Culture Reproduction or Value Conflict? The Morally Fraught Experience of Chinese Christians in Virtual Communities

Abstract

Based on Robbins' understanding that both Durkhcimian and Weberian approaches could help the study of social morality, this paper explores the dynamics of cultural reproduction and value conflicts in Chinese Christians' communication on the WcChat platform. It evaluates ten religious WeChat groups' norms and activities and categorizes them into four typologies according to their group inclusiveness and interactivity. It collects group chats from the WeChat platform and reveals the forming dynamics of group verbal abuse, and further explores the Chinese Christians' morally fraught experience in the virtual communities, ‘『his research shows that Christian values as an external force encourage Christians to fulfill their gospel mission and seek their group identity. Christians exhibit their discursive power through group norms and group behaviors. Cultural authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism arc the ideological factors that underline the exclusive group behaviors of the Christian virtual comm unities. The contradiction between exclusive and inclusive group cultures reflects the incompatibility between Chinese authoritarian tradition and the call for a more open society. Under the current social structure and cultural environment, particularistic ethics and exclusive practices would still be dominant in Chinese Christian virtual communities for a comparatively long time.