Globalization and the Making of Religious Modernity in China: Transnational Religions, Local Agents, and the Study of Religion, 1800-Present 9004271511, 9789004271517

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: Globalization and the Religious Field in China, 1800–present
Part One Transformation of the Religious Field in China: The Changing Role of the State
Chapter 1 Managing Chinese Religious Pluralism in Nineteenth-Century City God Temples
Chapter 2 Political Religion in Twentieth-Century China and Its Global Dimension
Part Two Global Currents and Their Local Refractions
Chapter 3 The Christian Century of South China: Church, State, and Community in Chaozhou (1860–1990)
Chapter 4 Sectarian Religions and Globalization in Nineteenth-Century China: The Wanbao baojuan 萬寳寶卷 (1858) and Other Examples
Chapter 5 Beyond Globalization and Secularization: Changing Religion and Philanthropy in Lukang, Taiwan
Chapter 6 ‘Mrs. Ma’ and ‘Ms. Xu’: On the Attractiveness of Denoting Oneself a ‘Buddhist’ in the Increasingly Transnational Milieu of Urban Taiwan
Chapter 7 Globalization vs. Localization: Remaking the Cult of Confucius in Contemporary Quzhou
Chapter 8 Tibetan Buddhist Books in a Digital Age
Part Three Chinese-Western Encounters: Global Visions and Cultural Flows
Chapter 9 A Modern Ruist Religious Vision of a Global Unity: Kang Youwei’s Utopian Vision and Its Humanistic Religious Refraction in European Sinology
Chapter 10 The Buddhist-Christian Encounter in Modern China and the Globalization of Culture
Part Four Knowledge Transfer, Academic Networks, Identity, and the Study of Religions
Chapter 11 How the ‘Science of Religion’ (zongjiaoxue) as a Discipline Globalized ‘Religion’ in Late Qing and Republican China, 1890–1949—Global Concepts, Knowledge Transfer, and Local Discourses
Chapter 12 Negotiating Cultural and Religious Identities in the Encounter with the ‘Other’: Global and Local Perspectives in the Historiography of Late Qing/Early Republican Christian Missions
Chapter 13 Sino-Christian Theology: Treading a Fine Line between Self-Determination and Globalization
Index

Citation preview

Globalization and the Making of Religious Modernity in China

Religion in Chinese Societies Edited by Kenneth Dean, McGill University Richard Madsen, University of California, San Diego David Palmer, University of Hong Kong

VOLUME 7

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/rics

Globalization and the Making of Religious Modernity in China Transnational Religions, Local Agents, and the Study of Religion, 1800–Present Edited by

Thomas Jansen, Thoralf Klein and Christian Meyer

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover image: The cover image, taken by Linda McMillan in 2012, shows one of the entrances to Chongan Temple in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China. The characters on the suspended sign read: “Welcome to Chongan Temple”. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Globalization and the making of religious modernity in China : transnational religions, local agents, and the study of religion, 1800–present / edited by Thomas Jansen, Thoralf Klein, and Christian Meyer.   pages cm. — (Religion in chinese societies, ISSN 1877-6264 ; VOLUME 7)  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 978-90-04-27150-0 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-27151-7 (e-book) 1. China—Religion. 2. Globalization. 3. Globalization—Religious aspects. I. Jansen, Thomas, 1965– editor of compilation.  BL1803.G56 2014  200.951—dc23

2014002468

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1877-6264 isbn 978 90 04 27150 0 (hardback) isbn 978 90 04 27151 7 (e-book) Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Global Oriental and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. Brill has made all reasonable efforts to trace all rights holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful the publisher welcomes communications from copyright holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Contents Acknowledgements  vii Notes on Contributors  viii Introduction: Globalization and the Religious Field in China, 1800–Present  1 Thomas Jansen, Thoralf Klein and Christian Meyer

PART 1 Transformation of the Religious Field in China: The Changing Role of the State  27 1 Managing Chinese Religious Pluralism in Nineteenth-Century City God Temples  29 Vincent Goossaert 2 Political Religion in Twentieth-Century China and Its Global Dimension  52 Thoralf Klein

Part 2 Global Currents and Their Local Refractions  91 3 The Christian Century of South China: Church, State, and Community in Chaozhou (1860–1990)  93 Joseph Tse-Hei Lee 4 Sectarian Religions and Globalization in Nineteenth-Century China: The Wanbao baojuan 萬寳寶卷 (1858) and Other Examples  115 Thomas Jansen 5 Beyond Globalization and Secularization: Changing Religion and Philanthropy in Lukang, Taiwan  136 Robert P. Weller 6 ‘Mrs. Ma’ and ‘Ms. Xu’: On the Attractiveness of Denoting Oneself a ‘Buddhist’ in the Increasingly Transnational Milieu of Urban Taiwan  156 Esther-Maria Guggenmos

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7 Globalization vs. Localization: Remaking the Cult of Confucius in Contemporary Quzhou  182 Xiaobing Wang-Riese 8 Tibetan Buddhist Books in a Digital Age  208 Hildegard Diemberger

Part 3 Chinese-Western Encounters: Global Visions and Cultural Flows  233 9 A Modern Ruist Religious Vision of a Global Unity: Kang Youwei’s Utopian Vision and Its Humanistic Religious Refraction in European Sinology  235 Lauren Pfister 10 The Buddhist-Christian Encounter in Modern China and the Globalization of Culture  272 Lai Pan-chiu

Part 4 Knowledge Transfer, Academic Networks, Identity, and the Study of Religions  295 11 How the ‘Science of Religion’ (zongjiaoxue) as a Discipline Globalized ‘Religion’ in Late Qing and Republican China, 1890–1949—Global Concepts, Knowledge Transfer, and Local Discourses  297 Christian Meyer 12 Negotiating Cultural and Religious Identities in the Encounter with the ‘Other’: Global and Local Perspectives in the Historiography of Late Qing/Early Republican Christian Missions  342 Dirk Kuhlmann 13 Sino-Christian Theology: Treading a Fine Line between Self-Determination and Globalization  379 Chloë Starr Index  411

Acknowledgements This volume is the outcome of a conference, ‘Chinese Religions and Globalisation, 1800–Present,’ held at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, on 3–6 July 2008. At the conference itself seventeen papers were presented, thirteen of which are collected here. The authors benefited greatly from the participation of scholars not represented in this volume: Timothy Barrett, Adam Chau, Sungwu Cho, Michael Dillon, Stephan Feuchtwang, Monika Gänßbauer, Joachim Gentz, Jennifer Oldstone-Moore, Hans van de Ven, and Zhang Ling. We express our sincere gratitude to Brill’s anonymous reviewer, whose perceptive and critical comments on the manuscript have very much helped to make this a better book. The conference was supported by a British Academy Small Research Grant and a Conference Grant from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. We would like to express our gratitude to both institutions for their generous support. The editors are grateful to Linda McMillan who kindly allowed us to use one of her photos to grace the cover of our volume. Last but not least we would like to thank the editors of the “Religion in Chinese Societies” series for including our volume in their series. TJ, TK, CM

Notes on Contributors Hildegard Diemberger is one of the directors of the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge. She has published widely on the anthropology of Tibet. She authored the monograph When a Woman becomes a Religious Dynasty: The Samding Dorje Phagmo of Tibet (2007) and with Pasang Wangdu translated into English important Tibetan historical works (dBa’ bzhed, The Royal Narrative Concerning the Bringing of Buddha’s Doctrine to Tibet, 2000; Ngag dbang skal ldan rgya mtsho: Shel dkar chos ’byung, History of the White Crystal, Religions and Politics of Southern La stod, 1996). Vincent Goossaert obtained his PhD at EPHE, Paris (1997), has been a research fellow at CNRS between 1998 and 2012 and is now Professor of Daoist Studies at EPHE (Ecole pratique des hautes études); he has served as the Deputy Director of the Societies-Religions-Secularisms Institute (GSRL, Paris) since 2004. In 2007, he was ICS Visiting Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research deals with the social history of premodern and modern Chinese religion. He has published books on Chinese temples, anticlericalism in China, Chinese dietary taboos, and most recently The Peking Taoists, 1800– 1949: A Social History of Urban Clerics (2007) and (with David Palmer) The Religious Question in Modern China (2011). Esther-Maria Guggenmos is Research Fellow at the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities “Fate, Freedom and Prognostication,” University of ErlangenNuremberg, Germany. In her PhD thesis “On the Attractiveness of Denoting Oneself a Lay Buddhist in Contemporary Urban Taiwan” (Ghent University, 2010), she analyzed narrative biographical interviews with lay Buddhists in the context of social change and the reformation of Buddhism. Her current research focuses on Buddhist practices of divination, especially in Early Medieval China. Thomas Jansen is Lecturer for Chinese Studies and Director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Lampeter Campus. He is the author of Höfische Öffentlichkeit im frühmittelalterlichen China: Debatten im Salon des

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Prinzen Xiao Ziliang (2000) and several articles on early medieval China. His current project is a monograph entitled Religious Text Production in Late Imperial China: Social, Religious, and Performative Aspects of Chinese Sectarian Scriptures from the 16th to 19th centuries, which will explore the manifold interactions between religious texts and their users. Thoralf Klein is Senior Lecturer in Modern History at Loughborough University, UK, and a former visiting fellow of the College of Cultural Studies, Konstanz, Germany. He has published widely on the social and cultural history of modern China, the history of imperialism and colonialism, Christian missions and transnational/global history. His most recent publication is a special issue on Beyond the market: Exploring the religious field in modern China (in Religion 41:4 [2011], co-edited with Christian Meyer). He is currently working on a book project tracing political religion through twentieth-century China. Dirk Kuhlmann obtained his PhD from the University of Trier. He is a member of the editorial office of the Monumenta Serica Institute, Sankt Augustin and has been part-time lecturer at the University of Trier. He specializes in the history of Christianity in late Qing/early Republic China and the historiography of the historical science in the People’s Republic of China. Lai Pan-chiu is Professor in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. He has published widely on Christian theology, Christianity in China and inter-religious issues, especially BuddhistChristian dialogue. His most recent volume is Sino-Christian Theology: A Theological Qua Cultural Movement in Contemporary China (2010, co-edited with Jason Lam). Joseph Tse-Hei Lee is Professor of History and Co-director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Pace University in New York, USA. He is the author of The Bible and the Gun: Christianity in South China, 1860–1900 (New York: Routledge, 2003; Chinese edition, Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2010), and the co-editor of Marginalization in China: Recasting Minority Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and China’s Rise to Power: Conceptions of State Governance (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

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Christian Meyer is currently Replacement Professor in Religious Studies and Adjunct Associate Professor (Privatdozent) in Sinology at the University of ErlangenNuremberg, Germany. He was an Assistant Professor in Sinology at the University of Leipzig from 2003 until 2011 and has been visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), Academia Sinica (Taipei) and the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is also Research Fellow at the Institute of Sino-Christian Studies, Hong Kong and Distinguished Researcher at Renmin University of China, Peking. He authored the book Ritendiskussionen am Hof der nördlichen Song-Dynastie 1034–1093 (2008) and has recently finished a book manuscript on the adoption of Religious Studies in Late Imperial and Republican China. Lauren Pfister has been a Professor in the Religion and Philosophy Department at Hong Kong Baptist University since 2005, and is currently the Director of the Centre for Sino-Christian Studies at the same university. In 2011, he became a Founding Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities, and has served on its Executive Committee since 2012. Most recently he is leading an interdisciplinary group of HKBU colleagues to create a multilingual research archive of modern and contemporary translations of Chinese Classics by overseas sinologists. Serving as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Chinese Philosophy since 1997, he has continued to pursue research in nineteenth and twentieth century Ruist (“Confucian”) philosophy, the history of sinology, hermeneutics as well as comparative philosophical and comparative religious studies. Chloë Starr is Assistant Professor of Asian Christianity and Theology at Yale Divinity School. She has been a visiting scholar at Renmin University of China (Beijing) and is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Sino-Christian Studies, Hong Kong. She is the author of Red-light Novels of the Late Qing (2007) and editor of Reading Christian Scriptures in China (2008) and co-editor of The Quest for Gentility in China (2007). Xiaobing Wang-Riese is Professor of Chinese folklore at the Institute of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage at Sun Yat-sen University (Guangzhou, China). Her research focuses on Chinese folklore and cultural anthropology. She published Zwischen Moderne und Tradition. Leben und Werk des zeitgenössischen chinesischen

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Schriftstellers Zhang Chengzhi in 2004 and co-edited (with Thomas O. Höllmann) Time and Ritual in Early China (2009). She has also published several books in the Chinese language and is currently conducting a study of the Confucius Cult in modern China. Robert P. Weller is Professor of Anthropology and Research Associate at the Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs at Boston University. His most recent book is Rethinking Pluralism: Ritual, Experience and Ambiguity (2012, co-authored with A. Seligman). Other recent books include Discovering Nature: Globalization and Environmental Culture in China and Taiwan (2006), which explores the introduction of new ways of thinking about humanity and nature in twentieth-century China and Taiwan, and Alternate Civilities: Chinese Culture and the Prospects for Democracy (1999), which looks at the role of Chinese culture in democratization. Weller’s present research focuses on the role of religion in creating public social benefits in Chinese communities in China, Malaysia, and Taiwan.

Introduction: Globalization and the Religious Field in China, 1800–present Thomas Jansen, Thoralf Klein and Christian Meyer ‘Religion,’ like modernity, science and human rights, has become a globally generalized concept.1 Since the nineteenth century, it appears as a separate subject in modern discourses across the globe. We tend to think of religion as a distinct domain of human activity with its own institutions, practices, and imaginaries, comparable but clearly separate from other areas such as law, education, economy or science. Generally, in everyday communication we have no big problems deciding whether a particular idea or practice falls in the religion category or not. Thus, religion is a compelling general concept despite the fact that what is accepted by individuals or communities as ‘religious’ practices or ideas is subject to significant geographical and historical variation. Some sociologists of religion go even further in their analysis of the global status of religion. They ascribe a systemic quality to religion which goes beyond its ubiquity as an international news item or subject of intellectual discourse. Peter Beyer, whose work on the interrelationship between religion and globalization has deeply influenced the academic debate in recent years, postulates the existence of a distinctive religious function system of global society equivalent to the global political or economic system: The variable and contested understanding that we have of the word “religion” and its various cognates (sometimes neologisms) in other languages are all significantly conditioned by the historical emergence of a particular social structure, an institutional domain, which is the religious system of global society.2 As a historical phenomenon, neither ‘religion’ nor the existence of a global religious system can be taken for granted. Following another eminent sociologist 1 We use inverted commas to emphasize that the term does not denote a generic object but refers to a social and cultural construct with variable meaning. We shall henceforth mostly omit the use of inverted commas for stylistic reasons. 2 Beyer (2006), p. 3 (emphasis added). Beyer adapts the idea of a “function system” from the work of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann who has analyzed “religion” as one of several distinct societal subsystems. See Luhmann 2000.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004271517_002

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of religion, Roland Robertson, Beyer emphasizes the historicity of the global category religion.3 For both Beyer and Robertson, the development of ‘religion’ is inextricably linked to the globalization of Western societal modernity. Driven by the civilizing mission of European imperialism, globalizing religion was able to simultaneously draw on the seemingly opposed ideas and institutions of Christianity and secular modernism, the latter espousing a strong emphasis on scientific progress and an all-encompassing role for the state.4 Stressing the interrelatedness of religious globalization and imperial expansion does not imply, however, a one-directional imposition of a pre-existent European concept of religion onto the rest of the world. On the contrary, the global expansion of European influence provided the historical backdrop against which the discursive construction and institutionalization of religion(s) around the world took place, often but not always or exclusively in response to the Western challenge. The “positional superiority” that Europe undoubtedly had since the late eighteenth century did not necessarily translate into “absolute discursive authority” in other parts of the world.5 Recent studies have highlighted the interactional processes that shaped the encounter between, for instance, European Christianity and non-European civilizations and transformed both the observer and the observed. Hence, the globalized European understanding of religion “is as much a product of globalization as it is a contributor to it.”6 In order to understand the fate of religion in its manifold intellectual and institutional expressions, a critical reconstruction of a “comparative genealogy of religion” is necessary.7 Such a genealogy has the task to not only analyze how religion as a concept has been invented, challenged, modified or rejected within and across national boundaries in a globalizing world. It must also analyze the intellectual, social, political and economic forces that both shaped and were themselves shaped by the emergence and development of what until now has remained a highly contested category. This is the broader context into which the present volume inserts itself. It explores a hitherto understudied topic:8 the transformation of ‘Chinese 3 See Robertson (2001), pp. 4–11; Beyer (2001), (2006), pp. 65–79. 4 The expansion of ‘imperial’ religions is described in Bayly (2004), pp. 325–65. See also Dubois (2009), pp. 2–3. 5 DuBois (2009), p. 5. 6 Beyer (2006), p. 74. 7 Robertson (1988). See Beyer (2006) and (1998). 8 Cf. the discussion in Chandler (2004), pp. 4–7. This is one of the few studies on the topic of this volume, albeit limited to a contemporary perspective.

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r­ eligions’ (and the Chinese religious field) from the nineteenth century to the present, in the context of globalization. Our aim is, in other words, to widen the study of religion in China by adding a global perspective. For even though a number of substantial studies in recent years have dealt with, for example, the influence of the Christian model on Buddhist reform movements,9 the role of Christian missions,10 or the reception of Western knowledge,11 the study of religion in China and research on globalization have largely proceeded independently, thus calling for an approach that systematically examines the interconnections between these two areas. The authors in this volume do not necessarily subscribe to Beyer’s view of the existence of a distinct global religious function system in the Luhmannian sense, although some of them might do so. All contributors do share the view, however, that it is worthwhile to take a fresh look at Chinese religions from a new perspective that brings into focus not only the inherent cultural expressions and tendencies we recognize as religious in China, but also how they engaged with the emergent category religion itself. To do so requires historically oriented case studies of a more limited geographical range. Our aim, therefore, is not to prove the existence of a global religious system. Instead, and rather more modestly, we want to undertake some of the necessary archaeological and historical groundwork in the area of Chinese religions which at a later stage may underpin the description of such a global religious system. Without detailed case studies, generalizations about the nature of religions in global society will remain superficial, one-sided or simply wrong. For example, Christian Meyer’s close examination of the institutionalization of the discipline of ‘religious studies’ or ‘science of religion’ (zongjiaoxue 宗教學) in Republican China (1912–1949) challenges the view held by Beyer that Chinese civilization represents an exceptional case in the history of globalized ‘religion’ in the sense that educated Chinese mostly rejected the concept and, in contrast to Hindus in South East Asia and members of other traditions, did not actively engage in the project of re-imagining and re-modelling their indigenous religious traditions to fit in with the new category ‘religion.’12 As we attempt to complicate this category and its historical emergence in China, it is necessary at this point to clarify what we mean by ‘religion,’ the ‘religious field’ and ‘China.’ 9 10 11 12

See, among others, Lai and von Brück (2001). See R.G. Tiedemann’s (2009, 2010) extremely useful handbooks on this area of research. See, for example, Lackner and Vittinghoff (2004). See Meyer’s article in this volume with reference to Robertson (2001) and Beyer (2006), pp. 225–44.

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Conceptual and Terminological Frameworks

1.1 ‘Religion’ In the context of this volume ‘religion’ is not used as an a priori category, but is instead understood to be a social and cultural construct with variable meaning. We have adopted two main strategies to avoid reifying the concept and retain its variability in different contexts. Firstly, we have purposely chosen to adopt a wide definition of religion, one that allows us to include a wider range of phenomena and perspectives on religion (e.g. political religion, ritual and religion, humanism and religion). For if we are to examine the transformation of the religious landscape in China and the emergence of a specifically modern understanding of religion under the influence of globalization, we ought not start from a clear-cut definition of religion and the assumption of well-­established boundaries between what counts as religion and what does not, as these are the outcomes of the process we seek to elucidate. A wider understanding of religion allows us to include in our analysis precisely those phenomena and unrealized potentialities which despite being influential at a certain moment in time, were ultimately dismissed as being incongruent with the modern category religion. Secondly, we have opted for using the plural ‘religions’ instead of the singular ‘religion’ when talking about concrete manifestations rather than a concept or system. We concur with Stephen Feuchtwang and Vincent Goossaert, who, despite preferring the singular in some of their work, acknowledge the existence of “a pluralistic religious system, characterized by many ritual and theological continuities as well as many distinctions, and sometimes tensions, between groups and practices.”13 However, both scholars identify ‘Chinese religion’ exclusively with the “coexistence and cooperation of the three institutionalized religions of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism together with the local cults and ritual traditions and their specialists” that are conveniently subsumed under the label ‘popular religion.’14 We agree that these phenomena of traditional Chinese religions form a complex whole in which the component parts interact with one another and are embedded in a political, legal, and socio-cultural framework in such a peculiar way as to distinguish it not only from similar settings in other world regions, but also from those in

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Goossaert (2006), p. 310; cf. Feuchtwang (2010) and (1991), Yang (1961). For a discussion of diverging views on the idea of ‘Chinese religion,’ or ‘religions,’ in the context of the sanjiao discourse, cf. also Gentz (2006), pp. 17–9. Goossaert (2006), p. 310.

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­ eighboring countries such as Korea and Japan.15 By speaking of Chinese relin gions in the plural, however, we mean to emphasize the openness and fluidity of that complex whole. This is important in different ways. First, it points to the heterogeneity of Chinese religious teachings and practices, even with regard to the institutionalized Three Teachings (or religions). As Lauren Pfister demonstrates in his contribution to this volume, using the example of Confucianism, the construction of these teachings as ‘isms’ was the cornerstone of a project to transform them into unified doctrinal systems similar to Christianity. Second, using the plural adds flexibility to our understanding of what constitutes a ‘Chinese’ religion in making it possible to include new forms of religion. This applies foremost to the major ‘world religions’—a concept that is itself problematic—that entered the Chinese religious scene relatively late, Christianity and Islam. Of these two world religions, the influence of the “Christian normative model of religion”16 was more pervasive in the age of ‘Western’ global ascendancy.17 Christianity exerted a strong influence on Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist leaders who tried to emulate the global status of the Western religion and dismissed some of their earlier practices of worship and ritual as ‘superstitious.’ Islam undoubtedly presented (and still presents) significant challenges to China’s rulers, but many of those challenges had remained the same since Muslim interaction with Chinese society began in the early Tang 唐 period (618–906). The great shock to the system came from the modern West, with its seemingly superior taxonomies that were associated with Christianity and the privileged status of Christian missions. The importance of Christianity is reflected in this volume in the fact that no less than four articles focus explicitly on the history of Christianity in China, while this important theme is also discussed by other contributors. 1.2 ‘Religious Field’ Vincent Goossaert and David Palmer have argued that in pre-nineteenth century China, “religious knowledge and authority were differentially distributed, not only among several different institutions and categories of clerics, but also among the laypersons who controlled most temples, forming highly complex social fields that did not include an autonomous space designated as ‘religion.’ ”18 It was only in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that a 15 16 17 18

For Korea cf. Grayson (2002), pp. 120–4, 217; for Japan see Kuroda (1981). Goossaert (2008), p. 213. Ibid., p. 211. Goossaert and Palmer (2011), p. 10.

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self-conscious religious field in Bourdieu’s terms was established “by Christian missionaries and by secularizing political reformers and revolutionaries.”19 Both groups sought to define an autonomous sphere for religion against the broader background of China’s religious landscape. Within this defined sphere, religious beliefs and practices would be controlled by a centralized organizational structure administered by religious specialists, while religious activities deemed incompatible with this new normative understanding of religion would be relegated to the status of ‘superstition’ (or be secularized). We use ‘religious field’ in Bourdieu’s sense but with the important qualifications made by Goossaert and Palmer. 1.3 ‘China’ If globalization is understood as a process that transcends the nation-state both empirically and conceptually, it might at first sight seem odd to choose an entity like ‘China’ as the locus for analyzing that process. However, as Sebastian Conrad has argued, globalization and nationalism were dependent on each other, and the stabilization and territorialization of the nation-state were two of the major effects of global integration in the period up to the First World War.20 With regard to China, a number of recent studies have also shown that the notion of a Chinese nation developed against the backdrop of an increasingly global consciousness.21 Secondly, thinking and writing about globalization should remind us of the fact that global cultural exchanges and flows do not simply occur in a pre-­ existing spatial landscape. “Instead,” as Arjun Appadurai has written, “it is historical agents, institutions, actors, powers that make the geography.”22 This insight raises interesting theoretical questions about ‘locality’ as a phenomenological property of social life and how the global forms of circulation and interaction impact on the condition of its production.23 By choosing to focus on China or places in China, we not only seek to situate our examination in actual localities, be they at a national, regional or local level, but also to consider how actual localities, “neighborhoods” in Appadurai’s words, imagine, position and contextualize themselves in relation to other localities within a wider landscape. Xiaobing Wang-Riese’s article on Quzhou 衢州 in this volume is a good example of such positioning. 19 Ibid. 20 Conrad (2010), pp. 1 ff., 15–19, Conrad (2008). 21 E.g. Mühlhahn (2009), Karl (2002). 22 Appadurai (2010), p. 9. 23 See Appadurai (2001).

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‘China’ has eluded any precise definition. Not only did China mean different things at different times, but different signifiers were in use depending on whether one was speaking of China as a cultural or a political entity.24 In addition, in the modern era there was probably never a fixed territory to match the idea of ‘China,’ for two main reasons. First, from its beginning after the Chinese revolution in 1911, the Chinese nation-state has laid claim to the heritage of the multi-ethnic Qing 清 Empire.25 It therefore included groups of people who became (or were made) Chinese citizens, but did not necessarily regard themselves as ‘Chinese.’ Some of these, like Islamic Turkic-speaking ethnic groups, Tibetans, and Mongols, have their own distinctive religious traditions. Second, if one equates ‘China’ with the territory of the Qing Empire (which in itself is contestable), then clearly this territory has not been controlled by a unified political power since the nineteenth century. Between the 1840s and the late 1990s, parts thereof were under the sway of alien governments, and some of these areas (such as Outer Mongolia and parts of the Russian Far East) have been wrested from subordination to ‘China’ for good. After 1949, the split into two competing states, the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China on Taiwan, has given rise to renewed and still ongoing controversies over what constitutes China and its territory at both the international and domestic levels.26 Despite being quite aware of the political sensitivities surrounding these issues, we think that the difficulty to pinpoint what actually constitutes China warrants an inclusive approach, which is why this volume contains a chapter on Tibet as well as two on Taiwan. At the same time, the contributions to this volume pay particular attention to how individuals, professional groups (e.g. academics), religions, and the state interrelate during the period under consideration. We have deliberately adopted a framework of multiple actors in order to avoid an exclusive focus “on the agency of the modern Chinese state-in-formation.”27 One cannot deny that the renewal and expansion of the modern state had a profound impact on the transformation of the religious field in China. However, a dichotomous and top-down framework of explanation (state-religion) runs the risk of overstating the powers of convergence by assuming that the relationships between religious groups, institutions and the 24 25 26 27

Lackner (1998), pp. 325–30; see also Kirby (2005). For the multi-ethnic character of the Qing Empire and its legacy, see Crossley, Siu and Sutton (2006), Millward et al. (2004), Tighe (2005). Copper (2006), Wachman (2007), Hsiau (2000). Yang (2008), p. 6. Cf. also the volume edited by Yoshiko Ashiwa and David L. Wank (2009), who adopt a similar approach to ours.

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state at various levels have become increasingly homogenized.28 Our aim is, by contrast, to show how global flows have been reworked or even rejected at every level of the Chinese religious landscape. 2

Aims and Structure

Before we move on to introduce the contributions to this volume in greater detail, the reader can expect clarification of what this book tries to achieve and what has deliberately been left out. While it has been our aim to provide carefully researched case studies, we did not attempt to present a comprehensive account of the outward expansion of Chinese religions over the last two centuries. For example, this volume does not include a contribution on the Falun Gong and its world-spanning network of local groups that has developed since 2000. One could also mention the huge influence Chinese ideas and practices appearing under the loose label ‘Daoism’ have had on the life-style of many people in Europe and North America; or the undoubtedly important manifestations of Chinese religiosity in Chinatowns across the world; or, to conclude this certainly non-exhaustive list, the deep transnational links that exist between China and Chinese populations in Southeast Asia.29 While the editors acknowledge that these are all important aspects of contemporary Chinese religious life that would have made most interesting additions to this volume, our focus was not on documenting the undeniable dissemination of Chinese religions across the world and far beyond the boundaries of Chinese ethnic communities.30 Such a broad approach to Chinese religions and globalization would have gone beyond the scope of the present volume without necessarily adding to the coherence of the book as a whole. Our main intention is to better understand how the emergence of global religions and ‘religion’ as a global concept has shaped and been shaped by the religious field in China. The present volume is divided into four parts that roughly correspond to the following four key questions that guided our investigation. However, the structure is not intended to be very rigid. Perspectives are often overlapping, because, as William Kirby has noted, “the lines between things international, or global, or external, on the one hand, and things ‘Chinese,’ on the other

28 29 30

See Weller (2006), p. 7. Palmer (2007), Madsen and Siegler (2011). See Madsen and Siegler (2011).

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hand, are in many realms nearly impossible to draw.”31 The four guiding questions are: 1. 2.

3. 4.

How has China’s religious landscape been transformed politically under the impact of global influences since 1800? In what ways are globalizing/global processes interlinked with localizing/local tendencies at various levels? More generally, what is the relationship between the global and the local during the period under investigation? What visions or concepts of global religiosity have been/are being developed by either individuals or groups and how do they position themselves within these visions/concepts? How does the newly emerging global academic field relate to the religious field? In particular, how do the academic disciplines that are concerned with the study of religion, especially Religious Studies and Theology, engage in or even overlap with the religious field in China? In what ways are these disciplines, their transregional channels of transfer as well as their universalized concepts, affected by new patterns of secularization and globalization?

Thus, the first part focuses on the political aspects of the transformation of the Chinese religious landscape since 1800. Articles in this part look mainly at the structural dynamics between the state and religion, trying to identify both major shifts as well as continuities regarding the place of religion in the modern Chinese state. The case studies in Part II examine the interplay between global currents and local responses, based on the insight that processes of globalization are always simultaneously connected with localizing, regionalizing, or nationalizing tendencies. In Part III, the focus is on the global visions of early twentieth-century Chinese religious reformers and how their visions took shape not least through the encounter with Christian missionaries. The articles in the final Part IV scrutinize the establishment of an academic field in China which included different subfields related to research on religion and which was also closely involved in the (self-) definition of a ‘religious field’ in China.

31

Kirby (2006), p. 4.

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Transformation of the Religious Field in China: The Changing Role of the State The two contributions in the first part seek to break new ground in conceptualizing China’s religious landscape in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in general terms, but with reference to the particular role of the state. The two articles complement each other as the two authors deal with the theme of this volume from opposite ends of the local-global spectrum. Vincent Goossaert’s analysis of religious pluralism in and around the ­nineteenth-century City God Temples marks an important starting point in that he takes a look at late imperial local religion in its ordinary aspects, untouched by the influence of foreign missionaries, monotheistic religions and sectarian uprisings, presenting a highly complex religious world that is fully rooted in and representative of the imperial model of dealing with religion. Goossaert uses the example of the late imperial City God Temples to delineate an open space of interaction and negotiation between local officials, local elites, and various segments of the population. He argues that in this “grey zone of under-­ regulated, negotiated toleration” we can find a form of carefully managed religious pluralism which was based on cooperation and the mutual acknowledgement by all parties involved that there were various ways of participating in the religious celebrations centering around the City God Temples. By narrowing his perspective to the local community of the City God Temple, Goossaert is able to widen his discussion of stake holders in religious matters, including a variety of social groups such as incorporated neighborhoods, voluntary associations, and merchant guilds. Furthermore, Goossaert provides an insight into the local religious topography of China, the specific texture of which would sometimes impede, sometimes accelerate, but in any case influence the global processes, thereby highlighting the simultaneousness and interconnectedness of the different yet overlapping spheres. The impact of state-building, modernization and secularization are further analyzed in the following article by Thoralf Klein. Klein adopts a decidedly global perspective, applying the concept of ‘political religion,’ introduced, among others, by Eric Voegelin in the 1930s, to show how the modernizing state inscribed itself in the religious field through its prescriptive ideologies and the discourses on nationalism and citizenship it generated. These new political concepts, which were underpinned by a faith-based rhetoric and Christian-inspired soteriology, mark a major shift in the relationship between religion and politics at the turn from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. They also constitute a complete break-away from late Qing attempts to save the ritual core of imperial state religion by elevating the worship of Confucius to become the cornerstone of state-centered patriotism. Klein sheds light 2.1

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on the emergence of political religion in China by investigating three cases in chronological order: first, the veneration of Sun Yatsen (孫逸仙, normally referred to in Chinese as Sun Zhongshan 孫中山, 1866–1925), which culminated in Sun’s canonization as the ‘Father of the Nation’ in 1940; second, the cult surrounding Mao Zedong after he became Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party in 1945 until his death in 1976; and finally, by exploring the vestiges of political religion among China’s leaders of the Post-Mao era, of which Hu Jintao’s references to the Confucian utopianism of Kang Youwei’s 康有爲 (1858–1927) Datong shu 大同書 (The Book of Supreme Unity) directly link back to the (failed) attempt at religious innovation at the end of the Qing dynasty.32 Echoing Reinhard Bendix, Klein argues that China’s transformation conforms to a long-term global trend “from monarchical rule legitimized by religious sanction to forms of political authority held in the name of the ­people.” Moscow’s strategy of Communist world revolution and the global spread of Christianity are two key forces in this transformation that not only shaped the emergence of political religion in China, but that, equally important, have reflected ideas initially imported from the West back onto the world. For example, ideas of Communist world revolution were re-exported in Maoist guise to Europe during the student movements of the 1960s and 1970s or, more recently, to revolutionary insurgents in Peru and Nepal. 2.2 Global Currents and Their Local Refractions The contributions to the second part of the book, entitled Global currents and their local refractions, examine various examples of interplay between global religious forces and local political, social and religious conditions. Very often discussions of globalization are based on what has been called the ‘avalanche theory’:33 globalization is assumed to originate in the West, spreading from there to other regions of the world and transforming local conditions as well as the lives of people in a similar fashion along the way. By contrast, the articles in this section aim to demonstrate the wide range of responses or engagement of local religious traditions with global currents and how Western ideas have been received, adapted, neutralized or utilized by individuals and groups at the local level. They thus challenge a still common narrative of globalization which is based on the assumption that global forces and their vigorous and active agents, mostly of European and North American origin, mould the lives and circumstances of the passive recipients of globalization in other world regions. What the case studies in this part show instead is that what appears 32 33

See also Pfister’s contribution in this volume. See Weller (2006), p. 64.

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as a result of globalization from the distance is often shaped largely by indigenous and local concerns and structures. Joseph Tse-Hei Lee examines the reciprocal movements involving Protestant missionaries, Chinese Christians and the state in his study of the Christian church, state, and community in Chaozhou 潮州 between 1860 and 1990. On the basis of archival material and published local sources, Lee highlights the special role of Chinese converts and their transnational networks, village and kinship ties in the spread of Christianity in South China and across the South China Sea. While Christian congregations in Chaozhou “adhered to the principle of the locality of the church” and were firmly integrated into the fabric of local society, they also regarded themselves as part of a global Christian movement and effectively used their transnational links with British and American missionary networks to access resources and spread their faith at times of intense state control. Using the memoirs of a Shantou 汕頭 local named Cai Kaizhen 蔡愷真, Lee offers an interesting example of how a Chinese Christian in Republican China managed to internalize and actively participate in the new discourses of citizenship, nationalism and anti-imperialism while at the same time remaining a devout Presbyterian. In other words, Lee shows us how Christian communities successfully maintained a sense of continuity and identity in a century that was characterized by profound transformations. This chapter gives also an excellent example of ‘indigenization’ of Christianity as a case in point of ‘glocalization.’34 Thomas Jansen’s study of a sectarian religious scripture, the Wanbao baojuan 萬寳寶卷 (1858), aims to drill down below the level of officials and literati to capture the effects of globalization on the sectarian milieu around the middle of the nineteenth century. Jansen argues that sectarian authors, while undoubtedly realizing the presence of foreign threats to China’s territorial integrity, found it comparatively easy to integrate the challenges posed by Western imperialism and Christianity into a “traditional universal cycle of moral decline, apocalypse, and salvation,” thus rendering them religiously meaningful. In this sense, the encounter between Chinese sectarian religions and the chief global forces at the time presents an example of ‘weak globalization,’ for the impression left by the global forces on the world of Chinese sectarians appears to have left the framework of sectarian salvation history intact. However, Jansen argues that an alternative way of measuring the depth of interaction between sectarians and Christians, rather than by focusing on changes in the belief system of either group, is to examine the production 34

See Robertson (2001), p. 15 and his own articles on Liberation Theology in Latin America as examples of ‘glocalizing’ religion; Robertson (1986, 1987).

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and circulation of religious scriptures and tracts in the nineteenth century. He suggests the existence of an integrated market for religious publications in China where Christian and sectarian texts, religious symbols, and ideas flowed in both directions, finding their way to audiences separated by thousands of miles. Such an exchange of texts and religious symbols would point to a much deeper involvement of sectarian groups in the global circulation of ideas which still needs and deserves further study. In his anthropological case study on religion and philanthropy in Lukang (Lugang) 鹿港, Taiwan, Robert Weller challenges a globalization narrative that traces the remarkable bloom of philanthropic charity of religious groups in Taiwan since the late 1980s back to the global spread of Christian ideals in the nineteenth century. For such a narrative, Weller argues, cannot account for the timing of the increase in philanthropic activity, after roughly 70 years of very little engagement in charity work. Using field work undertaken in the township of Lukang on the West coast of Taiwan between 1977 and 2006, Weller instead proposes three distinct strands of globalization from the nineteenth century to the present and shows how they are intertwined with the island’s political and social development. The first wave of globalization during the nineteenth century brought new modes of charity to Taiwan by Protestant missionaries and organizations inspired by Christian values, such as the YMCA or the Red Cross. Often specializing in health and education, these new modes existed alongside traditional Chinese models of charity, which were generally organized through particularistic networks such as god worshipping associations, kinship associations, and the neighborhood. The second phase of globalization, which lasted from the 1920s to the late 1980s, was characterized by a relative disengagement of religions from charity work as secularist ideas were influential with both the Japanese colonial government and later the Kuomintang (Guomindang) 國民黨. Secularization in Weller’s article emphatically does not mean “despiritualization or the loss of religiosity.” Weller uses the term to refer to the deliberate “disembedding” of religion, including charitable activities, from social life. An example is the Japanese colonial government’s withdrawal, in 1923, of the god association’s status as a legal form of social organization. As a result of Taiwan’s democratization during the 1980s, links between religion, charity and social organization have been re-established or revitalized, and public charity by religious organizations, now supported by the government, has seen a dramatic increase. This “reintegration of religion into the social world” has ushered in the third wave of globalization, which sees for the first time an outward expansion of a Chinese model of religious philanthropy across the world. This new model, which is epitomized by the work of the Tzu Chi [Ciji] 慈濟 or Buddhist Compassion Relief Foundation and other

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Buddhist charities, has not so much replaced earlier forms of charity than globalized a Buddhist version of charity based upon the idea of the ‘public good.’ Tzu Chi and similar organizations display a sense of civic duty that marks a clear departure from earlier forms of charity focused on family, neighbourhood or village, thus creating a broader public space beyond the state. Again, the idea of charity for the public good is not entirely new,35 but groups such as Tzu Chi, Buddha Light Mountain and Dharma Drum Mountain have given it global visibility, in turn influencing the charitable work of Western charities in Taiwan and elsewhere. Esther-Maria Guggenmos’ chapter focuses on a different aspect of the relationship between globalization and religion in Taiwan. Having conducted extensive fieldwork on the island, Guggenmos argues that Taiwan as a geographical area at the margins is becoming an important diffuser of ‘religion.’ In her case studies she analyzes the self-perception of religious believers, in this case ‘engaged’ female lay Buddhists in a contemporary urban setting. By enabling its followers to cope with their fates individually, Buddhist self-construction can not only “contribute to subjective well-being, ensuring social or ideological cohesion,” but can also “display modes of individualized lay Buddhist agency within the urban and transnational milieu.” Indeed, for Guggenmos the ability of these urban religious groups to respond to the transnational milieu of their participants is a prerequisite of their flourishing. As she argues, ‘Buddhism’ is a cosmopolitan and “flexible script, developing over the course of a person’s life and enabling the interviewee to integrate multiple cultures and lifestyles into a Buddhist belief.” Quite obviously, the devotees’ faith also enhances their global outlook. This still allows for a wide array of interpretations, some of which serve as a more ‘postmodern’, self-aestheticizing and self-fashioning script, whereas many others appear to reiterate positions articulated in the Buddhist revival of the early twentieth century. While some feel a sense of mission to the West, as expressed by some early twentieth-century Buddhist reformers,36 others regard their religion as a means of restoring East Asian self-confidence, while yet others prefer a globalized Buddhism to the local variety. By enabling its followers to cope with their fates through a broad array of options, engaged Buddhism thus reveals its modern and thereby global traits. The production of ‘locality’ forms the larger theme behind Xiaobing WangRiese’s investigation into how various agents within the Chinese city of Quzhou 衢州 use the annual International Confucius Cultural Festival in Quzhou to 35 36

Johnson (2011), p. 17 traces it back to the early Republican period and the discussions of Tan Sitong 譚嗣同 (1865–1898) and Liang Qichao 梁啓超 (1873–1929). See Lai Pan-chiu’s chapter in this volume.

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construct, both practically and discursively, a space that defines Quzhou’s position vis-à-vis other centers of Confucius worship in China, especially Qufu 曲阜 in Shandong 山東 Province, and within the regional economy of Zhejiang 浙江 Province. It is important to recognize the religious dimension inherent in the attempt to revive a site of worship in Confucius’ honor in Quzhou. Despite its designation as a “cultural festival,” the performance of rituals at the Quzhou Confucius temple marks it out as a site of spiritual significance. The religious dimension of historical sites devoted to the worship of Confucius became apparent at the end of 2010, when a group of Confucian scholars protested against the building of a very large Christian church just two miles from the Confucian temple complex in the town of Qufu. The protesters were concerned about the proximity and size of the Christian church near one of the “holy places of Chinese culture” (Zhonghua wenhua shengdi 中華文化 聖地) and even demanded that Confucianism be granted the same status as the other officially recognized religions.37 Wang-Riese’s discussion is based on several fieldwork stints between 2005 and 2007, during which the author was able to interview several local stakeholders involved in the organization of the festival. She shows that despite all efforts to present the festival as an international event in honor of China’s greatest global cultural export, local actors interpret the festival primarily through a local lens focused on Quzhou’s economic and cultural branding as well as identity construction. This points to a shift worth noting, namely that localism, which had an ambiguous status in the People’s Republic after 1949, is now openly articulated and seen as politically respectable, even desirable.38 Confucius’ status as a global cultural icon is cited mainly to provide external validation of local identity constructions. Despite its name and ambition, the International Confucius Festival in Quzhou appears to be primarily an

37

38

See Foster 2010; “Zunzhong Zhonghua wenhua shengdi, ting jian Qufu Yejiao jiaotang—guanyu Qufu jianzao Yejiao dajiaotang de yijian shu Rujia shi xuezhe” 尊重中 华文化圣地, 停建曲阜耶教教堂—关于曲阜建造耶教大教堂的意见书儒家十学 者 [Respect holy places of Chinese culture, stop building a Christian church in Qufu— objections to the erection of a Christian cathedral in Qufu by ten Confucian scholars], 23 December 2010, (accessed 18 May 2013); “Zhongguo Shenxue Luntan Di-wu jie Yantaohui gongshi: Women dui Jidujiao yu Zhonghua wenhua guanxi de taidu” 中国神学论坛第五届研讨会共识:我们对基督 教文化关系的态度 [Joint Declaration of the Fifth Symposium of the China Theological Forum: Our attitude towards Christianity and towards China’s cultural contacts], http:// www.christiantimes.cn/news/201209/19/7730.html (accessed 18 May 2013). Goodman (2006), pp. 56–57.

