20. Popular Religion and Other Religious Traditions
Ackerman, Susan E. "Falun Dafa and the New Age Movement in Malaysia: Signs of Health, Symbols of Salvation." Social Compass 52(2005) 4: 495-511.
Abstract: Falun Dafa entered Malaysia in the mid-1990s as a spiritual movement for the mind-and-body development market that attracts middle-class consumption-oriented Malaysians. Its self-presentation as a New Age product tends to obscure its connections with Chinese popular religion. The movement's similar profile to other Chinese sectarian groups is accompanied by claims to absolute difference from these groups. Development of Falun Dafa during the phase of persecution and exile since 1999 has involved an ongoing encounter with new symbols and signs. The symbols of human rights, democracy and salvation are transacted with the Western media and the signs of New Age lifestyle products. These address identity needs within the diverse Malaysian Chinese community. (Source: article)
Armstrong, David E., Alcohol and Altered States in Ancestor Veneration Rituals of Zhou Dynasty China and Iron Age Palestine. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1998.
Arnold, Lauren. "Folk Goddess or Madonna? Early Missionary Encounters with the Image of Guanyin." In: Xiaoxin Wu [ed.], Encounters and Dialogues: Changing Perspectives on Chinese-Western Exchanges from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica & The Ricci Institute of Chinese-Western Cultural History, 2005. Pp. 227-238.
Berling, Judith A., "When They Go Their Separate Ways: The Collapse of the Unitary Vision of Chinese Religion in the Early Ch'ing." In: Irene Bloom & Joshua A. Fogel [eds.], Meeting of Minds: Intellectual and Religious Interaction in East Asian Traditions of Thought. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Pp. 209-237.
Billioud, Sébastien & Joël Thoraval. "Lijiao: The Return of Ceremonies Honouring Confucius in Mainland China." China Perspectives 2009/4: 82-100.
Bohr, P. Richard, "Jesus, Christianity, and Rebellion in China. The Evangelical Roots of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom." In: Roman Malek [ed.], The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ. Vol.2. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica and China-Zentrum; Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 2003. Pp.613-661.
Buffetrille, Katia, "Qui est Khri ka'i yul Iha? Dieu tibétain du terroir, dieu chinois de la litterature ou de la guerre? Un problème d'identité divine en A mdo." In: Katia Buffetrille & Hildegard [eds.], Territory and Identity in Tibet and the Himalayas: PIATS 2000: Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Leiden 2000. Leiden: Brill, 2002. Pp.135-156.
Carpenter, Mary Yeo, "Familism and Ancestor Veneration: A Look at Chinese Funeral Rites." Missiology 24 (1996): 503-517.
Chang, Wen-Chun. "Religious Attendance and Subjective Well-being in an Eastern-Culture Country: Empirical Evidence from Taiwan." Marburg Journal of Religion 14.1 (2009): online.
Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between religious attendance and subjective well-being in an Eastern-culture country. The findings of this study indicate that religious attendance has positive relationships with happiness as well as domain satisfactions with interpersonal relationship, health, and marital life, but it is not significantly related to the satisfaction with personal financial status. Interestingly, for believers of Eastern religions, those who have a higher level of relative income tend to have higher levels of satisfaction with financial status and health status, but are less satisfied with being free of worry and interpersonal relationship. Moreover, for the adherents of Eastern religions, those who have a higher educational attainment appear to report lower levels of overall happiness and the satisfaction with being free of worry. It appears that the differences in the religious practices and organizational settings between Eastern religions and Western Christianity lead to different patterns of the relationships between religious attendance and various measures of subjective well-being.
Chen, Daniel C.S., "The Notion of Soul in Chinese Folk Religion and Christian Witness." Asia Journal of Theology 11(1997)1: 72-86.
Chen, Daniel Chi-Sung, "A Christian Response to Chinese Ancestor Practices in Taiwan: An Exercise in Contextualization." Ph.D. dissertation, Asbury Theological Seminary, 1998.
Cheng, Chih-ming, "Harmony in Popular Belief and Its Relation to Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism." Inter-Religio 35(1999): 31-36.
Cheu, Hock Tong, Malay Keramat, Chinese Worshippers: the Sinicization of Malay Keramats in Malaysia. Singapore : Dept. of Malay Studies, National University of Singapore, 1997. (Seminar Papers, no.26).
Cheu Hock Tong, "The Sinicization of Malay Keramats in Malaysia." Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 71(1998)2: 29-61.
Clart, Philip, "Confucius and the Mediums: Is There a 'Popular Confucianism'?" T'oung Pao: International Journal of Chinese Studies 89(2003)1-3: 1-38.
Clart, Philip. "The Image of Jesus Christ in a Chinese Inclusivist Context: I-kuan Tao's Christology and its Implications for Interreligious Dialogue." In Chung Yun-Ying [ed.], Zongjiao, wenxue yu rensheng. Chungli: Yuanzhi Daxue Zhongwenxi, 2006. Pp.279-313.
Clart, Philip. "The Eight Immortals between Daoism and Popular Religion: Evidence from a New Sprit-Written Scripture." In: Florian C. Reiter [ed.], Foundations of Daoist Ritual: A Berlin Symposium. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2009. Pp.84-106.
Davis, Edward L., Society and the Supernatural in Song China. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2001.
