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TITLE:
From Filial Piety to Religious Piety: The Immigrant Church Reconstructing Taiwanese Immigrant Families and Parent-Child Relations

AUTHOR(S):
Carolyn Chen

DOCUMENT TYPE: Article

Carolyn Chen is a post-doctoral researcher at the Center for Working Families.

Working Paper No. 43

ABSTRACT:
This paper shows how the immigrant church offers Taiwanese immigrants solutions to deal with the parenting and family problems that they encounter in the United States. Through the immigrant church, evangelical Christinity reconstructs family relationships by placing Christ as the new moral authority of the family and consecrating more democratic relationships between parents and children. Under this new moral construct of the family, evangelical Christianity simultaneously legitimates more “American” arrangements and preserves key traditional family values.