Authentic Christianity – Like Chinese Food.

I was eating some Chinese food for lunch the other day, one of the dishes that was being served was ‘Crunchy Chicken’. I didn’t get it (choosing a freshly cooked soup over the pre heated dishes out the front), but noticed that the majority of customers were ordering the Crunchy Chicken.

I wonder exactly what ties Crunchy Chicken has to authentic Chinese dishes, and if the dish is more produced for an Australian audience, and that’s created the high demand.

I like Chinese food, but the distinct thing I remember when I went to China back in 1995 was how different the food is over there. My favourite dish was Gou lao ruo, which was pork pieces wok tossed in a sweet sticky BBQ sauce with some sour (or more savoury) herbs and chilli flavours… (Gou lao ruo translates into English as sweet and sour pork). Now if you order Sweet and Sour Pork in most Chinese Restaurants in Australia you get deep fried pork balls with a sweet and sour sauce, which is runny, not BBQ flavoured and has pineapple in it.

There was no pineapple in the authentic Chinese dish I loved in Beijing!

See most Chinese Restaurants in Oz cater for an Australian customer base. They also have access to different cooking styles. In both cases this has altered the traditional style of the food to be modelled on an Australian ‘flavoured’ dish. The desire to be a successful restaurant usually overpowers the traditional cooking styles so that they compromise on the authenticity to give the consumer what they want. Over a long period of years we all in Australia have come to accept this is Chinese food, many restaurants advertise ‘authentic’ dishes, but are serving the Australianised version of authentic Chinese food.

To the point where we now expect Sweet and Sour Pork to be a serve of deep fried pork balls with a runny sauce (with pineapples) to pour over them. In some cases places that don’t serve it this way may be questioned as to why they’ve changed…

Are we a bit like that in the Church? To appeal to the society around us, or because of some of the ‘access to different styles and mediums’ we have at our disposal, do we change slightly from our authentic beliefs? Has this been going on so long that now the general population just assumes that’s what authentic Christianity is? Has it been going on so long that we believe that’s what authentic Christianity is? Do we compromise on our authenticity to give the 'customer' what they want?

Has the culture of music, entertainment, risky thrills, wanting to fit in, wanting to be uncontroversial, consumerism and materialism added ‘pineapple’ to our faith? Does this compromise the core biblical basis the church was founded on?

Like the Crunchy Chicken that was the obvious favourite for most of Brisbane’s CBD, are people outside the Church drawn into churches that offer a culturally acclimatised experience? Is that because they haven’t seen how good the authentic stuff is?

All I know is that if I had the choice of pork balls or traditional Gou lao ruo I’d be going the original and the best! I just pray that I’m also seeking an authentic faith of the same kind.