Abstract: Society and the Supernatural in Song China is at once a meticulous examination of spirit possession and exorcism in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and a social history of the full panoply of China's religious practices and practitioners at the moment when she was poised to dominate the world economy. Although the Song dynasty (960-1276) is often identified with the establishment of Confucian orthodoxy, Edward Davis demonstrates the renewed vitality of the dynasty's Taoist, Buddhist, and local religious traditions. (Source: publisher's webpage)
DeBernardi, Jean, "Spiritual Warfare and Territorial Spirits: The Globalization and Localisation of a 'Practical Theology'." Religious Studies and Theology 18(1999)2: 66-96.
DeBernardi, Jean. "'Ascend to Heaven and Stand on a Cloud:' Daoist Teaching and Practice at Penang's Taishang Laojun Temple." In: The People and the Dao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour in Prof. Daniel L. Overmyer, edited by Philip Clart & Paul Crowe. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2009. Pp. 143-186.
DeBernardi, Jean. " Wudang Mountain and Mount Zion in Taiwan: Syncretic Processes in Space, Ritual Performance, and Imagination." Asian Journal of Social Science 37.1 (2009): 138-162.
Abstract: In this paper, I develop a detailed consideration of ways in which Chinese religious practitioners, including Daoists, Christians, and spirit mediums, deploy syncretism in complex fields of practice. Rather than focusing on doctrinal blending, this study emphasises the ways in which these practitioners combine elements from diverse religious traditions through the media of ritual performance, visual representation, story, and landscape. After considering the diverse ways in which syncretic processes may be deployed in a field of practice, the paper investigates three ethnographic cases, exploring ritual co-celebration at Wudang Mountain in South-central China, charismatic Christian practices in Singapore, and the recent development of Holy Mount Zion as a Christian pilgrimage site in Taiwan.
Deng Zhaoming. "Recent Millennial Movements in Mainland China." Japanese Religions 23 (1998)1/2: 99-109.
Dudbridge, Glen, "Buddhist Images in Action: Five Stories from the Tang." Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 10(1998): 377-391.
Abstract: Cette étude prend comme points de repère deux livres récemment publiés - Mantras et mandarins (Paris, 1996), du regretté Michel Strickmann, et Religious Experience and Lay Society in T'ang China (Cambridge, 1995), du présent auteur. Le premier ouvrage présente une vision ésotérique de la culture du rituel bouddhique sous la Chine des Tang; le second une vue exotérique de la culture religieuse dans son ensemble. Le premier puise ses documents dans les textes rituels du canon bouddhique; le second se base sur un recueil d'anecdotes compilé par un fonctionnaire de province du VIIIe siècle. Le présent article examine cinq récits supplémentaires du même recueil Guang yi ji, lesquels ont pour sujet des icônes bouddhiques. Leur analyse fait ressortir un contraste très net par rapport aux procédés liturgiques et à la théologie étudiés par Strickmann. Les icônes bouddhiques y sont représentées comme des outils puissants capable de protéger toute personne assez riche et pieuse pour les avoir fait réaliser. Dans le monde matériel ces images exercent leur pouvoir sur les forces de la nature; dans l'autre monde, elles influent sur les autorités judiciaires. L'argent et les soins investis dans leur fabrication sont remboursés en fidélité personnelle. L'action des image n'attend pas de procédés rituels pour se manifester: elles peuvent être efficaces même inachevées, voire à l'état de simple intention dans l'esprit du commanditaire. La théologie sous-jacente ici reflète le système séculaire des cultes sacrificiels en Chine: les dons offerts avec sincérité parviennent à vaincre la colère du dieu et à assurer sa protection en temps de besoin; affronts et outrages sont vengés dans le sang. Le dernier récit présente la vision surnaturelle d'une statue de bronze articulée, capable d'effectuer des mouvements spontanés de la tête et des extrémités - cas à verser au dossier encore diffus des icônes articulées en Chine. [Source of abstract: article.]
Ebrey, Patricia, "Sung Neo-Confucian Views on Geomancy." In: Irene Bloom & Joshua A. Fogel [eds.], Meeting of Minds: Intellectual and Religious Interaction in East Asian Traditions of Thought. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Pp.75-107.
Entenmann, Robert E., "Catholics and Society in Eighteenth-Century Sichuan." In Daniel H. Bays [ed.], Christianity in China. From the Eighteenth Century to the Present. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. Pp.8-23.
Ferris, Yeoun Sook, "An Examination of Some Themes in the Confucian Classics with Respect to Missiological Implications for the Issue of Ancestral Rites." Ph.D. dissertation, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1998.
Fisher, Gareth. "Universal Rescue: Re-making Post-Mao China in a Beijing Temple." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 2006.
Abstract: Based on two years of ethnographic research at the Temple of Universal Rescue (Guangji Si) in Beijing, this dissertation examines both the content and process by which lay Buddhist practitioners create an alternative culture of meanings, relationships, and moralities to cope with a rapidly changing society. Specific focus is given to amateur lay preachers and their followers who convene in the temple's outer courtyard each week to combine Buddhist doctrine with other ideologies such as Mao Zedong thought. The goal of the preachers and their followers is to create a moral discourse which challenges the post-Mao Chinese state's narrative of progress through globalization and market reforms from which they have been both socially and economically marginalized.
