Laboring Under the Cross: An Analysis of Discursive Tension and Identity in the Context of a Chinese House Church

摘要

This study used Bakhtinean dialogism and contrapuntal analysis to examine how organizational identity in a Christian house church in China emerged through the interplay of competing discourses. I identified three sets of tensions: (a) religiosity versus secularity, (b) profit versus service, and (c) labor versus management. Church organizers and core members used many strategies to mitigate these tensions, including selection, separation, integration, and transcendence. Marginalized workers further complicated this discursive tension in resistance to a managerial monologue. The collective identity of the house church emerged from the interplay of competing discourses and was marked with complexity, contradictions, and dynamism. This research offers empirical evidence of how identity is constructed through interactions among diverse organizational members. It also contributes to the literature by focusing on the resistive voices of workers and subsequently expands the typology of tension management strategies beyond tension reduction and consent.