‘All-inclusive Christ’: how an Asian-friendly church from China swept the US, and isn’t slowing down

“I came alone, without knowing any friends in the US,” recalls Michael Chen of his 1997 arrival in New Jersey. “A Chinese PhD student picked me up from the airport and prepared my first meal; another brought me, and other newly arrived Chinese students, for weekly grocery shopping, which is one reason we couldn’t reject his offer to go to his church.”

Having earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering in physics from Tsinghua University, in Beijing, Chen had crossed the Pacific to pursue a master of arts in electrical and electronics engineering from Rutgers University, where he “first heard the gospel through a Taiwanese student, who brought a few other students from China and me to a denominational Christian church”, explains Chen, now in his late 40s.

“From childhood, I had been educated that any religious faith is anti-science, and therefore deceiving. Christianity, in particular, was an accomplice to Western imperialism that had invaded China and brought ill fortune to the Chinese people.”

But after attending services, then being invited to a home-cooked meal and a Bible study in 1997, and “seeing their sincere and warm faces”, Chen says he decided to “give it a try”.

“After calling on the name of Jesus, I felt a warm current in my body. I was amazed, and knew that Jesus began to live in my heart from that moment on.”

After he earned his Rutgers degree and settled into work, Chen earned an MA in theology and theological studies, between 2009 and 2012, from Fuller Theological Seminary, in Pasadena, California. Today, living in the San Gabriel Valley, east of Los Angeles, with his wife and daughter, he is working on his PhD dissertation in systematic theology at Fuller.