Considering both historical and contemporary analogs to the practices of the lay practitioners and the amateur preachers around which they gather, the main body of the dissertation is organized around several cultural tropes through which the practitioners strive to inhabit their own universe of relationships and meanings. The last three chapters of the thesis examine how practitioners seek to apply this new framework to the moral reform of contemporary Chinese society which they understand as passing through a period of decline. The community of practitioners at the Temple of Universal Rescue is situated within a larger consideration of lay Buddhist revival in China as a whole. The dissertation concludes by considering how an imagined community of lay Buddhists provides a system of relationships, values, and exchange that takes its adherents beyond their immediate lives and concerns but that does not demand their adherence to an inflexible ideological system. This larger lay Buddhist community and the discourses it creates have the potential to challenge both popular and official understanding of self and personhood in globalizing post-Mao China, though this potential is limited by the difficulties faced by lay Buddhists in promoting their beliefs beyond the temple walls.
Gardner, Daniel, "Ghosts and Spirits in the Sung Neo-Confucian World. Chu Hsi on kuei-shen." Journal of the American Oriental Society 115(1995)4:598-611.
Getz, Daniel A. "Popular Religion and Pure Land in Song-Dynasty Tiantai Bodhisattva Precept Ordination Ceremonies." In: William M. Bodiford [ed.], Going Forth: Visions of Buddhist Vinaya. Essays Presented in Honor of Professor Stanley Weinstein. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. Pp.161-184.
Goossaert, Vincent & Ling Fang. “Temples and Daoists in Urban China since 1980.” China Perspectives 2009/4: 32-41.
Abstract: Since 1980, the revival of Daoist temples in China’s urban environment has been developing in two different directions. On the one hand, “official” temples operated by the Daoist Association claim to embody a modern form of Daoism and offer a number of different religious services to the people. On the other hand, community temples refashion the religious life of neighbourhoods, often on the outskirt of cities. This article explores the complex relationships between these different kinds of temples, the lay groups who visit them, and the Daoist clergy who serve them.
Goossaert, Vincent & Fang Ling. “Tempel und Daoisten im urbanen China seit 1980.” China heute 29.2 (2010): 87-96.
Goossaert, Vincent. „Bureaucratie, taxation et justice. Taoïsme et construction de l’État au Jiangnan (Chine), XVIIe-XIXe siècle.“ Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales 65.4 (2010): 999-1027.
Abstract: La dimension territoriale de l’organisation socioreligieuse de la Chine moderne est étroitement liée au taoïsme et à sa vision bureaucratique du monde. L’article met en évidence ce lien dans le cas de la région du Jiangnan à l’époque moderne. Cette région est caractérisée par des élites taoïstes particulièrement bien implantées. Ces élites contrôlent des temples centraux qui entretiennent avec les communautés territoriales des rapports de type bureaucratique : elles nomment les dieux locaux de ces communautés, perçoivent un impôt symbolique de leur part, et leur donnent accès à un système de justice divine. Ce faisant, elles fonctionnent comme une branche religieuse de la bureaucratie impériale, à laquelle elles sont par ailleurs intégrées. Cette triple bureaucratie, taoïste, divine, et impériale, a fonctionné jusqu’au début du XXe siècle.
"Bureaucracy, taxation and justice : Daoism and state building in Jiangnan (China), 17th-19th centuries." The territorial dimension of early modern China’s socio-religious organization is intimately linked with Daoism and its bureaucratic worldview. This article studies such a link through a case study of the Jiangnan area during the late imperial period. Jiangnan was characterized by particularly deeply rooted Daoist elites who controlled central temples. These elites and temples oversaw local territorial communities in a bureaucratic manner, as they nominated their local gods, collected a symbolic tax from their members, and administered a system of divine justice for them. They thus operated as a religious branch of the imperial bureaucracy, to which they firmly belonged. The triple Daoist/Divine/ Imperial bureaucracy functioned in such a way until the early twentieth century.
Guo, Qitao. Ritual Opera and Mercantile Lineage: The Confucian Transformation of Popular Culture in Late Imperial Huizhou. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005.
Abstract: This book analyzes Confucian ideology as culture and culture as history by exploring the interplay between popular ritual performance of the opera Mulian and gentrified mercantile lineages in late imperial Huizhou. Mulian, originally a Buddhist tale featuring the monk Mulian's journey through the underworld to save his mother, underwent a Confucian transformation in the sixteenth century against a backdrop of vast socioeconomic, intellectual, cultural, and religious changes. The author shows how local elites appropriated the performance of Mulian, turning it into a powerful medium for conveying orthodox values and religious precepts and for negotiating local social and gender issues altered by the rising money economy. The sociocultural approach of this historical study lifts Mulian out of the exorcistic-dramatic-ethnographic milieu to which it is usually consigned. This new approach enables the author to develop an alternative interpretation of Chinese popular culture and the Confucian tradition, which in turn sheds significant new light upon the social history of late imperial China. [Source: publisher's website]
Haar, Barend J. ter, "The Rise of the Guan Yu Cult: The Taoist Connection." In: Jan A.M. De Meyer & Peter M. Engelfriet [eds.], Linked Faiths: Essays on Chinese Religion and Traditional Culture in Honour of Kristofer Schipper. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2000. Pp.184-204.
Haar, Barend J. ter, "Buddhist Inspired Options: Aspects of Lay Religious Life in the Lower Yangzi from 1100 until 1340." T'oung Pao 87(2001): 92-152.
Heine, Stephen, "Putting the 'Fox' Back into the 'Wild Fox Kôan': The Intersection of Philosophical and Popular Religious Elements in the Ch'an/Zen Tradition." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 56(1996)2:257-317.