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e­ xample of religious ‘place making’39 in a national context and only secondarily an international or even global event. Globalization depends on the circulation of objects across national boundaries, including commodities such as cars and mobile phones, cultural objects such as hairstyles, texts and images, or even services such as the IT services that are provided by call-centers in India to customers in Europe and North America. The circulation of objects and services itself relies on specific forms, for example books, films, or songs, which are again tied to certain channels and networks of distribution, ‘circuits’ in Appadurai’s terminology,40 many of which have emerged in the wake of the internet revolution (online book stores, iTunes and many more). In other words, globalization depends on the circulation of information at an increasingly high speed. As the concluding piece of this chapter, Hildegard Diemberger’s investigation into the reprinting and digital reproduction of Tibetan Buddhist books thus focuses on an important aspect of Buddhism’s globalization, even though she does not use the term at all in her paper: that is the specific form of circulation, namely Tibetan religious texts, as well as the conduits through which these texts are circulated across boundaries. In the digital era, the network for dissemination consists mostly of privately funded research institutes in China and the West as well as organizations that have formally registered as commercial companies, despite their non-profit ethos, in order to avoid legal complications. Often, these companies combine the spread of Buddhist texts with a keen interest in Buddhist heritage and the preservation of traditional Tibetan craftsmanship. Diemberger shows how culturally-specific attitudes towards books, concretely the idea that books are like religious personalities and can bestow blessings by being carried around “in a ritual circuit,” and the possibility of unlimited reproduction and circulation through digital technology reinforce each other. The digitized book as a cultural object thus reveals its status as an agent of globalization in its own right. In contrast to the conventional image of Tibetan religion being suppressed by the atheist CCP, Diemberger portrays a revived and vigorous religious community whose members are convinced that their religion has entered a new phase of spreading its doctrine. This is accompanied not only by the republishing of recovered texts that had been hidden in times of persecution, but also involves a change in materiality, as texts are digitized (with some of the original sources stored abroad), saved and distributed on hard drives or CDs. In much the same fashion that Thomas Jansen has demonstrated for the con39 40

See Feuchtwang (2004). Appadurai (2010), p. 7.

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tents of religious texts, these new media become integrated in a global book culture. Thus a new, globalized technology contributes to the rejuvenation of an ancient religious tradition. 2.3 Chinese-Western Encounters: Global Visions and Cultural Flows The two contributions to this part share common ground by discussing examples that highlight the role of individual agents (rather than organizations or state institutions) in the construction of global religious identities and the exchange of ideas (or objects) across cultural boundaries. Both Lauren Pfister and Lai Pan-chiu examine the intellectual encounter between key Chinese religious figures with leading representatives of the Christian faith. How did Chinese thinkers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century engage with the concept of ‘religion’ in a global horizon? How did they re-imagine their own cultural tradition with regard to that new (universal) category? A key figure in the early Chinese engagement with the Western notion of religion was Kang Youwei, who made a (failed) attempt to create a Chinese national and state religion on a Confucian basis. Many modern scholars would argue that Confucianism is not a religion. However, Kang Youwei famously tried to re-model Confucianism as a ‘state church’ as part of his state-building efforts not only during the reform attempt of 1898, but also during later stages of his life. In his contribution to this volume, Lauren Pfister examines a key text from this later phase, Kang’s Datong shu. He analyzes in detail Kang’s “modern Ruist religious vision of a global unity,” a vision that anticipated not only central themes of the Confucian “Declaration on Behalf of Chinese Culture Respectfully Announced to the People of the World” (Wei Zhongguo wenhua jinggao shijie renshi xuanyan 為中國文化警告世界人士宣言) of 1958 (known as ‘New Confucian Manifesto’), but that also addressed key concerns of the twenty-first century discourse about Confucian spirituality, the creation of a ‘harmonious society’ and China’s contribution to global spiritual and moral values.41 A second, no less relevant strand of Pfister’s article is the impact Kang Youwei’s thought had on Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930), the German ­missionary-scholar whose translations of Chinese canonical and philosophical texts enjoy wide circulation in the German-speaking world until today (and in case of his Yijing 易經 translation in the English-speaking world too). Wilhelm ranks among thinkers like Hans Driesch (1867–1941), Rudolf Eucken (1846–1926), and C.G. Jung (1875–1961), all of whom were key figures in the debates about the crisis of ‘Western’ modernity and ‘Eastern wisdom’ in the period between 41

On the adaptation of Kang Youwei’s ideals in the twenty-first century under Hu Jintao 胡錦濤 see Thoralf Klein’s contribution to this volume.

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the two world wars. Pfister demonstrates that Wilhelm’s this-worldly humanism was influenced by Kang’s humanistic religious spirit, while he rejected “the utopian political and scientistic orientations of Kang’s radical text.” Kang Youwei and Richard Wilhelm, who met each other several times during 1922 and 1923, are one example of how ideas concerning the global future of humanity circulated between China and Europe and cross-­fertilized each other. A similarly momentous intercultural encounter took place between the Chinese Buddhists Yang Wenhui 楊文會 (1837–1911) and Taixu 太虛 (1889–1947) and the Welsh Christian missionary Timothy Richard (1845–1919). This is the topic of Lai Pan-chiu’s essay “Buddhist-Christian Encounter in Modern China in the Perspective of the Globalization of Culture.” In contrast to both historical surveys of modern Chinese Buddhism, which mostly focus on Buddhism’s adaptation to modern society, and also to studies that deal with the Buddhist-Christian encounter within the Chinese context, Lai Pan-chiu presents “a historical study of the formation, process, and impact of the Buddhist-Christian encounter in modern China from the perspective of the globalization of culture.” Lai demonstrates that the Buddhist reform movements led by Yang Wenhui and Taixu aimed at the globalization of Buddhist culture right from the outset, thereby adding a global dimension to Buddhism’s adaptation to the politics of modernity within China. Yang and Taixu, the latter by establishing the World Buddhist Association in 1922, found a congenial counterpart in Timothy Richard whose interest in Mahāyāna Buddhism arose from his desire to, in Richard’s own words, “pave the way for one great world-wide religion of the future.”42 Establishing common ground between Christianity and Buddhism was the first step for Richard towards this new world religion. Coming face to face had consequences for both religions. While Buddhist reformers tried to emulate Christianity in becoming a global religion, Christians in China, conversely, looked upon the Buddhist revival as a model to spur on their own efforts at indigenization. Christianity became more localized in China as a result of Buddhist influence. Lai finally argues that their encounter did not profoundly affect the distinctiveness of the religious identities of either Buddhists or Christians. The processes of mixing involved here could thus best be conceptualized as ‘creolization’ or, in Lai’s own words, “the ‘crystallization’ of new cultural forms without implying the emergence of a homogenous global culture.”

42

Richard (1910), p. 4.

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Knowledge Transfer, Academic Networks, Identity, and the Study of Religions In the final part of this volume, we return to a theme mentioned at the beginning of this introduction: the relevance of academic research on religion for the emergence of a religious field. In fact, the separation of secular from religious spheres can be seen as resulting from the impact of the Western project of modernity. Despite its Western origins, modernity is conceived of as a format that, along with academic institutions, has been adopted as a universal standard since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Even though the modern academic field has been defined as being separate from the religious field, it has nevertheless remained intertwined with it on many different levels. This is most evident at the conceptual level in the use of new globalizing terminologies and taxonomies, as both Robertson and Beyer have previously shown as part of their efforts to reconstruct a “global comparative genealogy” of the concept of religion. However, such a reconstruction must not stop there. Questions of transfer, reception and appropriation of foreign concepts in their new local environments are intimately connected to more sociological issues relating to the channels of transfer, the networks and institutions involved as well as to the important question of local identity. The historically new field of modern academia serves as an important marketplace in which concepts and discourses have been and still are negotiated from multiple global as well as local perspectives. Academic writing about religion in a modern sense presents itself as a certain, qualified mode of identifying, producing, and distributing knowledge, embedded in a set of uncodified rules. These rules also govern the editors and authors of this book. The three contributions to this final part break new ground by shedding, from various viewpoints, light on the many ways in which the academic and the religious fields interrelate. In particular, three academic disciplines are being scrutinized here: Religious Studies in the Republican period; ­twentieth-century historiography on Christian missions and its contested role in China, and, thirdly, the current phenomenon of Sino-Christian Theology (or Sino-Christian Studies). All three perspectives not only presuppose a modern concept of religion as a distinctive social subsystem, but also a universalistic comparative perspective on the role of religion in relation to state and society. Anti-religious or critical voices can be heard as often as religious apologetic ones. Apart from modernization as a globalizing force, local identity plays an equally important role in many academic debates in China. The emphasis on the issue of local identity in the context of cultural globalization can be traced back to Roland Robertson, who coined the provocative term ‘glocalization’ 2.4

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to highlight the simultaneousness and interrelatedness of global movements with local constellations and presuppositions.43 Identity as a major theme is also noticeable in the academic engagement with religion. Academic debates are a forum in which global and local concerns can be negotiated publicly. Through applying a discursive approach, all three chapters attempt to “inquire systematically into the genealogy of those categories in non-Western societies which appear to parallel Western categories.”44 In his essay on the Chinese adoption of the Western academic discipline of a ‘Science of Religion’ or ‘Comparative Religion,’ Christian Meyer shows that Chinese academics did not meet ‘religion’ with a “more negative orientation to the concept,” as Beyer claims with almost exclusive reference to the secular May Fourth tradition.45 Instead, debates on the role of ‘religion’ in China were as controversial in China as they were in the modern ‘West.’ Likewise, the concept of ‘religion’ or ‘zongjiao’ was no less contested in China than it was in the West. On another level, Meyer makes it clear that globalization—mostly labeled ‘total Westernization’ (quanpan xihua 全盤西化) in Republican ­ times—was counterbalanced by a discourse on identity. On the Christian side, the identity issue was intimately connected to individual biographies and crystallized in the indigenization movement (bensehua yundong 本色化 運動) since the 1920s. The engagement in teaching and writing about the ‘history of religion’ appears as part of this movement, which was clearly sustained by apologetic motivations. Historians with Chinese Christian backgrounds in particular referred to the long history of Christianity in China or hinted at the benefits of Christian missions to Chinese society. This point is taken up by Dirk Kuhlmann, who studies the Chinese historiography on Christian missions in China which, as he states, “itself can be characterised as part of a ‘globalising project.’ ” As Christianity was perceived as a foreign religion in China, a major concern of his essay is the question of ‘identity vs. alterity.’ The inherent differences between a global ‘other’ and local ‘self’ with regard to cultural and religious identities also initiated negotiations between missionaries, converts as well as non-Christian Chinese on the question of the commensurability of Chinese and Western culture. In their mutual dynamics they resemble a process of ‘glocalization.’ Kuhlmann shows that there was in fact a variety of positions ranging from “rejection of Christianity and Western culture as an incommensurable ‘other’ ” to a new, modern—implicitly Western—cultural identity to finally approaches of ‘partial accommodation’ or ‘adaptation’ that in the Chinese Christian case 43 44 45

Robertson (1995). Robertson (1988), p. 132. Beyer (2006), p. 225.

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coincided with the project of ‘indigenization.’ Like Meyer, Kuhlmann argues that the antagonistic debates about religion (specifically about Christianity) became constitutive elements of a wider discourse on religion as an, in fact, “essentially and increasingly contested” matter.46 The last contribution in this section by Chloë Starr again concentrates on Christianity in China, more concretely on the academic phenomenon of Sino-Christian Theology (Hanyu shenxue 漢語神學). Despite its being titled a ‘theology’ by its main proponents, Hanyu shenxue presents itself predominantly as an academic field of discourse centered around Mainland Chinese scholars in the humanities with links to a global network of mainly Han-Chinese and some Asian and Western experts. Hong Kong, in particular, appears to be the “power-house” of Sino-Christian Theology and a hub linking Western and Chinese academic worlds. In their efforts to rethink the Christian message and its role for society, modernization, and culture, Sino-Christian theologians are in fact part of a globalizing movement to develop non-‘Western’ understandings of Christianity at a time when the dominance of the European and North American churches has become a thing of the past. At the same time, they navigate between a universal religion and its specific expression in the Chinese language and Chinese socio-cultural contexts. Finally, Sino-Christian Theology may also be regarded as an academic subfield whose members claim a share on the global academic market. In a number of ways, Starr argues, the growth of Sino-Christian Theology parallels China’s economic rise in the 1990s, most notably in its creation of a theological space whose dimensions resemble those of economic Greater China, stretching “from Singapore to San Francisco and back”—a zone that “is powered by academic networks and, on the surface, derives little from church spheres of influence,” while at the same time relying on networks with ‘Western’ academics. Though the assembled contributions on the academic field show a strong inclination towards addressing issues related to Christianity—an aspect that may not only be justified by the strength of academic research in this area but that also reflects the special challenges arising from the perceived foreignness of Christianity—other contributions in this volume can be related to this section: Hildegard Diemberger’s discussion of the local, transregional and international networks “devoted to the preservation and revival of the Tibetan cultural heritage” extends to researchers and research institutions both in China and abroad. Likewise, in their respective essays on the interaction of leading religious intellectuals from the late Qing and Republican period with Christian missionaries, both Lai and Pfister throw interesting side glances at 46

Cf. Robertson (2001), p. 14. Ibid., p. 4, Robertson speaks of a “globally institutionalized, yet often contested, category.” Cf. also Beyer (2006), pp. 6–8.

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the development of academic disciplines, even though their focus is on the intellectual exchanges between individuals. The role of missionary figures as cultural brokers and transmitters of knowledge in both directions again demonstrates the importance of Christianity (and of mission in particular) as a new and challenging factor for the question of globalization and religion in China. “Scholarly discussion of the role of culture or religion in modern globalization to this point has tended toward the abstract and general.”47 Stuart Chandler’s observation, made almost a decade ago, still holds true. The present collection of essays has been assembled with the aim to flesh out the complex interrelationship between religion and globalization and, at the same time, to critically engage with the current theoretical discussion on the topic. Bibliography Appadurai, Arjun (2001). “The Production of Locality.” In: Peter Beyer (ed.), Religion im Prozeß der Globalisierung. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, pp. 99–123. ——— (2010). “How Histories Make Geographies: Circulation and Context in a Global Perspective.” Transcultural Studies 1, pp. 4–13. Ashiwa, Yoshiko and David L. Wank (eds.) (2009). Making Religion, Making the State: The Politics of Religion in Modern China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Bayly, Christopher A. (2004). The Birth of the Modern World 1780–1914. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Beyer, Peter (1998). “The Religious System of Global Society: A Sociological Look at Contemporary Religion and Religions.” Numen 45, pp. 1–29. Beyer, Peter (ed.) (2001). Religion im Prozeß der Globalisierung. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag. ——— (2006). Religions in Global Society. London: Routledge. Chandler, Stuart (2004). Establishing a Pure Land on Earth: The Foguang Buddhist Perspective on Modernization and Globalization. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press. Conrad, Sebastian (2008). “Globalization Effects: Mobility and Nation in Imperial Germany, 1880–1914.” Journal of Global History 3, pp. 43–66. ——— (2010). Globalisation and the Nation in Imperial Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Copper, John F. (2006). Playing with Fire: The Looming War with China over Taiwan. Westport, CT: Praeger. 47

Chandler (2004), p. 4.

introduction

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Crossley, Pamela Kyle, Helen F. Siu and Donald S. Sutton (eds.) (2006). Empire at the Margins: Culture, Ethnicity, and Frontier in Early Modern China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. DuBois, Thomas D. (ed.) (2009). Casting Faiths: Imperialism and the Transformation of Religion in East and Southeast Asia. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Feuchtwang, Stephan (1991). “A Chinese Religion Exists.” In: Hugh D. Baker and Stephan Feuchtwang. (eds.), An Old State in New Settings: Studies in the Social Anthropology of China. Oxford: JASO, pp. 139–61. ——— (ed.) (2004). Making Place: State Projects, Globalisation and Local Responses in China. London: UCL Press. ——— (2010). The Anthropology of Religion, Charisma, and Ghosts: Chinese Lessons for Adequate Theory. Berlin: de Gruyter. Foster, Peter (2010). “Chinese church plan at birthplace [sic!] Confucius sparks protests,” The Telegraph, 28 December, (accessed 18 May 2013). Gentz, Joachim (2006). “Die Drei Lehren (sanjiao) Chinas in Konflikt und Harmonie. Figuren und Strategien eine Debatte.” In: Edith Franke/Michael Pye (eds.), Religionen Nebeneinander: Modelle religiöser Vielfalt in Ost- und Südostasien. Berlin: LIT, pp. 17–40. Goodman, David S.G. (2006). “Shanxi as Translocal Imaginary: Reforming the Local.” In: Tim Oakes and Louisa Schein (eds.), Translocal China: Linkages, Identities, and the Reimagining of Space. Milton Park, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 56–73. Goossaert, Vincent (2006). “1898: The Beginning of the End for Chinese Religion?” Journal of Asian Studies 65, pp. 307–36. ——— (2008). “Republican Church Engineering: The National Religious Associations in 1912 China.” In: Mayfair Mei-hui Yang (ed.), Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 209–232. Goossaert, Vincent and David A. Palmer (2011). The Religious Question in Modern China. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Grayson, James Huntley (2002). Korea: A Religious History. Rev. ed. Abingdon: Routledge. Hsiau, A-chin (2000). Contemporary Taiwanese Cultural Nationalism. London: Routledge. Johnson, Tina Philipps (2011). Childbirth in Republican China: Delivering Modernity. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Karl, Rebecca E. (2002). Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. Durham, NC/London: Duke University Press.

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Kirby, William C. (2005). “When Did China Become China? Thoughts on the Twentieth Century.” In: Joshua A. Fogel (ed.), The Teleology of the Modern Nation-State: Japan and China. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 105–14. ——— (2006). “China in Transnational Perspective: Introductory Remarks.” Chinese History and Society. Berliner China-Hefte 30, pp. 3–7. Kuroda, Toshio (1981). “Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion.” Journal of Japanese Studies 7, pp. 1–21. Lackner, Michael (1998). “Anmerkungen zur historischen Semantik von China, Nation und chinesischer Nation im modernen Chinesisch.” In: Horst Turk, Brigitte Schultze and Roberto Simanowski (eds.), Kulturelle Grenzziehungen im Spiegel der Literaturen: Nationalismus, Regionalismus, Fundamentalismus. Göttingen: Wallstein, pp. 323–38. Lai Whalen and Michael von Brück (2001). Christianity and Buddhism: A Multi-Cultural History of Their Dialogue, trans. Phyllis Jestice. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Madsen, Richard and Elijah Siegler (2011). “The Globalization of Chinese Religions and Traditions.” In: David A. Palmer, Glenn Shive and Philip L. Wickeri (eds.), Chinese Religious Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 227–40. Millward, James A., Ruth W. Dunnell, Mark C. Elliott and Philippe Forêt (eds.) (2004). New Qing Imperial History: The Making of Inner Asian Empire at Qing Chengde. London: Routledge Curzon. Mühlhahn, Klaus (2009). “National Studies and Global Entanglements: The Reenvisioning of China in the Early Twentieth Century.” In: Vanessa Künnemann and Ruth Mayer (eds.), Trans-Pacific Interactions: The United States and China, 1880–1950. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 43–57. Richard, Timothy (1910). The New Testament of Higher Buddhism. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. Robertson, Roland (1986). “Liberation Theology in Latin America: Sociological Problems of Interpretation and Explanation.” In: Jeffrey K. Madden and Anson Shupe (eds.), Prophetic Religion and Politics. New York: Paragon, pp. 73–102. ——— (1987). “Latin America and Liberation Theology.” In: Thomas Robbins and Roland Robertson (eds.), Church-State Relations: Tensions and Transitions. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, pp. 205–20. ——— (1988). “Modernity and Religion: Towards the Comparative Genealogy of Religion in Global Perspective.” Zen Buddhism Today 6, pp. 125–33. ——— (1995). “Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity.” In: Mike Featherstone et al. (eds.), Global Modernities. London: Sage, pp. 25–44. ——— (2001): “The Globalization Paradigm: Thinking Globally.” In: Peter Beyer (ed.), Religion im Prozeß der Globalisierung. Würzburg: Ergon, pp. 3–22. (first published as Robertson, Roland (1991): “The Globalization Paradigm: Thinking Globally.” Religion and Social Order. Greenwich: JAI Press, pp. 207–24).

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Tighe, Justin (2005). Constructing Suiyuan: The Politics of Northwestern Territory and Development in Early Twentieth-Century China. Leiden: Brill. Wachman, Alan M. (2007). Why Taiwan? Geostrategic Rationales for China’s Territorial Integrity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Weller, Robert P. (2006). Discovering Nature: Globalization and Environmental Culture in China and Taiwan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yang, Mayfair Mei-hui (2008). “Introduction.” In: Mayfair Mei-hui Yang (ed.), Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 1–40.

part ONE Transformation of the Religious Field in China: The Changing Role of the State

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chapter 1

Managing Chinese Religious Pluralism in Nineteenth-Century City God Temples Vincent Goossaert* This chapter is not about globalization per se: it is about the Chinese sociopolitical system that was exposed to the modern process of globalization and how it was equipped to deal with increasingly numerous and diverging systems of value and religious practices in particular. Much has been written on the impact of Christianity, both during the early phase of Catholic missions and during the post-Opium war expansion—and a smaller but still very important body of scholarship has explored similar questions for Islam—, and how these expanding global religions tested Chinese society’s ability to accept and negotiate diversity. But, less research has looked at indigenous cultural resources for thinking about and managing religious diversity, that is, the intellectual and political tools for dealing with other ways of doing religion when one is confronted with them. I posit that the more usual interaction of local elites and officials with religious practices that are local but nonetheless foreign to their own cultural milieu help us understand their reaction to more exotic practices and faiths (Christian, Muslim, Marxist-atheist, New Age) when these appear in their local world as the (often undesired) result of processes of globalization. So, leaving nations, states and empires entirely aside, I would like to look here, through a case study, at how Chinese local society was dealing with religious diversity and plurality at a time when diversity and plurality were about to increase quite dramatically. Late imperial China was obviously home to a plurality of religious beliefs, practices, and organizations. However, there is a difference between observable difference (plurality) and the explicit social and legal acceptance of such difference—pluralism. While pluralism in contemporary societies often means * I am grateful to Paul Katz, Fang Ling, Sarah Schneewind and Isabelle Charleux for their help with collecting material for this article, and for very insightful critiques of earlier drafts. Part of the research for this work was conducted in the framework of the “Temples and Taoists” Project, funded by the ANR (Agence Nationale de la Recherche, France) and the CCKF (Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange); see the project website at (accessed 9 July 2013).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004271517_003

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enthusiastic support on principle for a plurality of views and practices, I use the term here in a more restricted sense of the effective state recognition that different types of religious practice can be accommodated. Was late imperial religious plurality recognized and managed as pluralism in this sense? Scholars interested in the religious policies of the late imperial state have mostly taken a top-down approach, reading the empire-wide code and laws (distinctly less tolerant than actual practice), and looked at the most violent conflicts, around Christianity (and to a lesser extent, Islam) as well as the so-called ‘sectarian’ traditions. Seen in this light, the imperial regime does not seem to leave much room for pluralism, except the recognition granted to clerical Buddhism and Daoism as far as they remained confined to a separate domain. I propose here to set these aspects of central state policy-making and empire-wide repression campaigns aside, and to take a local view at local officials and how they dealt with ‘ordinary’ aspects of religious plurality that were not linked to foreign missionaries or bloody uprisings. In such contexts, where they acted under much lower pressure from the capital, I would like to ask whether local officials could engage with and manage local religious organizations and develop a basis for cooperation with them, thus setting a framework for accepting difference and establishing pluralism even of a limited kind. From the perspective of local religion, which is our concern, religious plurality in late imperial China was not primarily a question of various religious traditions competing for the exclusive adhesion of people. Rather, it hinged on a plurality of religiosities, that is, ways and styles of practicing religion. By focusing on the plurality of religiosities, I consciously narrow the scope of religious plurality, largely excluding beliefs, in order to better focus on what seems to be the most contested and regulated aspects of religious difference. In particular, I am interested in the way local officials could accommodate congregational, devotional, and festive ways of practicing religion.1 I argue the central state let many aspects of local religious life, such as temple life, remain under-­ regulated, so that late imperial society was characterized by an extremely large

1 I am taking inspiration here from Adam Chau (2011), who has proposed to analyze the whole Chinese religious world through five ‘modalities of doing religion,’ which we may also describe as five ideal-typical religiosities: discursive (text-based); relational/organizational (holding festivals, managing a temple), personal/cultivational, liturgical/ritual, and immediate/ practical. These five modalities can be broadly related to social classes (religious styles proper to each class), and thus help us understand religious tensions within society (such as elite attempts at reforming ‘popular’ religious practices), but they can also be combined in each event and each person.

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grey zone,2 that is, a zone of religious practices characterized by under-determined rules, subject to changing local interpretation and jurisdiction, where choices between different religious options did not normally entail going outlaw, but nonetheless necessitated some sort of accommodation and negotiation with local officials and other social actors. By under-­regulation, I mean that the basic rules were very cursory, and practice was dictated by ad hoc local decisions—which may in certain cases produce large numbers of official texts of local validity in the form of litigation, proclamations, or officially approved contracts and bylaws. In this vast grey zone, the state gave itself the possibility to control any religious practice, but actually intervened rather little, letting most cults, rituals, and practices in a situation of under-regulation open to accommodation and negotiation. Specifically, I propose to explore religious pluralism and the grey area in nineteenth-century China (the period for which I have the largest amount of documentation, and which immediately precedes the radical transformations of the twentieth century) by looking closely at how different social groups participated in a same cult, that of the City God (Chenghuang 城隍), and how local officials attempted to regulate their participation. I argue that the City God temples are a convincing example of a purposefully open arena of negotiation between local officials, local elites and various segments of the population, who were left to find common ground for their various religiosities and a modus vivendi with very little input from above. I have analyzed in a separate publication late Qing 清 City God temples as being shared by six types of actors engaged in temple management and organizing festivals and rituals there: local officials, Daoist clerics (who were in residence in most City God temples by the late imperial period), yamen 衙門 staff, territorial communities such as incorporated neighborhoods, devotional voluntary associations attached to the temples, and elite organizations such as merchant guilds and gentry-run charitable halls.3 The outcome from the negotiations between these different actors was very different from one place to the next, and was also susceptible to evolve in time. By looking at local negotiations over the City God cult, this article revisits old problems—religious unity and diversity, the relationship between ‘elite’ 2 My notion of ‘grey zone’ is loosely inspired from Yang Fenggang’s model of the three markets, devised as a tool to analyze the contemporary religious situation in China. According to Yang (2006), religion can be classified into a red market of licit practices, among which people can safely choose; a grey market of semi-tolerated practices where choices are uneasy, and a black market of repressed practices. 3 Goossaert (forthcoming).

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and ‘popular’ religion, state control over religion in China—but it endeavors to refine them by discarding inappropriate concepts such as ‘orthodoxy’ as identified with Confucianism, as opposed to ‘heterodoxy,’ in which historians still too often include Daoism and Buddhism. In addition, I also use newly-­ available or previously untapped sources, such as temple gazetteers and late imperial newspapers that provide a wealth of data on local religion and its interactions with the state. 1

The City God Temples as a Grey Area

From the beginning of the Ming 明 dynasty, there was one City God temple (as well as two altars where the God was regularly worshipped) in each seat of an administrative entity (district, prefecture, province). Since these administrative seats had in theory to be enclosed by a wall, the god was named Chenghuang zhi shen 城隍之神, literally God of the Walls and Moats; the loose translation ‘City God’ has been widely preferred in English-language literature and is conveniently brief and evocative, but one should keep in mind that the god exerted his jurisdiction over the whole administrative territory, not only over the city at the center of this territory. Many townships (usually not walled) also built their own City God temple, so there could actually be several City God temples in one administrative entity, but there was only ever one within the walled City where the local official also had his yamen, often very close by, and where this official was involved.4 Scholars have long identified the City God cult and its temples as places where the different religious traditions of late imperial China interacted.5 Chinese scholars notably, have delineated a coherent City God culture in late imperial times that reverberated among the diverse social classes that took part in the cult.6 I build on this research to explore the dissenting voices in the cult and analyze the City God cult as an open space where people with differing 4 In cities that were prefectural and/or provincial seats (and, such large cities were often concurrently the administrative seat of two, or even three, districts, each with their own City God), there were several City Gods (one for each district, one for the prefecture, etc.). In some cases, these gods were all housed in the same temple; if not, it was usually the case that one of the various City God temples was larger and more active, and aggregated the other City Gods who came to join during the major festivals. 5 Feuchtwang (1977); Zito (1987); Johnson (1985). 6 Rong Zhen (2006); Zheng Tuyou and Wang Xiansen (1994); Zheng Tuyou and Liu Qiaolin (2005); Hamashima (1992).

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religious worldviews and practices met and, willingly or reluctantly, defined a common ground on which to cooperate—or fight. The City God temples were not the only such places for cooperation and tension. Other cults were equally shared by officials, local elites, and local populations. For instance, the Guandi 關帝 and Tianhou 天后 cults were equally contested, with official and local versions engaged in complex games of imitation and differentiation.7 But, to a certain extent, these various versions were separate, as there existed different Guandi and Tianhou temples in each locale, some being closely if not exclusively dedicated to the official cult and others being managed by local organizations. What makes the City God cult particularly interesting for my purposes is that there was much less separation: officials, clerics, and local organizations had to share the very same temple. This resulted in higher interaction, for good or bad, and therefore a close study of the City God cults may revise our view of religious pluralism in late imperial times. Let us begin with central state regulations on the cult. Although individual City Gods had been recognized by the state during earlier periods, the City God as a mandated cult in each administrative entity of the whole empire was introduced as a key piece of the sweeping religious reforms introduced by the first Ming emperor.8 The practices of late Qing times broadly carried on the regulations first enacted during the 1370s, with only relatively minor modifications. Conceived as a nature spirit as opposed to a deceased human with a name and history, the City God received official sacrifices at times that were the same all over the empire. Along with spirits of Clouds, Rain, Wind, and Thunder, Local Rivers and Mountains, the City God received sacrifices on the altar for nature spirits on auspicious days of the second and eight month. Besides, it was in charge of controlling the deceased of its jurisdiction, in particular the grievous and dangerous orphan souls (ligui 厲鬼). These souls were offered sacrifices three times a year (at Qingming 清明, on 7/15 and 10/1) at the litan 厲壇, another one of the open-air altars used for official sacrifices mandated by the Ming and Qing code, both located outside the walled city in each administrative seat.9 During this sacrifice, the tablet of the City God, placed at the center of the altar, was presiding over the sacrifice. The early Ming reforms had mandated village communities to also build their own litan, but these litan had been transformed into temples in most places by the Qing. Ordinary people did not participate in the official sacrifices at these altars; rather the focus of the cult was the City God temple. In contrast to the ­sacrifices 7 See the classic studies by Duara (1988) and Watson (1985). 8 Taylor (1977). 9 Taylor (1997).

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performed on the open-air altars, which are codified in great detail in the Qing code and regulations, the City God temples are rarely ever mentioned at all in those normative texts. Specifically, most occurrences of the term ‘Chenghuang’ in the electronic version of the 1908 edition of the legal compendium Da Qing huidian shili 大清會典事例 concern either the altar sacrifices, or the Du Chenghuangmiao 都城隍廟 in the capital city. The remaining few occurrences deal with cases of local officials praying in the City God temples in case of crisis; canonizations of a large number of local City Gods; and plans to build new shrines to the war dead within the City God temples.10 This brief outline shows that officials were in very frequent contact with the City God of their jurisdiction, and that they engaged with it/him in two different guises: one as generic nature spirit, invoked by a tablet on an altar, and the other as a human with an identity, revered as a statue in his temple. The first Ming emperor had banned statues in the City God temples, but this was later disregarded,11 and by late Qing times, all City God temples housed a statue. Indeed the Imperial state even began to grant canonizations (individual titles to particularly miraculous City Gods) from the mid-fifteenth century onwards,12 and a flurry of such canonizations took place during the 1860s and 1870s in the wake of the Taiping 太平 war, with many City Gods being rewarded for supporting the loyalist troops.13 Intellectuals continued to debate the nature of the City God (nature spirit or deceased human) in theological writings, but in practice, it appears clearly that, in his temple, he was considered as a deceased 10 11

12 13

Da Qing huidian shili, 440.999 (times of crisis), 444.26–29 (canonizations), and 451.95, 499.773 (the shrines to war dead and virtuous officials). Guo Qitao (2003), p. 49. Wu Renshu (2000), p. 170, quoting the Guangxu Taicang zhouzhi 光緒太倉州志, discusses an early Qing incident where a local official banned the statue from going out in procession, a ban that went ignored as soon as that official had moved to another posting. Wu Renshu (2000), 173. Da Qing huidian shili, 444.26–29. These canonizations were much celebrated in local society: see, for instance, “Yingwei ruci 迎位入祠,” Shenbao, TZ12/7/20, discussing how in 1873 the Shanghai City God was honored by a new canonization (two more characters); on this occasion, a new temple was built near the tomb of Qin Yubo 秦裕伯 (considered locally albeit not officially as one of the two Shanghai City Gods) in the Pudong 浦東 area, and his statue was taken there in procession from the City God temple. All references to Shenbao articles are given by the Chinese calendar (year/lunar month/day, with TZ for Tongzhi reign, and GX for Guangxu). “Yingpian zhisheng 迎匾誌盛,” Dianshizhai huabao, 行: 2 (published in 1896) has a description of the reception of a plaque inscribed by the emperor for the Shanghai City God; officials, Daoists and devotional associations are all involved in the celebration.

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human with a name, a life story, and a specific birthday.14 In brief, historical evidence suggests that officials implicitly condoned local understandings of the City God as a local god. The implicit picture that emerges from the normative sources is that City God temples were part of the list of officially mandated temples (the ‘register of sacrifices,’ sidian 祀典, that listed for each administrative entity the temples that local officials had to maintain, and the liturgy for the official cults there) but were left to local officials to deal with on their own terms. The compiler of a 1758 authoritative compendium of sacrificial regulations writes: “As for the City God temple, let the people organize their festivals there 聽民間祈賽. Local officials will just come and offer incense on each new and full moon days. In times when prayers for rain or clear skies are necessary, they will also come and offer incense there. Other than that, no sacrifice takes place in the City God temple.”15 The section on official sacrifices (sidian) of one 1888 City God temple gazetteer says that “sacrifices in the temple (as opposed to the open-air altars): only when the county magistrate arrives in office does he offer a sacrifice, and swear his oath to the god.”16 Here was a temple that local officials had to maintain and regularly visit, but where they did not perform sacrifices (at least in ordinary times) because the sacrifices to that god were performed elsewhere, and where they let local people organize their own rituals. This, I argue, is not neglect or incoherence, but a deliberate opening by the Qing central state of an under-regulated grey zone of accommodation with local society. To sum up, local officials were expected to maintain the City God temple and to go there regularly: 1) on arrival to their new posting, to spend the first night fasting in the temple, and to swear an oath binding both the official and the City God to serve the people with honesty and help each other; 2) on the new and full moon of each month, to offer incense; 3) on the god’s birthday (set on 5/11 in many places, even though some City Gods had their own distinct birthday) to offer incense.17 These three ritual obligations, although not ­supported—as far as I know—by a formal regulation in Qing texts, were part 14 15 16 17

Wu Renshu (2000), p. 175 n. 88, quotes an 1868 edict, to the effect that City Gods are not deceased humans, but that it is acceptable to let people treat them as such. Tanmiao sidian, 3.3b. Gaochun Chenghuangmiao zhi, 64. For instance the gazetteer of the City God temple in Liling (Hunan 湖南) quotes the Da Qing tongli 大清通禮 as its source for the sacrifice to the City God, but while this source in its original context describes the sacrifice on the nature spirits altar on the second and eighth months, it is used here as a basis for a sacrifice in the temple on 5/11: Chenghuangmiao suixiu si jishi, fanli.1a, 1.1a–9a.

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of the bureaucratic culture, and repeatedly mentioned in the official handbooks and other sources.18 In addition, in case of natural disasters (excessive rains, droughts, pests) and war, an all-too-frequent situation, official regulations mandated officials to pray at different shrines, including the City God temples, and historical records (including hundreds of Shenbao 申報 reports of prayers for rain), show that they routinely did so. Beside prayers and sacrifices, officials routinely used the City God temples for other aspects of their governance. Because the City God temple was often the largest temple, and therefore the largest public space in the city, it was used for a variety of purposes, such as discussions with representatives of the local gentry, setting up tax-collection posts or kitchen soups and other charitable operations, organizing public trials, and punishing convicts in full view of the public. In many if not all of these endeavors, officials made it clear that they expected people’s fear of the gods, and of the City God and his underlings in particular, to make these operations work smoothly. The City God temple was a key place for the officials’ task of ‘educating the people,’ jiaohua 教化. Proclamations pertaining to jiaohua (bans on gambling, prostitution, ‘excessive’ festivals, litigation, etc.) were carved on stone and the steles erected within the City God temple. It was also one of the favored settings for the twice-monthly reading of the Sacred Edicts.19 2

Cooperation and Conflict

The sustained involvement of local officials in City God temples has led scholars to describe these temples as ‘official,’ but this is only one part of the story. Daily activities there were dominated by resident Daoists (in the majority of City God temples that had Daoist managers), yamen staff that often congregated there, devotional associations that maintained the temple, and in some cases, gentry charitable halls based within the temple who set up free clinics, kitchen soups and morality book lectures. The various actors in City God temples had different views on the god and its cult—a well-known situation that has been discussed by many scholars for various cults. These views were reflected in various modes of discourse. The stele inscriptions tend to reflect the official and/ 18 19

For a case of an official handbook discussing the oaths in the City God temples, see Fuhui quanshu, j. 24. Mair (1985), pp. 352–53 quotes at length a description of the Sacred Edicts reading at the Shanghai City God temple in 1847; more laconic mentions are found in large numbers of local gazetteers.

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or local elites views, and focus on governance and morality. The anecdotes and miracle stories usually focus on divine justice and retribution. Novels and theater, as well as Daoist liturgy, pay more attention to exorcism and the management of suffering souls. The City God temple gazetteers (of which there are a half-dozen easily accessible) vary, some being strongly Daoist, discussing the lineage and practices of the managing clerics, while others are more focused on the concerns of the officials, or the local gentry. Naturally, this reflects to a certain extent the personal inclination of writers and the constraints proper to each of the genres in which descriptions of the City God cult were consigned. But, it also reflects the balance of power struck between the various parties in each of the City God temples. In actual practice, local officials, clerics, local elites, yamen staff, devotional associations and territorial communities had to negotiate and cooperate in managing the temple and its festivals. Clearly, the first three were more interested in the management of the temple itself (its financing, its organization) and the latter three in the festivals, and the processions in particular—­ reflecting their differing religiosities. We very rarely see a role for Daoists or gentry organizations in the City God procession, whereas we see them prominently in temple management; by contrast, devotional associations and territorial communities preferred being involved in processions and festivals. Officials and yamen staff, for their part, tended to be active on both sides. In terms of financial and physical management of the temple, officials needed and sought the other parties’ help. Unlike the big monasteries, urban temples such as the City God temples seem to have often not held much landed property, and therefore needed continuous financial input. In a number of cases, official land was earmarked for funding the official rituals; local officials also tried to use yamen fees from litigants to finance the City God temple.20 These were often insufficient for maintaining the temple as a whole, however: hence the need to rely on elite organizations and fundraising, especially during major renovation projects. Many magistrates made it a point that they would be nominally the chief donor to any fundraising for restoring the City God temple. Indeed, in local gazetteers, most City God temples are listed as repaired by the magistrate, or some other local official. But they had to find support from other parties, notably the local elite, local shopkeepers,21 and Daoists as fundraisers. The sharing of power often resulted in complex contractual arrangements, with typical features being Daoists hired on a contract as managers of 20 21

“Xingxiu yimiao 興修邑廟,” Shenbao, GX6/11/25 for Suzhou; Gaochun Chenghuangmiao zhi, 101–104. “Juanzi xiumiao 捐資修廟,” Shenbao, GX5/+3/25 for Ningbo.

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ritual life and day-to-day operations, gentry groups managing endowments and repair funds, and yamen staff running the festival funds. When the other parties were too successful, the local official and/or the Daoists might lose control over the temple as a result, such as when gentry associations repaired and completely took over City God temples after the Taiping war. In terms of festivals and ritual life too, the division of labor was never fixed,22 tensions occurred, and conflicts erupted, as we will see from cases of cooperation and conflicts pertaining to the most popular and festive aspects of the cult: the thrice-yearly processions and the other cults and rituals within the temple. 2.1 The Three Processions, sanxunhui 三巡會 Qing officials were as a rule wary of major temple festivals and processions. The bureaucratic literature is full of bans on these festivals, which were indeed forbidden by the Code. In some cases, officials tried to ban the processions outright, but pressure from local elites often forced them to reconsider and permit them with limitations. Indeed, in most cases, officials focused on limiting certain aspects of processions, rather than trying to prevent the procession to take place at all. They notably tried to have the opera and processions end at dusk, and to limit the participation of women. There are several strands of reasoning behind such a repressive approach. One is fear of disorder. Beyond the mere crowd-management aspects, with processions not infrequently resulting in cases of theft, or accidents (horses, an important feature of the processions, sometimes panicked and hurt spectators), officials were aware that festivals could turn into large-scale protests or even riots in time of social tension. Wu Renshu 巫仁恕 has documented how urban riots of all kinds (protests against corrupt officials, rent riots) from the sixteenth to eighteenth century often occurred during festivals, especially those of the bureaucratic gods such as the City God and Eastern Peak.23 In such cases, protesters considered their action to be a just uprising against oppression, and made appeals to the gods that administered justice and supervised officials. The City God processions have a lot in common with processions for other gods. But, in terms of regulation, they were unique. As the processions, notably the sanxunhui—the thrice-yearly processions of the god from his temple to the litan, and back—were aggregated to an official ritual (the sacrifice at the litan), 22

23

Katz (2001) offers an analysis of the division of labor in temple management and procession in a contemporary case study that bears comparison with the present discussion of City God temples. Wu Renshu (2000).

