ABSTRACT
When asked by messengers of John the Baptist how they could know that Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus replied: ‘Go back and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind see again, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, the good news is proclaimed to the poor and happy is the man who does not lose faith in me’ (Luke 22–23). The most rapidly growing segments of Christianity in China today are full of signs and wonders – miracles of healing, exorcisms, ecstatic experiences in which believers are seemingly transported to another world, visions of Jesus or (for Catholics) of the Virgin Mary. The prevalence of belief in these signs and wonders is puzzling to — indeed scandalous for – most secular social scientists, not to mention Chinese government officials. Modern social scientists are committed to explaining the world through reason – logic and facts – and they base their work on an assumption that nature is governed by unbreakable physical laws that do not allow for miracles. Within this framework, if people perceive signs and wonders the cause must be psychological, a transformation of perception by emotional forces that override the capacity to see the truth through reason. The challenge for social scientists is how to explain these psychological (mis)perceptions in terms of logic and empirically observed facts. And how to explain the accelerating acceptance of belief in such impossible signs and wonders.