Hymes, Robert, Way and Byway: Taoism, Local Religion, and Models of Divinity in Sung and Modern China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002.
Abstract: Using a combination of newly mined Sung sources and modern ethnography, Robert Hymes addresses questions that have perplexed China scholars in recent years. Were Chinese gods celestial officials, governing the fate and fortunes of their worshippers as China's own bureaucracy governed their worldly lives? Or were they personal beings, patrons or parents or guardians, offering protection in exchange for reverence and sacrifice? To answer these questions Hymes examines the professional exorcist sects and rising Immortals' cults of the Sung dynasty alongside ritual practices in contemporary Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as miracle tales, liturgies, spirit law codes, devotional poetry, and sacred geographies of the eleventh through thirteenth centuries. Drawing upon historical and anthropological evidence, he argues that two contrasting and contending models informed how the Chinese saw and see their gods. These models were used separately or in creative combination to articulate widely varying religious standpoints and competing ideas of both secular and divine power. Whether gods were bureaucrats or personal protectors depended, and still depends, says Hymes, on who worships them, in what setting, and for what purposes. [Source of abstract: publisher's webpage]
Janku, Andrea, "Sowing Happiness: Spiritual Competition in Famine Relief Activities in Late Nineteenth Century China." Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore / Minsu quyi 143(2004): 89-118. (Special issue on "Disasters and Religion", edited by Paul R. Katz and Wu Hsiu-ling)
Jing, Jun, The Temple of Memories: History, Power, and Morality in a Chinese Village. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996.
Jochim, Christian. "Popular Lay Sects and Confucianism: A Study Based on the Way of Unity in Postwar Taiwan." In: The People and the Dao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour in Prof. Daniel L. Overmyer, edited by Philip Clart & Paul Crowe. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2009. Pp. 83-107.
Johnson, David, "Confucian Elements in the Great Temple Festivals of Southeastern Shansi in Late Imperial Times." T'oung Pao 83 (1997) 1-3: 126-161.
Katz, Paul R., "Enlightened Alchemist or Immoral Immortal? The Growth of Lü Dongbin's Cult in Late Imperial China." In: Shahar, Meir & Robert P. Weller [eds.], Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996. Pp.70-104.
Katz, Paul R., Images of the Immortal: The Cult of Lü Dongbin at the Palace of Eternal Joy. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999.
Katz, Paul R., "Daoism and Local Cults: a Case Study of the Cult of Marshal Wen." In: Kwang-Ching Liu and Richard Shek [eds.], Heterodoxy in late Imperial China. Honolulu : University of Hawai'i Press, 2004. Pp.172-208.
Kent, Alexandra. "Creating Divine Unity: Chinese Recruitment in the Sathya Sai Baba Movement of Malaysia." Journal of Contemporary Religion 15(2001)1: 5-27.
Kleeman, Terry. "The Evolution of Daoist Cosmology and the Construction of the Common Sacred Realm." Taiwan Journal of East Asian Studies 2 (2005) 1: 89-110.
Kohn, Livia, "The Taoist Adoption of the City God." Ming Qing yanjiu 5(1996):69-108.
Kohn, Livia, God of the Dao: Lord Lao in History and Myth. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1998. See esp. ch.5: "Sacred Tales: Lord Lao as the Model for Other Gods," & ch. 6: "Art, Literature, and Talismans: Lord Lao as Popular Protector."
Kühner, Hans, Die Lehren und die Entwicklung der "Taigu-Schule". Eine dissidente Strömung in einer Epoche des Niedergangs der konfuzianischen Orthodoxie. Wiesbaden: Harassowitz, 1996.
Kuehner, Hans, "Plurality and Confucian Orthodoxy. The Views of a Neglected Qing School of Thought." Journal of Chinese Philosophy 26(1999)1: 49-88.
Kupfer, Kristin, "'Geheimgesellschaften' in der VR China: Christlich inspirierte, spirituell-religiöse Gruppierungen seit 1978." China Analysis, Working Paper No.8, 2001. (Published by the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, Trier University, Germany). Can be viewed online at http://www.asienpolitik.de/working_papers.html (pdf file).
Kupfer, Kristin, "Christlich inspirierte, spirituell-religiöse Gruppierungen in der VR China seit 1978 (I)." China heute 21(2002)4-5: 119-127.
Kupfer, Kristin, "Christlich inspirierte, spirituell-religiöse Gruppierungen in der VR China seit 1978 (II)." China heute 21(2002)6: 169-175.
Kupfer, Kristin, "Christlich inspirierte, spirituell-religiöse Gruppierungen in der VR China seit 1978 (III)." China heute 22(2003)1-2: 27-32.
Kupfer, Kristin, "Christlich inspirierte, spirituell-religiöse Gruppierungen in der VR China seit 1978 (IV)." China heute 22(2003)3: 81-83.
Kupfer, Kristin. "Emergence and Development of Christian-Inspired, Spiritual-Religious Groups in the People's Republic of China since 1978." Quest 4(2005)2: 29-54.
Laaman, Lars. Christian Heretics in Late Imperial China: the Inculturation of Christianity in 18th and Early 19th Century China. New York, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
Lagerwey, John, "Entre taoïsme et cultes populaires." Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient 83(1996): 438-458. [Note: extensive review article of Robert L. Chard's "Rituals and Scriptures of the Stove Cult", Ursula-Angelika Cedzich's "The Cult of the Wu-t'ung/Wu-hsien in History and Fiction: The Religious Roots of the Journey to the South" (both in Ritual and Scripture in Chinese Religion: Five Studies, ed. by David Johnson, 1995), Paul R. Katz's Demon Hordes and Burning Boats (1995), and Terry F. Kleeman's A God's Own Tale (1994).]