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they could not be banned altogether. Whereas other large-scale processions in Jiangnan 江南 cities during the late Qing (such as the Marshal Wen 溫元帥 processions in Wenzhou 溫州 and Hangzhou 杭州, or the Dutian 都天 processions in Yangzhou 揚州) had sometimes been suppressed (never for very long, but at least that made the threat of outright suppression credible), this was not the case for the City God. The one exception I know of is Beijing 北京, much more heavily policed than other cities, and where processions were less common; a 1888 report describes a grand City God procession there organized for the first time after twenty years of being banned.24 So, outside of Beijing, the most extreme measures taken were to curtail the procession to the god in his sedan, insignia bearers, and nothing else. For instance, in 1877 the Ningbo 寧波 prefect, fearing trouble because of the large numbers of demobilized troops present in the city, curtailed the third yearly procession of the two City Gods (of the prefecture and county) to this bare minimum.25 Such minimal City God processions were largely considered as emergency measures only. In Tianjin 天津, because of the famine, and of a kitchen soup within the temple, local officials had curtailed the processions in 1878, but the following year, as the situation had improved, the temple Daoist managers and the leaders of the associations petitioned the prefect, who allowed the procession to take place as usual.26 Only exceptionally committed officials attempted to curtail City God processions on the long term: in his highly confrontational tenures as Jiangsu 江蘇 governor (1879–80, 1881, 1885), Tan Junpei 譚鈞培 (1828–94), banned the Suzhou 蘇州 City Gods’ procession from aggregating all the neighborhoods’ Earth Gods who used to accompany them on a massive display of the local religious hierarchies and networks.27 Very tellingly, a Ningbo prefect banning the procession of a local god in 1884 wrote in his public proclamation that, should an epidemic outbreak occur, then he might allow it again, but “only on a limited scale, like that allowed for the City God.”28 Thus, in spite of all the specific processional practices that 24 25 26 27

28

“Saihui zhisheng 賽會志盛,” Shenbao, GX14/5/11. “Saihui jiancong 賽會減從,” Shenbao, GX3/10/4. “Jinren saihui 津人賽會,” Shenbao, GX5/4/17. “Jiehui jianse,” Shenbao, GX6/3/6; “Caijin jiehui 裁禁節會,” Shenbao, GX7/7/17; “Jinzhi saihui 禁止賽會,” Shenbao, GX15/3/11. Other bans on penitents in the City God processions in Suzhou in Wang Liqi (1981), p. 169 (quoting the Huizuan gongguoge 匯纂功過 格). On Tan Junpei, see Goossaert (2008), p. 232. “Yongjin Dushenhui gaoshi 永禁都神會告示,” Shenbao, GX9/4/8. This follows a pattern of festivals banned after the Taiping war, but reactivated when an epidemic outbreak caused public opinion to cry out for the procession to take place, and officials to give in.

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they tried to fight, officials still held the City God procession as a model of acceptable popular religion—if properly managed and patrolled. As a result, late Qing local officials regulated the City God processions in much greater detail than other processions, which they often simply either ignored or tried to ban. Willingly or not, they had to come to terms with the sanxunhui. They did so according to their own religious interests and convictions: some let be and just performed their own prescribed part; others tried to really reform popular practices and preside over the whole procedure. The latter sort, echoing Ming-times utopian projects by local officials who attempted to take control over the whole local popular religion, is occasionally attested during the Qing. Lu Longqi 陸隴其 (1630–1693) organized in person the City God birthday (note that this was not an official sacrifice) by banning operas, and having the local population attend the sacrifice and subsequent reading of the Sacred Edicts.29 But, less authoritarian approaches were more common: commenting on the Suzhou City God procession, one mid-nineteenth-­century author remarks that “officials consider that this is part of the education of the masses through the gods (shendao jiao su 神道教俗), and therefore let it be done, and do not try to ban it.”30 But they did enact countless interdictions banning the aspects that they found most objectionable. The Shenbao, for instance, rarely failed to mention before each of the City God procession that the Shanghai 上海 magistrate banned a number of specific practices.31 The most frequent elements in the list being: 1) female penitents;32 2) self-­ mutilators; 3) Heavenly tax collectors;33 4) people dressing up as runners for the Hell bureaucracy; 5) various forms of walking music bands (the reason for banning them is very unclear to me). Much less often, they insisted that the procession return to the temple and end by nightfall.34 One well-documented aspect of this micromanagement of processions was the 1870s and 1880s Shanghai local officials’ (Shanghai magistrate, daotai 道台, and others) attempts to ban female penitents from the City God celebrations. 29 30 31

32 33 34

Wang Liqi (1981), pp. 97–98, quoting the Sanyutang waiji 三魚堂外集. Wujun suihua jili, 3.115. For instance, “Xunli shijin 循例示禁,” Shenbao, GX13/9/28, “Lingjie yingshen 令節迎神,” Shenbao, GX16/10/1; “Jiehui lizhi 節會例志,” Shenbao, GX16/7/15. Other similar bans in Beijing in Wang Liqi (1981), p. 86 (quoting the Yanjing suishi ji 燕京歲時記). On penitents and City Gods, see Katz (2008). On the collection of Heavenly taxes ( jie tianxiang 解天餉) by the City Gods, see Hamashima (2001), pp. 205–19 and Goossaert (2010). Most descriptions suggest that they actually ended in the morning hours, and reports of other overt violations abound. In “Saihui zhilüe 賽會志略,” Shenbao, GX19/10/2, the journalist wonders if officials are going to do anything about the open violations.

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The ban was systematically re-published before each procession, but there seem to have been women in each procession, although sometimes so few as to suggest partial success in enforcement.35 Officials sometimes arrested women, but they eventually released them, so the dissuasion effect was quite limited.36 Behind the bans on various practices in the processions, such as penitents, was the question of the legality of the devotional associations that organized the processions and other celebrations around the City God. In Qing times, festivals and associations formed a large part of the grey zone of under-regulated, negotiated toleration. According to the Code, forming an association distinct from territorial or kin structures was illegal, but in practice most associations were actually tolerated. Local officials who wanted to clarify and enforce distinctions between officially tolerated associations and actively repressed ones had to resort to devices not found in law. A very interesting case is offered by a proclamation from Zhang Wuwei 張五緯, the prefect of Tianjin in 1811. Zhang was adjudicating a complaint filed by shopkeepers who had been drawn into a fight with members of an association parading with the City God procession, and raising money along the way. Zhang found out that this was a new association, just established by a man who wanted to thank the god for having cured his mother. Zhang decided to ban the association and all such new ad hoc associations, while allowing old associations (lao hui 老會) to go on taking part in future City God processions.37 This makes sense of why processional associations in many places insisted on being called ‘old associations’ and recorded their history on stone,38 and when possible in semi-official records such as temple gazetteers.39 There was no difference in belief and practice between ‘new’ and ‘old’ associations, and no one suggested that there was one. Rather, presumably old associations had a history and a leadership that was able to negotiate an agreement with local officials.

35 36 37 38

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“Qingming saihui 清明賽會,” Shenbao, GX20/3/1 notes that among over a hundred penitents there were three or four women in spite of the ban. Goossaert (2008). Tanaka (1968), p. 5, quoting the Jiangqiu gongji lu 講求共濟錄. For a case of a City God processional association erecting its stone inscription, see “Jiju Chenghuangmiao Puli shenghui bei 暨聚城隍廟普利勝會碑” (1884), Wenzhou lidai beike erji, 791–3. See also the analysis of the public nature of pilgrimage associations in Beijing in Naquin (2000). Notably the Gaochun City God temple gazetteer (Gaochun Chenghuangmiao zhi) that described in detail the various associations (some of them processional) attached to the temple. I am not aware of any case of a City God association discussed in a local gazetteer.

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If local officials wanted to enforce their regulations on the City God processions, they had to take part in them personally. Otherwise, enforcement resided primarily with the yamen runners, who certainly could be trusted not to report anything (or only because of personal reasons). The exact level of participation of officials in the City God processions is difficult to establish from extant descriptions. In a drawing included in an early nineteenth-­ century Japanese description of Qing customs, we see an official following the City God sedan going to the litan—note that this image has no penitent, nude women, self-­mutilators and other of the more spectacular aspects of City God ­processions.40 This suggests that the presence of the official either stopped such ­activity—or was supposed to. More tantalizing is a Dianshizhai huabao 點石齋 畫報 illustration dated 1886 showing the 7/15 City God procession in Suzhou with one horse-riding official following the City God and various ghosts shows (including Hei wuchang and Bai wuchang, and ghostly generals).41 A 1948 description claims that in Qing times, the Shanghai magistrate’s sedan immediately followed the god’s sedan.42 So presumably, in some cases, officials fully participated in the processions. Other descriptions rather suggest that officials went separately to the litan, officiated there and then returned directly to the yamen, thus separating ‘official’ sacrifice and ‘popular’ procession.43 2.2 Cults and Festivals within the City God Temples Officials dealt with the City God Three processions in a wide variety of ways, from perfunctory ritual participation to serious engagement mixing repression and selective recognition of devotional associations. Officials were confronted with a similar choice during the City God’s birthday. By law, they did not have to take part, but apparently they very often did, whether just by showing up briefly and burning incense (as they did for most temples inscribed in the local sidian) or more seriously. John Gray, describing 1870s Guangzhou 廣州, writes that local officials presented the City God with new silk clothes on each of his birthdays.44 Officials may have made their own individual choices between these two options, but more likely, they were bound to a certain extent by ‘custom’ as dictated to them by the clerks of the office of rituals (lifang 禮房) of 40 41 42 43 44

Qingsu jiwen, pp. 504–5. “Yulan zhisheng 盂蘭誌盛,” Dianshizhai huabao, 辛:42–43 (published in 1886). Shanghai Chenghuangmiao, p. 28; this description also points out that the sedan during the procession entered within each of the yamen of the city. “Zhongyuan jigu 中元祀孤,” Shenbao, GX14/7/16, re. Shanghai; “Wuzhong huijing 吴中 會景,” Shenbao, GX20/7/22 re. Suzhou. Gray (1878), pp. 118–19.

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their yamen. Anecdotes and bureaucratic literature provide a good many cases of officials being told on arrival at their new posting that local custom required them to participate (in a highly codified manner) in a great many religious activities over and above official cults. Just saying ‘no’ put them in a situation of outright conflict with their own staff—not the choice of an official who looks forward to a smooth tenure. Officials as a rule had no problem with clerical (Buddhist and Daoist) rituals—their objections were to popular celebrations and practices around the clerical rituals. So, it comes as little surprise that officials frequently invited Daoists to perform large-scale jiao 醮 offerings in the City God temples or, jiao were organized by gentry organizations or devotional associations, and officials came to pay a visit. For instance, the gazetteer of the Pingxiang 萍 鄉 City God temple contains an official document dated 1898 where the gentry managers report to the magistrate that, according to his orders, they have collected money, repaired the temple, and staged a jiao and opera.45 In time of crisis such as draughts, local officials were just supposed to pray at the City God temple, but sometimes organized a full jiao.46 Also, besides the procession to the litan, local officials in many places paid for a salvation ritual to be performed by Daoists and/or Buddhists at the City God temple on the evening of 7/15. Some local officials went even further in cooperating with Daoists and territorial communities for the organization of jiao offerings. In Anxi 安溪 county (near Quanzhou 泉州, Fujian 福建), the magistrate offered to the City God temple commercial boats, the income of which were to pay for the yearly City God jiao organized by an alliance of the city’s four neighborhoods. In case future magistrates would not like this arrangement, his successor had the agreement carved on stone in 1812.47 Some officials also felt comfortable with occasionally paying for opera to be performed in the City God temple, to thank the god for fair weather or other blessings.48 This is noteworthy in a context where the top levels of bureaucracy attempted to separate officials from the realm of popular celebrations, and where local officials who had organized, or attended opera in temples 45 46 47

48

Pingxiang Chenghuangmiao shanhouhui tuce, pp. 31–37. Wushan Chenghuangmiao zhi, 4:804–5 (several eighteenth-century cases). “Qingxi Chenghuang zaochuan beiji 清溪城隍造船碑記,” and “Anxixian Chenghuangmiao shijinbei 安溪縣城隍廟示禁碑,” Zheng and Dean (2004), nos. 840–41. An earlier magistrate in the same county had paid in person for a new sedan and insignia for the god’s processions: “Chongxiu Chenghuangmiao beiji 重修城隍廟碑記,” Zheng and Dean (2004), no. 835. “Yanxi choushen 演戲酬神,” Shenbao, GX15/10/9, concerning Shanghai.

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were occasionally fined or demoted by the central state for having done so.49 Interaction between local officials and popular religious organizations, which was frowned upon in other contexts, became permissible in the case of the City God. Such permissiveness was put to a test when non-official cults were introduced in the City God temple, an extremely common occurrence as the largest of these temples were huge compounds with tens of independent shrines and hundreds of statues. The City God temples housed the various shrines built by the managing Daoists (when present), including those for the Jade Emperor and the Eastern Peak; shrines to patron saints of the guilds built by the latter (such as the halls for medicine gods that often operated free clinics);50 shrines to local gods brought in by the local associations; and shrines to local heroes built by members of the gentry. The coexistence and accommodation took sometimes a temporal aspect (when officials came for official sacrifice and left, and then popular celebration took place) and sometimes a spatial aspect, as mapped in the temple’s various shrines. The City God temples were, thus, official temples that housed large numbers of gods, many of which were not official at all. The cult of the City God’s wife was not sanctioned by any official text, but was widely observed, notably among women, in open violation of the central state’s ban on women in the temple.51 City God temples also housed large numbers of chthonic deities, such as the hellish officers in the hall of the Ten Kings, who were apparently not considered heterodox by officials, but were not included in the sidian either, which did make a difference for the temple managers. For instance, the gazetteer of the City God temple in Liling 醴陵 clearly mentions that the Hall for the Ten Kings was built and managed by a local subscription, not by the gentry association that ran the temple as a whole.52 Officials themselves admitted that the City God played the exorcistic role of controlling the dangerous demons (ligui) some of which were the loyalist soldiers who died for the empire (Zhu Yuanzhang’s 朱元璋 soldiers, or later victims of civil wars, discussed in a great many stories about the origins of the City Gods). They did not recognize explicitly the subaltern exorcistic deities that 49 50 51

52

Wang Liqi (1981), pp. 78–79, and many other passages in this rich compendium. This was the case notably in the City God temples of Hangzhou and Shanghai. For instance, on the birthday of the Shanghai City God’s wife on 3/28, newly-wed women went to clean the temple and perform a penitential ritual: “Chengxiang saihui 城鄉賽會,” Shenbao, GX5/3/28. Chenghuangmiao suixiu si jishi, 46. This temple housed many other gods not included in the sidian.

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did the actual job of seizing and controlling demons, but they surely admitted that there were such deities. Locals in turn considered that placing such deities under the jurisdiction of the City God conferred them with official recognition, like the Wuchang 五猖 of southern Anhui 安徽, whom Guo Qitao has shown developed a thriving cult under the shadow of the City God and other official cults.53 In short, by engaging with the City God temple and festivals, while letting a space for devotional associations and other groups to perform their rituals and house their cults within the City God temple, some local officials consciously legitimized these associations and cults. 3

Making Sense of the Pluralism in City God Temples

The abundant sources on the City God cult and the high level of interaction between its various actors allow us to use this case study to address religious pluralism and unity in late imperial China. Many different groups took part in the cult and they exhibited divergent religiosities—some festive and ecstatic; some very hierarchical and bureaucratic; some text-based, procedural; some very performance-oriented; and some very organizational. There was thus a religious plurality at work. Among these groups, there was some peaceful coexistence. There were also tensions: local officials expelling clerics, or restraining neighborhood communities and devotional associations with the help of police forces; gentry and clerical elites in open confrontation for control over the temple. And finally there was also cooperation, such as when local officials chose to participate in processions and in jiao offerings together with local associations. Such cooperation, based on acknowledging other ways of participating in the cult, turned the objective plurality into pluralism (plurality as entrenched in common values and in laws) to a rather limited extent, to be sure, but to a much larger extent than we would surmise from reading central state regulations. Local officials expressed such acknowledgment in ad hoc decisions, such as when they formally approved (and sometimes amended) the temple regulations (published in the temple gazetteers) that resulted from negotiations between local elites, clerics and other parties, or enacted proclamations that banned certain practices while allowing (explicitly or implicitly) others, as for instance the bans on ‘new’ processional associations, or on female penitents.

53

Guo Qitao (2003) shows that subaltern exorcistic deities were linked to the City God in a variety of sources, including Daoist liturgical texts, opera scripts, and painted pantheons.

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An important part of the literature on this issue has been framed by the debate introduced by James Watson, who argued that the late imperial state did not interfere with beliefs, but regulated ritual practices (by setting examples to be imitated rather than imposed) and therefore achieved a rather high degree of cultural uniformity. Other scholars have attempted to nuance this claim by showing that apparently similar ‘orthodox’ or ‘orthoprax’ cults were interpreted and understood in widely diverging ways; among them, Michael Szonyi has been most radical, showing that processes of unification—local religious practices becoming more like China-wide high culture—were all appearance and no substance, just thin veils of orthodoxy (a name, a title) over what continued to be solidly unorthodox local practices.54 The City God case would at first seem to support the ‘Watson thesis’ of a strong cultural standardization based on ritual orthopraxy throughout China, with religious pluralism being thus relegated to the secondary status of explaining the variation in details of performance in each place. Indeed, this cult was arguably one of the most impressive late imperial state attempts at remolding popular religion by adopting exorcistic rituals and taking on itself the care of wandering ghosts: with the litan and City God temple rituals, the state engaged local populations to appease dangerous ghosts under its own authority. Yet, on closer inspection, the City God cult exhibits all of the elements put forward by those scholars who have questioned the standardization thesis. There was ‘heteroprax standardization,’ (standardization against the state’s wishes) to use Donald Sutton’s phrase,55 such as the City God penitents, all over China, in spite of local officials’ suspicion and occasional repression. Local elites used the City God’s orthodox status to advance their own practices (such as spirit-writing) and even in some cases monopolize the temple as their own. Moreover, I fully agree with Paul Katz56 that clerics, in this case Daoists, contributed as much as local officials to creating a more or less coherent City God cult over the whole Qing empire. Research by those exploring the ‘cultural standardization’ hypothesis (whether to prove or disprove it) has tended to focus on local cults’ lore and rituals, and the way such lore and rituals conformed or not with official standards. What they have not much explored are the processes of explicit negotiations between advocates of reform and standardization on the one hand (local officials and some gentry activists), and local practices on the other. Local officials’ attempts at micromanaging the City God processions (even 54 55 56

Szonyi (2007). Sutton (2007). Katz (2007).

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if they turned out to be largely unsuccessful) belie the idea that the state dictated the structure of popular religion but not its content. Of course, the City God temples are not typical: they were the locus of one of the most intense state interaction and negotiation with local practices. Most cults, especially in rural areas, were largely ignored by officialdom. But my point is, in some significant cases, negotiation was a key feature of the management of religious pluralism. Even though it is true that the Qing state relied to a large extent on ritual in its task of reforming and civilizing the people, Qing officials never shied away from disciplinary projects or from enacting detailed regulations: there was both ritual (orthopraxy) and law enforcement in Qing religious policies. But, the abundant laws and regulations left very large under-regulated zones in which local officials and local leaders could negotiate. The City God cults are one such case. Local officials recognized that there were diverse local religious cultures that largely crossed the barrier between licit and illicit, and that they had to come to terms with them. Rather than the simple effect of top-down sacrificial regulations, local ­officials’ involvement in the City God temples was a complex combination of bureaucratic and local custom, and personal choice; it varied greatly depending both on the larger political context and on their own attitudes. They could choose to fully engage with the local City God celebrations, often in a reformist way, trying to ban the more unpleasant aspects of the procession; or to simply play their required parts in the larger cult, and let other parties do as they liked. But they could not ignore City God practices, as they did for most other cults. Since this was the only procession in which they participated, and the temple they visited most often, City God festivals were the best occasion for local officials to see for themselves what local religious culture looked like. And they reacted in different ways to what they saw. Even more interesting, the City God cult does not present the simple picture of a confrontation between local officials and local religious groups. It presents a much more complicated picture of many different social groups contesting the very open and powerful resources (symbolical, political and economical) of the City God. Local officials were not always dominant in these relationships; in some cases they even appear to have been quite marginal. Rarely was one party able to control the whole cult on its own. Officials naturally sided with the gentry, but not systematically; they also often sided with elite Daoists, with whom they shared a lot in terms of religiosity, but there are also cases of officials evicting Daoists from City God temples to increase their own control. Officials systematically criticized yamen staff, but likely were beholden to them and needed their local knowledge and connections with religious leaders in order to enforce their decisions. The yamen staff, in turn, worked in close

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cooperation with the territorial leaders and neighborhood constables. So what local officials allowed in the City God temple, and the degree to which they engaged with it (coming to the temple for the birthday, paying for opera, following the procession between temple and litan) was all part of these games of alliance and negotiation. Negotiation was not necessarily a sign of weakness, and the best available way to enforce as much restriction as possible; some officials chose to take active parts in City God celebrations when they did not absolutely have to. As a result, there was plurality everywhere, but only pluralism in certain places: fundamentalist officials did not leave room for pluralism, but those officials who themselves organized jiao offerings and took part in the procession along with a host of devotional associations did create local pluralism. This picture of locally negotiated space for pluralism changes abruptly with the reforms of the last decade of the Qing and the Republican period. Officials (as well as yamen staff) retreat from temples; as early as the spring of 1912, some officials even launch assaults on City God temples that had just lost their official status.57 Territorial communities lost their state-sanctioned status and most of their resources; elite Daoists lost their elite status and were sidelined in temple life. From contested shared spaces, City God temples (at least those that were not entirely destroyed or taken over by secular institutions) now became controlled by one party, usually guilds. Even though this period was marked by greater freedom for Christianity and other “foreign” religions and for previously banned devotional (so-called “sectarian”) traditions, it was also characterized by a lessening of the space for pluralism within local society. This is one of the many paradoxes of the story or globalization, modernity and religious pluralism. Bibliography Sources

Chenghuangmiao suixiu si jishi 城隍廟歲修祀紀事 (1904). DGZXB, vol. 12. Da Qing huidian shili 大清會典事例 (1908). Shanghai: Shangwu Yinshuguan. DGZXB: Zhongguo daoguan zhi congkan xubian 中國道觀志叢刊續編 (2004). Nanjing: Jiangsu Guji Chubanshe. 28 vols. Dianshizhai huabao 點石齋畫報 (1983 [1882–1898]). Reprint ed., Guangzhou: Guangdong Renmin Chubanshe.

57

Goossaert and Palmer (2011), p. 59.

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Fuhui quanshu 福惠全書 (1997 [1699]). Huang Liuhong 黃六鴻. Guanzhen shu jicheng 官箴書集成. Vol. 3. Hefei: Huangshan shushe. Gaochun Chenghuangmiao zhi 高淳城隍廟志 (1888). Bao Lian 鮑漣. DGZXB, vol. 14. Pingxiang Chenghuangmiao shanhouhui tuce 萍鄉城隍廟善後會圖冊 (1903). Gu Jiaxiang 顧家相. DGZXB, vol. 11. Qingsu jiwen 清俗紀聞 (2006). Nakagawa Tadahide 中川忠英 (?–1830). Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. Shanghai Chenghuangmiao 上海城隍廟 (1948). Shanghai Wenxian Weiyuanhui 上海 文獻委員會. DGZXB, vol. 15. Shenbao 申報 (1872–1949). Shanghai: Shenbaoguan, daily. Tanmiao sidian 壇廟祀典 (1758). Fang Guancheng 方觀承. Wenzhou lidai beike erji 溫州歷代碑刻二集 (2006). Wenzhou Wenxian Congshu Zhengli Chuban Weiyuanhui 溫州文獻叢書整理出版委員會. Shanghai: Shanghai Shehui Kexueyuan Chubanshe. Wujun suihua jili 吴郡歲華紀麗 (1998). Yuan Jinglan 袁景澜 (1820–1873). Nanjing: Jiangsu Guji Chubanshe. Wushan Chenghuangmiao zhi 吳山城隍廟志 (2000 [1789]). Lu Song 盧崧. Zhongguo daoguan zhi congkan 中國道觀志叢刊. Nanjing: Jiangsu Guji Chubanshe, vol. 19.



Secondary Literature

Chau, Adam Yuet (2011). “Modalities of Doing Religion.” In: David A. Palmer, Glenn Shive and Philip L. Wickeri (eds.), Chinese Religious Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 67–84. Duara, Prasenjit (1988). “Superscribing Symbols: The Myth of Guandi, Chinese God of War.” Journal of Asian Studies 47, pp. 778–95. Feuchtwang, Stephan (1977). “School-Temple and City God.” In: G. William Skinner (ed.), The City in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 581–608. Goossaert, Vincent (2008). “Irrepressible Female Piety: Late Imperial Bans on Women Visiting Temples.” Nan Nü 10, pp. 212–241. ——— (2010). “Bureaucratie, taxation et justice: Taoïsme et construction de l’état au Jiangnan (Chine), xviie–xixe siècles.” Annales HSS 4, pp. 999–1027. ——— (forthcoming). “The Shifting Balance of Power in the City God Temples, 1800– 1937.” Journal of Chinese Religions. Goossaert, Vincent and David A. Palmer (2011). The Religious Question in Modern China. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Gray, John (1878). China: A History of Laws and Manners and Customs of the People. London: Macmillan. Guo Qitao (2003). Exorcism and Money: The Symbolic World of the Five-Fury Spirits in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies.

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Hamashima Atsutoshi 濱島敦俊 (1992). “The City-god temples (Ch’eng-huang miao) of Chiangnan in the Ming and Ch’ing dynasties.” Memoirs of the Research Department of the Tōyō Bunko 50, pp. 1–27. ——— (2001). Sōkan shinkō: kinsei Kōnan nōson shakai to minkan shinkō 総管信仰: 近世江南農村社会と民間信仰. Tōkyō: Kenbun Shuppan. Johnson, David (1985). “The City-God Cults of T’ang and Sung China.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 45, pp. 363–458. Katz, Paul R. (2001). “Festival Systems and the Division of Ritual: A Case Study of the An-fang at Hsin-chuang’s Ti-tsang An.” Min-su chü-i 民俗曲藝 130, pp. 57–124. ——— (2007). “Orthopraxy and Heteropraxy beyond the State: Standardizing Ritual in Chinese Society.” Modern China, 33, pp. 72–90. ——— (2008). Divine Justice: Religion and the Development of Chinese Legal Culture. London: Routledge. Kohn, Livia (1996). “The Taoist Adoption of the City God.” Ming Qing yanjiu 5, pp. 69–108. Mair, Victor (1985). “Language and Ideology in the Written Popularizations of the Sacred Edict.” In: David Johnson, Andrew J. Nathan, and Evelyn S. Rawski (eds.), Popular Culture in Late Imperial China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 325–59. Naquin, Susan (2000). Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400–1900. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Rong Zhen 荣真 (2006). Zhongguo gudai minjian xinyang yanjiu: yi sanhuang he Chenghuang wei zhongxin 中国古代民间信仰研究. 以三皇和城隍为中心. Beijing: Zhongguo Shangwu Chubanshe. Sutton, Donald (2007). “Introduction to the Special Issue: Ritual, Cultural Standardization, and Orthopraxy in China: Reconsidering James L. Watson’s Ideas.” Modern China 33, pp. 3–21. Szonyi, Michael (2007). “Making Claims about Standardization and Orthopraxy in Late Imperial China.” Modern China 33, pp. 47–71. Tanaka Issei 田仲一成 (1968). Shindai chihōgeki shiryō shū 清代地方劇資料集. Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku Tōyō Bunka Kenkyūjo. Taylor, Romeyn (1977). “Ming T’ai-tsu and the Gods of the Walls and Moats.” Ming Studies 4, pp. 31–50. ——— (1997). “Official Altars, Temples and Shrines mandated for all Counties in Ming and Qing.” T’oung-pao 83, pp. 93–125. Wang Liqi 王利器 (1981). Yuan Ming Qing sandai jinhui xiaoshuo xiqu shiliao 元明清 三代禁毀小说戏曲史料. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe. Watson, James L. (1985). “Standardizing the Gods: The Promotion of T’ien-Hou (“Empress of Heaven”) along the South China Coast, 960–1960.” In: David Johnson, Andrew J. Nathan and Evelyn S. Rawski, eds., Popular Culture in Late Imperial China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 292–324.

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Wu Renshu 巫仁恕 (2000). “Jieqing, xinyang yu kangzheng—Ming Qing chenghuang xinyang yu chengshi qunzhong de jiti kangyi xingwei 節慶信仰與抗爭—明清城 隍信仰與城市群眾的集體抗議行為.” Zhongyang Yanjiuyuan Jindaishi Yanjiusuo jikan 中央研究院近代史研究所集刊 34, pp. 145–210. Yang, Fenggang (2006). “The Red, Black and Grey Markets of Religion in China.” The Sociological Quarterly 47, pp. 93–122. Zheng Tuyou 郑土有 and Wang Xiansen 王贤森 (1994). Zhongguo chenghuang xinyang 中国城隍信仰. Shanghai: Sanlian Shudian. Zheng Tuyou 郑土有 and Liu Qiaolin 刘巧林 (2005). Hucheng xingshi: Chenghuang xinyang de renleixue kaocha 护城兴市: 城隍信仰的人类学考察. Shanghai: Shanghai Cishu Chubanshe. Zheng Zhenman 鄭振滿 and Kenneth Dean 丁荷生 (comp.) (2004). Fujian zongjiao beiming huibian—Quanzhou fu fence 福建宗教碑銘彙編—泉州府分冊. 3 vols. Fuzhou: Fujian Renmin Chubanshe. Zito, Angela R. (1987). “City Gods, Filiality, and Hegemony in Late Imperial China.” Modern China 13, pp. 333–371.

chapter 2

Political Religion in Twentieth-Century China and Its Global Dimension Thoralf Klein There are different ways of conceptualizing the relationship between religion and politics in twentieth-century China. One is to examine the religious policies of the state or political organizations. In this case, the political and the religious are treated as more or less autonomous spheres.1 Another is to look at the overlap between the two, in particular at the ways that politics became ‘religionized.’ This approach has evolved into a burgeoning field of research over the past two decades, with studies coming under different labels such as ‘political ritual,’ ‘political (or personality) cult’ or ‘political religion.’2 Of these, ‘political religion’ goes furthest in undermining the binary conceptualization of religion and its ‘other’ as diametrically opposed categories.3 If the process of modern state-building, in China as elsewhere, is to be linked to processes of secularization,4 then what constitutes the secular needs complicating. For some of the modern political ideologies that emerged in early twentieth-century China not only underpinned state expansion, but impinged on the creation of what Vincent Goossaert and David Palmer have recently referred to as “a self-consciously ‘religious’ field,” which they argue was to a considerable extent a political project.5 While it makes sense to conceptualize the emerging forms of mass politics, authoritarianism and totalitarianism as new “affective regimes”6 competing with the established ones of religion, this alone is not sufficient. For it glosses over the stunning parallels between totalizing ideologies and religion, notwithstanding the fact that the former— 1 See, for example, Ashiwa and Wank (2009), Poon (2011), Yang (2008), Wang Xiaoming (2003), Zha Shijie (1993), Cohen (1992), Duara (1991), Luo Zhufeng (1991). 2 E.g. Aijmer (1996), Leese (2011), Apter (2005), Mitter (2008). 3 Cf. Asad (2003), p. 22, and Knecht and Feuchter (2008), pp. 14–16. 4 Cf. Yang (2008), pp. 6–7. 5 Goossaert and Palmer (2011), pp. 10–11. Note how this is a marked departure from Bourdieu, who conceives of the political and religious fields as relatively autonomous to one another. Cf. Bourdieu (1971, 2009). 6 I borrow this term from Nedostup (2009), pp. 227–28.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004271517_004

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in an irony of dialectics—were often adamantly anti-religious.7 The concept of political religion can help clarify how the modernizing state as well as modern political organizations not only impacted on the religious field, but how their prescriptive ideologies also became part of that field and must therefore be studied as religious phenomena in their own right. This is not to say that political religion is the same thing as religion proper. Indeed, this is a matter of debate amongst proponents of the concept, with some scholars using the religious terminology only metaphorically or by way of analogy, while others argue that political ideologies constitute a new form of religiosity based on modern manifestations of the sacred.8 The German-born political scientist Eric Voegelin (1901–1985), one of the founding fathers of the concept, holds that the state is not simply a secular institution and that some of its features must be defined as religious. Tracing the development of political religion from antiquity to Communism and Fascism in the 1930s, Voegelin regards modern political religions as strictly inner-worldly, which distinguishes them from at the ‘trans-worldly’ redemptive religions (though not necessarily from non-redemptive religions). Political religions are thus at the same time a product of secularization and an attempt to overcome it.9 Following the dissolution of the Christian ecclesia, they seek to create a perfect inner-worldly community by offering a renewal that Voegelin calls “apocalyptic,” by which term he refers to a perceived need to overcome the forces of evil (be they the bourgeoisie, supposedly inferior races or others) as a prerequisite to attaining social redemption.10 This apocalyptic dimension is equivalent to what students of Fascism have called ‘palingenesis’: the notion of a (national) rebirth from a state of crisis, which derives from Christian soteriology, but can likewise be applied to matters secular.11 It is important to note, however, that this utopian dimension of political religion, which promises the creation of an idealized community through an epic struggle, is not incompatible with claims to scientific rationality. In fact, as Voegelin has argued, such modern “apocalyptic revelations” often pretend to be scientific, while in his view they are in fact “myths”

7 8 9 10 11

See Ryklin (2008), esp. pp. 31–33; Riegel (2008), pp. 62–63. For the former cf. Aron (1957) and the otherwise useful chapter by Riegel (1999); for the latter Gentile (2006). Voegelin (2008), pp. 24–33. Ibid., pp. 50–52 and 59–61. Griffin (1991), pp. 32–36; cf. also Passmore (2002), p. 20.

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r­elying on the emotional mobilization of the masses.12 Such mobilization is achieved through the focus on a political leader, who takes the place of the godhead, through the persuasive deployment of rituals and symbols, through expressions of faith in the leader and his teaching and finally through the dissemination of a new revolutionary morality that includes self-examination and, if necessary, self-sacrifice.13 It is obvious that while some of the above elements were not unknown in pre-modern China, others—in particular a faith-based rhetoric and a Christianity-based soteriological concept—were unfamiliar in a country where the focus traditionally was not on believing, but on ‘doing’ religion.14 Political religion in China is thus not only a modern concept, it is also bound up with processes of globalization. In this essay, I shall examine the global dimension of political religions in China, applying a longitudinal section through the twentieth century. I will embed the phases that can be most easily identified as having been politically religious—the rule of the National Party or Guomindang 國民黨 (GMD, 1925–1949) and that of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under the leadership of Mao Zedong 毛澤東 (1941–1976)—within the broader intellectual and political trends as well as their global connotations. My argument is that firstly, the emergence of political religion in China can be interpreted as a constitutive element of a double globalizing process: directly through Moscow’s strategy of Communist world revolution and both directly and indirectly through the global spread of Christianity—it must be borne in mind that the Soviet sacralization of the political, as exemplified in the cult of Lenin, owed a great deal to the Christian religion.15 Despite being an emulation of Soviet beliefs and practices, the cult of Sun Yatsen (usually referred to in Chinese as Sun Zhongshan 孫中山, 1866–1925), my first major case study, was part of a global wave of totalitarian movements and regimes sharing features of political religion. But secondly, this was not a one-way process. As my next case study shows, China’s ideological and political leader Mao Zedong (1893–1976) 12

13 14 15

Voegelin (2008), pp. 61–63. Cf., however Mitter (2008), who argues that Maoism (and by implication the Guomindang, which preceded it) cannot be classified as a political religion because unlike Fascism and the Japanese right in the Shōwa period, it did not seek to overcome reason. This is to gloss over the undoubtedly irrational dimension of Communism (not only in its Chinese form) and would leave right-wing movements as the only political religions. Voegelin (2008), pp. 64–69; for the moral and ascetic dimension see also Goossaert and Palmer (2011), p. 169. See Chau (2011). See Ryklin (2008).

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became an icon outside China in the 1960s and early 1970s, contributing to the emergence of a ‘global moment’ by inspiring student protests in Europe as much as revolutionary insurgents across the Third World.16 Finally, although it would appear that forms of political religion were off the CCP’s agenda following Mao’s death, I show that vestiges of political religion emerged in new contexts, providing guidance in a rapidly shifting, fluid and realigning world. 1

Global Factors in the Emergence of Political Religion in China

The socio-political transformation of China at the turn of the twentieth century conformed to a long-term global trend identified by the sociologist Reinhard Bendix (1916–1991) in the late 1970s: the transition from monarchical rule legitimized by religious sanction to forms of political authority held in the name of the people.17 Such authority does not have to be democratic; what is important is that “unless measures are taken to prevent it, rulers and ruled alike must advance their claims in public and hence with an eye to public reactions that are likely to follow.”18 In China, the gradual shift towards constitutional monarchy after 1901 and, more importantly, the abrupt demise of the Qing 清 dynasty in 1911/12 left a vacuum that was waiting to be filled with new concepts able to achieve domestic stability and international equality for a country still attempting to extricate itself from the fetters of imperialism. As a result, the connection between religion and politics that had been the bedrock of late Imperial China underwent a major shift. Up until the late nineteenth century, the emperor was the head and high priest of state religion, with officials on each rung of the bureaucratic ladder acting as lesser priests by making regular sacrifices to specific deities.19 Although its purpose was the maintenance of order and stability in the empire, it clearly involved a transcendent dimension that consisted in what the anthropologist Jordan Paper, pointing to a common theme underlying the generally pluralistic and heterogeneous religious landscape in China, has identified as the ritual core 16 17

18 19

For the term ‘global moment’ see Conrad and Sachsenmaier (2007), pp. 12–16. Bendix (1980), pp. 4–10. Note that the word ‘global’ is not part of Bendix’s vocabulary (a search engine yields only one hit), but he uses the roughly equivalent term ‘universal’ repeatedly throughout the volume. Ibid., p. 8. Feuchtwang (1978), especially pp. 106–07. For the sake of simplicity, I will not engage here in a discussion about the term ‘religion’ in China, nor about the concern for orthodoxy and the religious policy of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

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of Chinese r­ eligion(s): the exchange of sacrifices for protection.20 Hence it can be classified as inner-worldly, but not as redemptive. When the Qing dynasty embarked on a constitutional programme in the last decade of its rule, it attempted to back this up by elevating the sacrifices for Confucius, whom they intended to become the centrepiece of a dynastic patriotism. What is important here is not so much that this attempt at rallying the population behind the dynasty fell short of its objective. Rather, it is that although the elevation of the great sage marked a rupture with the established order of state religion, geared towards the emerging concepts of nationalism and citizenship,21 it derived from a time-honoured precedent and did not focus—as political religions would later do—on a contemporary leader. However, the same global intellectual, cultural and social currents that the Qing dynasty sought to address through innovative forms of worship, pulled China into a different direction altogether. Modern politico-scientific concepts such as (social) Darwinism, liberalism, nationalism and communism began to be received by China’s emerging intelligentsia through the translations of Yan Fu 嚴復 (1853–1921) and others.22 This was part of a wider transformation: the creation of a modern political, social and scientific language, based first on missionary translations and since about 1895—the year of Qing China’s crushing defeat at the hands of Japan—on the indirect adoption of modern terms by way of Japanese translations of ‘Western’ texts.23 The first years of the twentieth century also saw a new rhetoric of nationalism emerge, centred around terms such as the ‘partition’ (guafen 瓜分) of China, its ‘existence or downfall’ (cunwang 存亡), the necessity to ‘save the nation’ ( jiuguo 救國), the vilification of all who betrayed or, literally, ‘sold the country’ (maiguo 賣 國) and finally, the idea of ‘national humiliation’ (guochi 國恥) as a powerful metaphor for China’s domination by ‘Western’ imperialism.24 This was accompanied by a discourse on martyrdom as well as an evolving culture of largely non-violent protest that for the first time manifested itself on a large scale during the anti-American protests of 1905. The latter included the occupation (or indeed the creation) of symbolic spaces, demonstrations, boycotts, ­public

20 21 22 23 24

Paper (1995), pp. 26, 47. For the concept of religious landscape and its plurality, see Goossaert and Palmer (2011). See Kuo Ya-pei (2008); Harrison (2001), pp. 90–94. Schwartz 1964. For this shift see Elman (2005), especially p. 395; for the wider context also the contributions in Lackner and Vittinghoff (2004). Rankin (2002), p. 339; Cohen (2003).

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telegrams and other forms of agitation.25 As in other colonies and semi-­ colonies across the globe, nationalism became a powerful instrument for resisting the imperialists and claiming and asserting independence. Accordingly, the nation was the first inner-worldly political object to become sacralized. Early nationalism also revealed the apocalyptical dimension of a secular ideology for the first time in Chinese politics, as the existence of the Chinese nation had to be defended not only against imperialism, but also against the Manchu Qing dynasty. For example, in his Wangguo pian 亡國篇 (Essay on the downfall of the nation), published in 1904/05, Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 (1879–1942) juxtaposes the traditional change of an Imperial dynasty to the downfall of the Chinese nation-state. According to him, China “already counts as a perishing country in the world” because its territory, economic rights and sovereignty had been seized by foreigners.26 For Chen, territory in particular is “the first important thing for a state . . . Today, no nation-state in the world, can cede an inch of its sacred and inviolable territory to other people.”27 With its borrowing of religious language, its rhetoric of apocalypse and palingenesis and its culture of practical activism, early Chinese nationalism bears some similarities to later, full-fledged forms of political religion. Where it ­differs—and what disqualifies it as a political religion in the strict sense of the term—is its lack of focus of worship, organizational structure and clearly articulated faith. From the late Qing through the early Republic, nationalism was ideologically heterogeneous and structurally dispersed, despite the impressive mass demonstrations between 1905 and the mid-1920s that featured students as their organizational backbone.28 Such bottom-up approaches were balanced by successive Republican governments’ attempts to create a modern citizenry conforming to arguably global but definitely ‘Western’-inspired cultural standards. The political leadership introduced political symbols such as the five-colour flag or the Gregorian calendar (and with it national holidays) and propagated ‘civilized’ forms of clothing and etiquette.29 But these too fell short of creating a unified political faith or organization.

25 26 27 28 29

See, among others, Rankin (2002), pp. 335–38; Lee (2009); Zhou Yongming (2006), Gerth (1998). Chen Duxiu (n.d.), ch. 1. The original text appeared in various instalments in the periodical Anhui suhua bao 安徽俗話報. Ibid., ch. 2. Zarrow (2005), p. 122. Harrison (2000), pp. 49–92; Zarrow (2012), pp. 216–21.

