“The Presence or Absence of Spiritual Life” and “Being Spiritual or Unspiritual”: A Protestant Perspective on Spirituality and Embodied Practice

Current scholarship predominantly interprets rural Christianity in China either as a continuation of folk religion or a variant of universal Christianity. However, these perspectives often overlook the agency of believers themselves. Within Christian communities influenced by Pietism, the concepts of “presence or absence of spiritual life (sheng ming/ling ming)” and “being spiritual (shu ling) or unspiritual” are central. An analysis of these notions reveals how believers understand and enact the framework of belief in practice. Based on fieldwork and theological traditions, this study demonstrates that “being spiritual” serves as a confirmation of divine grace. The pursuit of this mode of ethical life, for rural believers, entails cultivating “a body permeable to God,” which requires disciplined prayer and self-denial. Therefore, the spiritual way of life is grounded in its own unique world view and cannot be simplistically reduced to a variant of any existing belief model.