Lagerwey, John, "Dingguang Gufo: Oral and Written Sources in the Study of a Saint." Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 10(1998): 77-129.
Abstract: Saint bouddhique du dixième siècle presque inconnu en dehors de la région hakka dans le sud-est de la Chine, Dingguang gufo fait l'objet, dans toute cette région, de cycles de légendes liés aux sites sacrés ainsi qu'aux pèlerinages. Les sources historiques du onzième au treizième siècles en font à la fois un héros civilisateur et la réincarnation du Bouddha du passé (Dipamkara). Les monographies locales permettent aussi bien de suivre le développement géographique du culte que d'en comprendre le lien intime entre les gestes du saint et le paysage. Cependant, seuls l'enquête de terrain et la collecte de traditions orales donnent accès à la sociologie du culte et au phénomène de sa localisation. Cet essai se veut donc démonstration de l'indispensable alliance entre l'histoire et l'anthropologie pour l'étude de la société chinoise et de ses dieux. [Source: article]
Lagerwey, John, "Questions of Vocabulary, or, How Shall We Talk about Chinese Religion?" In: Lai Chi Tim [ed.], Daojiao yu minjian zongjiao yanjiu lunji. Hong Kong: Xuefeng Wenhua Shiye, 1999. Pp.166-181.
Lai, Chi-tim, "The Opposition of Celestial Master Taoism to Popular Cults during the Six Dynasties." Asia Major (3rd Series) 11(1998)1: 1-20.
Litzinger, Charles A., "Rural Religion and Village Organization in North China: The Catholic Challenge in the Late Nineteenth Century." In Daniel H. Bays [ed.], Christianity in China. From the Eighteenth Century to the Present. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. Pp.41-52.
Madsen, Richard P., "Beyond Orthodoxy: Catholicism as Chinese Folk Religion." In: Stephen Uhalley, Jr. & Xiaoxin Wu [eds.], China and Christianity: Burdened Past, Hopeful Future. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2001. Pp.233-249.
Nagata, Judith, "Chinese Custom and Christian Culture: Implications for Chinese Identity in Malaysia." In: Leo Suryadinata [ed.], Southeast Asian Chinese: The Socio-Cultural Dimension. Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1995. Pp.166-201.
Ng, Beng-Yeong, "Phenomenology of Trance States Seen at a Psychiatric Hospital in Singapore: A Cross-Cultural Perspective." Transcultural Psychiatry 37(2000)4: 560-579.
Abstract: This study investigates the characteristic features of trance states in three different ethnic communities (Chinese, Malays and Indians) in Singapore by administering a semi-structured interview to 55 patients with the condition and analysing witnesses' accounts. Trance disorder among the three groups displays remarkable similarities in phenomenology but differ-ences also exist. Most of the trances were reportedly precipitated by fear, anger and/or frustration. Seventy per cent of patients reported prodromal symptoms. Common manifestations include unusual vocalizations and movements, shaking, apparent immunity from pain, and unfocused or fixed gaze. The patients tend to assume the identities of gods from their own cultures. For individuals reported to be possessed by deities, the embodied identities are gods lower down in the hierarchy of Chinese gods or a minor supernatural figure on the Hindu pantheon. The recognizable prodromal symptoms and hierarchy among the gods may have therapeutic implications. [Source of abstract: article]
Ng, Kwai Hang, "Seeking the Christian Tutelage: Agency and Culture in Chinese Immigrants' Conversion to Christianity." Sociology of Religion 63(2002)2: 195-214.
Nordtvedt, Joel Thomas, "A Search for Well-Being in the Hakka Chinese View of the Spirit World: Hakka Christian Responses." Ph.D. dissertation, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1997.
Overmyer, Daniel L., "Quan-zhen Daoist Influence on Sectarian 'Precious Volumes' from the Seventeenth Century." In: Lai Chi Tim [ed.], Daojiao yu minjian zongjiao yanjiu lunji. Hong Kong: Xuefeng Wenhua Shiye, 1999. Pp.73-93.
Paper, Jordan, The Spirits are Drunk. Comparative Approaches to Chinese Religion. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995. (chapter 9)
Paper, Jordan, "Conversion from Within and Without in Chinese Religion." In: Christopher Lamb & M. Darrol Bryant [eds.], Religious Conversion: Contemporary Practices and Controversies. London & New York: Cassell, 1999. Pp.102-114.
Penny, Benjamin. "The Falun Gong, Buddhism and 'Buddhist Qigong'." Asian Studies Review 29 (2005) 1: 35-46.
Reilly, Thomas H., "The 'Shang-ti Hui' and the Transformation of Chinese Popular Society: The Impact of Taiping Christian Sectarianism." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1997.
Abstract: Nineteenth-century China was an ideological volcano, with rebellions erupting throughout the century. But only one, the Taiping Rebellion, transformed the social landscape.
