By Jane Sonnenschein · April 18, 2026

Over the years I have lived in Germany, I have met quite a few Christians.

Some grew up in Christian families, were baptized at the expected time, went to church on weekends, and experienced Christmas and Easter not simply as holidays, but as part of a life shaped by religion. Others did not believe very strongly at first, but later, through marriage, illness, loneliness, or some difficult period in life, slowly found their way into the church and eventually came to believe deeply.

I have watched this for years, and I have listened.

To be honest, it is not that I cannot understand why they believe. In fact, the older I get, the more I understand one thing: what many people are drawn to first may not be doctrine itself, but the feeling of finally being held by something.

There is so much suffering in life.

Your health can fail. Your marriage can fall apart. Your child may struggle. You may be living in a foreign country, carrying everything alone, with your parents far away and friends who cannot necessarily help.

At a moment like that, if there is a place telling you that your suffering is not meaningless, that your confusion is seen, that you are not walking through the darkness alone — that there is a “Lord”¹ ahead of you lighting the way, and a community behind you holding you up — of course that can be deeply comforting.

I understand that.

I really do.

And yet, even with that understanding, I have never been able to believe in “the Lord.”

I thought about this for a long time and eventually realized that the problem is not that I completely reject the idea of forces beyond human beings.

Quite the opposite.

I do believe that some things in life seem to have their own course. I believe in fate and cause and effect. I can also relate to certain Buddhist and Daoist ideas about fateful connections, moving with circumstances rather than against them, cultivating the mind, moral consequences, and the blessings that may come from good actions. When something cannot be fully explained through reason, part of me will instinctively think: perhaps that is simply fate.

So I am not someone who believes in nothing.

What I have never been able to accept is a certain kind of relationship: that a human being should become a servant of God, spend a lifetime serving Him, and place themselves in a position of complete submission.

I first became fully aware of this discomfort when I attended Christian gatherings.

When people read the Bible, I kept hearing words like “Lord,” “service,” “submission,” and “we are servants of God.” One particular idea stayed with me. The message, roughly, was that a person should become a servant at God’s feet and devote their whole life to serving Him.

Something in me immediately pulled back.

My first thought was: if God truly is so noble, great, and perfect, why would He need human beings to be His servants?

Why would He need people to spend their whole lives serving Him?

If He is truly God, why should the relationship between a human being and God be defined as one between “Lord” and “servant”?

Of course, many Christians do not see anything troubling in this.

In their understanding, “Lord” does not mean a worldly master, and “servant” does not mean a humiliated slave. It can mean humility, entrusting oneself to God, and responding to love. I have heard these explanations. I know that Christians are not deliberately trying to reduce themselves to something beneath human dignity.

But this is where I simply cannot get past it.

Because to me, the Chinese word zhǔ — “Lord” — naturally carries a sense of hierarchy.

Doesn’t zhǔ also mean master?

And if I say “my Lord,” does that not place me, at least linguistically and emotionally, in the position of a servant?

That is precisely the kind of relationship I cannot accept.

It is not that I refuse to admit how small human beings can be, nor that I refuse to believe there may be an order greater than ourselves.

What I cannot accept is the idea that, in order to find comfort, belonging, and spiritual peace, I must place myself inside a structure like this:

I am below, and He is above.

My role is to submit, and His is to guide.

I hand myself over, and He gives meaning to my life.

I have never been able to do that.

Perhaps this is also why I increasingly feel that the spiritual foundations of Chinese culture are quite different from this kind of relationship.

Chinese people, of course, also believe in gods. They worship Buddhas and deities. They talk about fate and karmic consequences. But at least as I experience it, the relationship between Chinese people and “the divine” is often not an absolute relationship between master and servant.

Much of Chinese spirituality feels more mixed, more woven into ordinary life, and closer to a practical philosophy than to a clearly separated system of belief.

When something difficult happens, you may wonder whether it was fate.

When you do something wrong, you may think about cause and effect.

When you cannot let go of something, someone may tell you to learn to let go.

When you are holding on too tightly, someone may tell you to let things take their natural course.

When you do something good, you may feel that you are accumulating moral merit.

Some of these ideas carry traces of Buddhism, some of Daoism, some of Confucianism. Others come from ideas about yin and yang, balance, Heaven’s will, moral consequence, and blessings. In everyday Chinese life, these traditions are not always clearly separated. Most people probably could not tell you exactly which sentence comes from Buddhism and which comes from Daoism.

Over time, they have blended into a fairly stable Chinese way of looking at life.

And within that way of thinking, the relationship between a person and something greater often feels less like:

“I will become your servant,”

and more like:

I try to understand you.

I respect and fear what is greater than me.

I move with it rather than blindly against it.

But I do not hand my whole self over to it.

To me, that difference is enormous.

I even think that some of the most moving Chinese myths express exactly this spirit. In stories such as Jingwei Filling the Sea, Kuafu Chasing the Sun, Yu the Great Taming the Floods, and Hou Yi Shooting Down the Suns², human beings face Heaven, fate, disaster, and forces far greater than themselves — yet they do not simply kneel and beg.

They still struggle.

The strongest thread running through these stories is something like this:

No matter how vast Heaven may be, human beings should not simply surrender.

Respect Heaven, but do not abandon human effort.

Believe in fate, but do not hand yourself over to it.

Know that many things are beyond your control, but do not give up your own agency because of that.

This is something I can understand.

So if someone asked me why I have never been able to believe in “the Lord,” my answer is actually quite simple.

It is not because I reject fate, cause and effect, or the possibility that something greater than human beings exists.

It is because I have never been able to accept the idea that the relationship between a human being and God should be understood as one between “Lord” and “servant.”

I can accept that human beings have limits. I can accept that life contains many things we cannot explain.

But I do not want to give up my agency, my dignity, and my judgment, placing all of them at the feet of a higher being simply in order to feel comforted.

Some people need a light outside themselves.

I am more accustomed to feeling my way through the darkness and slowly moving forward.

That does not mean one way is wiser or better than the other.

Some people believe that surrender is the path to peace.

I still believe that even if we accept fate, we need to keep something of our own backbone while we are here in this world.

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Notes

1. Zhǔ (主)
In Chinese Christian language, zhǔ is the standard word used for “the Lord.” But outside a specifically Christian context, the character 主 can also mean master, owner, host, or the person in charge. Because of these everyday meanings, the word can carry a stronger sense of hierarchy for some Chinese speakers than the English word “Lord” may immediately suggest. This linguistic association is central to the discomfort described in this essay: “my Lord” can emotionally evoke the corresponding position of servant or subordinate.

2. Jīngwèi tián hǎi (精卫填海), Kuāfù zhú rì (夸父逐日), Dà Yǔ zhì shuǐ (大禹治水), Hòu Yì shè rì (后羿射日)
These are well-known stories from Chinese mythology. Jingwei is a small bird who endlessly carries stones and twigs in an attempt to fill the sea; Kuafu pursues the sun across the land; Yu the Great devotes years to controlling devastating floods; and Hou Yi shoots down excess suns that are scorching the earth. Though very different stories, they are often remembered for the determination of human beings — or human-like figures — to confront overwhelming natural or cosmic forces rather than simply submit to them.

This essay is also available in other languages:

Chinese version: 为什么我始终信不进“主”

German version: Warum ich nie wirklich an „den Herrn“ glauben konnte