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By the late 1910s, it had become clear that China was still being denied its rightful place in the world-wide system of nation-states. What made the Chinese public painfully aware of this was not only the fragmentation of the Republican polity into fiefdoms controlled by warlords. It was also the disappointing outcome of what Erez Manela has called the ‘Wilsonian moment,’ a global conjunction in which China played no small part.30 Educated Chinese had been enthused by US president Woodrow Wilson’s (1856–1924) famous Fourteen Points, proclaimed in January 1918 because they seemed to usher in an era of national self-determination that would put an end to imperialism in China. Although it is by no means certain that Wilson knowingly let China down,31 the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 not only failed to respond to China’s attempt at a total liquidation of imperialist privileges, it also awarded the former German colony of Kiaochow (Jiaozhou 膠州) to Japan. Chinese protests against this diplomatic failure of their political representatives merged with an ongoing project of cultural rejuvenation to form the May Fourth movement of 1919. It is impossible to go into detail here; what is important is that both the negative results of the global Wilsonian moment and the Chinese nationalist response to it were catalysts in the development of political religion in China. The former enabled alliances between governments viewing themselves as ‘losers’ of the peace process. The May Fourth Movement, on the other hand, marked the watershed between more liberal visions of the nation-state and society and a new era of mass politics in China that was dominated by monopolistic parties. Although the intellectual leaders of the movement extolled scientific rationalities, their youthful followers were also driven by a Romanticist sense of the ego.32 It was at this decisive moment (and crisis of the new political system), and in the wake of the National Revolution of the mid-1920s, that China’s interactions with the wider world spawned full-fledged political religions. 2

The Guomindang and the Cult of Sun Yatsen

The National Party or Guomindang (GMD) was the first political organization to institute a comprehensive political religion in China. In this process, the alliance between the Nationalist leader Sun Yatsen and the Soviet Union served 30 31 32

See Manela (2007). See Elleman (2002). See Mitter (2004), pp. 120–23.

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as the catalyst that transformed the Nationalists “from a collection of followers of a national hero to a highly organized party of disciplined individuals, united by the acceptance of a common revolutionary program.”33 This sea change in organization outlasted the GMD’s Soviet connection and the simultaneous united front with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after both eventually broke up in 1927. From the Bolshevik perspective, the alliance with the GMD, then based in Canton (Guangzhou 廣州) in South China, was part of a strategy of world revolution, although the Soviet government simultaneously pursued an ­interest-driven policy of bilateral negotiations with the feeble central government in Beijing 北京. In order to reach out to revolutionary organizations in other countries, the Bolsheviks had founded the Communist International (Comintern) in 1919 as its global revolutionary arm. The Comintern was tightly controlled by the Politburo of the Russian (since 1922: Soviet) Communist Party, and its representatives in China cooperated closely with Soviet diplomats. After the hopes for a success of Communist revolutions in Western Europe had foundered, the strategy of the Comintern consisted in supporting national-revolutionary movements at the colonial and semi-colonial periphery and especially in the ‘East’ as a means of undermining imperialism (defined as the highest stage of capitalism by Lenin), building up a ‘reserve’ for world revolution and winning ‘natural’ allies for revolutionary Russia. Although nationalist liberation movements were mostly classified as bourgeois-democratic, the Soviet leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924) and others initially toyed with the idea that ‘Eastern’ countries might directly advance to socialism, bypassing the capitalist stage.34 The alliance between the GMD and the Soviet Union/Comintern was not free of tensions, as Sun Yatsen insisted on putting the National Party on an independent footing. Nevertheless, the Comintern representatives in China made fundamental contributions to the reconstruction of the party: They made Sun and the GMD aware of the value of centralized propaganda work.35 They reorganized the party into a hierarchical apparatus based on the principle of democratic centralism. They created a new type of army that was under party control, heavily ideologized and active in propaganda work.36 And in so doing, they 33 34 35 36

Leng and Palmer (1976), p. 76. Kuo Heng-yü et al. (1996), pp. 27–52; Pantsov (2002), pp. 33–36; Riegel (1999), pp. 335–36. For the Soviet Union’s bilateral China policy cf. Elleman (1997). Bastid-Bruguière (2002), pp. 17–23. Li Yuzhen (1996), pp. 267–88; Bergère (1994), pp. 384–94.

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provided the context for Sun’s reformulating his ideology, the Three People’s Principles (Sanminzhuyi 三民主義), in a series of lectures which for all their lack of coherence were his most systematic attempt at creating a political platform. These reflected themselves a mixture of global influences reaching from Soviet und liberal American as well as Christian writings to observations on empires and colonies.37 In the opening passage of his first lecture, Sun defined his ideology as follows: “Using the simplest definition, we can say that the Three People’s Principles are the principles of saving the nation-state. What is a principle? A principle is an idea, a belief (xinyang 信仰) and a force.”38 Sun thus emphasized the apocalyptic character of the national revolution; at the same, this passage is indicative of how a religious vocabulary found its way into the political language of China.39 In the following years it began to permeate the GMD texts; for example, the Three People’s Principles are occasionally referred to as a “Gospel” ( fuyin 福音) in which people “believed” (xin 信), the latter term being ubiquitous; party members and adherents of the Nationalists called themselves “adherents” or “disciples” (xintu 信徒, an explicitly Christian term) of Sun’s doctrine.40 The National Revolution of 1925–1928 which gave the Guomindang nominal control over (almost) the entire Chinese territory, a mixture of military campaigns and the largest mass movement China had seen to date, bore out this pattern. Public agitation was directed at warlords and foreign imperialists (including Christian missionaries); the latter were not only vilified, but sometimes demonized outright, although the GMD leadership and its Soviet allies may have sought to curb excesses so as not to precipitate a conflict with the Western powers.41 Sun Yat-sen’s untimely death in March 1925 prevented him to witness this; even as the National Revolution was still ongoing, the GMD began to use his ritualized memory as the focal point that would enhance the legitimacy of the new regime. There is no indication that the Comintern advisers directly influenced the emergence of the personality cult around Sun, although the Soviet Union 37 38 39 40

41

For a more detailed analysis, see Wells (2001); Bergère (1994), pp. 400–50. Sun Zhongshan (2000), p. 1. See Nedostup (2007), p. 29. A random sample of texts includes Wu Keji 吳克繼 to National Goverment, 26 January 1926, ZDELD 19, Guangzhou Guomin Zhengfu 廣州國民政府, no. 417; “Guangzhou tebieshi dongbu ershiqi nian eryue zhi ershiba nian siyue gongzuo baogao 廣州特別市 黨部二十七年二月至二十八年四月工作報告,” ZDELD 11–2, 1029; “Zongli danchen jinian biaoyu” (1928), p. 55. Cf. already Nedostup (2007), p. 29. Klein (2014), pp. 139–44; Murdock (2006), pp. 165–71.

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c­ ontributed to it by calling its newly established training institute for GMD and CCP cadres in Moscow Sun Yatsen University. Between 1925 and 1928 (two years before it was eventually closed), the University produced around 600 graduates, with both parties accounting for roughly half of them each.42 In all probability, however, the construction of Sun Yatsen as a symbol of the new regime began as an attempt by the GMD to tap into spontaneous commemorative activities springing up locally in the wake of the leader’s death. Such activities probably drew on Sun’s positive image with the Chinese public; he had been respected as one of very few incorrupt politicians.43 Before long, however, the GMD took control and established a host of activities, some of them one-off events, others permanent and some regular: A lavish memorial service for Sun was held after his death. Four years later, his corpse was transported in state and with large crowds turning up along the railway tracks from Beijing to his chosen resting place at Nanjing 南京. There, his remains were transferred in solemn procession to a grandiose mausoleum at Purple Mountain (Zijinshan 紫金山), which was reminiscent both of the Hongwu 洪武 Emperor of the Ming 明 Dynasty (personal name Zhu Yuanzhang 朱元璋, ruled 1368–1398), whose tomb is nearby, and—in conscious ­emulation—of Lenin.44 In Guangzhou, a large memorial hall was erected in commemoration of Sun; all over China, streets and urban districts, parks, schools and academic institutions, were named after him, as was his birthplace, the district and town of Xiangshan 香山, which now became Zhongshan 中山. In 1927 and 1930 respectively, the anniversaries of Sun’s birth and death joined the calendar of Nationalist holidays, while two other important holidays—10 October as the anniversary of the 1911 revolution and Gregorian New Year as the founding date of the Republic—largely centred on Sun’s image as well as his ideology. That dates prior to 1912 were converted from the old lunisolar calendar to the Gregorian one indicates that the commemoration of Sun was bound up with the GMD’s attempts at making China part of global modernity.45 Finally, honorific titles were bestowed on Sun. In the years following his death, he was referred to as the zongli 總理 or Premier—a title he had assumed in 1924 and which also refers to heads of government—until in 1940, he was canonized as the ‘Father of the Nation’ (guofu 國父).46 42 43 44 45 46

Riegel (1999), pp. 339–40; Sheng Yueh (1971), p. 41. Chen Yunqian (2005), pp. 64–65; for Sun’s public image see Schiffrin (1980), p. 216. Harrison (2000), pp. 133–44 and 207–30; Wang Liping (1996); Musgrove (2007). Chen Yunqian (2009), pp. 325–410; Poon (2011), pp. 94–97; Nedostup (2007), pp. 44–48. For the global spread of the Gregorian calendar see Macey (2010), p. 34. Bergère (1994), p. 470.

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Amongst these varied activities, the Weekly Remembrance of the Premier held a special place, partly because of its weekly rhythm and partly owing to the concentration of symbols. It was to be held every Monday morning in all party branches, government offices, army units, schools and universities. It was thus not a mass ritual, despite being transmitted to a wider public by intensive press coverage, radio broadcasts and through ‘enlarged’ (kuoda 擴大) ceremonies directed at mass audiences of several thousand people.47 The ritual came in a number of simple steps:48 At the beginning, the assembly would rise (or stand, if there were no seats available) in a respectful attitude. The second step, formally introduced in 1933 but informally practiced since 1929, was the singing of the party anthem (on a text by Sun himself), which in 1943 became the national anthem of the Republic of China (and is still in use on Taiwan today).49 Next, participants made three bows facing the image of Sun Yat-sen (and since 1937 to the party and national flags).50 This would be followed by a reading of Sun’s Last Will and Testament, a text actually drafted on Sun’s deathbed by his long-time associate Wang Jingwei 汪精衛 (1883–1944). Next, participants would again face Sun’s image and observe three minutes of silence, followed by a political report, which in 1930 was changed to a lecture on Sun’s teaching or a work report. After that, the ceremony would be officially concluded. Each element of the ritual was fraught with meaning. The reading of Sun’s testament contained an apocalyptic dimension, as Sun declared that the revolution had not yet been completed and exhorted his comrades (tongzhi 同志) to let them be guided by his writings and continue to strive for (ultimate) victory. It also addressed China’s role in the world in defining as Sun’s political objective the liberty and international equality of the Republic; to attain this objective, his followers would have to “unite with the peoples of the world that treat us on an equal footing, so as to pursue the common fight.”51 By the same token, the bow ( jugong 鞠躬) was one of those newly introduced practices by which the Republic had sought to mark China’s entry into the civilized ‘family of nations’ from 1912 onwards. For this reason, Republican 47 48 49

50 51

Chen Yunqian (2005), pp. 69–70. “Jinianzhou tiaoli” (1926), pp. 1–2. For a revised version cf. Zhonghua Minguo fagui daquan (1936), p. 5721. Standing Committee of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) of the GMD, Resolution (68th meeting), n.d., GMD, Huiyi jilu 會議紀錄, 4.3–87.27; “Ge ji dangbu lianchang dangge zhixing banfa 各及黨部練唱黨歌執行辦法.” Zhonghua Minguo fagui daquan (1936), p. 5721. For the change cf. “Xiuzheng zongli jinianzhou” (1937), Art. 4. Quoted here from Schoppa (2003), p. 69. For the drafting of the document see Bergère (1994), p. 463.

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g­overnments had also propagated its use in religious ceremonies—as a replacement for the abolished kneeling worship.52 Finally, the party anthem and flag, both of which in turn became national symbols, replaced older markers by which China had symbolized its national sovereignty and thus claimed its rightful place within the system of nation-states.53 Apart from national unification, the Weekly Remembrance also aimed at individual transformation by instilling in each participant a revolutionary work ethic. In the words of one of the Nationalists’ leading military figures, General He Yingqin 何應欽 (1890–1987), “we should examine in detail the work we did ourselves in the last week, whether or not we worked hard for the Party; . . . we ought to scrutinize ourselves, whether or not we fulfilled the mission the Premier gave us” and “we party members must examine ourselves whether or not we are already true revolutionary soldiers, whether or not we truly are hard-working party members.”54 Revolution was thus defined as labour, aiming at constructing a modern China that would become part of global modernity. GMD representatives also claimed that this work ethic was what fundamentally distinguished the Weekly Remembrance from Christian beliefs and practices.55 However, both the adoption of the weekly rhythm and the introduction of a fixed liturgy composed of body movements, common recitation, song and an exhortatory speech suggest that Christianity was a globalizing influence that both directly and indirectly shaped this political ritual. One of the few authors who openly acknowledged this was a young party official named Wu Xize 吳錫澤 (*1915), who in a 1942 pamphlet noted the formal parallels between Christian service and the Weekly Remembrance and drew the following conclusion: Our country has always lacked a common religion like Western Christianity that could accommodate the hearts of men and be a place of hope for the spirit of our people. [. . .] Now the Three People’s Principles have already become the central thought practiced by the entire people and all parties and factions. Hence we really shouldn’t hinder the Three People’s Principles replacing religion. Of course, the Three People’s 52 53 54

55

See Harrison (2000), pp. 49–85; Chen Yunqian (2005), p. 67. Zarrow (2012), pp. 224–28; Harrison (2000), pp. 98–105 and 192–96; Pi Houfeng (1995). “Bangbu di-yi jinianzhou zhong He zong zhihui zhi baogao,” unidentified newspaper clipping, 16 November 1927, GMD, Huiyi jilu, Zongli jinianzhou 總理紀念週 15 November– 16 December 1927. Ibid.; cf. also Anon. 1927, p. 7. For a more differentiated evaluation of Christianity cf. Wu Xize (1942), p. 3.

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Principles are a scientific doctrine, they are different from the doctrines of religion. But our believing in the Three People’s Principles needs precisely the spirit of religious belief; what is called religionization of belief, what is called the thought of the Three People’s Principles replacing religion means just that.56 To what extent the cult of Sun Yatsen was able to penetrate and transform society is a matter of debate. The Weekly Remembrance, whose target group could be expected to have been loyal followers, gave grounds for many complaints. In particular, commentators bemoaned that despite the penalties with which absentees were threatened, attendance at the ritual was still poor. It seems, however, that violations were not systematically penalized.57 On the other hand, after the GMD had regrouped on Taiwan in 1949 it continued to practice the Weekly Remembrance as an attempt at its largely successful political consolidation.58 In a global perspective, the Weekly Remembrance and other elements of the GMD’s political religion were the result of a global revolutionary project and an ensuing cultural transfer. The GMD no doubt was aware that the Chinese National Revolution was connected with revolutions elsewhere in the world.59 Clearly it was not a latecomer—both Soviet Communism and Italian Fascism (another likely model) were newly established regimes like that of the Nationalists. Moreover, the political system created by the Guomindang developed roughly simultaneously or even prior to other quasi-religious political movements with which it shared a number of features: Kemalism in Turkey60 and German National Socialism—the latter, along with Mussolini’s Fascism, would inspire the Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi 蔣 介石, 1887–1975) in the 1930s. Hence, the development of the Sun Yatsen cult and other features of the regime should be seen as constitutive elements of a global process rather than a unidirectional cultural import.

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Wu Xize (1942), pp. 3–4. Anon. (1927), p. 7; Lin Sen 林森 to Kong Xiangxi 孔祥熙, July 1939, AH, Xingzhengyuan 行政院, 068–004. See, for example, Gu Weijun (1989), p. 238. Zhongguo Guomindang Zhejiang Sheng Dangwu Zhidao Weiyuanhui Xunlianbu (1929), pp. 23–24. For Kemalism see Kreiser (2011), in particular pp. 219–84.

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The Mao Cult as a Global Moment, 1960s and 1970s

Like its predecessor, the Sun Yat-sen cult, the personality cult of Mao Zedong had its roots in Soviet influence in the 1920s and parallels that of Lenin (and, in Mao’s case, even more that of Stalin). Neither of the two remained completely faithful to the original blueprint; both made a unique contribution tailored to the conditions of Chinese society. However, whereas the Sun Yat-sen cult had few if any repercussions outside China, that of Mao found an echo across the world, creating something of a global moment in the 1960s and 1970s. The cult of Mao owed its emergence to a number of factors. Most fundamental of these was the transformation of the CCP from a liberal discussion circle in the May Fourth tradition into the tightly-knit, highly disciplined and thoroughly hierarchical organization it had become by the late 1920s.61 As a consequence, the general line issued by the Party Central became sacrosanct: to oppose it was no longer simply an expression of dissent—it amounted to heresy. Political and military developments each played their role in enabling Mao’s rise to unquestioned leadership of the CCP, which took the better part of the decade between 1935 and 1945. Although some indications of the subsequent Mao cult appear as early as the late 1930s, the Rectification Movement of 1942 to 1944 seems to have constituted a watershed in promoting Mao as a original and systematic Communist thinker in his own right and in making him the focus of political rituals. The first reference to Mao’s writings as a systematic body worthy of the name of ‘Thought of Comrade Mao Zedong’ (Mao Zedong tongzhi de sixiang 毛澤東同志的思想) dates from February 1941. About a year later, on 8 February 1942, more than a thousand people at the Communist headquarters in Yan’an 延安 celebrated ‘Zedong day,’ listening to biographical sketches of the party leader.62 During the Rectification Movement, party members for the first time studied Mao’s writings as “revelatory and ‘revealing’ texts” that “created ‘discourse communities with a transformational sense of their own difference, messianic . . .”63 The anthem ‘The East is Red,’ whose lyrics were set to a folk song around the time of Mao’s ascension to chairmanship of the Party in 1945, already features much of the imagery surrounding Mao in later years.64 Mao is hailed as a “great saviour” (da jiuxing 大救星, literally “saving star”) and “pathfinder” (dailuren 帶路人) who loves the people;

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For this process see van de Ven (1991), in particular pp. 230–33. Gao Hua (2000), pp. 606–07; cf. Leese (2010), pp. 224–25. Apter (1995), p. 195. See Hung Chang-tai (1996), p. 920.

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the sun, which would become one of the most frequently used tropes for Mao, is present as a symbol for both the man and the party. It is impossible here to trace in more detail the development of the Mao cult through the 1950s and 1960s, nor to discuss the contributions of other party leaders and practices such as self-criticism to the creation of a political religion by the Chinese Communists. By the same token, I am less interested in the ways the worship of Mao became a stand-in for religious practices associated with deities, eventually transforming the chairman—like Sun Yatsen before him—into a god of the folk-religious pantheon.65 Suffice it to say that the Mao cult was predicated on the notion of the transformative power of belief, both at the individual and social levels. During the Cultural Revolution in particular, propaganda emphasized the closeness of Chairman Mao, allowing him to penetrate into individuals’ thinking to a degree unknown for any previous political leader. As a well-known song stated: The sun is reddest, / Chairman Mao is closest. Your brilliant thought / Will forever illuminate my [or: our] heart. The spring wind is warmest, / Chairman Mao is closest. Your revolutionary party line / Will forever guide [my/our] journey. Your achievements are higher than the sky. Your loving kindness is deeper than the sea. The sun in my heart will never set. Your heart will forever be close to ours.66 During the Cultural Revolution, innumerable propaganda posters hammered the same point home (see, for example, Fig. 2.1). The youthful Red Guards, who were the targets of this propaganda, responded with rituals of their own, including oaths of loyalty to the Chairman, an elevation of terror as a source of social change, a cult of physical strength, pilgrimages retracing episodes in Mao’s biography or providing the opportunity to see him (if only from a distance) and prescribed forms of penitence to rectify transgressions.67 Certainly the Red Guards’ romanticist and voluntarist perspective on Mao was different to that of the Party establishment. But ultimately, rational and irrational elements in the Mao cult are hard to disentangle. A fine example is the story how 65 66 67

Landsberger (2002), pp. 153–59 and 161–64; Chao (1999); for the deification of Sun Yatsen cf. Nedostup (2009), p. 274. “Mao zhuxi zui qin 毛主席最亲 [Chairman Mao is closest],” http://baike.baidu.com/ view/4096964.htm. Mitter (2008), pp. 157–63.

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Figure 2.1 Women xinzhong zuihong zuihongde hong taiyang Mao zhuxi he women xin lian xin 我们心中最红最红的红太阳毛主席和我们心连心 [The reddest reddest red sun in our heart, Chairman Mao and us heart to heart], propaganda poster by Zhejiang Sheng Gongnongbing Meishu Chuangzuozu 浙江省工农兵美术创作组, January 1968, International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam), IISH collection, BG E3/712.

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People’s Liberation Army doctors performed miraculous cures on deaf-mutes by correctly applying Mao’s doctrine on contradictions.68 What is more interesting in the context of this article is that the Cultural Revolution should not be viewed in isolation. Rather, it formed part of a global wave of social upheavals and transformations that shook both the ‘developed’ nations of Europe and North America, the struggling nation-states of Latin America and the freshly decolonized Third World.69 The domestic causes of this upheaval were always complex and varied from country to country and from world region to world region. They were held together, however, by the common framework of the Cold War, which was compounded by the SinoSoviet split in the early 1960s, and the changes to the system of nation-states brought about by decolonization, both transformations that were changing the face of the globe. Within this context, Maoism could mean different things to different people, reflecting the more ‘pragmatic’ or the more ‘charismatic’ aspects of Maoism (although in practice these aspects may have been hard to distinguish). In largely agriculture-based countries, it might serve as blueprint to a successful strategy of agrarian revolution and guerrilla warfare, sometimes succeeding in bringing together peasants and students.70 For the educated urban youth, especially in the ‘Western’ hemisphere, Mao, along with Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969), Fidel Castro (*1927), Che Guevara (1928–1967) and others became a key symbol in an emerging ‘third world-ism’ (tiers-mondisme), a growing concern with the problems faced by the developing world, the Vietnam War being just one example, albeit one of prime importance. Against this backdrop, Mao constituted a powerful counter-image with which to critique and provoke authorities and elder generations.71 It has been argued that in its spread across the globe, Maoism proved to be an adaptable and malleable concept—to the extent that there was not one single Maoism, but a spectrum of different Maoisms.72 With regard to Western Europe in particular, scholars have pointed to the rather marginal if not entirely insignificant character of Maoist groups and their often highly

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This was spread through different media, e.g. films, books and magazines. Excerpts from some of these materials are available at http://www.morningsun.org/red/deafmute/ exploring_secrets.html (accessed 27 February 2013). This global aspect is neatly if somewhat subliminally captured in Cornils and Waters (2010). See Cook (2010), pp. 291–93 and 304–06. For the distinction between ‘pragmatic’ and ‘charismatic’ Maoism see Mitter (2008), p. 145. Bourg (2005), p. 386; Diehl (2008), p. 181. See Cook (2010), p. 305; Wemheuer (2008), pp. 11–13.

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selective adaptation of Mao’s thinking.73 The same appears to be true of Maooriented organizations in other parts of the world as well, and indeed few of them succeeded in seizing unchallenged state power, with the exception of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia between 1975 and 1978 and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) since 2006, the latter’s success being somewhat ­anachronistic.74 However, overemphasizing the receiving end obscures the fact that the Chinese side took on an active role in this cultural transfer. In fact, the CCP leadership closely monitored protest movements in the world in the late 1960s, seeing China as the centre of the world revolution, and the Red Guards expressed a strong desire to export the revolution to the rest of the world.75 Most importantly, perhaps, a number of powerful media that spread the revolutionary message across the world immediately grew out of the Mao cult. These could serve as global icons of protest and revolution, lending themselves to adaptation in various local contexts. The first of these was the Little Red Book (Mao zhuxi yulu 毛主席語錄, ‘Quotations from Chairman Mao’), published under the auspices of the People’s Liberation Army in 1964. Until 1971, about 110 million copies appeared in 36 languages (including a Braille version), the official version being supplemented by over 400 local editions.76 The Little Red Book was more than a collection of relevant Mao statements for every conceivable situation in life; its materiality served in itself as an icon to be presented ostentatiously. Nobody has appreciated the iconic quality inherent in the book’s materiality better than French director Jean-Luc Godard (*1930) in his 1967 film La Chinoise— especially in the scene where copies of the book are flung at an American toy tank, stopping it instantly in its tracks.77 By contrast, a second publication, the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, published in the early 1950s, provided fodder for the intellectual mind. And finally there was Mao’s image, popularized in many ways, not the least in the form of Mao badges that were worn as insignia of loyalty by demonstrating Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. These too made their way abroad; in 1968, the English-language magazine China Reconstructs reported how people across the world were craving for the precious button.78 Indeed, the two lines from the Beatles song ‘Revolution’ stating 73 74 75 76 77 78

Bourg (2005), pp. 472–73; Wemheuer (2008), p. 20; Wolin (2010), pp. 3–4. Cook (2010), pp. 301–04 and 307–11. Brady (1996), pp. 116–22. Leese (2011), p. 108. Godard (2012), 37:12–15. “World’s People Eagerly Seek Chairman Mao Badges.” China Reconstructs (May 1968), reprinted in http://www.morningsun.org/red/badges_cr5_1968.html (accessed 27 February 2013). For the context cf. Schrift (2001).

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that “if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao/You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow,” seem to allude directly to the practice of wearing Mao badges in Britain.79 As representatives of popular counterculture, the Beatles, and especially John Lennon (1940–1980), displayed a high degree of ambivalence about a violent revolution in Chinese fashion. But Lennon sported a Mao badge during a famous 1970 interview, justifying this on the grounds that Mao was “doing a good job.”80 In the global moment created by the upsurge of political religion during the Cultural Revolution in China, Maoist media and iconography linked thirdworld revolutionaries with first-world protest culture. To what extent the results can be classified as political religion is a matter of debate, the more so as they varied from place to place. Between 1967 and 1972 the Maoist splinter group popularly known as the Naxalites in India, basing themselves on the ‘Little Red Book’ as well as on Mao’s ‘Three Old Essays’ adopted Mao’s guerrilla tactics to wage a ‘people’s war’. Despite the tensions before and after the Sino-Indian war of 1962, the Naxalites regarded the Chinese leader as their chairman, beginning what one historian has called the “fanatical worshipping of Mao.”81 Indeed, Charu Mazumdar (1918–1972), chairman of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), which became the political driving force of the movement, employed an apocalyptic rhetoric, exhorting his student followers to have faith in Mao Zedong Thought, as it was “smashing the old world and building a new world”.82 Mazumdar called for the establishment of small work teams, each member equipped with a copy of the Quotations from Chairman Mao, who should share the hardships of poor and landless peasants while at the same time familiarizing them with the sayings of the Chinese leader. The Naxalites also made use of the symbolic materiality of the Quotations, introducing ‘red book marriages’ whereby a couple could declare themselves husband and wife by exchanging copies of the precious text in front of party members.83 Although the Naxalite guerrilla movement was suppressed in the 1970s, it has made a remarkable comeback since the

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The two versions of the song are available from http://steve.hamel.name/songs/revolution.asp and http://steve.hamel.name/songs/revolution_1.asp (both accessed 27 February 2013). Cf. Platoff (2005), p. 244. I am indebted to Marcus Collins for pointing me to these and related materials. Wenner (2000), p. 111; cf. Collins (2012), p. 10. Sumanta Banerjee as quoted in Chakrabarti (1990), pp. 59–60. Quoted in Singh (1995): 70. For the “squads” see ibid., 70–71; for the ‘red book marriages’ Roy 2012, 108–09 and 112–13.

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early 2000s.84 Peru offers a similar example: Here in the 1970s, the guerrillas of the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) developed a personality cult reminiscent of Mao around their leader Abimael Guzmán Reynoso (aka Presidente Gonzalez, *1934), who became known to his followers as puka inti, Quechua for “Red Sun,” while some nicknamed him more disrespectfully “shampoo,” for his alleged ability at brainwashing people.85 The Shining Path also followed the Chinese example by making use of big-character posters of sorts and even reciting CCP songs in Mandarin.86 In the West European student movement too, adaptations of Maoist ideas and paraphernalia also gave rise to notions of palingenetic renewal. In a recent interview, the former German activist Gerd Koenen (*1944) almost echoes Eric Voegelin when he speaks of “a certain apocalyptic thinking” exhibited by the movement. China, Koenen goes on to argue, made it possible for German youths to radically reinvent themselves, challenging the older war generation and escaping from the seemingly inexorable rift imposed by the logic of the Cold War. Maoism perfectly fit the idea that somehow there existed a link between third-world liberation movements and the students’ attempts at reinventing and refashioning their own society.87 Echoing another icon of CCP history, student leader Rudi Dutschke (1940–1979) called in February 1968 for a “long march through institutions” that would lead to the creation of counter-institutions or “liberated zones” within bourgeois society. Although at surface level, Dutschke refers to Maoism as a pragmatic strategy, his ideas of anti-bourgeois forms of social life also appears to foreshadow a complete renewal of society. It is quite possible that related experiments with communal forms of living also had their roots in the study of Chinese Communist texts.88 Thus China became a blueprint for radical attempts at renovating society— apocalyptic in that they could only fully be realized through the overthrow of the existing social order. At the same time, China was itself a utopia concretized, as one widely read book argued—a place where human beings and their needs were at the centre of politics and administration.89 Surprisingly, this utopia appealed not only to the New Left, but also to conservatives such as the former French minister of education Alain Peyrefitte (1925–1999), the German journalist Klaus Mehnert (1906–1984) or his Swedish colleague Olof 84 85 86 87 88 89

Cf. Paul (2013), 1–8; Chakravarti (2008). Gorriti (1992), p. 151. Cook (2010), pp. 304–05. Koenen and Diehl (2008), pp. 30 and 36. Ali and Watkins (1998), p. 47. Kuntze (1975), p. 206.

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Lagercrantz (1911–2002), all of whom visited China in the early 1970s. In their travelogues, they describe China as something akin to an earthly paradise, where the populace scorn wealth, where bureaucracy is reduced to a minimum, where direct democracy is implemented and where the authorities encourage innovation and experiment. These are echoes of the writings of Agnes Smedley (1892–1950), Anna Louise Strong (1885–1970) and Edgar Snow (1905–1972), who had begun to sing Mao’s praises as early as the late 1920s and early 1930s.90 Whereas most of the Maoist movements in Asia and Latin America were sooner or later repressed by military force (in the case of the Khmer Rouge, by the army of a neighbouring country, Vietnam), the honeymoon of young Western Europeans and North Americans with China came to an end through developments in China itself. Fissures appeared as early as 1972 as a result of China’s rapprochement with the United States. They became visible in the wake of US President Nixon’s visit to China in February 1972, which publicly and ostensibly involved Mao’s persona. In response to this event, a booklet accompanying a record of the German band Ton Steine Scherben released in the same year featured a portrait of Mao with the caption “Mao, Mao, why have you forsaken us?”91 Here, the religious allusion was used to express disappointment at the Chinese leader’s retreat from his revolutionary line. When following the death of Mao, the PRC abandoned his radical policies and walked down the capitalist road that Mao had so fervently spoken out against, China ceased to be viewed as the paradise of the workers and peasants that could serve as a model for a radical and miraculous restructuring of ‘Western’ societies. As the global moment to which the Mao cult had so greatly contributed gradually petered out across the globe, it also did so in China—with some qualifications, however. Mao was not completely dismantled by the new CCP leadership, and various waves of nostalgia confirm the lingering impression the former Chairman has made on the Chinese population. Films starring Mao’s doppelganger Gu Yue 古月 (1937–2005), the sale of kitschy Mao memorabilia from the first decades of the PRC, and forms of red tourism to important places in his life confirm this. The Chairman Mao Memorial Hall on Tian’anmen 天安門 Square in Beijing, in particular, became a site of pilgrimage for the Chinese population.92 However, for the time being the Mao cult ceased to function as a political platform, as the CCP turned to other sources of legitimacy.

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Rudolph (1989); cf. Apter (2005). Wemheuer (2008), p. 19. Barmé (1996); Wagner (1992 a).

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Vestiges of Political Religion in the Post-Mao Era, 1976–present

Despite this enduring popularity of certain aspects of the Mao cult in the years after his death, the leadership of party and state quickly embarked on a different course. Its attempts to humanize political power holders was summed up succinctly by then head of state Ye Jianying 葉劍英 (1897–1986) in his speech on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the People’s Republic in October 1979: According to Lenin, those who lead a proletarian party and a Communist state usually are not individuals, but a collective composed of several people referred to as leaders. Organizations at all levels need their leaders . . . Leading personalities are not gods, they cannot but have defects and [commit] mistakes, [hence] they should not be deified.93 As well as distancing themselves from the Mao cult, the new leaders also sought to undermine its ideological underpinnings. For Deng Xiaoping 鄧小平 (1904–1997), the emerging paramount leader, the core of the Mao Zedong ideas consisted not in the concept of class struggle, but in ‘seeking truth from facts’ (shishi qiu shi 實事求是). In establishing practice as the sole criterion of truth, Deng was supported by Hu Yaobang 胡耀邦 (1915–1989), who until his dismissal as Secretary General of the CCP in 1987 was one of his closest political associates. Deng and his followers succeeded in establishing a discursive framework that forced party cadres to declare themselves in favour of the new political line of the Party, no matter whether they were convinced of it or not.94 This shift paved the way for China’s new economic policy; at the same time, it was a major departure from the emphasis on individual faith and inner transformation characteristic of the Mao era. Propagating the ‘liberation of thought’ ( jiefang sixiang 解放思想), the CCP under Deng had effectively been stripped off all signs of political religion. The approach of the early Deng Xiaoping years was not to last, however. From the late 1970s, the CCP struggled with political and social dissent embodied, among others, in the democracy movements of 1978/79 and 1989. The brief appearance of the ‘Goddess of Democracy’ in Tian’anmen Square in late May and early June 1989 was a double appropriation, drawing on a global symbol of individual freedom and democratic government, the Statue of Liberty in New York, which itself merges religious imagery into a secular political ­discourse. 93 94

Ye Jianying (1979), p. 26. For this shift see Zhang Wei-Wei (1996), pp. 23–28.

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Other global symbols included the ‘International’ as the hymn of the movement and the wearing of white headbands, adopted from pro-democracy protests in Korea and the Philippines. At the same time, the Goddess’ seeming dialogue with the portrait of Mao hanging from Tian’anmen Gate, captured in photographs at the time, could also be read as invoking the messianism associated with Mao against a dictatorial and corrupt party elite.95 In reaction to the two democracy movements, which it suppressed ruthlessly, the CCP tried to redefine both its ideology and its position within the world at large. The Four Basic Principles, laid down in 1979, contained those features that the Party was determined to hold on to: Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, the leadership of the CCP, Socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. The formulation, however, was vague and more geared towards preventing the people from challenging the party-state.96 In 1992, three years after the brutal crackdown on the demonstrators at Tian’anmen Square, the CCP officially adopted Deng Xiaoping theory, which included as developmental goal a “socialism with Chinese characteristics” ( you Zhongguo tese de shehuizhuyi 有中國特色的社會主義). This formula pointed to a specific Chinese goal of modernization that would resemble neither Sovietstyle socialism nor the liberal-democratic capitalism of the West. The deliberate camouflaging of the ‘Western’ origins of socialism was an echo of the late-nineteenth century ti-yong 體用 formula, conceived by Confucian scholars in an attempt to strengthen China by importing ‘Western’ technology while at the same keeping ‘Western’ ideas at bay.97 Since the early 1990s, successive CCP leaders as well as party propaganda have introduced comprehensive interpretations of China’s past, present and future that to some extent relate the idea of a fundamental transformation of Chinese society. Perhaps the most obvious example is the officially sponsored resurgence of Chinese nationalism in the 1990s. A case in point is the well-known 1994 poster series on ‘patriotic education.’98 The four posters in the series address different themes: pride in China’s ancient civilization, indignation at the unforgettable experience of China’s humiliation by imperialism, fond memories of China’s revolution from 1911 to the Communist takeover in 1949 and finally, satisfaction at modern technology, which will catapult China to the forefront of the twenty-first century world. Whilst identifying 95 96 97 98

Wagner (1992 b), pp. 330–42. Zhang Wei-wei (1996), pp. 29–32. Wakeman (2002), p. 160. The posters and a commentary are available from http://www.chineseposters.net/ themes/patriotic-education-1994.php (accessed 9 July 2013).

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the ­enemies who have hindered China’s progress, the end result will be a new nation whose progress is symbolized by the ability to explore outer space. Interestingly, a similar trajectory, albeit with a different focus, can be found in Jiang Zemin’s 江澤民 (*1926) explanations of his ‘Three Represents’ (San ge daibiao 三個代表), promulgated in 2000. Jiang, who succeeded Deng Xiaoping as paramount leader, divides the “more than seventy-year history” of the CCP into the three stages of revolution, reconstruction and reform. In each of these stages, the Party “always has represented the demands of China’s progressive productive forces, represented the direction of the advance of China’s progressive culture, represented the fundamental interests of the broadest [masses] of the people.”99 These ‘Three Represents,’ according to Jiang, are also the key to China’s future development, enabling the reconstruction of the Party—which should be enabled to accept capitalists as members—and the “self-perfection and development” of a “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”100 Jiang thus presents the sanitized history of an unblemished Party, while at the same time connecting it with the promise of a perfect future. Jiang’s successor Hu Jintao 胡錦濤 (*1942) chose yet another approach, attempting to even out social imbalances that have arisen as a consequence of the reform process: by declaring a moderately affluent society (xiaokang shehui 小康社會) as China’s developmental goal, he borrowed heavily from Confucian utopianism and in particular Kang Youwei’s 康有為 (1858–1927) Datong shu 大同書 (The Book of the Great Unity).101 At the same time, his Eight Honours and Eight Shames (Ba rong ba chi 八榮八恥), proclaimed two years later, offer a moral code for every citizen. Its elements —such as love of the country and serving the people, embracing science and education, hard work, respect for the law and discipline—are adapted to serve the vision of a modernizing China at the outset of the twenty-first century. A DVD from the early Hu Jintao era underlays pictures of a peaceful, harmonious and modern Chinese society with songs incorporating the eight maxims.102 Though these attempts differ in their outlook, all of them are underpinned by a tightly circumscribed role of history in public life. In Communist China, understanding the past has always been placed under Party supervision; at any point in recent history, its interpretation has followed the official party line of the day. With other symbols of Communist ideology on decline, the sacralization of Chinese history was cast more sharply into relief. Its essence is 99 100 101 102

Jiang Zemin (2001), p. 2. Jiang Zemin (2002), p. 583. The term was first used by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s; cf. Tomba (2009). “Ba rong ba chi” gequ san ban huicui (2006).

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Figure 2.2 Ai guo shouxian yao zhi guo—zhi zhi yu shen ai zhi yu qie 爱国首先要知 国—知之愈深爱之愈切 [To love the country one must first know its history—the deeper the knowledge, the more eager the love], propaganda poster by Sha De’an 啥 德安 and Li Yang 李阳, 1984, International Institute for Social History (Amsterdam), Stefan Landsberger collection, BG E13/489.

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neatly captured by a propaganda poster issued in 1984 (Fig. 2.2): At the centre, the image shows a hand holding a book—a direct reference to the shape of the Little Red Book, except that this time, it is a Modern History of China covered in blue. Yellow waves alluding to sunbeams as well as scenes from the Monument to the People’s Heroes on Tian’anmen Square are both reminiscent of Cultural Revolution propaganda. At the same time, the caption evokes the connection between history and patriotism: “To love the country one must first know its history—the deeper the knowledge, the more eager the love.” The religious imagery surrounding the themes of history and patriotism endows this poster with a significance beyond its original context, the campaign against bourgeois liberalization. The CCP has taken great pains to immunize Chinese history against unwelcome interpretations, both domestically and abroad. A particularly sensitive issue is the history of imperialism precisely because it has a global dimension involving other parties. In the 1990s, the concept of ‘national humiliation’ (guochi) made a spectacular comeback across all kinds of media, indicating a discursive shift from heroic resistance (which had dominated the memory of imperialism under Mao) to Chinese suffering and victimization.103 The conflict between China and the Vatican in October 2000 offers a good example of how the CCP has tried to defend its history against competing interpretations in an increasingly globalizing world. It revolved around the canonization of 120 ‘Chinese martyrs’ by Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) on 1 October of that year. The date was chosen by the church because it is the feast of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897), a patron saint of foreign missions.104 As the majority of the 120 persons selected for canonization were Chinese, the ceremony can also be viewed as reflecting the growing recognition of non-­European contributions to a global church. From the perspective of CCP, however, this was an interference with the official Chinese interpretation of history, the more so as the ceremony was scheduled for Chinese National Day. From late September into the first week of October, Chinese media conducted a massive campaign against the Vatican, no doubt with official backing. China’s official ‘patriotic’ religious associations were also quoted as supporting the stance of party and government.105 Newspaper articles denounced the canonization of the “so-called 103 Cohen (2003); Gries (2004), pp. 43–53. 104 Clark (2010), p. 54. 105 The following discussion is based on the coverage in Renmin Ribao between 25 September and 6 October 2000. The majority of articles also appeared in Guangming Ribao at the same time, suggesting that the press coverage had official backing. For the role of religious associations “Jiu Fandigang wushi Zhongguo jiaohui zhuquan ni cefeng suowei shengren

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‘saints’,” arguing that the Vatican was consciously attempting to manipulate and falsify history. The understanding of history underpinning the press coverage leaves no room for different interpretations; deviations from the one true version sanctioned by the Party are viewed as distortion, fabrication, as a “provocation of the Chinese people” or even as “anti-Chinese activities ( fan Hua huodong 反華活動).”106 At the same time, the ‘correct’ interpretation of history, in which professional historians joined the journalists, was based on the vilification of Catholic missionaries. These had committed ‘crimes’ (zui 罪) against the Chinese people: not content with supporting imperialist politics and forcibly occupying land on which to build churches, they had committed more heinous misdeeds, abusing, seducing or raping Chinese women (in particular Christians).107 Finally, commentators strongly emphasized the difference between the China of today and that of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The message is that China was weak then, but is much stronger today and will be able to successfully resist any encroachments from outside forces. renshi, Zhongguo Tianzhu Aiguohui Zhongguo Tianzhujiao Zhujiaotuan fabiao shengming 就梵蒂冈无视中国教会主权拟册封所谓圣人, 中国天主教爱国会中国天主 教主教团发表声明 [In response to the Vatican’s plan to disregard the sovereignty of the Chinese church by canonizing the so-called saints. The Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association and the Chinese Catholic Bishops Conference publish a declaration,” Renmin Ribao 27 September 2000, p. 1; “Jiu Fandigang waiqu cuangai lishi ni xuanbu cefeng suowei ‘shengren’ shi. Zhongguo Jidujiao Sanzi Yundong Weiyuanhui Zhongguo Jidujiao Xiehui fabiao shengming 就梵蒂冈歪曲篡改历史拟宣布册封搜位〈圣人〉中国基督教 协会发表声明 [In response to the Vatican’s distortion and falsification of history by planning to proclaim the canonization of the so-called ‘saints.’ The National Committee of the Patriotic Three-Self Movement of the Protestant Churches in China and the China Christian Council publish a declaration,” Renmin Ribao, 28 September 2000, p. 1; “Wo guo Fojiao Yisilanjiao Daojiao quanguoxing tuanti fenbie juxing zuotanhui. Qianglie fandui Fandigang jie ‘shengren’ gao fan Hua huodong 我国佛教伊斯兰教道教全国性团体 分别举行座谈会. 强烈反对梵蒂冈借〈圣人〉搞反华活动 [Our country’s national Buddhist, Islamic and Daoist organizations hold meetings. Resolutely resist the Vatican’s use of ‘saints’ to conduct anti-Chinese activities],” Renmin Ribao, 4 October 2000, p. 1. 106 Apart from the material in the previous footnote, cf. also the commentary by an anonymous editorialist, “Fandigang ‘feng sheng’ shi dui Zhongguo renmin de yanzhong tiaoxin 梵蒂冈〈封圣〉是对中国人民的严重挑衅 [The Vatican ‘canonization of saints’ is a serious provocation of the Chinese people],” Renmin Ribao, 3 October 2000, p. 1. 107 Zhen Shi 甄实, “Ma Lai yu Di-er ci yapian zhanzheng 马赖与第二次鸦片战争 [Auguste Chapdelaine and the Second Opium War],” Renmin Ribao, 29 September 2000, p. 3; Shi Yan 史岩, “Jiekai suowei ‘shengren’ de mianmu 揭开所谓〈圣人〉的面目 [Exposing the ugly face of the so-called ‘saints’],” Renmin Ribao, 3 October 2000, p. 2—the latter an echo of 1920s anti-imperialist rhetoric. For the context cf. Clark (2010).