There is, nevertheless, something puzzling about the Taiping impact. As broad and as devastating as the impact was, the Taiping movement, apart from the Ch'ing efforts to suppress it, seems to have resulted in no long-term transformation of Chinese society. Most scholars have sought to explain this conundrum by arguing that it was the alien quality of the Taiping faith which explains why the Taiping were prevented from sparking any long-term transformation of Chinese society. This has solved one riddle, but created another: How then, if their ideology was so alien, were the Taiping able to recruit the legions of people to their cause and to mount their large-scale rebellion in the first place?.
I argue in my dissertation that the Taiping's Christian sectarianism, while unique in Chinese history, was more connected to culture and society than scholars have recognized. Indeed, the reason for the singularly unique impact of the Taiping movement relates both to the original character of Taiping ideology and to its creative connectedness to Chinese society. My argument is composed of three parts: in the first part of my study, I examine the translation of Catholic Christianity into the Heavenly Lord sect; in the second part, I look at the content and practice of Taiping Christian sectarianism; and in the third part, I survey the contact which the Taiping initiated with the sects and secret societies.
How the Taiping rebels interpreted the divine pretensions of the emperor and what they understood as the blasphemous character of the imperial office were both directly tied to their faith in Shang-ti. This faith ultimately led them on their iconoclastic campaigns whose impact on Chinese society contributed to the transformation of popular society, winning for the rebels a legacy in Chinese history. [Source: Dissertation Abstracts International]
Reilly, Thomas H. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Rebellion and the Blasphemy of Empire. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004.
Abstract: Occupying much of imperial China's Yangzi River heartland and costing more than twenty million lives, the Taiping Rebellion (1851-64) was no ordinary peasant revolt. What most distinguished this dramatic upheaval from earlier rebellions were the spiritual beliefs of the rebels. The core of the Taiping faith focused on the belief that Shangdi, the high God of classical China, had chosen the Taiping leader, Hong Xiuquan, to establish his Heavenly Kingdom on Earth.
How were the Taiping rebels, professing this new creed, able to mount their rebellion and recruit multitudes of followers in their sweep through the empire? Thomas Reilly argues that the Taiping faith, although kindled by Protestant sources, developed into a dynamic new Chinese religion whose conception of its sovereign deity challenged the legitimacy of the Chinese empire. The Taiping rebels denounced the divine pretensions of the imperial title and the sacred character of the imperial office as blasphemous usurpations of Shangdi's title and position. In place of the imperial institution, the rebels called for restoration of the classical system of kingship. Previous rebellions had declared their contemporary dynasties corrupt and therefore in need of revival; the Taiping, by contrast, branded the entire imperial order blasphemous and in need of replacement.
In this study, Reilly emphasizes the Christian elements of the Taiping faith, showing how Protestant missionaries built on earlier Catholic efforts to translate Christianity into a Chinese idiom. Prior studies of the rebellion have failed to appreciate how Hong Xiuquan's interpretation of Christianity connected the Taiping faith to an imperial Chinese cultural and religious context. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom shows how the Bible - in particular, a Chinese translation of the Old Testament - profoundly influenced Hong and his followers, leading them to understand the first three of the Ten Commandments as an indictment of the imperial order. The rebels thus sought to destroy imperial culture along with its institutions and Confucian underpinnings, all of which they regarded as blasphemous. Strongly iconoclastic, the Taiping followers smashed religious statues and imperially approved icons throughout the lands they conquered. By such actions the Taiping Rebellion transformed - at least for its followers but to some extent for all Chinese - how Chinese people thought about religion, the imperial title and office, and the entire traditional imperial and Confucian order. [Source: publisher's website]
Reinders, Eric. Borrowed Gods and Foreign Bodies: Christian Missionaries Imagine Chinese Religion. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2004.
Abstract: To the Victorians, the Chinese were invariably "inscrutable." The meaning and provenance of this impression--and, most importantly, its workings in nineteenth-century Protestant missionary encounters with Chinese religion--are at the center of Eric Reinders's Borrowed Gods and Foreign Bodies, an enlightening look at how missionaries' religious identity, experience, and physical foreignness produced certain representations of China between 1807 and 1937.
Reinders first introduces the imaginative world of Victorian missionaries and outlines their application of mind-body dualism to the dualism of self and other. He then explores Western views of the Chinese language, especially ritual language, and Chinese ritual, particularly the kow-tow. His work offers surprising and valuable insight into the visceral nature of the Victorian response to the Chinese--and, more generally, into the nineteenth-century Western representation of China. [Source: publisher's website]
Sen, Tansen, "Astronomical Tomb Paintings from Xuanhua: Mandalas?" Ars Orientalis 29(1999): 29-54.
Abstract: While the popularity of cremation in China between the tenth and thirteenth centuries is well documented, archaeological evidence for the Buddhist impact on the practice has been lacking. A group of Liao dynasty (907-1125) tombs from the Xuanhua district in Hebei Province, belonging to Chinese residents, provides significant visual testimony to the application of Buddhist rituals in disposing of the dead by cremation. The paintings of celestial objects, drawn on tomb ceilings and framed with Buddhist motifs, show striking similarities to esoteric Star Mandalas and demonstrate the acceptance of Buddhist horoscopic astrology by the laity. Executed during the Liao-Jin transition period, the Xuanhua astronomical paintings include the earliest illustrations yet known of zodiacal symbols in the popular pantheon of East Asia. The paintings are important clues to the synthesis of Buddhist and Chinese views of, and the ways to deal with, life after death. (Source: Ars Orientalis)
Smith, Joanna F. Handlin, "Liberating Animals in Ming-Qing China: Buddhist Inspiration and Elite Imagination." Journal of Asian Studies 58(1999)1: 51-84.
