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Nichole Zheng
ENGL 107 Section 016

Samantha Edmiston

519 MayMarch 2017

Interview on a ChristianCommunity of Converted Christians
While there are many people in the world believe in different kinds of their own gods, some

other people believe in no god. For example, China is a country with no religious belief in god,

except a few Chinese from older generation might have some faith in some religious doctrines

from other cultures. What becomes part of Chinese faith can be understood as moral doctrines.

They followed the moral doctrines from the Chinese ancient wise men. Usually, those wise men

wrote down their doctrines mainly for the practical purpose. They had to make doctrines to make

people submissive to serve the ruling of the Chinese rulers. Therefore, Chinese are practical

about their faith and is vulnerable to deny the existence of the invisible power. Moreover, it

would be a curious enough to know a Chinese converted into another religion that has specific

faith in god, which requires the believers to really believe in the existence of the god.
For this assignment, I choose one of my friends as my interviewee.Morning Zhou is a

Chinese friend I knew who went to high school in the United States. She doesnt come from a

Christian family, which is the reason why I want to interview her as a Christian.she can represent

the community this paper is going to talk about. She is not born as a Christian. Instead, she was

transformed into one under the influence of her surroundings. Zhou said in the interview that in

China people dont The friend in interviewed is a Chinese girl named Morning Zhou who

attended high school in the United States. It should be known that in China people dont usually

have faith in god or religion except . Ssome of older generations in China might have some

experience inof Buddhism and that they. They might go to the temple, Chinese style of church,

to provide some foods and fruits as sacrifice for some gods (Zhou, 2017). YetYes, even though
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some Chinese are religious, they believe in multiple gods. Thats what makes Morning so special

that I want interview her as a community transformed herself from a skeptical into a Christian.

She also currently enrolled at the University of Arizona. Her experience with Christian started

when she went to Orange Lutheran High School in Orange Country, California. Morning came to

the United States in 2012. Being as a student who has been affected by the Christian culture, she

talked about her unique experience at the Lutheran high school. Furthermore, she mentioned a

mission trip in Bishop, CA at the Indian American Reservation organized by the school. The

mission trip changed her a lot in the view of religion. Before that, she didn't have any faith.

However, afterwards, she started to pray sometimes and participate more in the community

service to offer help to the society.

Mornings story reflects American life and culture and might lead readers into a deeper

perspective of American culture. After the interview, Im strongly affected by her story because

her story leads me in to a different perspective of the American life and culture. Before I know

further about Christian, I knew little about it. I knew It is usually known that there is a bible in

which there are some stories about how god created human beings and believers have to follow

the doctrines listed in the bible in the form of story. Besides, Christians are usually white

Americans or Europeans who live in ana abundant life in terms of both material and spiritual

ways. And I even know from tThe TV programs and advertisements that usually depict

Christians are as the kindest people in the world who would always care about the people in

need. For example, I will learn from some entertainment news reports would write about how

mucha star donates a large amount of money would be donated by some Christian celebrities to

those African children. Rarely bad news on the newspaper report about the bad news about

Christians. Surely I would also hear some passive stories about Christians. I heard before that

they like to propaganda their religion to each and every of their new neighbors so that they can
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be blessed by god. Some of people say Christians are over pious, always thinking about how to

make the world become better in a Christian way. Thats why in the old time of colonialism,

Europeans came to the Africa to promote Christian doctrines, which turned out to be a disaster to

the local Africans.

HoweverFurthermore, Morning told mesaid in the interview that she was transformed into a

Christian naturally. Nobody tries to convince her of anything. She told me that wWhen she first

came to the Orange Lutheran High School, she found out that the people there are very kind

overall. They are willing to help each other even some of the actions might hurt themselves

instead, because one of the Christian doctrines is to spread love to the most of the people. At the

beginning, she used to get annoyed by the regular praying before meals of some of her friend.

She thought that was tedious and a waste of time. but she gradually found out that people praying

before meals would care much about their table manners. Christians always want to present

themselves as a gentleman or a lady. They are elegant, considerate, helpful. The Christians in her

high school were indeed having a loving heart. They always try to help those in need. People

believes that people of religion might have a more persistent faith in love. According to Ezigbo,

theology can also turn a person into a self-giving individual who gives sacrificially to preserve

the dignity of all people (Ezigbo, 6).

However, Morning also told mebelieves that Christians are common people like every one

of us in the society. They are not god, and they are not perfect, and being a Christian doesnt

equal being a person of perfection. They might make mistake and they might have bad habits,

too. For example, sShe told mepoints out that some celebrities donate moneys just to show off

their good hearts, not because they really care about the living condition of those poor African so

much. And they, and that these celebrities happen to be a Christian living in the United State, a
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rich country that enables people to do kind staff. Whats more, Morning also points out that the

positive portraits of Christians might be due to the fact that most Christian are from European or

American white families and these communities are also dominated by the rich white, and

American society are dominated by Christians, so they use the mass media to propaganda the

good deeds of Christians. In the article Better (Red) than Dead? Celebrities, Consumption

and International Aid, Richey tells about how much influence would a celebrity would have on

the society by doing good staff in the society, which he states that celebrity donation is the best

way to raise awareness and money for the people in need (Richey, 721).

Therefore, we should know aboutpeople should understand a community by our ownwith

experience instead from the eyes or experience of others, especially in the modern days the

dominant groups take advantages of the social media to propagandize the information that would

be beneficial to themselves. we are now living in a social media echo, in which the dominant

group might control the popular social thought by their absolute possession of resources and

money. We should haveHaving faith in love and mutual respect would result in a way that we

acceptaccepting people have with different beliefs and worldviews.

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Work Cited

Ezigbo, Victor I. Introducing Christian Theologies: Voices from Global Christian Communities,
Vol. 2. Cambridge, Lutterworth Press, 2015, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1ffjnnr.

Richey, Lisa Ann, and Stefano Ponte. Better (Red) than Dead? Celebrities, Consumption and
International Aid. Third World Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 4, 2008, pp. 711729.,
www.jstor.org/stable/20455068.