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It goes without saying that such a discourse is not only about the past. It is about China’s role in an increasingly globalizing world. And it must be seen in connection with events such as the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999 and the ensuing outrage in China, or the anti-Japanese demonstrations across China in 2005.108 In this logic, if China is striving to attain a leading global role, it must overcome the “containment policy” (ezhi zhengce 遏制政策) of the West and in particular the United States. This view emanates not only from government propaganda, but also from more popular expressions of nationalism, such as the 1996 bestseller China Can Say No, which is itself modelled on a Japanese pamphlet.109 What is left of the apocalyptic dimension of Chinese politics, then, is the necessity of overcoming external adversaries in order to emerge as a truly global player. In the post-Mao era, the CCP has replaced the faith in the political leadership that was such a defining feature of Mao’s rule with a more empirically oriented and increasingly technocratic understanding of politics. The Party has promulgated a new code of social ethics aiming at the creation of social harmony through correct practice—a strategy that, it is true, borrows heavily from Confucianism and is more in line with Chinese modes of ‘doing religion’ than with the faith-based understanding of religion adopted from the ‘West.’110 The same can be said of the (propagandistic) attempts of creating a middle-class society, which is both a realistic strategy and draws on Confucianinspired utopianism. At the same time, the Party has sanitized its own history and sacralized that of China at large. This can be viewed as a response to the domestic and international challenges in a rapidly globalizing world. While it echoes some of the defining features of political religion—in particular the immaculate image of the Party and its leadership, the symbolism surrounding the nation and the notion that China must overcome contending forces to attain its rightful place in the world—, it bears more resemblance to the pre1920 period than to Guomindang China or the Mao era. Conclusion The trajectory of political religion in twentieth-century China owes much to China’s standing in the world at large. It grew out of attempts at overcoming China’s perceived international weakness, which was always bound up with the country’s domestic problems. At the same time, it can be viewed as a 108 Gries (2004), pp. 128–33; Reilly (2006), pp. 208–11. 109 Song Qiang et al. (1996), especially pp. 51–52. 110 Chau (2011), p. 549.

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s­ pecifically Chinese response to one of the great global challenges of the twentieth century: the decline of a transcendent legitimacy of political authority. In the 1920s, China became part of a global revolutionary project that sought to unite the oppressed peoples of the world under the leadership of the Soviet Union against capitalist imperialism. Although this project was soon abandoned by the Soviet leadership itself, it had a lasting impact on Chinese politics. The Nationalists, who had severed their ties with Soviet Communism as early as the late 1920s, adapted the Soviet model of political religion and mixed it with Christian influences, despite explicitly disavowing the latter. For the Guomindang, faith in the late leader Sun Yatsen and in the party ideology he created was essential in bringing about a domestically unified and internationally strengthened China. Political rituals centred around the memory of Sun and geared towards creating a revolutionary work ethic became the means to inculcate this faith amongst the political and social elites, whose successful mobilization would enable China to become part of a global modernity. However, this also required struggles to overcome obstacles and foes in order to win through to the ultimate goal—a vision which constitutes the ‘apocalyptic’ element of the GMD’s political religion. In principle, the political religion of the CCP propagated throughout the Mao era stemmed from the same ideological background and served the same goals. But not only did they penetrate more deeply and more effectively into Chinese society, they also became part of a global moment in the 1960s and 1970s. This united different constituencies—a youthful urban counterculture in the ‘West,’ revolutionary guerrilla movements in the Third World. While for the latter, adopting Mao’s strategies seemed to reflect a straightforward logic, this was not the case for the former. In Western Europe and North America, an increasing receptivity towards the emerging Third World played a far greater role. The politically religious dimension of Maoism could inscribe itself into this trend. But this process was not exclusively determined by the receiving end: China’s essential contribution to the revolutionary global moment consisted in producing powerful symbols—most notably Mao’s portrait and the Little Red Book as well as other Mao writings—that had an appeal for different constituencies. As political religions, the ideologies of the GMD and of the CCP in the Mao era shared a number of characteristics: Both placed a strong emphasis on faith and invididual as well as collective transformation, based on the cult of a political leader. In abandoning these, the post-Mao Communist leadership took an altogether different approach. However, the global environment within which it operated looked more akin to the situation of Guomindang China than to the global moment of the 1960s and 1970s. Although many emerging economies could look to the Chinese developmental model for guidance

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and ‘Western’ enterprises could not resist the allure of the Chinese market, CCP ideology was hardly a selling point. ‘Western’ public opinion in particular, having somewhat belatedly discovered the atrocities during Mao’s reign, was increasingly hostile, pointing to China’s human rights violations as well as its increasing military build-up and heightened nationalism. In this context, vestiges of political religion continue to exist in the form of a whitewashed party history, the sacralization of national history, the apocalyptic identification of enemies and obstacles to be overcome, the propagation of a moral code that can unify the population domestically and strengthen China vis-à-vis the challenges from abroad and finally the vision of a harmonious future society and a rise of China’s power at the global level. With the possible exception of the democratic movement of 1989, the Mao cult ceased to be used as a political platform after the chairman’s death in 1976—until very recently: When the party chairman of Chongqing 重慶 Bo Xilai 薄熙來 (*1949) initiated a “red culture movement” reminiscent of Maoera mass campaigns in 2011, he may well have intended this to be part of a bid for power at the Party’s centre.111 Although Bo’s expulsion from the Party the following year put a stop to his personal ambitions, it would seem that the new party chairman, Xi Jinping 習近平, who took office in late 2012, has also appropriated elements from the Mao cult. In June 2013, the Party launched a “campaign to realize the Party’s mass line education” (dang de qunzong luxian jiaoyu shixian yundong 黨的群眾路線教育實現運動), with Xi himself presiding over self-criticism sessions. A new edition of the Quotations from Chairman Mao was scheduled to appear in November of the same year. This is certainly more than a move to appease left-wing adherents of Bo Xilai.112 Each of Mao’s successors has sought to make his imprint on the ideological development and—more broadly speaking—the political culture of party, state and society. And to Xi, elements of Maoist politics may appear as an expedient tool to distinguish himself from his predecessors and establish his authority as a leader. All of this clearly does not imply a return to the class struggle of the Mao era. But it indicates how elements of political religion inherited from the twentieth century may still shape China’s contemporary politics. What is also obvious is that in shaping its political culture, present-day China can rely on a purely national heritage. The global processes by which the idea of political ideologies as beliefs was introduced in China as well as the ideas of apocalypse and palingenesis that the Mao cult radiated back into the wider world now appear to belong to history.

111 Branigan (2011). 112 See, for example, Branigan (2013); Forde (2013); Zhuang Feng (2013).

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Bibliography

Unpublished Documents

AH Guoshiguan 國史館 [Academia Historica], Taipei, Taiwan GMD Zhongguo Guomindang Zhongyang Weiyuanhui Dangshi Weiyuanhui 中國 國民黨中央委員會黨史委員會 [Archives of the Historical Commission, Central Committee of the GMD], Taipei ZDELD Zhongguo Di-er Lishi Dang’anguan 中国第二历史档案馆 [Second Historical Archives of China], Nanjing

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Goossaert, Vincent and David A. Palmer (2011). The Religious Question in Modern China. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Gentile, Emilio (2006). Politics as Religion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2006. Gerth, Karl G. (1998). “Consumption as Resistance: The National Products Movement and Anti-Japanese Boycotts in Modern China.” In: Harald Fuess (ed.), The Japanese Empire in East Asia and Its Postwar Legacy. Munich: Iudicium, pp. 119–42. Gorriti, Gustavo (1992). “Shining Path’s Stalin and Trotsky.” In: David Scott Palmer (ed.), The Shining Path of Peru. London: Hurst, pp. 149–70. Gries, Peter H. (2004). China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics and Diplomacy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Griffin, Roger (1991). The Nature of Fascism. London: Routledge. Gu Weijun 顾维钧 (1989). Gu Weijun huiyilu 顾维钧回忆录 [Records of Wellington Koo]. Vol. 11. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. Hung, Chang-tai (1996). “The Politics of Songs: Myths and Symbols in the Chinese Communist War Music. 1937–1949.” Modern Asian Studies 30, pp. 901–29. Harrison, Henrietta (2000). The Making of the Republican Citizen: Political Ceremonies and Symbols in China 1911–1929, Oxford: Oxford University Press. ——— (2001). China: Inventing the Nation. London: Arnold. “Jinianzhou tiaoli 紀念週條例” [Regulations for the Weekly Remembrance of the Premier” (1926). Guomin zhengfu gongbao 國民政府公報 16:寧:4, 12 February 1926, pp. 1–2. Jiang Zemin 江泽民 (2001). “Zai xin de lishi tiaojian xia, women ruhe zuodao ‘San ge daibiao’ 在新的历史条件下, 我们如何做到〈三个代表〉[How are we to carry out the ‘Three Represents’ under new historical circumstances].” In: Jiang Zemin, Lun San ge daibiao 论三个代表 [On the Three Represents]. Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe, pp. 1–6. Jiang Zemin lun you Zhongguo tese de shehuizhuyi 江泽民论有中国特色的社会 主义 [Jiang Zemin on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics] (2002). Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe. Klein, Thoralf (2014). “The Missionary as Devil. Anti-Christian Demonology in China, 1860–1930.” In: Judith Becker and Brian Stanley (eds.), Europe as the Other: External Perspectives on European Christianity. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 119–48. Knecht, Michi and Jörg Feuchter (2008). “Introduction: Reconfiguring Religion and Its Other.” In: Heike Bock, Jörg Feuchter and Michi Knecht (eds.), Religion and Its Other: Secular and Sacral Concepts and Practices in Interaction. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, pp. 9–20. Koenen, Gerd and Laura K. Diehl (2008). “Mao als Mona-Lisa der Weltrevolution.” In: Sebastian Gehrig, Barbara Mittler and Felix Wemheuer (eds.), Kulturrevolution als

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Vorbild? Maoismen in deutschsprachigen Raum. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, pp. 27–37. Kreiser, Klaus (2011). Atatürk. Eine Biographie. Munich: Beck (first published in 2008). Kuntze, Peter (1973). China—die konkrete Utopie. Munich: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung. Kuo Heng-yü et al. (eds.) (1996). RKP(B), Komintern und die national-revolutionäre Bewegung in China. Dokumente. Vol. 1: 1920–1925. Paderborn: Schöningh. Kuo Ya-pei (2008). “Redeploying Confucius: The Imperial State Dreams of the Nation, 1902–1911.” In: Mayfair Mei-hui Yang (ed.), Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 65–84. Lackner, Michael and Natascha Vittinghoff (eds.) (2004). Mapping Meanings: The Field of New Learning in Late Qing China. Leiden: Brill. Landsberger, Stefan (2002). “The Deification of Mao: Religious Imagery and Practices during the Cultural Revolution and Beyond.” In: Woei Lien Chong (ed.), China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: Master Narratives and Post-Mao Counter Narratives. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 139–84. Lee, Nelson K. (2009). “How is a political public space made?—The birth of Tiananmen Square and the May Fourth Movement.” Political Geography 28, pp. 28–42. Leese, Daniel (2011). The Mao Cult: Rhetoric and Ritual in China’s Cultural Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leng, Shao-chuan and Norman D. Palmer (1976). Sun Yat-sen and Communism. New ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press (first published in 1960). Li Yuzhen 李玉貞 (1996). Sun Zhongshan yu Gongchan Guoji 孫中山與共產國際 [Sun Yatsen and the Communist International]. Taipei: Zhongyang Yanjiuyuan Jindaishi Yanjiusuo. Luo Zhitian (1993). “National Humiliation and National Assertion: The Chinese Response to the Twenty-One Demands.” Modern Asian Studies 27, pp. 297–319. Luo Zhufeng (1991). Religion under Socialism in China. Armonk, NY: Sharpe. Macey, Samuel L. (2010). The Dynamics of Progress: Time, Method and Measure. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press (first published in 1989). Manela, Erez (2007). The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anti-Colonial Nationalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2007. Mitter, Rana (2004). A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ——— (2008). “Maoism in the Cultural Revolution: A Political Religion?” In: Roger Griffin, Robert Mallett and John Tortorice (eds.), The Sacred in Twentieth-Century Politics: Essays in Honour of Professor Stanley G. Payne. Basingstoke u.a.: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 143–68.

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Murdock, Michael G. (2006). Disarming the Allies of Imperialism: The State, Agitation, and Manipulation during China’s Nationalist Revolution, 1922–1929. Ithaca, NY: East Asia Program, Cornell University. Musgrove, Charles D. (2007). “Monumentality in Nanjing’s Sun Yat-sen Memorial Park.” Southeast Review of Asian Studies 29, pp. 1–19. Nedostup, Rebecca Allyn (2007). “Civic Faith and Hybrid Ritual in Nationalist China.” In: Dennis A. Washburn and Kevin Reinhart (eds.), Converting Cultures: Religion, Ideology and Transformations of Modernity. Leiden: Brill, pp. 27–56. ——— (2008). “Ritual Competition and the Modernizing Nation-State.” In: Mayfair Mei-hui Yang (ed.), Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 87–112. ——— (2009). Superstitious Regimes: Religion and the Politics of Chinese Modernity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center. Pantsov, Alexander V. (2002). “Bolshevik Concepts of the Chinese Revolution, 1919– 1927.” In: Mechthild Leutner et al. (eds.), The Chinese Revolution in the 1920s: Between triumph and disaster. London: RoutledgeCurzon, pp. 30–43. Passmore, Kevin (2002). Fascism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Paul, Santosh (2013). “Introduction.” In: Santosh Paul (ed.), The Maoist Movement in India. Perspectives and Counterperspectives. London: Routledge. Pi Houfeng 皮后锋 (1995). “Zhongguo jindai guoge kaoshu 中国近代国歌考述 [An examination of China’s national anthems in the modern period].” Jindaishi yanjiu 近代史研究 1995:2, pp. 260–71. Platoff, John (2005). “John Lennon, ‘Revolution,’ and the Politics of Musical Reception.” Journal of Musicology 22, pp. 241–67. Poon Shuk-wa (2011). Negotiating Religion in Modern China: State and Common People in Guangzhou, 1900–1937. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. Rankin, Mary Backus (2002). “Nationalistic Contestation and Mobilization Politics: Practice and Rhetoric of Railway-Rights Recovery at the End of the Qing.” Modern China 28, pp. 315–61. Reilly, James (2006). “China’s History Activism and Sino-Japanese Relations.” China: An International Journal 4, pp. 189–216. Riegel, Klaus Georg (1999). “Transplanting the Political Religion of Marxism-Leninism to China: The Case of the Sun Yatsen University in Moscow (1925–1930).” In: KarlHeinz Pohl (ed.), Chinese Thought in a Global Context: A Dialogue between Chinese and Western Philosophical Approaches. Leiden: Brill, pp. 327–58. ——— (2008). “Marxism-Leninism as political religion.” In: Hans Maier and Michael Schäfer (eds.), Totalitarianism and political religions. Vol. 2: Concepts for the comparison of political dictatorships. London: Routledge, pp. 61–112.

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part two Global Currents and Their Local Refractions

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chapter 3

The Christian Century of South China: Church, State, and Community in Chaozhou (1860–1990) Joseph Tse-Hei Lee Starting from the seventeenth century, European Catholic orders like Jesuits, Franciscans, and Dominicans, introduced Christianity to China. The imperial rulers became fearful of Catholic influence, however, and banned Christianity from 1724 to 1860. No longer allowed to travel and preach in China, Catholic and, later, Protestant missionaries concentrated their efforts on Southeast Asia while waiting for China to reopen to foreigners. They proselytized among Chinese migrants, including many from Chaozhou (潮州), and recruited them as evangelists to reintroduce Christianity to China proper. These returning Christians succeeded in recruiting converts, building churches at home and abroad, and integrating Christianity with traditional customs and social structures. This pattern of Chinese church growth not only marks the beginning of the Christian missionary expansion into the South China coast but also represents a large-scale religious movement comparable in importance to the growth of Christianity in continental Europe, the rise of Islam, and the Buddhist transformation of East Asia. Drawing on a vast array of archival materials and published sources, this chapter discusses the emergence of Chinese Christian communities in the Chaozhou-speaking region of Guangdong 廣東 province along the South China coast. The period under discussion begins from the Protestant missionary expansion into Chaozhou in the mid-nineteenth century, to the end of state-initiated religious persecution in the Maoist era (1949–1976). This Christian century of Chaozhou (1860s–1990s) was characterized by a complex reciprocal movement involving Chinese Christians and Western missionaries. This study highlights the role of Chinese converts in the evangelistic process and demonstrates the extent to which they were responsible for spreading Christianity through transnational migration routes, native place networks, and kinship and village ties. The integration of transnational, regional, and local church networks in Chaozhou was significant because these various links were outside the state control and created a religious sphere that facilitated the spread of Christianity along Chinese kinship, native place, and migration

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004271517_005

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routes across the South China Sea. They also provided additional resources and empowered the churches in times of crisis. In addition, the Christian century reveals the complexity of church and state interactions in South China. Theologically, the Christians in Chaozhou regarded themselves as part of a global religious movement and adhered to the principle of the locality of the church, proclaiming that each church should be an autonomous spiritual body to govern its affairs and to remain independent from state control. They believed that they were called out to follow Jesus Christ and at the same time, they could coexist with any political authorities. However, the fear of their ideological autonomy by state officials put the church unwillingly in opposition to the state. As China entered the modern era, the rise of an absolute, territorially bound Chinese state, and the spread of revolutionary nationalism, drove the Republican and Communist regimes to tighten control over the Christian population. Beginning with an overview of Christianity in Chaozhou, this chapter discusses how the Christians regarded themselves as part of a transnational religious movement, and how they established themselves as effective stewards of local community interests. This is followed by a critique of the expansion of state power in the Anti-Christian Movement in the mid-1920s, and the ThreeSelf Patriotic Movement (Sanzi aiguo yundong 三自愛國運動) in the 1950s. In particular, this chapter examines a wide range of religious resources and survival strategies that the Christians employed to deal with tensions with the state. 1

The Nineteenth-Century Christian Expansion into Chaozhou

The South China mission, widely known as “Swatow (Shantou) mission” or “­Tie-chiu (Chaozhou) mission” in Western literature, was one of the rapidly growing Protestant mission fields in late nineteenth-century China. Geographically, this mission field refers to the Chaozhou prefecture of Guangdong province on the South China coast, an area far away from the central, and provincial governments and notorious for its long history of rural violence. The Chaozhou dialect was the dominant language in the coastal areas, and the Hakka dialect was widely spoken in the poorer interior. Since the eighteenth century, large numbers of people from Chaozhou left their families to find work in Siam (now Thailand), planning to return to China upon retirement. While living abroad, they maintained close contacts with their home villages through strong kinship and native place ties, which provided an effective network of support. These networks included a large number of merchant guilds, temple organizations, and philanthropic

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associations that provided social services, notably funeral services for those who died abroad. Beginning in the 1830s, American Baptist missionaries who preached among Chaozhou migrants in Siam found in the process a way to reintroduce Christianity to the Chinese mainland (Christianity was banned as a heterodox religion since 1724). They encouraged Chaozhou converts to spread the Christian faith through native place networks abroad in Siam and, later, through kinship networks after they returned home. Because these networks were outside Chinese official control, they provided an effective channel for Christian expansion from Siam to China. This pattern of development highlights the importance of transnational Chinese maritime routes from Siam to Chaozhou in missionary efforts to bring Christianity to South China before the creation of the unequal treaty system in the 1860s.1 When the American Baptist and English Presbyterian missionaries arrived and established headquarters at the treaty port of Shantou in the early 1860s, they relied on Chinese kinship, village, and market networks to spread the Christian message and build churches. These native networks transformed the Protestant congregations into what Daniel H. Bays calls the “integral parts of the local society.”2 At that time, popular feelings toward the Christian missions were mixed. Rural areas witnessed a tendency to affiliate with the church and seek the protection offered by Western missionaries, whereas provincial, prefectural, and district cities experienced the rise of anti-Christian sentiment among some Confucian scholar-officials, lineage, and temple leaders. Overall, Protestantism grew as a grassroots movement in rural communities where proselytizing met with success. It was the countryside that became the center of the South China mission. A typical Christian in late nineteenth-century Chaozhou could be visualized as a man or woman living in a densely-­populated village. Most Christians identified themselves with particular denominations, as well as their lineages and villages. The overlap of religious, kinship, and territorial identities characterized most Baptist and Presbyterian congregations in Chaozhou.3 This pattern of church growth fit well with the missionary expectation of self-propagation through native agency; it also marked the beginning of group conversions in rural society. Yet political issues involving Western missionaries and Chinese converts were complex. Initially, cases of anti-foreign disputes broke out in the treaty port of Shantou 汕頭, Chaozhou prefectural city 潮州府, and various district cities where missionaries were concentrated. The disputes spread into 1 Lee (2003). 2 Bays (1996), pp. 3–7. 3 Liu (2003); Lin (2003).

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rural areas and were woven into existing kinship, lineage, and village conflicts. Missionaries were often at a loss because local conflicts over resources and anti-Christian violence frequently overlapped. Missionaries’ ability to intervene successfully in local conflicts depended on powerful backing from Western powers in treaty ports and beyond. When they did intervene effectively, it transformed the church into an alternative source of authority, thereby empowering Christians, and undermining traditional power holders, such as lineage leaders, temple managers, local constables, and yamen runners.4 The church became what English Presbyterian missionary John Campbell Gibson called, “a protective society,” whose members and leaders would help each other in all matters of disputes and litigations.5 This political feature of Christianity is similar to the growth of popular religions in North China.6 As Christianity became a new potent element in local politics, it influenced the church-state interactions in the twentieth century. 2

The Church as a Safe Haven

The turn of the twentieth century was marked by the outbreak of the Boxer Uprising (1899–1901), a movement directed against all forms of foreign presence, especially the missionaries and their converts. The failure of the Boxers, however, increased the prestige of Western missionaries, and the church was now looked upon as a powerful institution. Meanwhile, the Chinese identified modernization as a critical component of national salvation, and this realization resulted in a nationwide conversion to science and technology. The central government introduced the New Policies to restructure the educational system in order to nurture good citizens, train competent officials, and enrich the nation.7 The foreign missionaries and Chinese Christians took advantage of this move themselves, by creating an extensive network of private educational facilities in parallel with the government-run school system.8 A good example is the Anglo-Chinese College (Huaying Zhongxue 華英中學), founded by the English Presbyterian Mission in May 1905 and financed by Chen Yuting

4 5 6 7

Lee (2003). Gibson (1901), p. 184. Tiedemann (1991); Duara (1988); Gerber (2004); Dubois (2005); Chau (2006). John Steele, Shantou, to Mr. Dale, London, 21 October 1905, Presbyrterian Church of England (hereafter: PCE) Archives, Foreign Missions Committee, series 1, box 42B, folder 10. 8 Du (2005).

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陳雨亭, a wealthy merchant in Shantou, to provide a Western-style education for young people.9 The success of Christianity as an agent of change opened the door to secular ideas that attracted young people in search of China’s salvation. Religious conversion, however, proceeded slowly. In reality, it was the Western technical advance that impressed the Chinese most.10 In the name of science and technology, many modern intellectuals rejected the civilizing mission of Christianity, and saw the Christian faith as redundant in the modern world. John Fitzgerald correctly points out that the Chinese awakening was a secular phenomenon.11 Nationalism and modernization became the dominant discourse in politics, and this rising tide of nationalism, exemplified by the May Fourth and May Thirtieth movements, brought new challenges to the church.12 Twentieth-century nationalism differed from late-nineteenth-century anti-Christian violence in that many intellectuals were involved. They also accused the missionaries of using conversion and education to advance Western imperialists’ agenda of political, economic, military, and cultural dominance over China. Faced with the charge of ‘cultural imperialism,’ more educated Chinese Christians and enlightened foreign church leaders called for a ThreeSelf movement to create self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating churches. They advocated that foreign missionaries learn to be advisors rather than commanders, and that Chinese Christians work independently, without missionary protection and support. The actual practices of implementing the Three-Self movement varied from place to place and from denomination to denomination. Debate about the structure of a Three-Self church became an important topic throughout the early twentieth century. When the Qing 清 dynasty collapsed in 1911, and before the new Republican state was established, there was a breakdown of law and order. Warlord conflict and intra-/inter-village violence frequently broke out in Chaozhou during the 1910s and 1920s. Strategically located at the border of Fujian 福建 and Guangdong provinces, Chaozhou was in the warpath of rival militarists. In the winter of 1917, Cantonese warlord Chen Jiongming 陳烱明 ordered his soldiers to attack the Fuzhouese troops stationed at Chaozhou prefectural city. As one Chinese writer observed: “Outside the city wall there was severe conflict. 9

10 11 12

“Agreement between Ch’en Ch’eng Chia and the English Presbyterian Mission of Swatow in regard to the proposed Anglo-Chinese College,” 13 May 1905, PCE Archives, Foreign Mission Committee, series 1, box 31, folder 7. Wang (2003); Yip (1982, 2003). Fitzgerald (1996), p. 37; Yip (1980). Harrison (2001), pp. 88–131.

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The sound of cannon thundered in the sky. Bullets fell like raindrops. Residents of both city and villages were fearful of death.”13 The local chief of police and the president of the Chaozhou Chamber of Commerce asked Douglas James and Malcolm Ross of the English Presbyterian Mission, Ellison Hildreth of the American Baptist Mission, and Fr. Roudière of the Missions Étrangères de Paris (MEP), to act as negotiators between the opposing armies. Trapped in a warlord conflict, the only option for the missionaries was to exercise their treaty rights by appealing to foreign consuls in Shantou for help. The missionaries set up a joint committee with the local chief of police and merchant leaders to draft an armistice. With the intervention of the American and British consuls in Shantou, the missionaries brought Chen Jiongming’s troops to the negotiation table. An armistice was arranged and the Fuzhou 福州 troops withdrew from the area.14 In this incident, the missionaries’ intervention saved the city from attack. The missionaries and Christians were seen as guardians of law and order, and gained prestige and recognition in the circle of local elites. While the fighting and troop movements severely affected people’s livelihoods in Chaozhou, natural disasters, such as earthquakes, droughts, and typhoons, created tremendous pressure on local resources. The most devastating disaster was the typhoon of August 2, 1922. The strong wind and tidal wave swept Shantou and its surroundings. It destroyed 75 per cent of the city buildings in Shantou. Hundreds of corpses and carcasses of animals were mingled with the debris. A Catholic nun, Sister Marie du Rosaire who was in charge of the Ursuline convent at Shantou, was caught in the tidal wave. She describes the magnitude of the disaster in one of her letters: Swatow [Shantou] alone has 50,000 dead—either lost or drowned. At every moment of the day or night, the stretcher-bearers pass in front of the [Catholic] bishopric with their dead. At first they had coffins; but now the bodies are simply put in matting. They have been picking them up now for five days. The Chinese are very respectful of their dead and will not let anyone go without burial. The way the Chinese have taken this disaster is truly remarkable. They don’t seem to be crushed. They collect the debris from their houses and their little bamboo huts as though it were something quite ordinary.15 13 14

15

Hood (1986), pp. 215–17. “Presentation of Chinese memorial on troop movement in Chao-chow-fu,” Spring 1918, Yale Divinity School Library, China Records Project Miscellaneous Personal Papers Collections, RG15, Ellison and Lottie Hildreth Papers, box 11, folder 118. Mahoney (1996), pp. 35–36.

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This graphic account showed that Shantou was like a war-torn city. The material damage was enormous and the number of casualties was uncountable. Shantou and nearby cities suffered badly, but the plight of the coastal villages was the worst. For example, the Presbyterian congregation in Yanzao village 鹽灶鄉, Chenghai district 澄海縣, lost 119 of its members—50 baptized adult church members, 35 children, and 34 religious inquirers. The death toll made up 25 per cent of the village population, of which three deacons and one elder were killed, and one Christian family lost 18 of its members.16 Although the Baptists and Presbyterians were little prepared for it, the churches found themselves as the only viable institutions after the disaster, and as such, bore the burden of relief work.17 The Shantou municipal government and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce worked with the church to raise money for food, clothing, medicine, building of an embankment, repairing of dykes and houses, etc. In times of unprecedented crisis, the church became the crossing point for humanitarian relief, and Chinese preachers, Bible women, medical staff, and mission school students became ‘on the spot’ relief workers. The municipal officials had to rely on the urban, market, and rural churches to reach out to the devastated villages. Historian Chen Chunsheng 陳春聲 points out that, after the typhoon, many emigrant villages in Chenghai district turned to their relatives in Southeast Asia for help.18 What distinguished the Yanzao congregation from these emigrant villages was its strong tie to the regional and transnational Presbyterian networks. The Yanzao congregation called for financial assistance not only from their missionary patrons in Shantou and other Christian communities in unaffected areas, but also from overseas Chinese Christians in Hong Kong, British Malaya, and Singapore and from the headquarters of the English Presbyterian Mission in London. Most of the international donations were administrated through the English Presbyterian Mission in Shantou, and in 1923, the majority of the missionaries were involved in relief and charitable work. They addressed the immediate concerns of the refugees and rebuilt the badly hit communities through provision of livestock, farm implements, and loans to farmers.19 These examples of Christian disaster management were driven by a genuine concern for the pain and suffering of fellow Chinese and a determination to promote the people’s welfare. It was the combined transnational, regional, and local church networks that further sustained these Christian relief efforts 16 17 18 19

Wei (1949). Sanneh (2003), pp. 14–20. Chen (1997). Band (1948), p. 351.

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in times of disasters. The Christians did not just share the same beliefs with overseas Chinese and Western churches. They also participated in the same religious and social activities across national boundaries. As time passed, there emerged a sense of trust and belonging between the Christians in Chaozhou and those abroad. Horizontally, they developed an extensive network of support among fellow believers, and vertically, they cultivated a patron-client relationship with overseas Chinese and Western churches. Therefore, the more transnational the church was, the greater its access to international resources in times of crisis. In addition, the Christian disaster management took place within the traditional pattern of state-society interactions. Their ability to transform the longstanding church organizations into relief agencies stabilized the local society and prevented the disaster-affected areas from falling into anarchy. This mobilization element was essential for the Christians’ empowerment and survival. As R.G. Tiedemann points out, in urban and rural areas affected by natural and man-made disasters, the Christian communities played a vital role in providing food relief and medical assistance throughout the late Qing and early Republican eras.20 A few years later, however, in the mid-1920s, the rising tide of revolutionary nationalism made it impossible to continue such relief work. The radical revolutionaries, both the Nationalists and Communists, bitterly opposed any Christian charity because they were determined to undermine the popular support of the church and to gain legitimacy through a series of anti-Christian movements. 3

The Church as a Target of Attack

The most severe challenge to the Baptist and Presbyterian missions was the May Thirtieth Incident in Shanghai 上海 in 1925. In areas controlled by the Nationalists, this event added fuel to the explosive anti-imperialist and anti-Christian a­ gitation. Popular reaction to the May Thirtieth Incident in Chaozhou had its immediate effect on the churches. Ten days after the incident, on June 10, 1925, the students in the Baptist Academy (Queshi Zhongxue 礐石中學) expressed strong anti-foreign sentiments and planned to join other anti-British protests in Shantou. The protests coincided with the Baptist Convention, in which s­ everal Chinese church leaders “would like to

20

Tiedemann (2004).

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see the f­oreigners ousted right off.”21 They subscribed to the rhetoric of anti-­ imperialism in order to challenge the leadership of their American missionary patrons. Abbie G. Sanderson graphically described the confrontation between the educational missionaries and students at the Baptist Academy: Yesterday morning [9 June 1925] at the boys’ Academy, as he was getting up to take his regular turn at leading the chapel exercises, Mr. G.H. Waters was hissed and clapped at and shuffled at in a most insolent manner. When he found that he could not make himself heard, he sat down and the Chinese principal, Mr. Fu (i.e., Fu Shangrong 傅尚榮) got up and rebuked them, told them to come to order and listen to the doctrine (tingdao 聽道). Whereupon some of them declared they didn’t want to hear the doctrine and they wouldn’t and they wouldn’t even hear him. Mr. Fu tried to reason with them, but they kept getting worse and worse and turned into a regular mob. They had various meetings among themselves and finally called a meeting of all the schools here on the compound to call a cessation of classes (they didn’t call it a strike this time!)22 As the American missionaries and Chinese principal lost control of the students, both sides had irreconcilable differences, and neither side initiated a dialogue to resolve the crisis. Sanderson and the teachers of the Baptist Girls’ School (Zhengguang Nüxue 正光女學) on the compound did not want to see their students join the strike with the boys, so they closed the Girls’ School, and on 10 June, sent the girls home.23 Though some girls might have been pleased to have an early summer break, the other half of the girls stayed on campus and joined the boys in parading and getting funds for the strikers in Shantou and Shanghai. Sanderson knew that “some of the girls were bound to be influenced by the boys (some of them relatives) and wanted to imitate their example by going out to get money for the strikers, going out on the streets for parades and preaching parties, and getting very much excited about it all in the bargain.”24 The Baptist middle school students decided to take their cause outside the school compound as they recognized the power of strikes, petitions, and demonstrations. Even though they were in Shantou, they 21

Abbie G. Sanderson, Shantou, 10 June 1925, Yale Divinity School Library, China Records Project Miscellaneous Personal Papers Collections, RG15, Sanderson papers, RG149, box 2. 22 Abbie G. Sanderson, Shantou, 11 June 1925, ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Abbie G. Sanderson, Shantou, 13 July 1925, Sanderson papers, RG149, box 2.

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c­ ompletely ­identified with the labor strikers in Shanghai, Canton, and other parts of China, and felt that they were capable of ridding China of the yoke of imperialism. This was indeed a time of chaos, instability and confusion. The May Thirtieth Incident not just popularized the anti-foreign sentiment among the Christian and non-Christian students. It completely changed people’s perceptions of foreigners and foreign missionaries in Shantou, and redefined the mission-church relations over matters of church governance, church property, and Christian education. The Presbyterian educational missionaries faced the same problem. They withdrew from the Anglo-Chinese College and put it in the hands of the Chinese staff. The most hostile reaction towards the English mission was expressed by a group of Chinese Christians in the Shantou Church, the largest Presbyterian congregation in the city. On their initiative, a Patriotic Society was formed with members of the Qilu 崎碌 Church, another Presbyterian congregation in Shantou. Dispute was caused by their attempt to change the name of their church by adding ‘Chinese Christian’ to the existing ‘Presbyterian Church.’ The change appeared to be reasonable, but the missionaries saw it as a plot to gain control of the mission and church properties. The dispute reached a climax when a circular was passed in the name of the two congregations, declaring that as the missionaries had not condemned the Shanghai shootings, the Shantou and Qilu congregations decided to break away from the English Presbyterian Mission, and that as the time for a Presbyterian system of church governance had passed, the two congregations were now members of the Chinese Church. Clearly, some radical church leaders were determined to separate themselves from the Synod, and they called upon other Presbyterian churches to do the same. Underlying this intra-church dispute was serious friction between the missionary patrons and some well-established Chinese Presbyterian leaders.25 When some native church leaders internalized the Nationalist discourse of revolutionary patriotism, they challenged the subservient role assigned to them by the missionaries and were determined to break away from the missionary control. In August 1925, the pro-Nationalist Anti-foreign Committee in Shantou issued a resolution that prohibited teachers and students from attending any school under British control. Hur F. Wallace, the most senior Presbyterian educational missionary realized that he could not open the Anglo-Chinese College for the fall semester. The missionaries were convinced that the Antiforeign Committee had its contacts with the Shantou Church, because Wallace announced on 22 August, that the Anglo-Chinese College would be suspended 25

Hood (1996), p. 234.

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for a term. Within a few days, Wallace received a request on behalf of the Student Association that the Mission Council should hand over the temporary management of the College to a Chinese Committee. The Presbyterian mission saw it as a way to circumvent the resolution. As the missionaries refused to back down, some students were reported to have organized a new school in order to cut themselves off from the British missionaries. With the support of two sons of the original founder, Chen Yuting, the Anglo-Chinese students wanted to re-register the school property as “common property” (gongchan 公產) rather than “British mission property.” This confrontation between the Presbyterian missionaries and local students remained unsolved. In November 1925, Chiang Kaishek (Jiang Jieshi 蔣介石) launched the Second Eastern Expedition and took over Shantou. The Nationalist army brought in Zhou Enlai (周恩來) as Chief Director of the Civil Administration Department of the Eastern Expedition Headquarters. During the next few months, Zhou Enlai took over several mission schools, including the Anglo-Chinese College (Presbyterian) in Shantou and the Guangyi (Kwong Yit) Academy (Guangyi Xueyuan 廣 益学院) in the Hakka-speaking city of Meixian 梅縣 (still referred to as Jiaying 嘉應). The new political climate of revolutionary nationalism affected many young mission school students. On 16 November 1925, Cai Kaizhen 蔡愷真, a teenager, who later became an ordained Presbyterian minister, attended an anti-imperialist parade in Shantou. He recalled waving small Nationalist flags, shouting slogans like “Down with imperialism,” “Defeat the warlords,” “Long live the Revolution,” and singing the revolutionary song: Down with the imperialists, down with the imperialists; Defeat the warlords, defeat the warlords; Success to the National Revolution; success to the National Revolution Let’s rejoice! Let’s rejoice! 打倒列强，打倒列强； 除軍閥，除軍閥； 國民革命成功，國民革命成功。 齊歡唱！齊歡唱！  26 These modern rituals of statehood created a new political culture among local people. Together with adults and students, Cai Kaizhen learned a new political vocabulary and participated in rituals that defined the meaning of 26

Cai (1996), pp. 11–12.

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‘Chineseness’ and promoted a territorially-bound statehood. They became a new-born Republican citizenship as they internalized the discourses of anti-imperialism and revolutionary nationalism. A devout Presbyterian, Cai Kaizhen never perceived these political rituals as incompatible with his religious faith. He strongly believed that as a Christian, he ought to participate in these political rituals and to contribute to the nation-building process.27 As Henrietta Harrison argues, this form of politicization projected an image of modern Chinese revolutionary citizens: they sanctified the revolutionary martyrs, they pledged to defend the ideology of Sun Yatsen (孫中山), they completely identified with the flags, songs, and slogans of the Nationalist Party, and they denounced any foreign imperialistic threats. Such a process was designed to eliminate the people’s local sentiments and mould them into obedient Republican citizens.28 At that time, the mission school students in Shantou knew nothing about the important role that Soviet military advisors had played in the intensive Nationalist and Communist propaganda campaigns to denounce the church. As Chiang Kaishek tightened his control over the Nationalist regime, he targeted the Communists, and ended Zhou Enlai’s administration in Shantou. The Anti-Christian Movement officially ended in the winter of 1926, and things returned to normal in early 1927. This change of revolutionary policy had to do with political and social instability in the countryside. Throughout the Hakka region, stretching from Haifeng 海豐 district to the borders of Jiangxi 江西 province, cases of inter-/intra-village violence merged with continuous fighting between Communist and anti-Communist forces. There was an extensive attrition of missionary activity over this vast mission field than there was in Shantou, with fewer staff, Chinese, and foreign missionaries to serve it. The most serious problem had to do with the indiscriminate killing of local Catholics and Protestants in Haifeng and Lufeng 陸豐 districts under the control of Peng Pai’s 彭湃 Soviet government. In October 1928, six churches were burnt and another eighteen churches were partly demolished, with three preachers, one elder, six deacons, and 30 Christians killed and many becoming homeless and fleeing elsewhere. Ironically, during the Northern Expedition, the Anti-Christian Movement increased popular support for the Nationalist leaders, but the escalation of violence against Christians undermined the government’s ability to establish effective control over the newly conquered areas. The Nationalists decided to end the Anti-Christian Movement in order to maintain stability and prevent foreign 27 28

Cai (1996), pp. 13–14. Harrison (2000).

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intervention. Michael G. Murdock correctly points out that the Nationalist leaders succeeded in manipulating anti-Christian sentiment in order to rally support, and to maintain ties, and continue talks with foreign powers. This tactic extended far beyond Chiang Kaishek’s power base in Guangdong province, and allowed the party to expand its influence through local anti-Christian organizations.29 Therefore, the themes of xenophobia and Western imperialism were the main reasons for local antagonism towards foreign missions and Chinese churches. 4

Conversion as a Critique of the Maoist State

After 1949, the Communist state sought to control the religious sphere. With the outbreak of the Korean War (1950–1953), the state ended the missionary era by expelling all foreign missionaries from China. This policy led to the state’s takeover of church properties in Chaozhou. In early 1950, the local government required all foreign missions and Chinese churches to register their properties with the authorities. This policy identified the locations and values of both foreign mission and Chinese church properties, and to create tensions between missionaries and local church leaders. In the Korean War, the government confiscated all the American Baptist and English Presbyterian mission properties. These properties were registered by the foreign missions in Shantou during the 1930s. The government claimed to transfer the foreign missions’ properties to the Chinese churches in order to gather support among local Christians against their missionary patrons. This tactic of divide and rule was aimed at creating internal conflict within the churches. It weakened the Christians by cutting the economic and cultural ties with the West. This would eventually allow the government to put all denominational churches into the state-controlled Three-Self Patriotic Movement: self-rule autonomous from foreign missionary and imperialist control, financial self-support without any foreign donations, and self-preaching independent of any missionary influences.30 In the Korean War, the Shantou Municipal Bureau of Religious Affairs mobilized the Christians to support the nationwide Three-Self Patriotic Movement. Ironically, the Local Committee of the Movement revealed the strong Baptist and Presbyterian presence. Of all the 37 Three-Self committee 29 30

Murdock (2000, 2002, 2006). Lee (2005, 2007); Shantou Shi Zongjiaoju Dang’an 汕头市宗教局档案馆, call no.: 85-1-54.