St. Thecla, Adriano di, Opusculum de Sectis apud Sinenses et Tunkinenses: A Small Treatise on the Sects among the Chinese and Tonkinese. A Study of Religion in China and North Vietnam in the Eighteenth Century. Translated & Annotated by Olga Dror, in collaboration with Mariya Berezovska. Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Publications, 2002.
Standaert, Nicolas. The Interweaving of Rituals: Funerals in the Cultural Exchange between China and Europe. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2008.
Abstract: The death of the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci in China in 1610 was the occasion for demonstrations of European rituals appropriate for a Catholic priest and also of Chinese rituals appropriate to the country hosting the Jesuit community. Rather than burying Ricci immediately in a plain coffin near the church, according to their European practice, the Jesuits followed Chinese custom and kept Ricci's body for nearly a year in an air-tight Chinese-style coffin and asked the emperor for burial ground outside the city walls. Moreover, at Ricci's funeral itself, on their own initiative the Chinese performed their funerary rituals, thus starting a long and complex cultural dialogue in which they took the lead during the next century.
The Interweaving of Rituals explores the role of ritual - specifically rites related to death and funerals - in cross-cultural exchange, demonstrating a gradual interweaving of Chinese and European ritual practices at all levels of interaction in seventeenth-century China. This includes the interplay of traditional and new rituals by a Christian community of commoners, the grafting of Christian funerals onto established Chinese practices, and the sponsorship of funeral processions for Jesuit officials by the emperor. Through careful observation of the details of funerary practice, Nicolas Standaert illustrates the mechanics of two-way cultural interaction. His thoughtful analysis of the ritual exchange between two very different cultural traditions is especially relevant in today's world of global ethnic and religious tension. His insights will be of interest to a broad range of scholars, from historians to anthropologists to theologians. [Source: publisher's website]
Tan, Betty O.S., "The Contextualization of the Chinese New Year Festival." Asia Journal of Theology 15(2001)1: 115-132.
Tao, Hung-Lin; Yeh, Powen. "Religion as an Investment: Comparing the Contributions and Volunteer Frequency among Christians, Buddhists, and Folk Religionists." Southern Economic Journal 73.3 (2007): 770-790.
Abstract: The magnitude of the reward of an afterlife promised in the case of Christians is significantly greater than that in relation to both Buddhism and Taiwanese folk religions. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether these differences in the promised rewards of an afterlife across religions and the extent of the belief in the existence of an afterlife within the same religion are positively correlated with religionists' contributions to their religion and the frequency of their voluntary activities. This positive correlation is verified across different religions and within Christianity in regard to the religionists' contributions.
Thompson, Roger R., "Twilight of the Gods in the Chinese Countryside: Christians, Confucians, and the Modernizing State, 1861-1911." In Daniel H. Bays [ed.], Christianity in China. From the Eighteenth Century to the Present. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. Pp.53-72.
Tiedemann, R.G., "Christianity and Chinese 'Heterodox Sects'. Mass Conversion and Syncretism in Shandong Province in the Early Eighteenth Century." Monumenta Serica 44(1996):339-382.
Tsan, Tsong-sheng, "Ahnenkult und Christentum in Taiwan heute: eine asiatische Fallstudie." Zeitschrift für Mission 23 (1997) 3: 184-204.
Verellen, Franciscus, "Zhang Ling and the Lingjing Salt Well." In: Jacques Gernet & Marc Kalinowski [eds.] (avec la collaboration de Jean-Pierre Diény), En suivant la voie royale: mélanges offerts en hommage à Léon Vandermeersch. Paris: École Française d'Extrême-Orient, 1997. Pp.249-265.
Abstract: Zhang Ling, fondateur du mouvement taoïste des Maîtres célestes au IIe siècle de notre ère, fut également vénéré comme héros civilisateur de la région du Sichuan. Le présent article propose une nouvelle lecture de la légende de Zhang à partir de cette perspective régionale. L'image du héros au sein de la mythologie de Sichuan ancien est illustrée en particulier par les légendes ayant trait à sa création du Lingjing, puits de sel important et source majeure de richesse de la région au Moyen Age. [Source: article.]
Verellen, Franciscus, "Société et religion dans la Chine médiévale. Le regard de Du Guangting (850-933) sur son époque." Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient 87(2000): 267-282.
Abstract: La littérature taoïste narrative, avec son insistance sur la religion comme phénomène de la vie quotidienne dans des contextes sociaux variés, constitue une source précieuse pour l'histoire sociale et l'anthropologie historique de la Chine traditionnelle. Dans cet article, l'auteur examine plusieurs genres d'écrits narratifs et fictionnels de Du Guangting &endash; mirabilia, hagiographies, récits de miracles &endash; pour en dégager les observations de première main de Du sur la place de la religion dans la société contemporaine. Son témoignage sur le taoïsme en tant que foi vivante à son époque est analysé sous divers angles : liturgie, politique, conflits sociaux, clergé et société laïque, communautés taoïste et bouddhiste, famille, religion populaire, contexte social de la pratique taoïste. En conclusion, l'auteur montre que le penchant de Du Guangting pour l'observation et l'analyse des comportements religieux dans diverses situations sociales l'emporte souvent sur son intérêt pour l'exposition des doctrines et la spéculation théologique. Il s'ensuit que Du donne sur le taoïsme de la société médiévale des informations comparables, à bien des égards, aux données relatives à la vie et aux institutions religieuses recueillies par les chercheurs en sciences humaines."
