immigrant Chinese church, the issue of identity is further complexified by culture and ethnicity. Many of them have chosen to leave the church where they grew up in search of a place of belonging, a home. How can the church be that home for young adults? This dissertation argues that the church can be the caring community where they belong. Caring is paramount to those who are transitioning into adulthood. However, caring is no longer the central narrative in many churches. Today pastoral care in the church has been displaced by institutional needs and a performance-driven mentality. Therefore, theological reflection on the praxis of care in generational ministry is necessary for the Canadian Chinese Church. The message of the holistic gospel speaks of life on earth as much as it does on life after death. Notwithstanding, salvation in Jesus Christ is still the grand-narrative. It is the bedrock of all that pastoral theology proposes. This research affirms that apart from the cross of Jesus, there can be no daily deliverance. The call to care for individual needs is not to preach another gospel but to fulfill it.