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members, there were eight Baptists and 16 Presbyterians. The Presbyterian leader, Zheng Shaohuai 鄭少懷 became the first chairman of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement in Shantou in July 1957. Cai Kaizhen, a Presbyterian minister, and Hong Xirong 洪錫榮, a Baptist minister, became the vice-chairmen. The Three-Self Patriotic Movement claimed to indigenize the leadership structure of Chinese churches by involving native church leaders, but this was only a tactic to gather support for the socialist state.31 These local church leaders collaborated with the state provided there was still a limited degree of freedom of worship among the urban congregations. Keeping a low profile and avoiding direct confrontation with the state, hoping for the best and preparing for the worst, appeared to be the most common strategy for survival. They also believed that the Three-Self Patriotic Movement was more about expressing their support of the newly established Communist state rather than building a church run by, and for, the local Chinese Christians. In fact, the denominational churches and their village congregations in Chaozhou, had long before become truly Three-Self churches, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Almost all the rural congregations were founded, managed, and supported by the local worshippers since the time of their founding. The local Christians only relied on the missionaries for running the extensive networks of educational and medical institutions. These Three-Self Patriotic church leaders played a dual role in the church and state interactions: as implementer of the Communist Party’s designs as well as moderator against some anti-religious policies. Politically, they acted as a mediator between the Christian communities and Communist officials. They constantly appealed to the Shantou municipal government for the return of former mission properties to the local congregations. They subscribed to the Communist rhetoric of anti-imperialism and stressed that the Chinese Christians in Chaozhou were patriotic and in favor of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement; therefore, they should be given financial assistance by the state in times of difficulty. During the land reform, they complained about the harsh anti-Christian policies in the interior, and urged the municipal, district, and village authorities to re-open the market and village churches for worship. They had effectively used the Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee in Shantou as an institutional umbrella to support evangelistic activities throughout the 1950s. Furthermore, the state forced all church leaders to accuse and demonize the foreign missionaries whom they had known and worked with for many 31

Shantou Shi Zongjiaoju Dang’an, call no.: 85-1-53.

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decades. This was a regular procedure throughout China. Those church ­leaders who refused to do so had to attend many political study sessions. While the state appeared to have co-opted the urban church leaders in the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, the socialist policies in rural China threatened the Christian village congregations. The land reform and agricultural collectivization provoked anger and indignation in the Christian circle. The central government in Beijing had introduced in June 1950 the Agrarian Reform Law, which abolished the landownership system of ‘feudal exploitation,’ and confiscated landowners’ holdings for redistribution to landless peasants in order to destroy the gentry.32 Almost all of the Christian villages in China were unable to protect their landed properties during the great land reform. In Chaozhou, all the rural congregations ceased to function after the land reform. By the mid-1950s, 120 of the 123 Baptist rural congregations no longer existed institutionally. The church buildings were converted into local schools, warehouses, village factories, and government offices. The Xiashan 峽山 congregation in Chaoyang 潮陽 district, and the Shen’ao 深澳 congregation on Nan’ao 南澳 Island, were the only functioning churches outside Shantou and the district cities.33 The land reform designed to break landlords’ dominance had the added impact of undermining the social and economic basis of Christian villages. Despite the state’s attempt to subdue the Christian communities, there were many factors affecting the power relations between the Christian villagers and Communist officials. One major factor had to do with the personality and administrative style of the officials. If the outside officials adopted a confrontational approach towards the Christians, there would be strong resistance from the latter. Instead, many officials tended to avoid any conflict with the Christians. Moreover, the responses of Christians often changed the attitudes of the officials towards Christianity. In rural areas characterized by complex webs of social relationships, the Christians often used the practice of gift exchange to win the officials to their side. As a result, the officials turned a blind eye to any religious activities as long as the Christians supplied the state an agreed quota of grain or industrial crops. On some occasions, the officials even allowed the Catholics and Protestants to take Sunday off. There were many reports of large-scale Christmas celebrations in Catholic and Protestant villages across Guangdong in 1958 and 1959. Clearly, both the Christians and

32 33

Hsü (2000), pp. 652–53. Shantou Shi Zongjiaoju Dang’an, call no.: 85-1-54.

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Communist officials were very pragmatic in dealing with each other. There seemed to be much room for church-state mediation at the grassroots level.34 The most serious challenge facing the Christians was the continuous organization of mass campaigns by the government. The campaigns against ‘reactionaries’ and ‘class enemies’ purged church leaders with foreign connections, and the church leaders were sent to detention centers and labor camps for reform. This persecution affected how the church leaders’ family members were treated by the local work units, resulting in an uncertain future for their children. This explains why many young Christians escaped to Hong Kong during the 1950s and 1960s. Throughout the Maoist era, Protestants employed a wide range of survival tactics to respond to the politicization of Chinese society. One strategy was to create a diffused network of support. Because Christianity was an integral part of the kinship and lineage structures, many Christians relied on longstanding social networks to support each other and to pursue religious activities. Another strategy was to shift the center of religious operation from urban to rural areas in order to avoid direct confrontation with the state. The success story of rural church implantation inspired some Christians to return to their roots in the 1950s. What concerned the state most were the acts of resistance undertaken by Christians against the officials. Huang Zhongren 黃仲仁, a Baptist minister, pretended to uphold the thought of Chairman Mao in the political study sessions, but he often presented himself as the spokesperson of the local Protestants when dealing with the officials. In addition, a large number of doctors and nurses in Mianhu 棉湖 market town were Baptists and Presbyterians. They formed a united front to challenge the party secretaries in the district hospitals and clinics. The Christians never acted as passive victims when they encountered the Maoist state. Whenever possible, they would take advantage of the political climate for empowerment. The most unique strategy, however, was to rely on the overseas Chinese Christian networks for support. Remittances sent by churches in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia proved beneficial to Christians in Chaozhou throughout the Maoist era. For example, the Baptists received support from Lü Mingcai 呂明才, known as Lui Ming Choi in Cantonese, a very successful Chaozhou merchant who had founded many Baptist elementary and secondary schools in Hong Kong. This South China Sea maritime network was a key to understanding the social and religious dynamics of the Christian movements in the post-1949 era, because it created an invisible maritime highway that channeled resources from overseas Chinese Christians into their Chaozhou homeland. 34

Shantou Shi Tongzhanbu Dang’an 汕头市统战部档案馆, call no.: D007-42 (1960).

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The Christian Revival in the Reform Era

As the political campaigns of the Maoist era faded, most church leaders tried to articulate the experience of religious persecution. Many elderly church leaders used the word chi ku 吃苦, literally, ‘to eat bitterness,’ to refer to persecution. Remembering persecution is the most important means by which Chinese Christians commemorate those martyrs and events that inspired them. As Edward Shils notes, “[m]emory is the vessel which retains in the present the record of the experiences undergone in the past and of knowledge gained through the recorded and remembered experience of others, living or dead.”35 When the Communist state forced the Christians into a suffering mode, it transformed religious persecution into a unique opportunity to gain heavenly rewards. This narrative of suffering brought all Christians together as a community of believers and enabled them to easily identify with other victims of the socialist transformation during the Maoist era.36 They drew on the memory of suffering to create a common bond among themselves and fight against the state’s antireligious propaganda. They refrained from attacking the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, but they opposed state intervention into the spiritual affairs of the church. In the early 1980s, Deng Xiaoping’s 鄧小平 economic reform and open door policies departed from the antireligious ideology of Mao’s rule. At that time, several respectable Chaozhou Baptist and Presbyterian ministers were invited to join the Three-Self Patriotic Movement after their release from the labor camps. Since then these church leaders have used the Three-Self Patriotic Movement to support the autonomous Christian groups known as ‘house churches’ ( jiating jiaohui 家庭教會), and to revive the longstanding transnational links with churches in Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States.37 As China’s economy progressed, people sought prosperity and security in a fast-changing world. A group of ‘boss Christians’ (laoban jidutu 老板基督 徒) emerged in the cities. Boss Christians attribute business success to their faith in Jesus Christ and proclaim to work for God in the commercial sector. Because of their economic status and professional accomplishments, they can withstand pressures from the local government over the Christian communities. They often mediate between the church, the local authorities, and the non-Christian communities in cases of church property disputes.38 35 36 37 38

Shils (1981), p. 50; Jing (1996). Carbonneau (2005, 2006). Lee (2007). Chen and Huang (2004).

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In addition, large numbers of well-educated Christians in Shantou and its nearby cities used modern technology to publicize their faith. They created Chinese websites and discussion forums on the internet to share news about local church activities. This electronic form of religious activism not only breaks through the geographical barriers and the state’s surveillance, but also creates an invisible highway on the internet that enables Christians inside and outside China to form an informal alliance for support. There are other examples of the effective use of modern communication technology. I once walked into a Christian bookstore adjacent to the largest Three-Self Patriotic church in the city centre of Shantou where one could buy many religious sermons and documentaries on cassette tape, CD and DVD, some of which were highly critical of the Communist religious policy and the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. The bookstore owner told me that his business catered to the spiritual needs of the Three-Self Patriotic and unregistered church members. Ryan Dunch best summarizes the religiosities of contemporary Chinese Protestantism as “a warm, experiential piety, centered on a concern for salvation and for tangible blessings in this life; literal faith in the Bible.” The rapid growth of Christianity is “accompanied by institutional diversity and fragmentation, expanding with China’s market economy.”39 These examples suggest that many Christians have employed the modern communication technology to bypass the state’s surveillance and to create an electronic frontier for evangelization and mutual support. They have also begun to explore the public role of the church as a mediator between state and society. Today, the Three-Self Patriotic churches in Shantou and nearby cities, have organized many social welfare programs to serve the elderly Christian and non-Christian population, and to support the development of village education in the countryside. In so doing, they hope to make the church beneficial to China’s market economic reform, to moderate any potential tensions with the state, and to consolidate the transnational, regional, and local Christian networks for mutual support. Conclusion By the early twenty-first century, Christianity has become a well-established and fast-growing religious movement in Chaozhou and other parts of China. Instead of asking how the church managed to survive in Maoist China, it is important to look at the ways in which Christianity became deeply integrated into local society, and in which Chinese believers relied on their spiritual insights to create a new set of religious, social, and political values in the pro39

Dunch (2001).

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cess of nation-building and modernization. The Christian century of South China reveals several interesting features about this religious phenomenon. First, the nineteenth-century Baptist and Presbyterian missionaries relied on native evangelists and local networks to create a self-sustaining Christian movement. The missionaries initially proselytized among Chinese migrants in Southeast Asia and encouraged these converts to spread the faith through native place networks abroad and, later, through kinship, village, and lineage networks after they returned home. This pattern of development helped to integrate the church into the fabric of the local society. Furthermore, the Chaozhou Christians were deeply integrated into the larger, transnational Western missionary networks in Britain and the United States. These institutional links were outside the state control and provided an effective channel of religious transmission and resource allocation. Second, the growth of Christianity in the last few decades points to the failure of the early Republican and Communist regimes to exercise absolute control in the religious sphere. The failure of the state’s control and the diffusion of church authority into the hands of lay leaders, have given rise to a truly self-supporting, self-governing, self-propagating, and self-theologizing church on Chinese soil. This development has made the Christian communities less vulnerable to state persecution, allowing them to respond quickly and flexibly to changes in China today. Third, in an authoritarian society where the authorities equated religious identification with political and ideological loyalty, the act of conversion was a resistance against the state. The Republican and Communist regimes were hostile towards any ideology and effective organization outside the control of the government. Given the impetus to place religious communities under state control in the past, tension and conflict always remains an integral part of church-state relations in China. The only feasible option for the Christians is to skillfully appropriate their religious resources against the state, and rely on longstanding transnational, regional, and local church networks for support and protection. Bibliography

Unpublished Documents

Presbyterian Church of England Archives, Foreign Mission Committee, Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Shantou Shi Tongzhanbu Dang’an 汕头市统战部档案馆 [Archives of the Shantou Bureau of the United Front], Shantou Municipal Archives, Shantou, Guangdong, China.

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Shantou Shi Zongjiaoju Dang’an 汕头市宗教局档案馆 [Archives of the Shantou Bureau of Religious Affairs], Shantou Municipal Archives, Shantou, Guangdong, China. Yale Divinity School Library, China Records Project Miscellaneous Personal Papers Collections, Record Group Number 15 (RG15): Ellison and Lottie Hildreth Papers. Sanderson papers.

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Harrison, Henrietta (2000). The Making of the Republican Citizen: Political Ceremonies and Symbols in China 1911–1929. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ——— (2001). China. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hood, George A. (1996). Mission Accomplished? The English Presbyterian Mission in Lingtung, South China: A Study of the Interplay between Mission Methods and their Historical Contexts. Frankfurt: Lang. Hsü, Immanuel C.Y. (2000). The Rise of Modern China. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jing, Jun (1996). The Temple of Memories: History, Power, and Morality in a Chinese Village. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Lee, Joseph Tse-Hei (2003). The Bible and the Gun: Christianity in South China, 1860– 1900. New York: Routledge. ——— (2005). “Watchman Nee and the Little Flock Movement in Maoist China.” Church History 74, pp. 68–96. ——— (2007). “Christianity in Contemporary China: An Update.” Journal of Church and State 49, pp. 277–304. Lin Cunyu 林春雨 (2003). “Jidujiao bentuhua jincheng ji fangshi: yi Shantou shi Yanzao xiang wei ge’an 基督教本土化进程及方式: 以汕头市盐灶乡为个案 [The indigenization of Christianity: A case study of Yanzao village in Shantou].” Shantou Daxue xuebao 汕头大学学报 19, pp. 118–23. Liu Yihui 刘诒恢 (2003). “ ‘Liu shi jiapu’ jiaodian: Chao Shan jidujiao bentuhua shiliao juyu 〈刘氏家谱〉校点: 潮汕基督教本土化史料举隅 (Commentaries on the ‘Family Genealogy of the Liu’: Sources on the indigenization of Christianity in Chaozhou-Shantou). Shantou Daxue xuebao 汕头大学学报 19, pp. 115–7. Mahoney, Irene (1996). Swatow: Ursulines in China. New York: Graphics/Print. Murdock, Michael G. (2000). “Poor Man’s Anti-Imperialism? The Anti-Christian Movement and the Political Value of Cultural Targets for Revolutionary Activity, August 1924–June 1925.” Journal of the History of Christianity in Modern China 3, pp. 60–81. ——— (2002). “Dual-Prong Revolution: Guomindang Use of Agitation and Accommodation against Missionary Education during the mid-1920s.” In: Terry Bodenhorn (ed.), Defining Modernity: Guomindang Rhetorics of a New China. Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, pp. 11–44. ——— (2006). Disarming the Allies of Imperialism: Agitation, Manipulation, and the State during China’s Nationalist Revolution, 1922–1929. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University East Asia Program. Sanneh, Lamin (2003). Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel beyond the West. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Shils, Edward (1981). Tradition. London: Faber and Faber. Tiedemann, R.G. (1991). Rural Unrest in North China 1868–1900: With Particular Reference to South Shandong. PhD dissertation, University of London.

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——— (2004). “ ‘They also Served!’ Missionary Interventions in North China, 1900– 1945.” In: Tao Feiya 陶飛亞 and Philip Yuen-Sang Leung 梁元生 (eds.), Dongya jidujiao zaiquanyi 東亞基督教再詮譯 (Reinterpreting the East Asian Christianity). Hong Kong: Centre for the Study of Religion and Chinese Society, Chung Chi College, Chinese University of Hong Kong, pp. 155–94. Wang, Gungwu (2003). Anglo-Chinese Encounters since 1800: War, Trade, Science, and Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wei Zhiyuan 魏志远 (1949). “Yanzao tanghui bainian shige 盐灶堂会百年史咯” [An overview of the centennial history of Yanzao congregation]. In: Yanzao tanghui bainian jiniankan 盐灶堂会百年纪念刊 [A centennial anniversary of the Yanzao Congregation]. Yanzao, pp. 1–4. Yip, Ka-Che (1980). Religion, Nationalism, and Chinese Students: The Anti-Christian Movement of 1922–1927. Bellingham, WA: Western Washington University. ———(1982). “Student Nationalism in Republican China, 1912–1949.” Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism 9, pp. 247–61. ——— (2003). “China and Christianity: Perspectives on Missions, Nationalism, and the State in the Republican Period, 1912–1949.” In: Brian Stanley (ed.), Missions, Nationalism, and the End of the Empire. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, pp. 132–43.

chapter 4

Sectarian Religions and Globalization in Nineteenth-Century China: The Wanbao baojuan 萬寳寶卷 (1858) and Other Examples Thomas Jansen Historical studies investigating the transformation of the Chinese religious sphere under the impact of globalization since 1800 have so far paid little attention to the role of sectarian religions. This neglect has a number of reasons: First, sectarian religious groups were prohibited by Ming 明 and Qing 清 law and thus were frequently subjected to persecution and a life in secrecy. When we look at the Chinese religious sphere in nineteenth century China from a global perspective, Christianity and, to a much lesser extent Islam, appear as the dominant global forces, while sectarian groups and their members easily fall from sight. Sectarian groups come into view but as targets of conversion, not as historical agents in their own right. Secondly, being legally branded as ‘heterodox,’ sectarian groups had to keep a low public profile and thus faced particular challenges in developing or maintain strong and lasting religious or social institutions. Often forced to split up and re-form clandestinely under new leadership in order to avoid harassment or persecution by imperial officials, sectarian groups remained in a state of constant flux, which makes it difficult for modern scholars to capture transformative social processes at the various levels (local, regional and world) linked to globalization. And yet, connections between sectarian groups and between different rebellions led by these groups certainly existed. Susan Naquin has argued that certain sectarian families like the Wang 王 family in Zhili 直隸 province or the Liu 劉 family in southwestern Shandong 山東 could “become a kind of sectarian elite, serving as religious professionals who preserved core White Lotus values over many centuries.”1 The exchange and congregational recitation of scriptures played an important part in the survival of sectarian religion and its dissemination to different constituencies. It is only since the last quarter of the twentieth century that we are able to examine globally active Chinese popular sects, such as the Yiguandao 一貫道 (‘Way of All-Pervading Unity’) and the Daoyuan 道院 (‘Sanctuary of 1 Naquin (1982), p. 339. Cf. Naquin (1985).

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the Dao’) or, since the 1990s, Falun Gong 法論功.2 In the case of the Yiguandao, for instance, the first wave of its overseas transmission was launched in 1949, the year the Communist victory on the Chinese mainland forced members of the organization into exile in Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, where they continued to spread their teaching.3 Before that time, the teaching was, by and large, confined to the Chinese mainland. The nineteenth century, let alone earlier periods, does not yet boast popular sects that are truly global in the sense that their networks span across at least parts of the globe or that these groups would display a ‘global outlook’ distinct from the ‘universalist ideas’ we already find much earlier in China.4 For instance, Chinese migration to Southeast Asia during the nineteenth century, which peaked between 1850 and 1900, entailed the spread of Chinese religious ideas across the region and led to the creation of extensive religious networks among migrants.5 However, these interregional networks depended on structures based on kinship and locality, which are characteristic of earlier forms of globalization and thus, in some respects, very different from the global expansion of certain Chinese religious groups at the end of the twentieth century. Thirdly, sectarian scriptures, ‘Precious Scrolls’ (baojuan 寶卷), which constitute the major, albeit not the only, source of knowledge about the self-­understanding and religious beliefs of sectarian groups, have yet to be examined with regards to how sectarian groups experienced and responded to the influx of foreign religions, particularly Christianity, and the process of globalization in general. In this paper, my aim is to address the question of sectarian responses to the Christian influx and, by extension, to globalization by looking at one particular sectarian scripture and a limited number of other texts from the popular religious milieu. I argue that the production, distribution, and consumption of religious texts can be used as an indicator of globalization, and therefore, merits careful investigation.6 For example, the spread of Christianity 2 The True Jesus Church might also be mentioned in this context. While Daniel Bays interprets this group “partly in terms of the heritage of Chinese sectarian folk religion,” its classification as a ‘popular sect’ may be problematic in the light of the group’s self-understanding as Christian. See Bays (1996), p. 311. 3 See also Robert Weller’s chapter on Buddhist charitable organizations in this volume. 4 For instance, in the Mahāyāna-Buddhist tradition that had spread across East Asia since the sixth century AD. The global connections of Chinese Buddhism are described in Holcombe (2001), pp. 78–108. 5 On the importance of the links between China and Southeast Asia over many centuries, see van de Ven (2002), pp. 167–93. 6 See the article by Hildegard Diemberger in this volume.

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into China in the nineteenth century was accompanied by the production and dissemination of a large quantity of Christian scriptures and tracts. Between 1814 and 1949, the British, American, Scottish, and Chinese Bible Societies sold approximately 300 million religious scriptures in China. The great majority of these texts were part-Bibles, which means portions of scripture. Full Bibles, on the other hand, accounted for only a small proportion of the total textual output of the Bible societies.7 To this one has to add the texts produced and disseminated by other Christian organizations or individuals in China. In the nineteenth century, Chinese readers had access to Christian primers, Biblical stories and narratives, Bible dictionaries, selections of scripture sentences, liturgical texts, as well as outlines of scripture and reading guides.8 At the same time that Christian texts became more easily available, at least in places with a presence of missionaries, Chinese popular religious groups also engaged in religious text production of a substantial scale. To my knowledge, no comprehensive attempt to quantify the total output of scriptures by these groups has been made to date. Extrapolating, however, from the publication history of individual well-known scriptures, it is safe to assume that the number of titles and copies of sectarian texts in circulation was quite substantial.9 By studying this textual corpus, and investigating its interaction with its Christian counterpart, it will be possible to not only see how Christianity and local religion came face-to-face, but also how Chinese sectarian groups inculturated, reworked, subverted, opposed, or ‘cannibalized’10 the foreign religion. It becomes, in other words, possible to analyze globalization in the religious sphere as a multidimensional and multidirectional process which involves a variety of agents and their specific interests. Observing Christian-Chinese interaction at the textual level will also help us to correct the distorted image of an active, expanding global Christianity on the one hand, and passively receiving Chinese religions on the other. Instead, we will be able to see more clearly

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See Chen Jianming (2008), p. 13. So massive were the missionaries’ printing operations that they led to the replacement of woodblock printing with movable type, for the simple reason that movable type printing allowed far more print runs than woodblocks. On the relationship between missionary printing operations and the social history of the Chinese book, see McDermott (2006), pp. 9–42. For a discussion of the different textual genres, see Starr (2008), pp. 34–44. The Taiwanese scholar Wang Jianchuan has listed the different editions of one core text, the Wubu liuce 五部六冊 (Five Books in Six Volumes). See Wang Jianchuan (1995), pp. 161–72. The expression was coined by Arjun Appadurai in Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Appadurai 1996). See Bayly (2002), p. 65.

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where and how influences worked in both directions, i.e. how Christian text production “underwent a textual sinicization over the course of the late Qing.”11 In this paper I intend to make two key points: Firstly, sectarian groups were indeed aware of the international political world surrounding them, and we can detect an engagement with global currents in their writings. Secondly, through their scriptures sectarian groups not only accommodated, deflected, and re-interpreted global influences coming from the West to China; they also initiated a cultural flow in the opposite direction. At the start of the ­twenty-first century, Chinese popular religious scriptures are easily available in the West through translations or as original texts distributed often free of charge through Chinese supermarkets and community centers around the world. 1

Foreign Presence and Impending Apocalypse: The Wanbao baojuan

The text that initially stimulated my exploration into the relationship between sectarian religion and globalization is a baojuan (literally ‘Precious Scroll’)12 I came across in the Capital Library in Beijing (Beijing Shoudu Tushuguan 北京首都圖書館) as part of the Wu Xiaoling 吴晓铃 collection of popular literature in 2006. In the sixteenth century, many of the new sectarian religions produced their own scriptures to address audiences with some degree of literacy. This text has the title Wanbao baojuan 萬寳寶卷 (‘The Precious Scroll of Myriad Treasures’) and consists of 193 lines that are composed in four different metric patterns: a) 10–10 character lines, b) 7-7-7 character lines, c) 7-3-3-7 character lines or d) 3-3-7-3-3 character lines. Pattern c) and d) alternate and make up most of the last part of the text. Only in the last four lines does the pattern return to 10-10 character lines. These patterns require rhythmic recitation or reading, which makes the text both easier to memorize and (slightly) less monotonous. The date at the beginning of the text mentions that this baojuan was “authenticated (pi 批) in the last ten-day period of the first month in the eighth year of the Xianfeng reign,” or 1858 by Western reckoning. The text contains a reference to a ‘Teaching of the Central Gate’ (Zhongmen jiao 中門教), its precise sectarian affiliation, however, is unknown to me. The text opens with an exhortation to the assembly of the faithful to “read” (kan 看) and “listen” (ting 聼) to this baojuan attentively, for this would open up the chance to ascend to the “Ninth Heaven” 11 12

Starr (2008), p. 45. The standard introduction into this important genre of religious literature is Overmyer (1999).

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( jiu tian 九天) on “Cloud Road” ( yun lu 雲路). In Ninth Heaven, the faithful would be reunited with their heavenly parents, represented by the Eternal Venerable Mother (Wusheng Laomu 無生老母). So far, this kind of opening passage is familiar from other baojuan. The passage that caught my attention was the following: People in this assembly should quickly verify that their names are on the register; Before long everywhere under heaven will be thrown into chaos. Then there will be no monarch whose rule will extend over all under heaven; All those with power [lit. ‘with people and horses’] will become independent. Before long there will be great catastrophe here in the city of Beijing; The South will be in chaos, the North will be in chaos, every place in the four directions will be in turmoil. The Central States (Zhongguo 中國) in all under heaven will be unable to find peace; When the foreigners enter China, the world will change (waiguoren jin Zhonghua shijie yao bian 外國人進中華世界要變). All will want to establish themselves in the Beijing area as independent True Rulers (zhen jun 真君); [While] the ignorant crowd hope that those Qing will continue as before. Military leaders will lead their troops into battle on the Central Plain; Every region (guo 國) under heaven will be thrown into chaos, one after the other. The confused and ignorant masses will not get peace! The Wanbao baojuan was composed in, and explicitly refers to, China’s political situation in 1858. In that year, the Taiping 太平 Rebellion (1850–1864) was in full swing and China just a few months away from being forced to sign the Treaty of Tianjin (June 1858), which secured Britain and France the right to establish permanent diplomatic representations in Beijing. The scripture predicts—50 years too early—the end of Qing imperial rule over All Under Heaven (Tianxia 天下) under the onslaught of foreign imperialist powers. It warns of the impending doom and advises its audience to check immediately if their names have been entered onto the registers of those who will be saved. In other words, it urges its readers and listeners to secure their own survival by joining the sect and spreading the message of the baojuan to others. Several things are striking about this passage. The first is the speed with which current events are taken up in sectarian scripture and, in this case,

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might even have prompted its writing. The references to the political situation in Beijing in early 1858 are obviously an attempt to exploit the general anxiety and uncertainty among the population of the capital to recruit new followers. The fact that scriptures were revealed in times of danger to offer a path to salvation for the few elect was not new in 1858. What was new, I would argue, is the awareness of the international dimension of the current crisis, which is further suffused with nationalist sentiments instilled by the treatment of China by both the foreign nations and the Manchu rulers. Thus, the Wanbao baojuan should cause us to question claims that during the two decades from 1840 until 1860 China refused “to take foreign realities into account [and, TJ] did not develop a nation-wide sense of urgency until more intense shocks stunned the Middle Kingdom.”13 Whether the sense of impending disaster revealed in the Wanbao baojuan was ‘nation-wide’ is impossible to say on the basis of a single text. This baojuan shows, however, that there was a great sense of urgency in some segments of society, even if we have to take into account that in order to attract new followers, sectarians were used to paint reality in threateningly dark colours. A scripture such as the Wanbao baojuan is indicative of the vibrant and highly responsive religious text production in the nineteenth century. Even under political pressure, sectarian groups apparently had the financial means and networks to produce new scriptures that tried to attract audiences by keeping in touch with current events. In my view, scriptures such as the Wanbao baojuan suggest that sectarian groups actively competed in a religious market14 in which, fuelled by the vast amount of available Christian tracts, the production and circulation of scriptures was of key importance. More research on the social history of popular religious texts is necessary to determine whether, to what extent, and how Christian missionary innovation in religious text production influenced sectarian milieus, or vice versa. What we can say at this point is that the clash between China and the Western nations has entered the scriptures of sectarian groups. Let us briefly return to the text itself and see what solution the Wanbao baojuan offers for those who believe in its message? What is its religious promise?

13 Hao Yen-P’ing and Wang Erh-Min (1980), pp. 155–56. 14 The Wanbao baojuan warns against the many false prophets and imposters who try to discredit its teaching or mislead the people by posing themselves as the Eternal Venerable Mother.

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Later in the text we find a passage that says: The World of Red Dust [the human world, TJ] is coming to an end. For ten-thousand generations, we have hoped for the coming of the White Yang era; The World of Red Dust is in panic and chaos. Men and women, old and young are restless, [but] the White Yang era world will come; a new heaven, a new earth, that humans rarely [see]. Men and women still need to carry on marching towards the White Yang era; [when] it has arrived, the fields of blessedness will increase; the ten-thousand states of the Red Yang period are on the path of delusion. Contending to occupy Beijing is futile; the Great Way of the White Yang will appear in the Central Capital (Zhongjing 中京);15 the third Dragon-Flower Assembly16 will [also] go in there. The Wanbao baojuan integrates the threat caused by the onrush of the foreigners and their armies into a three-stage cosmic scheme represented by the cosmic periods ‘Azure Yang,’ ‘Red Yang,’ and ‘White Yang,’ which are ruled by the three Buddhas Dīpamkara, Śākyamuni, and Maitreya, respectively. The millenarian expectation of an imminent White Yang era ruled by Maitreya, is the solution offered by this scripture. The foreign threat is neutralized by its incorporation into the sectarian worldview. By assigning these forces a place within the three-stage cosmic scheme, the threat is rendered meaningful as the announcement of the coming millennium. It has become manageable and will ultimately dissolve simply by becoming obsolete or “purposeless” (wangran 枉然). So far, this strategy of dealing with outside forces is reminiscent of Sima Qian’s 司馬遷 (145–c. 86 B.C.) integration of the Xiongnu 匈奴 into the worldview of Chinese correlative cosmology in his Shiji 史紀, almost two-thousand years earlier. The difference lies in the individualized approach which the Wanbao jing offers. Salvation is not granted on the grand scale, but requires the individual efforts of each and every member of the congregation. Moreover, in the middle of the nineteenth-century, even the most diehard believer in the efficacy of religious rituals and scriptures would not have expected foreign troops to disappear simply as a consequence of pious scripture recitation. Therefore, the appearance of the White Yang is re-located to the 15 16

I am not certain what the “Central Capital” exactly refers to. “San Longhua hui” can also mean “three Dragon-Flower Assemblies” since Maitreya is believed to hold three assemblies. Topley (1963), p. 373.

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“Central Capital,” away from the capital Beijing that is under threat. The third ­Dragon-Flower Assembly, at which Maitreya-Buddha takes over the religious rule, will take place there. The sentence “the Great Way of the White Yang will appear in the Central Capital (中京); the third Dragon-Flower Assembly will [also] go in there” (bai yang dadao Zhongjing xian, Longhua san hui fu ­libian 白陽大道中京現, 龍華三會赴裏邊) presents difficulties.17 If we understand it in a concretely geographical sense, the question of its exact location arises. Possibly, the phrase refers to the area where the sect has its home base. An alternative explanation could be that the advent of the next millennium is interpreted metaphorically as an internal transformation that takes place only inside the body of the individual believer. In light of the multiplicity of meanings that characterizes the use of many symbols in baojuan, both readings seem to be possible here. The way a group interpreted its scriptures, whether it tended to read them literally or rather metaphorically, was one factor among others that could influence their course of action. Groups who would read the text literally were more likely to search for, and enter, the promised “Central Capital,” while other readings would suggest other ways (through meditation, internal alchemy etc.) of getting there. The Wanbao baojuan, which I have introduced here, is by no means the only sectarian scripture that directly addresses political events involving the presence of foreign powers in China. Among the apocalyptic scriptures of the Way of the Temple of the Heavenly Immortals (Tianxian Miaodaohui 天仙廟道會), a tradition that was founded in the mid-nineteenth century in Henan province, flourished in the Republican period, and still exists today, is a text entitled Minguo zhuan 民國傳 (The Story of the Republic of China). It deals, from a sectarian point of view, with the time of the Second World War and predicts the disintegration of China into different independent parts (“One country will become six countries”). Surprisingly, this disintegration is not seen as a source of further suffering, since in each of the different regions a True Man will emerge, and restore peace and plenty: “There will be four capitals, and China will be at peace.”18

17 The Minguo zhuan 民國傳 (see further below) mentions the existence of four concurrent capitals in China: “There will be four capitals, and China will be at peace. Shi-BaZi-Li will be in the center [it is unclear if this is a further capital located in the center, to which reference is made in other Temple documents, or if the center is one of the four], and will come to prominence in the wusi year [1953–2013].” See Ownby and Qiao (1996), pp. 50–51. 18 Ownby and Qiao (1996), p. 49.

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To give a third example: In an article for the Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal, the American missionary Arthur H. Smith (1845–1932) mentions a prophetic text with the title Tianming li 天命例 (The Ordinance of Fate). In response to the question what will follow the Qing dynasty, the text suggests that it will be replaced by an ‘eagle’ ( ying 鷹). Smith notes that “the popular interpretation is that this refers to England, Ying Kuo (英國), whose successive maritime and martial conquests have in consequence not unnaturally filled multitudes with vague alarm.”19 Although sectarian sources obviously do acknowledge the existence and impact of foreign influences in China—the Western powers approaching Beijing in the nineteenth century or the Second World War—, as far as I can see these events did not prompt the authors of sectarian scriptures to modify or even abandon the interpretative and narrative framework set by earlier baojuan. The effects of globalization, China’s interconnectedness with the outside world as well as the repercussions of global events in China, remained integrated into the traditional universal cycle of moral decline, apocalypse, and salvation that sectarian scriptures propagated. Most sectarian writings do not break through the traditional confines of Chinese historical and geographical thinking. This marks an important difference to the contemporaneous Taiping Tianguo’s 太平天國 view of China’s position in the world. Hong Xiuquan 洪秀全 (1814–1864), the Taiping leader, outlined his own concept of a salvation history in two essays written between 1844 and 1846 in which he radically turned the tables on the question of who is responsible for China’s poverty and weakness.20 According to Hong, in antiquity all Chinese had worshipped and honored the God on High (Shangdi 上帝), like people in the Western nations did. It was only after the founding of the empire by Qin Shihuangdi 秦始皇帝 in 221 BC, that the emperors arrogated the right to worship Shangdi and allowed other gods (Buddhist and Daoist) to be worshipped besides him. This was the point when true religion deteriorated in China and the country embarked on a different path to that of the Western nations. It has also been falsely said that to worship the Great God is to follow barbarians’ ways. They do not know that [. . .] from the time of Pan Gu 盤古 down to the period of the three dynasties, both monarchs and people honored and worshiped the Great God. [. . .] As for the Great Way of Worshiping the Great God, from the very beginning [. . .] both China and the foreign nations walked together on this Great Way. However, the 19 20

Smith (1881), p. 323. See Wagner (1982).

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various Western nations continued to walk on this Ways, while China, although it at first walked this way, detoured during the last one or two thousand years in the demonic way and was caught by the Yanluo 閻羅 demon [Satan].21 Adopting Christian beliefs was to return to the common ancestor of humanity. For Hong, this ancestor was not particular to China from where its influence radiated out into the world. Instead, it was a truly global vision that “spiritually and physically unified China amidst other Christian nations.” By embedding China into a new Christian salvation history, Hong Xiuquan was the first to interpret Chinese history as a part of world history, to envisage China as a member in the global family of Christian nations.22 2

The Sectarian Encounter with Christianity

While global forces, such as Western imperialism and its presence in China, are to a certain extent reflected in Chinese sectarian writings, sectarian religion encountered religious globalization more directly in the form of Christian missionaries in China. Christian missionaries were the group of foreigners Chinese living in rural areas were most likely to get in contact with. As representatives of a global force, their interaction is of particular interest to us. Scholars studying the history of Christian inculturation in China, like Daniel Bays, Rolf Tiedemann, Lars Laamann, and others, have emphasized the close connections between Christianity and Chinese ‘heterodox sects.’23 Mass conversions of sectarians to Christianity had taken place as early as the first quarter of the eighteenth century, despite the fact that the eighteenth century is known as a period of strict ideological control in religious matters. Likewise, Margo Gewurtz, in an article on the Christian community in rural north Henan between 1890–1912, has argued that Christianity was part of the sectarian milieu and that both “converts and missionaries were seen as sectarians,” hence the permeability of the boundaries between the two religious traditions.24 Daniel Bays notes a “sectarian-Christian fusion” and concludes: “Thus in China’s pre‑nationalistic age, i.e. until at least the late 1890s, the ­foreign ties and identity of Christianity were perhaps of less import than its 21 22 23 24

Ibid., p. 53. Ibid., pp. 53–54. (1985); Bays (1991); Bays (1982); Tiedemann (1996); Laamann (2006). Gewurtz (2003), p. 704.

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ability to ­function effectively within conceptual and behavioral parameters which were already well established by the Chinese sectarian tradition. In this sense, Christianity in the nineteenth century can be seen as a Chinese sect.”25 The missionary Joseph Edkins remarked with reference to the similarities he perceived to exist between the Christian and indigenous religious literature: “It may be here noticed that there is the spirit of the gospel in some parts of these exhortations, suggesting that the writer knew the sermon of the Mount. The resemblance to Christianity is most striking.”26 One does, of course, also find the opposite view, namely that Christian and Chinese scriptures have nothing in common. Note F. Galpin’s tart remark on Chinese morality books (shanshu 善書): “[T]hese books have many defects. They are sadly in need of careful revision. Some of their pages contain the morbid details of vicious habits that are only equaled by the sensational pages of the ‘Illustrated Police News’ in the West.”27 Let us look again at one concrete example of the relationship between Christianity and sectarian groups in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In an article entitled “A modern Shantung prophet,” Henry D. Porter, a member of the North China Mission of the American Board stationed in Shandong during the 1880s, recalls the story of a man known by the name of Li Huacheng28 who had acquired certain fame as healer and prophet by virtue of his enormous belly and his double navel. “This man,” comments Porter, “had such a Falstaffian physique that he had acquired among a people quaintly prone to nicknaming every physical oddity the name of Li Big Belly (Li da duzi 李(?)大 肚子.”29 Presumably through the acquaintance with one of Li Big Belly’s chief disciples, Porter came into the possession of a little compendium of Christian doctrine entitled Sizijing 四字經 (Four-Character Classic), which contained some of Li Big Belly’s personal notes. One of his prophesies built on the AngloFrench attack on the Dagu 大沽 forts southeast of Tianjin in 1859, and on the subsequent capture of Beijing, events that seem to have been widely noticed by sectarian groups. According to Porter’s testimony, Li told his followers: “By and by those western men will come to you. If they appear with strange hats on their heads, and guns in their hands, you still have no occasion for fear. Follow them when they appear, and learn their doctrine, for theirs is the True Path, and the right way.”30 Afterwards, Li Big Belly repeated his advice to his 25 26 27 28 29 30

Bays (1982), p. 50. Author [TJ] emphasis. Quoted from Tiedemann (1996), p. 382. Galpin (1882), p. 217. The modern standard study of shanshu is Clart (1996). I was unable to ascertain the Chinese characters for this name. Porter (1887), p. 14. Ibid., p. 18.

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son, whom Porter happened to get to know later and whose relationship to his father Porter describes in colorful language: It was the custom of this tender father to revile his son whenever he accosted him, as a sign no doubt of special endearment, in much the same way that the Mahommedan litter drivers in the north address their mules, with the purpose to establish easy relations with them.31 According to the son’s testimony this was his father’s advice: “Whenever the foreigners come with the new religion you will find it all right. You had best follow them, and live a good life.”32 Li Big Belly’s favorable opinion of the Christian teaching is further documented in a handwritten metrical comment in his copy of the Sizijing dated to August 1861. This comment reads: The principles of the Jesus Hall are not bad, Let the world know that they are truly worthy of praise. Have trust that a return home will come true; And that you’ll be laughing at the place of eternal life. The Western people return to the Heavenly Terrace, The blessed ones come here. They revere the true god (zhen shen 真神) and learn to worship him. They urge the people to be patient, to do good, repent and reform.33 Against the background of the Western aggression in China, this positive evaluation of the Christian teaching surprises. However, the example reveals two fundamental traits of the sectarian response to global forces: Firstly, the enormous pragmatism on the part of the Chinese sectarians who had no qualms about accepting the Christian religion as long as it proved efficacious and brought other-worldly rewards as well. Christian missionaries were often filled with dismay in the face of sectarian pragmatism: “They probably did not mean to deceive. They were persuaded that it would be to their interest to live the life a Christian profession involves, but their supreme motive was the hope of pecuniary gain.”34 One missionary observed that, if combined with famine

31 32 33 34

Ibid., p. 19. Ibid., pp. 19–20. Ibid., p. 18. Corbett (1881), p. 88.

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relief, the Christian message falls on much more receptive ears.35 Missionaries, however, did not speak of the converts’ motives in exclusively negative terms, since the benefits sought by converts often included the acquisition of basic education, such as reading skills: Many, both men and women, manifest an intense desire to learn to read. Some well advanced in life persevere until they are able to understand the Mandarin Scripture and Hymn-book. [. . .] Those who sincerely receive the truth wish to learn not only all they can in regard to Christianity but in regard to other subjects. Their sympathies are enlarged to take in the whole world to some extent. [. . .] Opposition to railroads, foreign machinery, etc., does not come from the converts to Christianity.36 Secondly, sectarian leaders apparently had no difficulties in finding common ground between Christian tracts and their own religious literature. Terms and phrases, such as “to return home” (gui dao jia 歸到家), “Heavenly Terrace” (tiantai 天台), “true deity/spirit” (zhen shen 真神), as well as “to do good” (xing shan 行善), or “repent and reform” (hui gai 悔改), are key terms that express “in an emotionally powerful and relatively undifferentiated way, what the system means to them.”37 Hence, these terms can be easily transferred from one belief system into another. While “returning home” means “ascent to Heaven” in the Christian context, sectarians use it as a reference to the home of the Eternal Venerable Mother on Numinous Mountain (Lingshan 靈山). Daniel Bays has noted that “equivalences between the Unborn Eternal Mother and Jehovah or Mary, and between Jesus and the Maitreya Buddha, were facilitated by literature and further buttressed by direct teaching or preaching.”38 The translatability of Christian religious concepts into the framework of Chinese popular religion and vice versa, does not, of course, mean that Christians—Chinese and Western—could not become the target of violence. Several anti-Christian riots in the late nineteenth century—the Tianjin Incident in 1870, the Yangzi River Valley riots of 1891, the attacks against foreigners by the Boxers—as well as the derisive caricatures of Christian teachings and institutions—Zhu Yesu 主耶穌, Lord Yesu, was transmogrified into

35 36 37 38

Smith (1881), p. 253. Corbett (1881), p. 88. See Ortner (1973), p. 1340. Bays (1982), p. 134.

