As a new resident of Malaysia, the first time I saw the festival of Thaipusam in 2022, I was horrified. Metal hooks weighed down with milk pots skewered the flesh of men’s backs as tridents pierced their cheeks and tongues. Devotees pulled shrines on wheels with ropes and chains hooked to their backs.
Later in the year during the Hungry Ghost Festival and the Nine Emperor God Festival, I saw my Chinese neighbors display devotion to their gods and spirits by piercing their cheeks with long hooks and walking over hot coal.
As a Christian who grew up mostly in the United States, I was shocked by these extreme religious practices in my new home of Penang, a multicultural, multireligious state in Malaysia. In Penang, around 45 percent of the population practices Islam, 37 percent Buddhism, 8 percent Hinduism, and 4 percent Christianity.
As I got to know my neighbors of different faiths, I learned the deeper spiritual significance behind these religious rituals. For the most part, the piercings were expressions of penance, devotion, or yearning for blessings. These actions expressed the lengths to which devotees would go to connect with their gods or spirits.
At the same time, I noticed that some of my Christian neighbors desired to strive—perhaps not through piercings but through acts of deep devotion—to similarly initiate encounters with God.
It made sense. All around Penang, there are little shrines with deity statuettes on the streets and in stores. Every day, people burn incense and bow their heads with folded hands, asking for a blessing. How could my Christian neighbors not be influenced by this ubiquitous posture toward worship?
Yet the more I thought about the worship of other religions, the more I realized the strangeness—and beauty—of Christianity.
Before we adored him, God pursued us and saved us through Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross. Unlike the piercings of other religions, those on Christ’s hands and feet revealed the sacrifice God made to bring us to him.
Painful acts of devotion
The Tamil Hindu festival of Thaipusam, which this year falls on February 11, commemorates the day the Hindu goddess Parvati gave the Vel(a divine spear) to her son Murugan so he could conquer the demonic Surapadman.
Devotees put kavadi (burdens) on themselves to seek help from Murugan. These semicircular pieces of wood or steel—which can weigh up to 66 pounds—are often decorated with peacock feathers, flowers, and images of deities and balanced on the devotees’ shoulders.
“Carrying a kavadi involves some kind of body piercing to secure it,” said Jeffrey Oh, professor of world religions at Malaysia Baptist Theological Seminary. “This ritual of self-sacrifice is intended to defeat inner demons and gain Lord Murugan’s blessings.”
Many kavadi bearers say the process puts them in a trance, so they don’t feel the pain. The festival comes at the end of a 48-day period of preparation, which includes special diets, rituals, and prayer.
These piercings are also an act of penance to cleanse devotees of their sins, Oh noted. Hindus must perform acts pleasing to the deities so their gods will help them in this life and the next, with a goal of either being reborn into a higher caste or achieving moksha, liberation from the cycle of rebirth.
Meanwhile, for the Buddhists, Daoists, and adherents of Chinese folk religion who observe the Hungry Ghost Festival, the purpose of body piercing is to mark that a person is possessed by a spirit so that the medium can bless the devotees. Chinese people believe the gates of hell open during the festival, which falls in August or September, allowing spirits to roam the earth.
To appease the spirits and prevent them from harming loved ones, people make food offerings, burn paper money and incense, and entertain the spirits with Chinese opera performances. It’s also a time to pray for blessings and good fortune.
Those involved in the body-piercing ritual go through rigorous preparation beforehand, including fasting or maintaining a vegetarian diet to allow the spirit to manifest in themselves and for the devotees to receive blessings.
While body piercing for Thaipusam is for “penitence, repentance, or a vow,” in Chinese festivals, the focus is on “blessings to either be good, successful, or to be able to right a wrong,” said Mark Tan, a Malaysian pastor who formerly practiced Buddhism and Hinduism.
Piercings also play a role in another Chinese holiday, the Daoist Nine Emperor God Festival, in September or October. The objects piercing devotees include not only skewers and swords but also more unconventional items such as banners, table lamps, bikes, and other household items. Similar to Hungry Ghost Festival, body piercings mark people who are possessed by spirits to bless others. But in addition, “some devotees would pierce themselves as a sign of their devotion and penance, because they believe the Nine Emperor Gods could bestow wealth and longevity on them,” Oh said.
I discussed this with my husband, Tony, a missiologist who recently wrote a book about Christianity and Chinese folk religion in Taiwan. He noted that “for Christians, the starting place is God, who he is, and how we ought to worship him. The starting point for Chinese folk religion is humanity, what we need, and how we go about fulfilling those needs.”
He stressed that their main question is not “Are these deities real?” but rather “Are they really good at doing what I need?”
Influence on Christianity
For many Christians—not only those who come from Chinese folk religion or Hindu backgrounds—beliefs about the need to show our devotion to God to secure his blessings permeate our worship. Some believers think that long, strenuous prayers or sacrificial offerings lead to a higher likelihood that God would respond to their petitions.
“Today many Christians’ understanding of worship differs little from that of pagans, except perhaps that God is singular and the forms of worship come from traditions more or less rooted in the Scripture,” wrote Daniel I. Block in For the Glory of God. “Largely divorced from life, such worship represents a pattern of religious activities driven by a deep-seated sense of obligation to God and a concern to win his favor.”
Sometimes the influence from these beliefs is more subtle. As a pastor and a professor of worship, I often encounter the misconception that worship begins with people seeking God, to which God then responds. This is evident in the language many worship leaders use as they start services or in worship song lyrics like Hillsong’s “You’ll Come.” (“You’ll come. / Let your glory fall as you respond to us.”) These words can incorrectly teach the church that the gathered people initiate the encounter with God.
Although it is true that our God accepts offerings given by faith (Heb. 11:4) and answers to our calls and cries (Ps. 118:5), these devotional acts are not prerequisites for Christian worship. God does not withhold his goodness and love until we bring him our offerings. Unlike the Hindu gods and Chinese folk religion’s gods and spirits, our God doesn’t wait for us to show devotion first before he saves us.
In 1 John 4:10, John writes, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” God was the initiator of our salvific relationship. He loved us when we did not love him. He sought us when we were not seeking him. This is a continuous pattern we see in salvation, his covenantal relationship with Israel, and worship.
“God invites us to worship,” wrote Constance Cherry in her book The Worship Architect. “We don’t create worship; we don’t manufacture services. Rather, we respond to a person. … Worship happens when we learn to say yes in ever-increasing ways to God’s invitation to encounter him.”
Thus, our worship flows out of what God has done for us and who he is. God is the one who created us and redeemed us, and therefore we adore him. When we deserved to be pierced and punished for our wrongdoings, God chose to pierce his Son instead. Jesus took up our pain, bore our suffering, and was pierced for our transgressions (Isa. 53:4–5). He wasn’t in a trance: Jesus experienced intense physical pain, thirst, and abandonment by God. Therefore, our acts of devotion—prayers, singing, thanksgiving, and offerings—are responses to God’s sacrificial love.
This is what distinguishes Christian worship from worship in other religions: It is not driven by our needs, but it is our response to a good and loving God, the one who first reached out to us.
“In Hinduism and Buddhism, worship was burdensome, tedious, and uncertain as to the result. There was always a need for an offering for appeasement,” Tan said, looking back at his experience. But he added, “Worship to Jesus is always in thanksgiving because he has given us everything we need to be right with God forever.”
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