"Society and religion in medieval China. Du Guangting's (850-933) observation of his own time". Taoist informal writings, with their emphasis on religion as a phenomenon of daily life in various social contexts, can provide valuable data to social historians and historical anthropologists. This paper examines several genres of informal and imaginative writings by Du Guangting &endash; mirabilia, hagiography, miracle literature &endash; for the author's first-hand observation regarding the place of religion in contemporary society. His record of Taoism as a living faith in his time is discussed under headings comprising liturgy, politics, civil unrest, clergy and laity, the Taoist and Buddhist communities, the family, popular religion, and the social environment of Taoist practice. In conclusion, it is argued that Du Guangting's penchant for observing and analysing religious behaviour in terms of social situations in many instances prevailed over his interest in doctrinal exposition or theological speculation. As a result, Du provides information on Taoism in medieval society that is in many ways comparable to data on religious life and institutions collected by modern social scientists." [Source: journal]
Wang, Cecil Kwei Heng, "Ancestor Veneration Practices and Christian Conversion in Taiwan: A Study of Perceptions of Chinese College Students in Urban Taiwan." Thesis (Ph.D.), Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2001, 402p.
Abstract: Ancestral practices have long been considered the bedrock of Chinese religion, and remain one of the most significant elements of Chinese culture.
For some four hundred years, missionaries and Chinese believers debated the appropriate Christian response to ancestral veneration practices. In recent decades and up to the present time, many Chinese aver that following cultural traditions and customs is critical for maintaining identity and social status in society. While modernization altered much of Taiwan's cultural and social environment, church leaders and scholars recognize that ancestral practices remain a major obstacle that prevents Chinese people from accepting Christ. Other church leaders, however, devalue the influence of ancestral practices and forecast its spiraling decline.
The purpose of this research is to identify what is the meaning and significance of ancestral practices for Chinese college students in urban Taiwan, and to what extent are these rites roadblocks or bridges to Christian conversion?
Based on the experiences of sixteen students from whom data were collected through in-depth qualitative interviews, and by examining these relevant materials, the significance of ancestral practices and the degree of there effect on the process of becoming Christians are identified by applying Opler's theory of themes and counter-themes.
There is supportive evidence that ancestral practices continue to wield authority because the great majority of Taiwanese households are involved in some sort of veneration rites. A trend is noted, however: the younger the generation, the less serious the religious behavior, and the less thoughtful and the less articulate the conceptualizing regarding this tradition. Furthermore, for the majority of college students residing in Taiwan's metropolitan areas, the meaning of ancestral practices is either described as "nonreligious" or merely "a little religious."
The findings of this research also reveals that ancestral practices for the church in Taiwan are more a missiological and pastoral than theological issue. Therefore, four guiding principles are provided to direct those in church leadership, and ideas for further research in related areas are suggested. [Source: Dissertation Abstracts International]
Xu Pingfang, "Les Découvertes récentes des statues de Sengqie et le culte de Sengqie." Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 10 (1998): 393-410. (Translated by Marianne Bujard)
Abstract: Sengqie was a monk of the Tang period from Heguo in Central Asia. After Sengqie died in AD 710, in a posture of meditation, his remains were buried in the Puguang wang si monastery in Sizhou. Following a series of evidential miracles, including the appearance of an image of the Eleven-faced Guanyin and repeated supernatural manifestations, Sengqie was canonized as the Grand Master of Universal Awakening Great Saint of Sizhou. By Song and Yuan times he had become the object of a popular cult. On the gilded wood-carved statue that was excavated in the cript of the stûpa of Xianyan si monastery in Ruian (Zhejiang) is engraved the inscription "Grand Master of Universal Awakening Great Saint of Sizhou." In Song and Yuan times many monasteries contained a Sengqie hall in which Sengqie heshang, Monk Sengqie, was worshipped. In recent years, statues of Sengqie have been discovered in stûpa-foundations in many places. For example, the stûpa of Ruiguang si monastery in Suzhou; the stûpa of Wanfo si monastery in Jinhua, the Baixiang ta pagoda in Wenzhou, the Tianfeng ta pagoda in Ningbo (Zhejiang), and the stûpa of Xingjiao si monastery in Shanghai all have statues of the Great Saint of Sizhou Sengqie sitting upright with his eyes closed, in an attitude of meditation. These images constitute material evidence of the popular cult of Sengqie in Tang and Song times. [Source of abstract: article]
Yip, Francis Ching-Wah, "Protestant Christianity in Contemporary China." In: James Miller [ed.], Chinese Religions in Contemporary Societies. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2006. Pp.175-205. [Note: Includes analysis of the relationship between Protestant Christianity and Chinese popular religion.]
Yü, Chün-fang, "The Cult of Kuan-yin in Ming-Ch'ing China: A Case of Confucianization of Buddhism?" In: Irene Bloom & Joshua A. Fogel [eds.], Meeting of Minds: Intellectual and Religious Interaction in East Asian Traditions of Thought. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Pp. 144-174.
Yü, Chün-fang, Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokitesvara. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.
Zhai, Jiexia Elisa. “Contrasting Trends of Religious Markets in Contemporary Mainland China and in Taiwan.” Journal of Church and State 52.1 (2010): 94-111.