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Pig Yesu 豬耶穌—provide ample evidence of the opposite.39 Recently, Barend ter Haar has argued, however, that this violence did not necessarily spring from specifically anti-Christian or anti-Western intentions, but rather from Chinese indigenous perceptions and fears that merely selected Christians and Westerners as scapegoats.40 This argument is not entirely convincing in light of the fact that there were voices of protest against this kind of defamation which precisely argued that “Yesu is not Yesu [belonging] only to Western countries, but is Yesu [belonging] to the myriad nations under the heavens,” as Lauren Pfister has shown.41 3

Sectarian Integration of Christian Symbols

The assertion that Yesu/Jesus belongs not only to one nation but is for all nations, brings me to the concluding section of my brief overview of sectarian responses to global forces in the nineteenth century: sects that permanently adopted Christian symbols into their own teachings. The two prime examples are the Yiguandao and the Daoyuan.42 Both belong to the so-called ‘unity sects,’ traditions that regard different teachings—Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity—as expressions of a single Dao. Strictly speaking, the Daoyuan and the Yiguandao are new religious groups of the twentieth century, founded in 1921 (Daoyuan) and 1930 (Yiguandao) in Ji’nan 濟南, Shandong province. Thus they fall outside the time-frame of my essay. However, the Yiguandao in particular, has a long pre-history, and scholars disagree on who is the founder of this sect, Zhang Tianran 張天然 (1889–1947), the eighteenth patriarch of the Way of the Former Heaven (Xiantiandao 先 天道), or Wang Jueyi 王覺一 (1821?–1884), the fifteenth patriarch who was appointed in 1877. For my purpose, the Yiguandao and the Daoyuan are interesting because they were the first Chinese popular sects who incorporated Jesus into their 39 40

41 42

For more examples of Chinese anti-foreign and anti-Christian propaganda, see Cohen (1963) and Pfister (2003). ter Haar (2006), pp. 194–95: “Doctrinal considerations had little or nothing to do with the fear of Western missionaries, and hence the riots cannot be considered anti-Christian or even anti-missionary in any meaningful sense of the word.” Thomas Reilly (1997), p. 406, argues that the animosity against Christians was primarily based on Christian connections with “societies and sects, and particularly because of its connections to that most revolutionary of sects, the Taiping.” Pfister (2003), p. 678. On the Yiguandao, see Lu Yunfeng (2008).

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pantheon, albeit in a slightly different way. The precise historical context of this ‘internationalization’ of the pantheon is still not fully understood. In his study of the popular figure of Jigong 濟公 (“Crazy Ji”), Meir Shahar argues that the integration of Jigong into the pantheon of the Yiguandao in the 1920s can be interpreted as the attempt of the then patriarch Zhang Tianran to transform the Yiguandao into a national movement and enhance his own popularity by exploiting Jigong’s popularity.43 A similar rationale, namely to transform the Yiguandao into a movement with an even wider reach and audience, presumably formed the background of Jesus’ inclusion into their pantheon. The important question is: does this incorporation of a foreign deity mark a significant break from the practices and belief systems of the nineteenth century described above? Let us look at one final text, a message from Jesus in an Yiguandao séance on Christmas Day of 1938: At this time, the ten thousand ways all return to the Way of Heaven. I, too, have left Heaven above to assist in [the propagation of] the Dao. I see the last day of the world about to arrive, yet my followers’ minds are even more darkened than before. [. . .] Because I do not want to see all of you going to perdition, I am now having the bamboo pen write words of truth. Your sins are truly numerous, and it will be very difficult to rely just on me for your salvation. If your conduct is not in accord with principles, Heaven will not speak of ‘forgiving sins.’ You should quickly come to a thorough realization [of this]. Turn back—the road is even and easy. For those lambs who have already lost their way, I have come to guide them onwards. Clearly recognize the timing of Heaven, do not remain attached to ideas of ‘Hell’ and ‘Heaven.’ On this joyous occasion of my birthday, do you understand my Dao? Does your natural goodness open up and manifest itself? If you become lost in chanting mere words, you truly fail to carry out your duty of saving the world. If at the fork of the road you hesitate to go forward, you will become a homeless outcast without refuge. You are caught up in a great dream and are slow to awaken. Just to rely on me truly is not possible. If you seek Heaven’s help with utmost sincerity, you will encounter more spiritual responsiveness than you expected. You must no longer tarry in confusion, but change with time and opportunity. Stubbornly holding on to the old principles will just lead you to perdition!44

43 44

Shahar (1998), p. 205. Quoted from Clart (2007), p. 1322.

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The text contains a number of themes one would expect in earlier baojuan of a millenarian bent such as, the Longhua baojuan 龍華寶卷 (Precious scroll of the Dragon-Flower”):45 humanity’s loss of its divine home due to worldly attachments; an approaching cataclysm and therefore, the urgent need to accept the one true teaching; the return to the unity of a divine origin; the inability of humanity to find the way home; and the appearance of sages and bodhisattvas to guide humanity onto the right path. The Yiguandao text shares these themes, yet “the key theme of this text,” as Philip Clart has pointed out, “is the insufficiency of the Christian Gospel for the attainment of final ­salvation.”46 In order to be saved, followers of Jesus have to overcome the limitations of their faith and accept the higher truth of the one Dao. In the Longhua baojuan, too, Laozi 老子 and Confucius are sent as emissaries by the Eternal Venerable Mother to reveal the true teaching to humanity. This implies that the teachings of these sages are superseded by the superior teaching of the Longhua baojuan. The difference between the Longhua jing 龍華經 and the Yiguandao interpretation of Jesus’ role is that in the Longhua jing Laozi and Confucius themselves know the true teaching, while the Jesus of the Yiguandao does not. The ‘liturgical profile’ of Jesus and all other founders of religion in the Yiguandao is thus subordinate to the sect’s own spiritual hierarchy. In the twentieth century, the incorporation of the main principles of the founders of the five world religions was done deliberately to facilitate missionary activities by the sect: In the Tang 唐 Dynasty, Buddhism incorporated Confucian teachings and thus a new tradition syncretizing three teachings emerged. That is Chan Buddhism, an indigenized Chinese Buddhism. Today, Western teachers are spreading to the West; Chinese culture is showing its amazing ability of synthesizing the Western culture. Against this background, Yiguan Dao today not only studies and incorporates teachings of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, but also draws salutary elements from such Western religions as Christianity and Islam. Yiguan Dao is syncretizing the doctrines of these five great religions. This synthetic force promises to create a new world religion which will be even more influential than the Chan Buddhism.47

45 46 47

On this baojuan see Overmyer (1999), pp. 248–71; Seiwert (2002), pp. 341–53. Clart (2007), p. 1322. Quoted from Lu Yunfeng (2008), p. 148.

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The integration of new foreign deities into the pantheon of the Yiguandao is a response to changes in the religious economy as Yiguandao establishes a presence all over the world. Christian, or more generally foreign, elements are appropriated on the sectarian’s own terms in order to secure the global validity of the sectarian worldview in the twentieth century in ways not fundamentally different from what sectarian groups have done in the past. To put it differently, if we want to speak of a ‘sectarian globalisation’ in the first half of the twentieth century, we have to be aware that it most likely still follows the paradigms established in the nineteenth century or even earlier. Conclusion “When the foreigners enter China, the world will change,” was one of the prophetic statements in the Wanbao baojuan I quoted in the first part of this essay. What has changed for Chinese sectarian groups as a result of China’s encounter with foreign powers and Christianity in the nineteenth century? What insights do we get from an investigation into the world of sectarian religions about processes of globalization and how they played out in the Chinese religious field in the longue durée? What questions are raised by the material I have presented here? The examples discussed have shown that not only Chinese religion in general, but popular religion in particular, should be an integral part of the narrative of globalization in China. Chinese religious sects were sensitive to the global currents around them, responding in various ways to political events related to the onslaught of foreign imperialism and Christian expansion in China, and sometimes entering the stage of world history themselves, like the Taiping in the middle of the nineteenth century. Never were sectarian groups only passive recipients, forced to adapt and recast themselves in an image imposed from the outside. To focus the narrative of religious globalization in China exclusively on the big players, be it Christianity, Confucianism, or the Chinese state, would run the risk of assuming that the unquestionable ‘positional superiority’ of these players translated into absolute discursive authority as well.48 The examples examined above show that this was not the case. While some groups interpreted the threats caused by globalization within the established framework of sectarian salvation history, thereby transforming it into a meaningful event that heralds the coming of a new and better age, 48

I borrow the terms ‘positional authority’ (originally a term coined by Edward Said) and ‘discursive authority,’ from DuBois (2009), p. 5.

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o­ thers, like the Taiping, substantially reworked the indigenous concept of history in order to adapt their teaching and worldview to the new realities. More often than not, these strategies have their historical roots in Chinese culture and are simply applied to new contexts. The ‘syncretic strategy’ adopted by Yiguandao in order to adapt their teaching to a global context, is a case in point. It is very similar to what the imperial state did in the past and what has been described by the term ‘co-optation.’ It is difficult to capture the various processes of interaction involving missionaries, Chinese Christians and the non-Christian population in one word. Terms such as ‘adaptation,’ ‘accommodation’ or ‘inculturation’ are often problematic, for they carry assumptions about the nature of cultural identity, agency, and historical influence that may be applicable to some instances but not in others. The three terms mentioned, for instance, all signify missionary approaches to the spread of Christianity in China and thus adopt a Christian viewpoint, focussing on the agency of the missionaries and their influence on Chinese converts rather than on the transformative interaction between Western Christians and their Chinese audiences.49 Influences between Western and Chinese sectarian religions demonstrably flowed in both directions, even though Christian influences on Chinese groups are often more obvious. However, sectarian groups exerted various influences on Christianity as well.50 Christian missionaries were often well-acquainted with Chinese sectarian scriptures from which they borrowed phrases and sometimes imitated in terms of layout and print. Through publications such as the Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal, Chinese excerpts from popular religious texts were also made available to an interested public in the English speaking world. Rather than assuming the existence of two neatly separated markets for religious scriptures, we have to perhaps think of the late imperial religious book market as highly integrated, with Christian tracts and s­ ectarian 49 50

See the discussion in Laamann (2006). The “interaction and communication” framework of analysis described by Nicholas Standaert in his recent study of Chinese Christian rituals is useful in the present context of this paper as well. See Standaert (2008), pp. 212–14. The interaction and communication approach stresses the mutuality of cultural exchange despite unequal power relationships. It is based on an understanding that “human beings become persons through their encounter with other persons and the subsequent communication between them” (p. 213), thus avoiding essentialist tendencies and giving sufficient weight to Chinese participants in the dialogue. Finally, it takes into account the outcomes of cultural interaction, for example texts or rituals, which makes it particularly useful for the study of religious texts emerging from the encounter between Christians and non-Christians in China.

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scriptures in constant interaction with each other and readers picking and choosing on an ad hoc basis. Producers of religious texts, on the other hand, would have been keen to adopt the most recent technological and commercial innovations in order to secure the attention of their audiences. One sentence in the Wanbao baojuan notes in passing that the “Venerable Mother frequently comes down to earth to leave True Scriptures in the human world” (Laomu changchang lai luo fan, zhen jingjuan, liu shijian 老母常常來落凡 . . . 真經 卷 . . . 留世間). This could indicate that the competition between religious groups, Chinese and Christian, forced this particular sect to step up its own text production as well as to loosen restrictions on the circulation of the Wanbao baojuan in order to reach new audiences (the text also mentions the payment of a fee). More research into the economic aspects of religious text production in China is needed, as well as on the question of how this grey area of exchange between sectarian religion, orthodox religions, and Christian missionaries was monitored by the state. Further study of religious text production and the intensification of the interactional exchange between different world regions via religious scriptures, from the printing of Christian scriptures in China in the nineteenth century to the distribution in print and through the internet of a vast amount of religious material in Chinese in the West, can provide a clear indication and measure of the emerging global religious sphere in the nineteenth and twentieth century. The production, distribution, and reading of religious texts created lasting structures between all participants. More importantly, once these structures had been established, they took on a life of their own that continues until today, and links the past and the present. Bibliography Appadurai, Arjun (1996). Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Bayly, C.A. (2002). “ ‘Archaic’ and ‘Modern’ Globalization in the Eurasian and African Arena, c. 1750–1850.” In: A.G. Hopkins (ed.), Globalization in World History. London: Pimlico, pp. 47–73. Bays, Daniel H. (1985). “Christianity and Chinese Sects: Religious Tracts in the Late Nineteenth Century.” In: Suzanne W. Barnett and John K. Fairbank (eds.), Christianity in China: Early Protestant Missionary Writings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 121–34. ——— (1982). “Christianity and the Chinese Sectarian Tradition.” Ch’ing‑shih wen‑t’i 4:7, pp. 33–55.

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Clart, Philip A. (1996). Morality Books and Their Ritual Context: A Case Study of a Taiwanese Spirit‑Writing Cult. Ph.D. dissertation, University of British Columbia. ——— (2007). “Jesus in Chinese Popular Sects.” In: Roman Malek (ed.), The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ. Vol. 3b. Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, pp. 1315–33. Cohen, Paul A. (1963). China and Christianity: The Missionary Movement and the Growth of Anti-Foreignism, 1860–1870. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Corbett, Hunter (1881). “The Work of Protestant Missions in the Province of Shantung.” Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal 12, pp. 87–90. DuBois, Thomas D. (2009). Casting Faiths: Imperialism and the Transformation of Religion in East and Southeast China. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Galpin, F. (1881). “Notes on the Ethical and Christian Value of Chinese Religious Tracts and Books.” Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal 12, pp. 202–17. Gewurtz, Margo S. (2003). “The ‘Jesus Sect’ and ‘Jesus Opium’: Creating a Christian Community in Rural North Honan, 1890‑1912.” In: Roman Malek (ed.), The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ. Vol. 2. Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, pp. 685–705. Hao Yen-P’ing and Wang Erh-min (1980). “Changing Chinese views of Western relations.” In: John K. Fairbank and Kwang-ching Liu (eds.) (1980), The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 11: Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 142–201. Holcombe, Charles. (2001). The Genesis of East Asia, 221 B.C.–A.D. 907. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Hopkins, A.G. (2002). “The History of Globalization—and the Globalization of History?” In: A.G. Hopkins (ed.), Globalization in World History. New York: Norton, pp. 12–44. Laamann, Lars P. (2006). Christian Heretics in Late Imperial China: Christian Inculturation and State Control, 1720–1850. London: Routledge. Lu Yunfeng (2008). The Transformation of Yiguan Dao in Taiwan: Adapting to a Changing Religious Economy. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. McDermott, Joseph P. (2006). A Social History of the Chinese Book: Books and Literati Culture in Late Imperial China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Naquin, Susan (1982). “Connections between Rebellions: Sect Family Networks in Qing China.” Modern China 8, pp. 337–60. ——— (1985). “The Transmission of White Lotus Sectarianism in Late Imperial China.” In: David Johnson, Andrew J. Nathan and Evelyn S. Rawski (eds.), Popular Culture in Late Imperial China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 255–91. Ortner, Sherry B. (1973). “On Key Symbols.” American Anthropologist 75, pp. 1338–46. Overmyer, Daniel (1999). Precious Volumes: An Introduction to Chinese Sectarian Scriptures from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

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Ownby, David and Qiao Peihua (1996). “Scriptures of the Way of the Temple of the Heavenly Immortals.” Chinese Studies in History 29:3, pp. 5–101. Pfister, Lauren F. (2003). “Reconsidering Three Faces of the ‘Revived One’ From Mid‑19th Century China.” In: Roman Malek (ed.), The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ. Vol. 2. Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, pp. 663–83. Seiwert, Hubert (2002). “Häresie im neuzeitlichen China: Die Erlösungslehre der Drachenblumenschrift (Longhua jing).” In: Hairesis: Festschrift für Karl Hoheisel zum 65. Geburtstag. Münster: Aschendorff, pp. 341–53. Smith, Arthur H. (1881). “Sketches of a Country Parish.” Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal 12, pp. 245–66 and 317–44. Standaert, Nicholas (2008). The Interweaving of Rituals: Funerals in the Cultural Exchange Between China and Europe. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Tiedemann, Rolf G. (1996). “Christianity and Chinese ‘Heterodox Sects:’ Mass Conversion and Syncretism in Shandong Province in Early Eighteenth Century.” Monumenta Serica 44, pp. 339–82. Topley, Marjorie (1963). “The Great Way of Former Heaven: A Group of Chinese Secret Religious Sects.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 26, pp. 362–92. Ven, Hans Van de (2002). “The Onrush of Modern Globalization in China.” In: A.G. Hopkins (ed.), Globalization in World History. New York: Norton, pp. 167–195. Wagner, Rudolf G. (1982). Reenacting the Heavenly Vision: The Role of Religion in the Taiping Rebellion. Berkeley: University of California Berkeley, Institute of East Asian Studies.

chapter 5

Beyond Globalization and Secularization: Changing Religion and Philanthropy in Lukang, Taiwan Robert P. Weller I began the research for this paper in order to understand and explain what I thought was a new phenomenon in Taiwan’s religious world: a clear increase in public charitable activity organized through religious institutions of all kinds over the last two decades. This change correlated with a world-wide increase in such activity, and appeared to be the result of the globalization of a pattern that began in the West. As I looked more closely, however, much of this initial formulation turned out to be misleading. A 2006 interview I had with an official of the Presbyterian Church in Lukang 鹿港 was an early example of the general puzzle I faced. The Presbyterians had been the most influential mission in Taiwan, and had pioneered an idea of broad-based charity for all in need from their beginnings in the midnineteenth century. The key figure in many ways was George MacKay (1844– 1901), who founded many of Taiwan’s Presbyterian churches and whose medical work made him famous. The Lukang church began a bit after MacKay’s time, in 1897, and according to my informant had always emphasized the spread of health and education. The church had indeed founded one of the first large kindergartens in Lukang back in the 1960s, a credit union in the 1980s, and much more recently a small fleet of pedicabs catering to tourists and seen mostly as a way of providing jobs for local unemployed men. In the last few years they had also allowed the neighborhood community to run a Taijiquan class there and to operate a small medical clinic. While at first glance all of this seems to fit neatly with the idea that religious contributions to the broader social welfare stem from the nineteenth century globalization of forms of Christianity that emphasize such activities, the timing was off. None of the charitable activities predated the 1960s, and much of it began only from the late 1990s. During the same time, I learned, even the older institutions—the kindergarten and the credit union—had opened much more to people beyond the small congregation of about two hundred families. The kindergarten had begun mostly for the Christians, but they now made up only about 10 per cent of the children. The credit union’s manager also

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reported that its membership had changed from about 90 per cent Christian at the beginning to more like 50 per cent by 2006. Two issues about the timing challenge the simple globalization story. First, if this were simply something that began in the nineteenth century and grew from there, why are none of these institutions more than forty years old and most considerably younger? Second, if the globalizing idea is one of universalizing charity for the whole society, why were these groups apparently aimed only at the congregation in the beginning, and why did they suddenly seem to open up just before the turn of the new century? Addressing these issues will take this essay through a wide range of religious traditions and political changes, and through three significantly different globalizing movements. The timing of the changes in Lukang’s Presbyterian church meshes with other kinds of evidence. My first research on religion in Taiwan, for example, began in 1977, with an extended period of fieldwork in the northern Taiwanese township of Sanhsia 三峽. At that time there was a small Presbyterian congregation, along with some small groups of Buddhists.1 None of them had any broad charitable activities, to my knowledge. There were larger groups of various sectarian followers, like the Yiguandao 一貫道. Most of these groups were still illegal at that time, forcing them to keep a low profile so that they also had no visible outside activities of any kind. The broader religious field, however, was absolutely dominated by local temple religion. I visited every temple in the township that was large enough to have a staff—a total of 22—and most of the many smaller shrines as well. No one at any of these temples ever described charitable activities to me, although more general contributions to the construction of social capital were obvious. That is, temples helped symbolize communities as solidary units, and temple management positions were important ways of creating and exerting political influence. The temple to Co Su Kong (祖師公), by far the most important in the area, had been the center for one of the two political factions that long dominated Sanhsia’s history. The formal activities of all these temples, however, were limited strictly to the religious sphere—paying temple staff, conducting rituals, raising money for temple reconstruction, and similar activities. There is no reason to think that Sanhsia was significantly different from the rest of the island at that time. Thirty years later, however, the situation seemed drastically changed. Recent ethnographies describe temples that give free rice to the poor on festival days 1 By ‘Buddhists’ I mean people who have taken formal vows, rather than the very large number of people in Taiwan who will simply refer to themselves loosely as Buddhists, for lack of a better term to refer to the large array of spirits they honor.

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and donate fire trucks and street lights to local governments.2 By far the most striking change was the rise of enormous new Buddhist organizations, starting with Tzu Chi (Ciji 慈濟) and then soon adding other major groups like Buddha Light Mountain (Foguang Shan 佛光山) and Dharma Drum Mountain (Fagu Shan 法鼓山). Each of these groups now claims millions of members all over the world, and each takes its charitable mission very seriously. This is especially true of Tzu Chi, whose primary purpose is charitable—they run medical clinics in slums, have built several modern hospitals in Taiwan, founded a university, provide emergency aid all around the world, and much more. What changed over those decades? The timing implies that we do not after all have a simple globalization of Christian ideals that began in the nineteenth century. I have found it most useful to separate three quite distinct strands of globalization that occurred at different times and in different ways. The first is indeed the nineteenth century introduction of new modes of charity grafted alongside already existing Chinese mechanisms. These ideas arrived first with Protestant missionaries and later with international organizations like the YMCA and Red Cross, which had themselves been shaped by Christian ideals. As I will argue, however, the broader social effects of these new ideals remained minor, partly because of a second wave of globalization that stemmed from the early twentieth century. The new force was the idea of the modern state as something essentially secular, that is, in which religion was relegated entirely to the spiritual sphere and kept separate from both the state and other kinds of social functions. This explains the relative social disengagement of religions during much of the Japanese and Kuomintang (KMT) ­periods—roughly from the 1920s to the 1990s. Chinese religions of every kind in the late imperial period had a long tradition of social engagement that extended well beyond temples and their rituals. In some ways, the current increase in such activity is not new, but just reclaims a tradition that had been curtailed through the secularizing strategies of a state dedicated to a vision of modernity that spread through East Asia a century ago. The third globalization involves the reworking of Chinese and Western ideas, originally through Buddhism, and then its global spread out from Taiwan. Although the recent rise in religious work for the general good is in some ways more a revival than an innovation, there have been crucial changes since the late Qing 清 dynasty (1644–1911) in how that ‘good’ is understood. Most importantly, goals for many groups have moved from a localized and face-to-face sense of compassionate charity (cishan 慈善) to a universalized sense of public good (gongyi 公益). This stems in part from a change in the understanding of the role of the state, from a Confucian conception of the state as ultimately 2 See, for example, Moskowitz (2001), p. 108.

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responsible for the welfare of its people to the neoliberal image of the state as a guarantor of a smoothly functioning market with limited social responsibilities. Thus, for example, emergency relief over long distances took place in the late Qing either through sojourning elites who would send help home through their particularistic ties, or more generally through the state. It is only with the recent developments that we see religious organizations take on this role on a large scale for groups beyond their own immediate supporters and home communities. The Buddhists who pioneered this new model quickly influenced the other religious traditions in Taiwan, as well as spreading internationally. This explains the timing of the changed strategies of Lukang’s Presbyterians, as well as others that I will discuss below. The research for this project took place in Lukang, a town of about 20,000 people. The total township population, including the surrounding villages, is about 50,000. Lukang was one of the major trading ports of Taiwan’s early history, whose economic power slipped away as the harbor silted up in the late nineteenth century and was further doomed when the railroad passed it by.3 Part of the legacy of this past glory is a highly developed world of popular religion, with elaborate and powerful temples from the neighborhood on up. Like some other places that were partially left behind by the rapid physical changes of the twentieth century, Lukang has been able to preserve an architectural heritage that allowed it to develop into a major tourist destination in recent years. This, along with the enormous drawing power of its most famous temples, has become the key to an economic revival. Fieldwork took place primarily in 2006, and was based in large part on intensive interviewing of religious leaders from an inclusive array of the religious variants in the area. These included the nearby Tzu Chi branch, two redemptive societies (Cihui Shan 慈惠山 and Yiguandao), the Presbyterians, and a wide range of local temples, including the two very powerful temples that dominate either end of the town (Tianhou Gong 天后宮 and Longshan Si 龍山寺) and several of the local neighborhood temples. I also interviewed the mayor and other relevant government officials at the township and county level, and representatives of numerous secular non-governmental organizations that also provide aid.4

3 The major source on Lukang in English is DeGlopper (1995). Important sources in Chinese include Lugang zhenzhi, published by the Township government in 2000, and Ye Dapei (1997). 4 I gratefully acknowledge the help of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, which funded this research. I spent the summer of 2006 in Lukang, and was assisted by Chen Guangping and Erin Hsieh, who remained longer in the field.

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Intertwined Religion and Society and the Arrival of a Protestant Vision

Religion and society were inseparable from the seventeenth-century beginnings of Chinese settlement in Lukang through the arrival of Protestant missionaries and into the early Japanese colonial period that began in 1895. During this period the deity-based activity we now often call ‘popular religion’ was not conceptually separated as a ‘teaching’ ( jiao 教, like Buddhism, Daoism, or Christianity), but was instead integrated into general community forms. We can see evidence of this going back to stories about some of Lukang’s earliest history. The exact origins of the town as a Chinese place are unclear, but one of its major early events was its use as a point of initial attack and later base of operations for the invading Qing dynasty forces that captured the island from the Ming 明 loyalist Zheng Chenggong 鄭成功 (1624–1662). According to local legend, Admiral Shi Lang 施琅 (1621–1696), the leader of the Qing invasion forces, had stopped to pick up a statue of the goddess Mazu 媽祖 at her main temple in Meizhou 湄洲, Fujian 福建. On reaching Taiwan, he established a base at Lukang because of the port facilities. In thanks for the support of local leaders, he left the Meizhou Mazu statue in the care of a local temple that allegedly dated back to the late Ming. Partly on the fame of that statue, the temple has now evolved into Lukang’s most famous and powerful institution—the Tianhou Gong (a reference to Mazu’s imperial title).5 The story shows the intertwining of religion, society, and politics that was typical of late imperial Chinese history. We see this first in the need a military expedition felt for religious protection, and then in Shi Lang’s attempt to superscribe an older and more local Taiwanese Mazu temple with his own image—a Mazu in the service of the Qing dynasty, and clearly more efficacious than the local images, as the military victory showed.6 We see it again in the way the temple used the story of this image to achieve a great deal of secular power over the centuries that followed. We can see the close ties between religion and government again later in the Qing, with the construction of paired official military and civil temples, led by a local holder of the jinshi 進士 degree in 1811. A school opened in the civil temple in 1824.7 Lukang’s kinship networks also linked intimately to deities. Chinese almost everywhere burn incense for their ancestors, and in some areas (including parts of Taiwan) they construct shared ancestral halls to house memorial tab5 Xu Xueji (2000), p. 115. 6 The superscription idea comes from Duara (1988). 7 Shan Wenjing (2000), p. 6.

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lets for an entire lineage, which may live together in a village. Such halls often also owned land to provide income for annual rituals. Just four surnames completely dominated settlement in Lukang town, and a total of ten made up the great majority in the township as a whole. Rarely, however, did these groups organize as traditional lineages.8 Instead, the most common form of organization was as a ‘god association’ (shenming hui 神明會). God associations are an extremely common form of social organization in which groups organize around the worship of one or more deities, but also carry out any other kind of activity. God associations in late imperial times were the most common vehicle for rotating credit associations, charitable groups, professional associations, and many other functions.9 In Lukang, shared surname groups organized by worshipping gods together, often either gods their ancestors had worshipped or community deities in the neighborhoods they had emigrated from. Typically this happened in someone’s home, rather than a temple or an ancestral hall.10 In Lukang’s case this may well represent an adaption to urbanized migrant life, but it shows in any case just how closely religious themes organized all aspects of social life. Merchant associations (locally called hangjiao 行郊) usually also adopted a similar structure. These groups were organized around major commodities (oil, sugar, cloth, etc.) in some cases, and around major trading destinations in others (Quanzhou 泉州, Xiamen 廈門, etc.). In addition to dealing with issues of trade and competition, they were important charitable actors: they built bridges and roads, contributed to temple reconstruction, and donated food to the poor.11 These groups peaked in the nineteenth century, before Lukang’s harbor silted up and trade died out. All of them were founded around altars to deities and they always included Mazu among others (which varied from one group to the next). Their leaders had the titles of Incense Pot Master (luzhu 爐主) and Head (toujia 頭家), the same as the leaders of temple ­rituals.12 The centrality of the gods became clear to me when I visited the one remaining active association, the Quanzhou Association (Quanjiao 泉郊). While no longer a merchant guild, this group has maintained corporate wealth and a continuous membership, and they still have an active hall. Immediately on entering, one sees the altar with its ancient images, and photographs of 8 9 10 11 12

The only active such hall in Lukang town currently is a Shi surname association with a global base. It was founded only in 1991. Sangren (1984). Zhuang Yingzhang (2000), pp. 75–6. Huang Xiuzheng (2000), p. 163. DeGlopper (1995), p. 163.

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these gods grace the opening page of the brochure the group puts out.13 As a group, the eight most powerful associations rotated worship of the Emperor of Heaven. Like lineages in Lukang, merchant associations cannot be extricated from their links to religion. Whatever their primary purpose, all of these groups (and many more) shared a religious institutional structure, and all provided some forms of charity. The Japanese colonial rulers gave us the first systematic surveys of local institutions. Even in a small town like Lukang, they registered 66 god associations in 1923, including kinship groups, neighborhood groups, and business groups (coffin makers, Western-style tailors, and so on). Religion and society were thus still closely intertwined into the first decades of the twentieth century. What difference did the new Protestant presence make in the late nineteenth century? While making converts was of course their primary goal, MacKay and other missionaries also founded schools and provided medical care. While the schools emphasized a specifically Christian education (teaching geography, for instance, through Biblical place names), MacKay offered medical care to everyone. He claimed to have pulled over 21,000 teeth over his years in Taiwan, and that the MacKay Hospital treated 3,156 new patients and 7,580 old patients in 1894.14 Other foreign groups with similar ameliorist ideas entered by the early Japanese colonial period, like the YMCA and Red Cross. There is little evidence, however, that any of this had a broad impact on the structure of charity in Taiwanese society more generally. Instead, we continue to see earlier patterns of charity run through intertwined religious/ social organizations. Late arrival was part of the reason for the limited impact. This was especially true in Lukang, which was already fading in importance by the late nineteenth century, and where the first church dates only from 1897. The scale was also very small across Taiwan. MacKay pulled a lot of teeth, but less than five per cent of the population ever converted. Perhaps most important, though, was that the Japanese soon began to extricate religion from society and thus to limit its charitable work. As the following section discusses, this second wave of globalization—of the idea of secularization—followed quickly on the first, Protestant wave and its effects penetrated far more deeply into Taiwanese life.

13 14

Quanjiao jianjie (1995). MacKay (1895), p. 316.

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Disentangling Religion and Society

The term ‘secularization’ is used in many ways in the social sciences. I do not refer here to despiritualization or the loss of religiosity. Instead I use the term to emphasize the relegation of religion to a separate sphere of its own, largely private and voluntary, and independent from both the state and the broader society. This idea had developed in Europe and America, but with very different institutional results from place to place. France crafted the most extreme separation of church and state and the most thoroughly privatized image of what religion should be. The United States took a similar but slightly less drastic path. Several northern European countries, however, either maintained an official state religion (e.g., Britain) or ultimately provided state financial support and supervision of a number of religions (e.g., Germany or Holland). These ideas spread rapidly to many non-European countries by the early twentieth century, especially as they adopted constitutions that identified them as part of the world system of nation-states. In China after the Republican revolution of 1911 (as in 1920s and 1930s Turkey or Mexico), the radical French model dominated. Religion was defined out of politics and its broader social functions were to be replaced by the state or non-religious social mechanisms. Village temple worship was not recognized as ‘religion’ at all; it was always discouraged and sometimes repressed as backward superstition.15 The situation was more complex in Taiwan under the Japanese, although the end result was not so different. For the first few decades, the colonial government largely left village temple worship alone. As time went on, however, the Japanese increasingly brought Buddhism under the direct control of Japanese Buddhist sects and began to repress temple worship in the 1930s. I have already mentioned the census of Lukang’s god associations in 1923. Immediately after that, the colonial government announced that the god association would no longer be recognized as a legal form of social organization.16 The disembedding of religion from social life had begun.17 It is not a coincidence that the formal separation of religion from society that began under the Japanese was roughly simultaneous with the introduction of the modern Chinese word for ‘religion’ (zongjiao 宗教), which itself came from Japan as part of a systematic translation of Western social science 15 16 17

See Goossaert (2006); Nedostup (2009). Xu Xueji (2000), pp. 211–42. A later attempt to spread Shintō throughout the island never made much progress due to the war.

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ideas. Church and state can only be separated if the category of ‘religion’ exists, if it can be imagined as something independent from the rest of society and politics. Secularization, one might say, requires religionization. This project of secularization continued throughout the Japanese period and actually grew more severe with the kōminka 皇民化 (‘creation of imperial subjects’) policy of the late 1930s, when there was a general attempt to discourage popular religion in favor of State Shintō. While religious pressure eased up a little after the KMT took over in 1945, the Nationalists were also dedicated modernists with little interest in religion and no sympathy for popular worship. General policy toward religion thus changed only in minor ways during the first few decades of KMT rule after 1945. The KMT immediately ended the Shintō experiment, of course. They tried to re-sinify the Buddhist tradition based around monks who came over from the mainland, but remained unfriendly to temple worship, with a constant string of campaigns to stop wasting time and money on superstitious rituals. Most religions were brought under corporatist control. Local temples had to register with the government, but had no corporatist organization because they did not qualify as religion. Only the Christians escaped this system, largely for political and diplomatic reasons. These policies pushed religion away from the broader social and political sphere. This was why I saw so little philanthropic activity from religious groups when I first arrived in Taiwan in the late 1970s—the very end of the dominant period for this second wave of globalization with its exile of religion from society and its antipathy to village temple ritual. The most important exception to the pattern under the Japanese had been sectarian religious groups, vaguely Buddhist or syncretic in orientation, which offered important services like help for opium addiction. By the Republican period, however, even this had faded to some extent as the new government made the most important of these groups illegal and pushed them increasingly underground. Describing the period of his fieldwork in 1968, DeGlopper writes: In Lukang one does not find that plethora of overlapping formal associations that characterizes overseas Chinese urban communities. There are no same-place associations, no guilds, no school associations, no benevolent associations, and no chamber of commerce. Many things that in the past or among overseas Chinese were handled by formal associations are in Taiwan today the responsibility of the government.18

18

DeGlopper (1995), p. 65.

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There was apparently no religious philanthropic activity. In great contrast to the period before the 1920s, religion had apparently been successfully extricated from broader social roles and the government has taken many of them over. Unlike the Christian-led wave of globalization that began in the nineteenth century and caused little long-term transformation, the globalizing idea of a secular state dominated Lukang through most of the Japanese period and for the first several decades of KMT rule. 3

Re-embedding and Reworking Religious Philanthropy

In Lukang, we could see the tentative beginnings of a reemergence from roughly sixty or seventy years of enforced secularization with the Presbyterian Church’s founding of their kindergarten and then the credit union. In fact, however, a very few organizations managed to keep up a trickle of the older form of charity almost continuously. The most important of these was the Quanzhou Merchants’ Association. This had been the most powerful of the merchant associations during the nineteenth century, and included the sorts of charity I have discussed above. The gradual silting up of Lukang’s harbor and consequent stagnation of the local economy badly undermined both the purpose and the economic base of these associations in the early twentieth century. The Quanzhou Association, however, owned enough land that their rental income allowed the group to survive. Their business function ended completely in 1937, when Japan’s war with China ended trade with Quanzhou. The next year they registered with the Japanese government as an association for the benefit of the neighborhood (shanlin hui 善鄰會) as a way of continuing some charitable activity. In practice, they had become a corporate group of fourteen members benefitting from the communal income and using some of it for charity. The current group consists of the descendants of those fourteen families. The corporate property enabled them to function as a pure god worshipping society focused around the altar created by the original founders of the group. They registered again with the new government in 1948, returning to their old name as the Quanzhou Merchants Association. They first experimented with new forms of charity the next year, when they opened a small clinic with a nurse in the front of their old association hall. As one of the current directors explained it to me, however, managing the clinic eventually became more than they could handle, and they gave it up after a couple of decades. It had deteriorated to a drugstore in the 1960s.19 In 1976 they reincorporated under yet another new 19

DeGlopper (1995), p. 165.

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name, as the Quanzhou Merchants Association for Benevolent Love (Quanjiao Ren’ai Zhi Jia 泉郊仁愛之家); they dropped Benevolent Love in 1984 in favor of Compassionate Good Association (Cishanhui 慈善會); as the legal framework evolved, they finally incorporated as a foundation in 1986. In part, their activities reflected the value of real estate in Lukang—the recent tourist boom has greatly increased their rental income. In part, it shows an experiment with a broader idea of charity in the 1950s, which they ultimately could not manage. Their current activities do not look so very different from what they did in the nineteenth century, but with the business functions removed: they help the poor and give emergency relief (in cooperation with the township government), and they contribute to important temple festivals. God associations continue today mostly on a small and informal scale, either for historical reasons (like the Quanzhou Merchants Association) or for small and relatively informal groups like rotating credit associations. Close links between social organization, religion, and charity, however, have once again bloomed. In some cases, this involves a continuation of some of the community building functions that temples always had. A beautiful and renowned temple indexes a successful community, for example, but temples also create ties that bridge community boundaries. This is especially clear at the Tianhou temple, which is a major attraction for pilgrims from all over the island. There is a constant stream of visiting deities and their followers, with each group paying its respects (often through performances by the visiting gods themselves through possessed followers) in the front courtyard before entering the temple. On a more local scale, we can see it also in the cooperative arrangements between some temples, and in the visits deities pay to each other when they hold processions. We also see links between religion and charity in the revival of direct philanthropic action by religious groups. These typically include scholarships for the children of followers, emergency aid for people with a sudden financial need (often coordinated through the township government), running medical clinics, or providing public goods beyond the temple building and its religious activities. In the case of the Tianhou Gong, for instance, they have donated fire-fighting equipment and garbage trucks to the township government. They also built what people laughingly called the ‘five-star’ toilet—a massive, clean, luxurious, and air-conditioned public bathroom just across from the temple. In a place where public toilets are almost unheard of, and where tourist traffic is enormous, this was greatly appreciated. Even much smaller temples, however, also have scholarship funds or give small cash gifts to the old or poor during the Chinese New Year.

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Even though the god association has not been the primary form of formal incorporation since the 1920s, we can still see evidence of a strong link between religion and other forms of social organization, including philanthropy. The primary form for such groups since democratization has been the non-governmental organization (NGO). The Changhua 彰化 county government (which includes Lukang) listed 68 ‘popular organizations’ (renmin tuanti 人民團體, the legal term that covers NGOs but not larger foundations) with Lukang addresses in 2005. These include surname associations and charitable groups as well as the usual business and hobby groups (e.g., the Glass Association, two Chinese chess clubs, four Kiwanis Clubs). This seems like a large number for a township whose urban center has only 20,000 people, but in fact there are many additional smaller associations that have not registered at the county level. These numbers do not include temples (which have a separate registration procedure), but do include several groups with close ties to temples. The Zhongyi Charitable Society (Zhongyi Cishanhui 忠義慈善會), for example, began as a social group affiliated with Lukang’s Zhongyi temple, which houses the god Guan Gong 關公. They originally helped coordinate temple feasts for followers and occasionally gave emergency aid. In 1987 they organized to provide more systematic aid, and registered with the county in 1989. Most of the original members of the board of directors were also members of the temple committee, although there is no legal tie between the two groups. They provided roughly NT$ 300,000 (about US $10,000) in emergency aid in 2004, held a blood drive, and gave the township government NT$ 50,000 to be used as gifts for the elderly during an annual festival. This is a typical list for a group like this.20 The historical ties to a temple are also not unusual. The Zijidian Educational Foundation (Zijidian Wenjiao Jijinhui 紫極殿文教基金會) is another small NGO, in this case dedicated to providing scholarships for neighborhood high school and college students. Its name refers to the Zijidian, an important temple for one Lukang neighborhood. The group began when a donor to the t­ emple was convinced to dedicate his donation to educational help. The temple eventually asked the current director to help raise more funds, and they ultimately set up the new fund as an independent NGO.21 In other cases, temples themselves still run these activities directly. The 20 21

This is based primarily on an interview with Mr. Xu Shengxiong 許勝雄, who was the Director when I saw him in 2005. Interview with the current director in 2005, Mr. Huang Zhinong 黃志農.

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­ owerful Tianhou temple, for example, discussed the possibility of setting p up a separate educational foundation, but decided not to, probably to avoid having to deal with the supervision that comes with official registration. We can see another indirect role of religion by looking at the structure of leadership in Lukang. Taiwanese sometimes characterize their business practices by saying that “it’s better to be a chicken’s beak than a cow’s rear end.” This logic that people would prefer to be the boss of something tiny than a drone in something huge works just as well for the world of social organizations, at least in Lukang. The mayor at one point joked to me that whenever she forgets someone’s name, she just calls them ‘Director’ (huizhang 會長), because everyone important is the boss of some group. I first ran into this directly during a serendipitous interview with a man who ran a handsomely reconstructed old elite house as a tourist site. A descendant of one of the last jinshi degree holders in Lukang (whose house this was), Mr. Ding Zhenxiang丁禎祥 turned out to have been a director of one of Lukang’s Kiwanis Clubs, which had a typical range of charitable activities, like a blood drive and emergency relief for local families. At the same time, Ding was an official in one of the neighborhood temples. The temple tie was important, he explained, as a way of meeting his responsibilities toward his community. This pattern recurred frequently. A presbyter of the local church was a founding member of the earliest modern medical philanthropy group in Lukang, the Zhicheng Charitable Society (Zhicheng Cishan Hui 至诚慈善会). None of the other founders was a Christian. He also helped found one of the two Junior Chamber of Commerce branches in Lukang. As another example, a former director of the Zhongyi Charitable Society had also been the director of the Zhicheng Charitable Society, chair of one of the three local Lions Clubs, an elected neighborhood head (lizhang 里長), and committee chair of both the Xinzu Gong 新祖公 and Nanjing Gong 南靖宮 neighborhood temples. This evidence (and more could easily be cited) suggests that while specific organizational forms have changed significantly since the Qing Dynasty, we see a great reintegration of religious leadership into broader forms of social and political leadership. Local business and political leaders recognize and act on the principle that they need to appear across the range of community activities, creating enormous overlaps among temple committee membership, NGO leadership, business club membership, and sometimes local political office. In the late Qing, we saw this primarily through god associations, merchant associations, and temple leadership by serving as ‘incense pot master’ for a year. All of these forms have been largely replaced during the twentieth century, with even temples taking on democratic and NGO characteristics with boards

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of directors elected by the community of ‘believers.’ In spite of these modern, legally empowered forms, however, the general principle that religious and secular leaderships overlap has not changed. In brief, religious activity has long intertwined with the broader processes of social capital formation, and the present situation is not so different from the case of Lukang in the nineteenth century. The second broad wave of globalization—the one that promoted a secularizing separation of the religious sphere—began to fade in the last decades of the twentieth century. The period just after democratization at the end of the 1980s brought an active reintegration of religion into the social world, including the world of charity that I have been discussing. Once politicians had to appeal directly to voters, temples once again thrived as centers of social capital. With the government relaxing its pressure on temples, and on the very idea of popular religion, local deities have reclaimed a central place in social networks and in providing public goods through philanthropy. Nevertheless, this period was not simply a revival of the nineteenth-century patterns. One crucial innovation was a new way of thinking about charity itself. Although I will mention a few exceptions, the older model of compassionate charity (cishan 慈善) was generally particularistic and ad hoc. That is, help tended to go only to people within the network of the god worshipping association (including merchant associations), kinship association (again often structured as god worshipping groups in Lukang), or neighborhood. It was usually not generalized to all the needy of the world, or even of the broader community. Furthermore, it tended to be one-time aid when needed (a scholarship or an emergency food donation) rather than an ongoing commitment to changing lives.22 This style of philanthropy apparently dominated in the nineteenth century, and continues to be important for many groups today. The Shi surname association, for example, only helps its own members with scholarships or emergency aid. This is also true for some of the local temples. When temples offer aid more broadly, they tend (rather like late imperial elites) to work through the government. Many temples thus give cash gifts to the poor at the Chinese New Year or to the elderly at the Chongyang 重陽 festival in the ninth lunar month, but they often funnel the money through the township government. The reverse is also true—local neighborhood heads and the township government will approach temples with specific cases of families needing emergency relief. 22

Large cities on the mainland did have some groups with broader philanthropic goals in the nineteenth century, but this does not seem to have been the pattern in small towns like Lukang. See Katz (2006).

