A search for well-being in the Hakka Chinese view of the spirit world: Hakka Christian responses

This is a missiological study on the spirit-world beliefs of Hakka Chinese in a small rural Taiwan town. The Hakkas have been considered resistant to Christianity. Their traditions run deep and most Hakkas consider Christianity to be a foreign religion.; The phenomenology of the Hakka spirit-world beliefs were first researched by way of qualitative analysis. Grounded theory provided the basis for this part of the research. Since this a missiological study, it went beyond observations of their phenomenology. Hakka Christians were enlisted to assist in evaluating these spirit-world beliefs from a Christian perspective in order to contextualize the Christian message for clearer communication of the gospel to them.; This research showed that they go to the spirit-world in order to bring order and solutions to temporal problems. Rather than asking the ultimate, high religion questions that many Christians are trying to answer, the traditional Hakkas are asking temporal, low-level questions related to personal well-being.; An important finding in the study was that if Christians are going to significantly impact the traditional Hakka people with the gospel, they need to listen to the questions these people are asking. The solution is to develop Hakka Christian theology so that it addresses their temporal needs without reducing Christianity to Christian animism. This theology must not remain at the low religion level, but draw the new believers to understand and live out the whole counsel of God. This is the challenge given to the Hakka Church in Taiwan.