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A new model of philanthropy, however, has become increasingly important over the last several decades, based on general aid to everyone combined with long-term monitoring of progress. There were precursors of this in late imperial times, most clearly justified through the Buddhist ideal of the bodhi­sattva who helps all living beings achieve enlightenment before entering nirvana, and perhaps more directly through popular morality books beginning in the late Ming.23 This ideal transcends particularistic ties in favor of a general view of public benefit. In Lukang, the most famous extant example of this tradition is probably the ‘half-well.’ This is the well of a wealthy family’s house dating back to the late Qing. The wall surrounding the house cuts directly across the well’s diameter. The family thus had access to one half of the well, while the other half was open to the street outside, allowing anyone who needed water to use it. Such contributions to the anonymous masses tended to be the exception, however. The dominant pattern was to organize aid for known people— neighbors, kinsmen, business partners, and the like. When early Presbyterians of the nineteenth century used medical missionary techniques, they began a pattern of more generalized charity. Yet this was also clearly interested behavior on their part. More importantly, it left little visible long-term impact on broader patterns of charity in Taiwan. Even the excellent MacKay Hospital, founded as part of the early Presbyterian mission, is not today a charitable institution. As the story at the beginning of this essay implies, Presbyterian charity by the middle of the twentieth century resembled Chinese particularistic patterns more than any universalizing vision. The lasting introduction of the new model of charity came not directly from the Christians or from the remnants of the old social/charitable organizations, but from newly burgeoning Buddhist groups in Taiwan, especially Tzu Chi. This group was founded in 1966 specifically to rework Buddhism toward thisworldly goals by bringing help to those who need it most.24 It remained small and local for many years, but burst into island-wide prominence especially in the 1980s, when the government approved the group’s plans to construct a state-of-the-art hospital and they were able to raise funds (and recruit members) on a massive scale. It now claims millions of members and is active all

23 24

Handlin Smith (1987); Shue (2006). On the development of Tzu Chi, see, for instance, Huang (2009). I use Wade-Giles romanization for the group’s name here because that is what they use in their English language media; in previous publications I have sometimes used the pinyin romanization (Ciji) instead.

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over the world. The group has maintained its medical emphasis and added strength in poverty relief, education, and emergency aid. Followers will take on activities like volunteering in hospitals or nursing homes, organizing recycling, or identifying needy families and delivering aid. As their local organizers pointed out in interviews, they differ from the earlier model not just in their huge scale, but in their commitment to following through on aid and making sure there is a long-term benefit.25 Members of other charitable groups and the township government also pointed to this as a particular strength of Tzu Chi and as a great difference from the way aid used to be handled. The idea is to help everyone in need—not just members or people tied to them through locality, kinship, or profession. When they stage a free medical clinic in a poor area of Los Angeles or Kuala Lumpur, anyone is welcome to come. When they provide disaster relief, they will go anywhere in the world. There are, of course, many precursors for this attitude. They include earlier Chinese associations with a strong Buddhist influence, the medical missionaries of the nineteenth century, global models like the Red Cross, and even the international business clubs with a charitable side (like Kiwanis or Rotary). In Taiwan, however, none of these had a truly lasting impact on the conduct of charity until Tzu Chi became so important in the 1980s. Other Buddhist groups followed Tzu Chi into the realm of generalized charity and education. To some extent so have other kinds of religions, including sectarians like the Yiguandao, or local temples that deliver more general aid now by cooperating with local government. This is the key to explaining the timing of charitable activity in the Presbyterian church as well. In interviews with me, few religious or philanthropic organizations ascribed their commitment to a broader vision of charity to the influence of Tzu Chi. Nevertheless, the timing clearly shows the enormous power of Tzu Chi to affect the others. Other groups had brought in a ‘public good’ image of charity much earlier, as I have mentioned. Yet none really took off before the 1980s. The Presbyterian Church had retreated into its own congregation during the twentieth century, and even the local attempt by the remnant of the Quanzhou Merchant’s Association to open a clinic in Lukang faded out after a few years. After Tzu Chi, however, we see a greatly expanded religious interest in philanthropy. The local Catholics opened a school for severely mentally handicapped children 25

There is no Lukang branch of Tzu Chi, but the huge Changhua county branch is just outside the township’s borders, and they have many activities in Lukang. At the Changhua branch, I spent most time speaking to Mr. Wu Hui, head of the Activities Section (and a resident of Lukang).

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in 1988, and the Presbyterians began to open to the wider community around the same time. Philanthropic activity by local temples grew large in the 1990s. The leader of a nearby Yiguandao branch explained to me that Tzu Chi gained so much positive publicity after delivering aid to victims of the terrible Taiwan earthquake of June 21, 1999, that Yiguandao had been forced to publish a book trumpeting their own relief effort. This newer idea of a ‘public good’ model of charity has by no means replaced the earlier models, as I have tried to show. What we might call the Tzu Chi model (at least in the Taiwanese context) has been broadly influential, but has not taken over the entire field. Instead it has been grafted onto the existing pattern of localized giving through communal ties. It has, in turn, expanded out from Taiwan as Tzu Chi and other groups spread around the world. The new investment of religious groups in philanthropy just at this moment was driven in part by the government’s eagerness to have social groups take over aspects of welfare, as happened in much of the world beginning in the 1980s. We see this in the greatly increased legal space for NGOs, as well as increased religious charity. Taiwan’s democratization was the other driving force, where politicians for the first time needed to mobilize religious social networks to generate local support. One important result has been the greatly increased role of religious groups like churches and temples, or of NGOs with religious ties, in providing for the welfare of needy citizens. These changes do not necessarily lead to the ‘public good’ model of philanthropy. Why did that particular idea become so important at about the same time? I have already mentioned democratization as one of the causes for a renewal of the ties between religion and philanthropy, but it is also related to a broader image of the ‘public’ as the broad social space beyond the state. The authoritarian regimes that had preceded this period allowed the maintenance of many localist ties, but the public itself could exist only in service of the state. Democracy brought a reconception of this relationship, however, with a social world conceived independently from the state. This revised understanding may have encouraged charitable activity aimed at this new ‘public.’ Changes in state policy also encouraged the new vision of charity. Tzu Chi’s hospital construction, which was critical to their initial expansion, received Chiang Ching-kuo’s 蔣經國 blessing in part because there was an increasing feeling that society should take more responsibility for its own welfare needs, leaving government to concentrate on defense and the economy. My own first visit to their headquarters, not long after democratization, had been arranged by the Foreign Ministry: it was by then something the government was eager to show off to foreigners. The change also indicates some willingness to allow

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surveillance functions—keeping track of needy families over the long term— to move into the social sector. Gender may also be an important factor here. Tzu Chi’s appeal has been to women above all, and they frequently talk about how they have taken the love and care that mothers offer their families and brought it to the world as a whole.26 Nurturance for them becomes a general and abstract good, independent from the specific nurturance offered to one’s children or help to one’s neighbors. Men dominated all the earlier models of philanthropy that I have mentioned. Tzu Chi offers the first time we see women taking on this enormous public role, even though it is couched in the conservative terms of nurturance and family values. Conclusion These events imply that we need some reconsideration of the ways that globalization can work. There is no doubt that nineteenth-century religious philanthropy and its offshoots like the Red Cross spread around the world, including Taiwan. The international business clubs brought similar ideas in the middle of the twentieth century. None of this seems to have had a broad effect in Taiwan, however, probably because of the secularist and modernist ideologies of both the colonial and then authoritarian states. Both greatly restricted the room they offered for religion and for independent social organizations. In contrast to the limited penetration of the (initially) Protestant globalization of a particular idea of charity, the secularization trend that began early in the twentieth century had an enormous effect. It achieved particular power in China and Taiwan, because of the broad embrace of the entire project of global modernity. The Reagan/Thatcher years inaugurated a world-wide move away from government management of social welfare functions toward more direct social control. This is especially clear in the movement for ‘faith-based’ social services in the United States, but can be seen just as strongly in the rise of social-oriented NGOs in most of the world since the 1980s. What we see in Taiwan is certainly part of this global trend, but global influences cannot be the entire explanation. The local political transformation of that decade was obviously crucial. Maybe even more important, however, was the way that Tzu Chi reworked and indigenized the global message into a Buddhist form that 26

Huang and Weller (1998), pp. 379–96.

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resonated powerfully with people in Taiwan. From there, it affected all kinds of religious-philanthropic work in Taiwan. This reworked image of the public good eventually moved back out of Taiwan, spreading around the world with Tzu Chi and other Taiwanese Buddhist groups—a third wave of globalization, but reversing the flow of the previous two. Bibliography DeGlopper, Donald R. (1995). Lukang: Commerce and Community in a Chinese City. Albany: SUNY Press. Duara, Prasenjit (1988). “Superscribing Symbols: The Myth of Guandi, Chinese God of War.” Journal of Asian Studies 47, pp. 778–95. Goossaert, Vincent (2006). “1898: The Beginning of the End for Chinese Religion?” Journal of Asian Studies 65, pp. 307–35. Handlin Smith, Joanna F. (1987). “Benevolent Societies: The Reshaping of Charity During the Late Ming and Early Ch’ing.” Journal of Asian Studies 46, pp. 309–37. Huang Xiuzheng 黃秀政 (2000). Lugang zhenzhi: Yange Pian 鹿港鎮志: 沿革篇 [Lukang Gazeteer: History]. Lukang: Lukang Township Office. Huang, C. Julia (2009). Charisma and Compassion: Cheng Yen and the Buddhist Tzu Chi Movement. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Huang, Chien-yu Julia and Robert P. Weller (1998). “Merit and Mothering: Women and Social Welfare in Taiwanese Buddhism.” Journal of Asian Studies 57, pp. 379–96. Katz, Paul R. (2006). “The Religious Life of a Renowned Shanghai Businessman and Philanthropist, Wang Yiting.” Unpublished paper, Academia Sinica, Taiwan: Institute of Modern History. Lugang zhenzhi 鹿港鎮志 [Lukang Gazetteer] (2000). Lukang: Lukang Township Office. MacKay, George L. (1895). From Far Formosa: The Island, Its People and Missions. 4th ed. New York: Fleming H. Revell. Moskowitz, Marc L. (2001). The Haunting Fetus: Abortion, Sexuality, and the Spirit World in Taiwan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Nedostup, Rebecca A. (2009). Superstitious Regimes: Religion and the Politics of Chinese Modernity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Quanjiao jianjie 泉郊簡介 [Introduction to the Quanzhou Guild] (1995). Lukang: Jinchangshun Quanjiao Foundation. Sangren, P. Steven (1984). “Traditional Chinese Corporations: Beyond Kinship.” Journal of Asian Studies 43, pp. 391–415. Shan Wenjing 單文經 (2000). Lugang zhenzhi: Jiaoyu pian 鹿港鎮志: 教育篇 [Lukang Gazeteer: Education]. Lukang: Lukang Township Office.

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Shue, Vivienne (2006). “The Quality of Mercy: Confucian Charity and the Mixed Metaphors of Modernity in Tianjin.” Modern China 32 (2006), pp. 411–52. Xu Xueji 徐雪姬 (2000). Lugang zhenzhi: Zongjiao pian 鹿港鎮志: 宗教篇 [Lukang Gazeteer: Religion]. Lukang: Lukang Township Office. Ye Dapei 葉大沛 (1997). Lugang fazhan shi 鹿港發展史 [History of the Development of Lukang]. Zhanghua: Zuoyang. Zhuang Yingzhang 莊英章 (2000). Lugang zhenzhi: Shizu pian 鹿港鎮志: 氏族篇 [Lukang Gazeteer: Kinship]. Lukang: Lukang Township Office.

chapter 6

‘Mrs. Ma’ and ‘Ms. Xu’: On the Attractiveness of Denoting Oneself a ‘Buddhist’ in the Increasingly Transnational Milieu of Urban Taiwan Esther-Maria Guggenmos* Contemporary Buddhists in urban Taiwan show a high international awareness: In their biographical self-descriptions, internationality is ascribed a consistently positive meaning. Buddhism leads them, at times, literally abroad, provides them with a message to the world or enables them to safeguard morality in an environment that is increasingly shaped by transnational flows. Buddhism seems to serve well the need for transnational agency and self-­management, a factor which contributes to its attractiveness to people in urban Taiwan. Statistical observations reveal that significantly more Buddhists live in the urban areas of Taiwan than in the rural ones. The analysis of biographical narrative interviews which the author conducted between 2005 and 2007 corroborates the statistical findings and further suggests plausible explanations for this fact: ‘Buddhism’ in urban Taiwan is perceived as internationally open and fitting in a cosmopolitan context, but it also presents itself as compatible with an increased level of education; it is, moreover, regarded as a suitable leisure time activity, serving a growing urban demand for bodily selfcultivation while at the same time allowing flexible commitments of varying intensity. Traditionally, Chinese Buddhism in Taiwan has been esteemed as a source of inspiration rather than dismissed as a burden of tradition.

* An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the conference ‘Chinese Religions and Globalisation, 1800–Present,’ which is summed up in this volume. I am grateful to all of the conference participants, especially Adam Chau, Hildegard Diemberger, Joachim Gentz, Chloë Starr, and Robert Weller, as well as the anonymous reviewer of this volume, for their inspiring comments on earlier versions of this article. I am especially indebted to Ng Zhiru for her profound response to my paper on “The Impact of Engaged Buddhism and Modernization on Contemporary Biographical Self-Construction of Lay Buddhists in Taiwan,” which was presented at the Chun Chiu Conference in Oregon, 2008. The cases presented briefly here are analyzed in greater depth in my PhD dissertation; see Guggenmos (2010).

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This article aims at situating the transnational notion of contemporary Taiwanese Buddhism in the context of the general attractiveness of Buddhism to Taiwanese urbanites. I will start from the statistical observation that an increasingly large percentage of Buddhists in Taiwan live in urban areas. By discussing some of my findings from the biographical interviews, I seek to establish the reasons for this higher percentage, and to highlight the importance of transnational notions in eight of the nine contrastive cases as well as in the organizational development of Taiwanese Buddhism. I will then take a more detailed look at two individual cases in order to differentiate between two understandings of Buddhism’s function as an international link-up for urban dwellers. Finally, on the basis of the case studies, I am going to describe Taiwan’s role as a “diffuser” within the global interchange of religions, both at an organizational level and through shaping people’s minds. The biographical analyses that are central to this article are methodologically based on structural hermeneutics, which underlines the importance of the interviews’ textual reality over secondary information such as the organizational structures of Buddhism in Taiwan.1 The informational priority given to the interviews is, moreover, warranted by the current state of the field; while the organizational development of Taiwanese Buddhism is comparatively well researched, the social context of Buddhist individuals has only recently begun to attract the attention of researchers.2 Taiwan has been, over the centuries, under the continuous influence of other cultures. The amalgamation of Fujianese, Hakka, aborigines and, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, American, Japanese and new mainland Chinese influences have transformed urban Taiwan today into a culturally hybrid area. Its population is affected mainly by the migrational flows within Asia. This unique ethnoscape of urban Taiwan shapes the role of ‘religions’ in daily life. While religious affiliation in general occurs no more frequently in the cities of Taiwan, Buddhism is the only ‘religion’ which obviously has more followers in the urban regions than in the developing or more remote areas of the country.

1 For the methodology of structural hermeneutics see Oevermann et al. (1987) and Guggenmos (2010). 2 For the former see Günzel (1998), C. Jones (1999), Chandler (2004), Huang and Weller (1998) and Huang (2009); for the latter, Guggenmos (2010) and A.D. Jones (2010).

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Figure 6.1 Religious self-affiliation in Taiwan according to TSCS 2004.2.

This was discovered as a result of the author’s partial evaluation of the Taiwan Social Change Survey 2004.3 Annually conducted by the Academia Sinica, Taiwan, the TSCS is regarded as a representative quantitative survey with a high degree of reliability, meeting and even exceeding the international standards. Within its five-year cycle, the topic of religion is tackled regularly, occupying a whole questionnaire to itself. This goes far beyond investigating the formal religious affiliations to explore the concrete facets of religious life, patterns of religio-cultural reproduction and ethical values. The selfrecognition of the believers does not necessarily reveal very much about their deeper religious convictions, and one should bear in mind the fact that ‘religion’ in general is a young differential category in Taiwan and East Asia.4 Still,

3 TSCS 2004.2. The data has been kindly provided by Prof. Chiu Hai-yuan, Academia Sinica, who shaped the development of the TSCS over many years. For his help and support—also regarding questions of geographical stratification, see footnote 5—I am truly grateful. See also the description of the TSCS as well as the data at http://www.ios.sinica.edu.tw/sc/en/ home2.php (accessed July 10, 2013). 4 See the introductory chapter in Guggenmos (2010), which discusses the related works of, e.g. Masini (1993), Campany (2003), Barrett and Tarocco (2006), and Tarocco (2007, 2008).

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the concrete spread of religious self-affiliation in Taiwan reflects the strong social acknowledgement of the influence of Buddhism in Taiwan and the generally positive perception of the label ‘Buddhism’ as a choice for self-designation: in 2004, about a quarter of the sample population recognized themselves as Buddhists. After people who denote themselves as folk religious adherents, Buddhists are the second largest group of religious believers in Taiwan. An analysis of the respondents’ background shows that the percentage of Buddhists varies in the townships and provinces of Taiwan. A closer look further reveals that the unequal distribution of Buddhists parallels the degree of urbanization:5 in 2004, in the Rural Regions, about 12.4% of the population were Buddhists, while the Developing Regions count about 21.1% Buddhists. The frequency of Buddhists is highest in the Urban Regions, at 29.1%. The geographical distribution of the followers of other religions does not follow a similar pattern of increase, despite the group of non-believers, who are also slightly more prevalent in the cities. It is possible to differentiate the group of Buddhists further into believers who do not possess any specific Buddhist school affiliation, but state that they ‘believe in/venerate Buddha,’ and those with a school affiliation, i.e. specifying believers. The conventional choice for Buddhists is the undifferentiated statement that they ‘believe in/venerate Buddha’ (at 87.8%). Members of the small group of specifying Buddhists (12.2%) live even more frequently in the cities than Buddhists on average. A more in-depth analysis not only shows that urban Buddhists are more likely to affiliate themselves with a particular school, but also suggests a correlation between the degree of religious devotion and geographical location. Buddhist believers who have converted or gone through a ritual initiation like taking refuge; who either commit themselves spiritually or financially or adhere closely to the Buddhist doctrine; who demonstrate a sincere search for truth, all follow an individual spiritual practice or have an organizational affiliation. These believers are more likely to be urban dwellers than their conventional counterparts.6 The urban climate, ­therefore, 5 A socio-geographical analysis by Luo Qihong (1993) led to the stratification of Taiwan into seven areas. They are the result of an analysis that is precisely defined according to sociogeographical criteria. To these seven regions, three specific regions were added by the TSCS team. The final ten regions are: (1) newly emerged areas, (2) mountain areas, (3) industrial areas, (4) syndicated areas, (5) hilly areas, (6) remote areas, (7) service areas, (8) Taipei, (9) Kaohsiung, and (10) areas under the direct jurisdiction of Taiwan. The author’s (EMG) restratification regroups these areas into three regions: Remote (including 2, 5 and 6), Developing (including 1 and 4), and Urban Regions (including 3 and 7–10). 6 For further details see Guggenmos (2010).

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Figure 6.2 Percentage of Buddhists within the three major socio-geographical regions of Taiwan according to TSCS 2004.2.

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might lead to a positive disposition towards denoting oneself a Buddhist and correlates positively with the specification and intensification of one’s Buddhist belief. Going beyond the statistics, one might go a step further and ask what makes it attractive for people to denote themselves as Buddhists in an urban context. And how far are their international aspirations linked to that? 1

Taiwanese Urbanites and Τheir Ways of Employing ‘Buddhism’

Narrative biographical interviews with Taiwanese lay Buddhists conducted in 2005–2007 in urban Taiwan revealed some of the imaginaries underlying a Buddhist self-construction and showed a multiplicity of factors that might explain the higher frequency of Buddhists in urban areas. The analysis showed (a) that cities present favorable general conditions for organizational movements and that many Buddhist organizations know how to employ these resources successfully; and (b) that the social construction of Buddhism as a flexible script meets the needs of Taiwanese urbanites. (a) Urban conditions can be of advantage for any organizational movement. In their ‘Buddhist’ engagement, the interviewees often either rely on their high mobility within an urban region or benefit from the proximity to Buddhist institutions and easier access to like-minded people due to the high density of the population. High spatial mobility is accompanied by increased informational exchange. The interviewees often come into contact with Buddhist groups through their social networks. In addition to this face-to-face informational exchange, in particular, the participants in Buddhist groups report reading the publications of the group diligently. Participating in open streams of information, lay Buddhists enter the market and sometimes even start to promote independently their concept of Buddhism as a mission in society. Besides their increased mobility, density and proximity, and the intensified informational exchange, the rising educational standards also contribute to the spread of Buddhism. Buddhist organizations, on the one hand, profit from the higher educational level of their followers and help them to conceive of ‘Buddhism’ as an ‘up-to-date’ belief compatible with modernity (and ‘science’). On the other hand, the interviewees often take part in educational offers by Buddhist communities. Individuals with a low formal education might receive a Buddhist education through their community, through which they may be enabled—like Mrs. Ma (see below; the names of the participants have been changed)—to compensate for their limited educational background. Urban life also—and this is reflected in the interviews as well—brings with it an awareness of leisure time, which needs to be structured actively. While this

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time can be filled with ‘Buddhist’ activities, some interviewees also integrate their Buddhist vision successfully into their working life or make it even part of their integrated outlook on life. (b) Apart from the advantageous conditions for organizational movements, the analysis of how ‘Buddhism’ is employed as a cultural resource, a label and concept, illlustrates the potential factors that might explain the special attractiveness of ‘Buddhism’ within the urban climate of Taiwan. The underlying structural characteristic of the Buddhist ‘community,’ specifically the low entrance barriers and the possibility of switching softly in and out of the field make ‘Buddhism’ a resource that can be easily tapped into, without the need to enter into any formal obligation. For the interviewees, it is obvious that ‘Buddhism’ is not necessarily institutionally bound. The interviewees sometimes refer to themselves as Buddhists when they consider this to be of advantage.7 A Buddhist donor praises the flexibility of the Buddhist organization that allows him to adapt his monetary or organizational contribution to a Buddhist monastery continuously. Others see their beliefs in miraculous powers and retributory patterns evolving over the years in accordance with their experienced effectiveness. Some see themselves as ‘cultural Buddhists’: highly informed about Buddhist doctrine and defining ‘Buddhism’ as a cultural resource of their lives, they do not affiliate themselves with any specific Buddhist organization. By contrast, charity engagement is also serving the lay Buddhists’ self-construction and is organizationally clearly visible. ‘Buddhism’ is, for these interviewees, a synonym of philanthropy, which does not necessarily include the ability to elaborate more deeply on Buddhist doctrine.8 The label ‘Buddhism’ seems to be a vehicle of integrative power, soaking up people and organizations from various backgrounds and with various interests. Neither a reflection of ‘conversion’ nor a discussion about ‘invisible religion’ (Thomas Luckmann) has evolved from the phenomenon of ‘Buddhism’ in Taiwan. ‘Buddhists’ do not necessarily perceive themselves as part of a 7 This shift in belonging accompanies the high fluctuation in this field: in longitudinal statistical studies, the percentage of Buddhists varies widely. This is caused by people assessing themselves over time as Buddhists, or not, and can be seen as a consequence of the fact that Buddhism and religion are young differential categories (see annotation 2). 8 The role of the charity work of the Buddhist organizations within Taiwanese society and within the global history of philanthropies and charity engagement has been analysed by Robert Weller and C. Julia Huang. Huang (2009) gives a detailed portrait of the Taiwanwide, largest (by far) Buddhist charity organization, Tzu Chi (Ciji 慈濟) and its followers. Huang and Weller (1998) analyse stereotypes in the followers’ biographies and posit reasons for the attractiveness of the organization to women (see below). Weller (2006a, 2008) places the organization in the broader frame of the development of the market economy.

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variety of religions, but ‘Buddhism’ as a resource could be located somewhere between Lebensweisheit (‘life wisdom’), spirituality, monastic respect, and concrete Buddhist organizations. For believers, this integrative power is regarded as enabling them to slide in and out of the field, according to their own interests and social contexts. Ritually, Buddhist involvement provides several stages for expressing the degree of commitment. This ‘concentric structure’ (Paul Harrison)9 seems to be experienced as an adhesive power, which integrates believers into various tasks and orientations under the umbrella term ‘Buddhist.’ Historically speaking, in the years after the Second World War, the Buddhist Association of the Republic of China (BAROC) successfully controlled the ordination of monks and nuns.10 The Buddhist field was organizationally bound to the BAROC’s interpretation of orthodoxy but since the lifting of martial law and democratization in the late 1980s, freedom of association led to a multitude of registered Buddhist communities, which claim affiliation without being effectively controlled regarding content by BAROC or any other association or institution. New areas of interest, such as ecology, education, or social welfare, easily become integrated into the agenda of these Buddhist organizations.11 Lay people were never the focus of the BAROC. As a consequence, it is practically impossible to be excluded as a lay Buddhist from an imagined ‘Buddhist’ community and any soft switching of religious belonging is facilitated through the traditional emphasis on the members of the monastic order. While low entry barriers are a structural characteristic of Taiwanese Buddhism, there is an array of concrete motivations that contribute to the attractiveness of Buddhism in urban Taiwan: Firstly, Buddhism in contemporary society is experienced as part of the Chinese cultural heritage, despite its comparatively brief institutional history in Taiwan itself. Today’s large Buddhist monasteries, with the exception of Tzu Chi (Ciji) 慈濟, were founded by mainland refugee monks no earlier than the 1960s.12 Over the centuries, Buddhism had been integrated into folk belief in Taiwan. In the second half of the twentieth century, the Buddhist reformers from the mainland saw an opportunity

9 10 11

12

For a detailed discussion of Harrison’s (1995) ideas, see Freiberger (2000), pp. 144–145. For a good overview of the role of the BAROC, see C. Jones (1999). Also due to the post-war relation of Buddhism to the state, in their selection of topics, Taiwanese Buddhist groups rarely go for political confrontation. On environmentalism in China and Taiwan, see Weller (2006b). For a basic outline, see Charles Brewer Jones (1999). Further bibliographical information can be found in Guggenmos (2006 and 2012).

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for a fresh start in Taiwan by emphasizing a socially engaged Buddhism.13 A restoration movement, such as the one witnessed at present on the mainland, thus has no basis in Taiwan.14 On the island, tradition is perceived in a delocalized mode. For the population, ‘Buddhism’ had, and continues to have, an intellectual and ‘traditionally’ elitist ring to it that promises the adherent— especially the fast-growing so-called middle classes15—an attractive prospect of social upward mobility. Secondly, movements flourishing in the urban climate not only broach the dialectic between traditional values and topics currently relevant to society, but they also serve the needs of the contemporary white-collar generation regarding bodily practices, recreation and leisure-time management. Thirdly, the interest in self-cultivation, lifestyle practices, and light forms of self-legitimation and production of meaning blend well with with a generally capitalism-friendly disposition of the Buddhist organizations, which establishes, for example, the role of donors without deeper doctrinal knowledge as a positive pattern of identification. Fourthly, believers use the label ‘Buddhism’ to stabilize their own moral convictions and family traditions in the urban context: Reacting to the social change alienating the generations, the taxi driver, Mr. Lin, tries to pass on the traditional rhythm of his daily schedule in the urban setting to his grandson through encouraging him to burn incense daily. He even makes an effort to participate in a traditional temple management board, travelling regularly throughout Taiwan in the conviction that proper veneration has to be complemented by an intact, dedicated temple community that helps the poor and relies totally on the faithful donations of its followers without ever trying to utilize them.16

13

14

15 16

On the Chinese mainland during the Republican Period, a creative reformist movement emerged, reforming Chinese Buddhism. For an introduction and excellent bibliography on this area, see Tarocco (2007). The present revival of Buddhism on the mainland is a complex process. Although in comparison with Taiwan the historical impact is one of the main differences, restaurative forces are only one part of the mainland’s development. See also Chau (2011), Ji and Goossaert (2011) and the ongoing research project under the guidance of Ji Zhe “Le bouddhisme après Mao: religion, politique et société en Chine depuis 1980,” Ville de Paris, program “Émergence(s),” 2010–2013. For research on the rising (new) middle class, see Hsiao (2006). The decrease in local associations, including temple associations, is exemplarily described by Weller with regard to Lukang; see his article in this volume.

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Buddhism: Opening up a Global Perspective?

Such behaviour, at first sight, does not seem to be deeply informed by any international scripts. Still, a cross-reading through selected cases reveals modes of coping with notions of internationality. Interviewees such as Mr. Lin tend to hold a generally positive international attitude: curious about the interviewing foreigner, he likes to stress the commonalities between his religious practice and the assumed belief of the interviewer. He repeatedly displays the simple trust that all religions can be subsumed under the same—his own—pattern of veneration and are therefore acceptable. In this respect, the donor, Mr. Li, acts in a similar way but within an enlarged scope of action: Mr. Li manages a company that has branches abroad and spends most of his time in South America. But when talking about his moral guidelines for running his business and when describing the care for his ancestors, he draws on a traditional understanding of Buddhism that does not show any international influence, relying on ‘Buddhism’ as the basis of his business. While ‘cheating’ has bad karmic effects, Buddhism as a moral code guarantees sustainable success. Mr. Li is proud that the abbot of the monastery he supports goes abroad frequently, engaging in interreligious dialogue and winning followers overseas. When asked about his vision of the future, Mr. Li sees the optimal development of his monastery in its international growth. ‘Internationality’ for him has generally positive connotation, indicating success. He refers to it with pride, but this does not imply performative consequences for his own belief and religious behaviour. One can find Buddhism also in an intellectualized mode as a conservative guide to international encounters: Mr. Gu, a Buddhist publisher, conceives of Buddhism as an indigenously Eastern source of knowledge, which serves as the basis for a positive Eastern self-construction and aims to restore Asian self-confidence against the odds of falling internationally behind in terms of economic, technological, or cultural development. In all three cases, ‘Buddhism’ is construed as a set of doctrinal and social behavioural patterns that are stable, serve an indigenous self-construction, secure a social and moral basis of action, and enable the inteviewees to act with ease in an international context. Within the dichotomy between current lifestyle and established moral convictions and habits, Mr. Lin, Mr. Li, and Mr. Gu discover and recreate Buddhism as their own ‘tradition.’ All three cases show that an international frame of action does not necessarily go along with a reshaped understanding of Buddhism. Internationality as an outward openness that does not affect the religious concept as such can also be seen in the case of Mrs. Ma, whose Buddhist organization offers her the opportunity to travel abroad and provides her with a moral and social code that emphasizes

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charitable acts. While in the following the case of Mrs. Ma will be taken as an exemplarily case of acting in an international frame with the help of a Buddhist organization while the actual belief concept is hardly affected by transnational scripts, the role of Buddhism with respect to internationalization is certainly not restricted to providing a traditional frame of action in other cases. The interviews conducted show that, in the experience of Taiwanese urbanites, Buddhism is also perceived as a resource that opens up a global perspective. The interviewees refer to ‘Buddhism,’ for example, as a category analogous to ‘travel.’ Both Buddhist belief and travel, Mrs. Kong explains, are for her complementary resources for coping with life through developing an optimistic basic attitude. Travel puts her personal problems into perspective, while the idea of retribution helps her to understand that any bad events are limited by the law of karma. That Buddhism and internationality can not only combine smoothly, but that ‘Buddhism’ is a flexible script, developing over the course of a person’s life and enabling the interviewee to integrate multiple cultures and lifestyles into a Buddhist belief, is illustrated by the case of Mrs. Meng: For her, Buddhism serves as a background concept for an aestheticized lifestyle, comprised of French, German, and Taiwanese elements, which frames her perception of the world. In the case of Ms. Xu—as will be shown below—exactly the same concept is transformed into a Buddhist mission, mediating between the foreign and Taiwan, that motivates her to professionalize her English skills. Also, for Mr. Zhang, Buddhism serves as a highly individualized life management concept. ‘Buddhism’ as an ‘Eastern’ source of knowledge functions as a resource of wisdom for life-management, but is perceived through a Western lens. Divested of its local Chinese flavour with its traditional Chinese expressions, he prefers to read Chinese translations of American Buddhists’ works. This, he is convinced, provides him with concepts that support an up-to-date, Buddhism-inspired way of life that is also valid in a modern family context. Within the sample of nine contrastive cases, one reclusive Buddhist community member takes his international awareness one step further. Having studied religious studies at university, he now feels free from the notion of deficiency that unites especially Mr. Li, Mr. Gu, Mrs. Ma, and Ms. Xu. He has consciously decided to withdraw from international and interreligious engagement in order to confine himself to his Buddhist community. Mrs. Luo is the only one of the interviewees who does not show any international awareness as she is caught up in a tragic family situation. Applying the same pattern of veneration as Mr. Lin, she frequently shifts between various religious sources with the aim of bettering her family’s situation. Although eight of the nine cases that have been referred to hitherto showed a reaction towards internationalization by employing Buddhism in variations of conservative and inventive modes, the mere gathering of international ref-

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erences from these lay Buddhist biographies would be superficial, were they not accompanied by an in-depth examination of the biographical and narrative structures of the single cases and an informed understanding of the organizational structures of contemporary Buddhism in Taiwan. In the following, first, a brief outline of the international involvement of Taiwanese Buddhist organizations shall be given, on the basis of which the cases of Mrs. Ma and Ms. Xu will be discussed in further detail. 3

Buddhist Organizations and Τheir International Involvement

The organizational dimension of Taiwanese Buddhism has been described in detail, which includes the framework of its international involvement.17 The global connectedness of Taiwanese Buddhist monasteries and organizations can be seen in all of the major Taiwanese Buddhist monasteries, such as Foguang Shan 佛光山 (Buddha Light Mountain), Fagu Shan 法鼓山 (Dharma Drum Mountain), the Tzu Chi 慈濟, and Zhongtai Shan 中台山 (Buddhist Educational Foundation). They all have built up an islandwide and international network of branches, employing the slogan ‘Engaged Buddhism.’18 The overseas branches are mostly supported by Taiwanese overseas citizens who maintain, through the network, a connection with their homeland. The branches themselves are in line with contemporary descriptions of migrants’ religious organizations in cities like Chicago and New York, where immigrants are longing to socialize with people from the same migrational background or to create spaces enabling them to pass on their culture to the next generation.19 In the second half of the twentieth century, many Taiwanese went to America 17

18

19

For studies on the organizational dimensions of the international and Taiwan-wide Buddhist organizations, see Günzel (1998) and C. Jones (1999). There are even in-depth studies in English about individual Buddhist organizations; cf. Huang (2009, 2005) and Chandler (2004, 2005). For a discussion of Buddhist missionaries in the era of globalization, see Learman (2005). For an overview of Taiwanese contemporary Buddhism and a discussion on how far the Taiwanese Buddhist movement of a renjian fojiao 人間佛教 is comparable with the international and Western version of Engaged Buddhism, see Guggenmos (2006, 2012). E.g. Livezey (2000a), centering on Chicago; Carnes and Karpathakis (2001) on New York; and, more generally, Orsi (1999a). For an overview, see also Brown (1996). Within the last ten years in Germany, Religious Studies departments have launched various projects, e.g. mapping geographically the sense of religious belonging of those in certain cities or sending their students to do field research, involving descriptions of the religious communities in their home university’s city. For a differentiated view on the case of Tzu Chi, see Weller and Huang 2007.

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for education or business purposes. In addition to the intercontinental networks of the Taiwanese Buddhist monasteries, most of these also maintain branches in East Asia. Here, the interactions are of a slightly different quality as, for example, Indonesia has its own Chinese-speaking population, which often participates in Buddhist activities. While the East Asian and international branches are normally financed through donations, the activities of the monastic organizations on the Chinese mainland are, by contrast, generally subsidized by the monastery’s followers from overseas and limited to social and charity engagements. Overcoming the political restrictions, the Buddhist movement in Taiwan shows a vivid interest in supporting the revival of Buddhism on the mainland. As mentioned above, the majority of the founding abbots have their biographical roots there and feel obliged to assist the slow revival of the local Buddhist communities. 4

Two Case Studies: ‘Mrs. Ma’ and ‘Ms. Xu’

While the international dimensions of the organizational spread of Taiwanese Buddhism around the world are well documented, far less attention has been paid to the extent that the international activities and the concomitant argumentative patterns affect the actual biographical self-construction of Buddhist lay people. In what follows, I have chosen two case studies to shed light on the latter:20 Mrs. Ma, who has already been mentioned, experiences Buddhism through a Buddhist social welfare organization: she belongs to Tzu Chi, an organization so well known in Taiwan that any anonymization would be pointless. According to the Taiwan Social Change Survey, 12.6% of the Taiwanese population participated in Tzu Chi in 1999 and 42.3% of the population knew of friends or relatives who did so. Ms. Xu, in contrast, is far less socially engaged but, during the interview, we see her Buddhist identity developing in a multilayered process that leads her towards a non-organizational way of defining herself as being on a Buddhist mission, mediating between cultures and spreading Buddhist doctrine internationally. Mrs. Ma is a practically talented and interactive housewife, whose children have grown up. She spends all of her spare time helping the Buddhist organization of which she is a member, and to which she has introduced her husband as well. She sees herself as a mother, extending her helping role from the center of her family life out into society. The Buddhist organization to which she 20

For details, see Guggenmos (2010), which also contains an in-depth analysis of the nine cases discussed above.

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belongs enables her, according to her narration, to combine her practical and managerial skills, her intellectual interests, and her passion for charitable work with the requirements of the traditional setting in which she lives. The role expectations she faces match the existing stereotypes of being a housewife and mother: She received only a basic education and was married off at an early age to an alcoholic. Mrs. Ma believes in her own biographical reformation—prompted and induced by the organization—that shows how her whole life has been transformed through her community involvement. She has found new ways of managing her family life and gained an education through the organization; she has changed her social life and converted her husband to her organization and to a life of abstinence. In addition to her involvement in social welfare activities, the organization also provides her with a general code for social interaction, which is not primarily Buddhist in nature, but is concerned with establishing a new etiquette and guidelines for harmonious, practical daily interactions. She uses simple, but clear language to describe her own belief as a ‘spirituality of taking action,’ and finds compensation for her lack of education through the organization’s slogans, which she can apply in her life. Mrs. Ma is going through a process of re-defining both her worldview and social life. Extending her role as a housewife towards society, Mrs. Ma continues to operate within the expectations of traditional Taiwanese society. One could even say that she is attempting to become an incarnation of a perfect mother, characterized by benevolence, love, compassion, and care. Robert Weller and Julia Huang have conducted extensive field observations of Tzu Chi followers since 1992, and Mrs. Ma personifies some of the stereotypes Weller and Huang have found through their interviews: not only are the majority of Tzu Chi followers women, but the details of her biography, too, conform with the biographical patterns studied by Weller and Huang. An example of this is the fact that Mrs. Ma brought her husband into the organization: Huang never “encounter[ed] a case in which a husband joined first and then brought in his wife.”21 The focus on action as providing solutions to family life and social problems also seems common. Still, Mrs. Ma’s low educational background might not be representative: According to the fieldwork of Weller and Huang, a large proportion of Tzu Chi followers are comparatively well-educated, middle-class women who witness a lost sense of community in the urban market economy. Although they are faced with an increase in the amount of their unstructured leisure time, they find restrained options of action at home. While their husbands are easily lost in their search for social life and ­abandon themselves to 21

Huang (2009), p. 171.

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Table 6.1 Mrs. Ma’s self-perception—a transformed continuation of a traditional frame of action.

Mrs. Ma’s Self-perception Part of ‘traditional’ society mother and wife with a basic education only married off at an early age to an alcoholic

Personal skills and interests

Conflict

spiritually interested

folk religious background and conventional religiosity image of Buddhists as parasites and family destructors

self-confident, dominant charity-oriented and socially-engaged practically talented intellectual longing

results in development:

process of searching for a meaning/solution: She unites spiritual interest and practical orientation into a spirituality of “acting”. → compensation for her lack of education → positive transformation of the family She opens up to herself a new, even international, but traditional and family-recognized, field of action.

alcohol, the family experiences, in general, new economic wealth.22 Especially the aforementioned new social role of Mrs. Ma, conforming to traditional expectations of domestic life and filiality, is in accordance with the analysis by Huang and Weller: “Ciji suceeds in combining a very traditional idea of womanhood with a very modern sphere of action in the world” and “Ciji’s unique appeal to women in Taiwan stems from its universalization of women’s family concerns.”23 Family values and roles are extended to society at large and, historically, the function of the formerly widespread “vegetarian halls” (zhaitang 齋堂) is continued.24 22 23

24

See Huang and Weller (1998). Huang and Weller (1998), pp. 390 and 389. Besides Huang and Weller, Elise DeVido also analysed this connection between the roles of motherhood, Bodhisattvas, and the respective organization in various papers and in the eRenlai Magazine, 25 February 2006, http:// www.erenlai.com/ (accessed 5 October 2013). Huang and Weller (1998), p. 386.

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Figure 6.3a Buddhism as a means of coping with life and pain.

Figure 6.3b The challenge of the monastic order brings Ms. Xu into conflict with society.

Figure 6.3c Living as a lay Buddhist in society with an international mission. Figure 6.3a–c The changing role of Buddhism in the life of Ms. Xu

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In the case of Ms. Xu, we see an approach to Buddhism which involves and alters a person’s whole self-definition. She is nearly 20 years younger than Mrs. Ma, and experienced a traumatic childhood due to the early death of her mother. In the context of coping with her bereavement, she learnt about Buddhism. In order to come to terms with the gap left by her mother’s death, and her subsequent pain and questions about life arising from this context, she participated in name and mantra recitation, read Buddhist books as well as becoming a vegetarian, adopting ritual, intellectual, and daily-life approaches towards Buddhism. At the end of her interview, when asked about her final motivation for becoming a Buddhist, she still recognizes herself as being influenced by her childhood experience: “I don’t want to have pain. [. . .] when I was in pain, Buddhism helped me. [. . .] It is just like that.” She also felt, later in life, a huge filial obligation towards her parents—even her education-oriented habitus might be explained by the wish of her mother that she might study— and shows a deep longing for situational harmony. As she grew up, her increasing involvement in Buddhism brought her into conflict with her father and society, who did not understand her desire to lead a monastic life. She does not bring this confrontation to a head, but instead finds a compromise that fits her circumstances, defining herself as an intellectual lay Buddhist who engages actively in society and envisions herself as a translator of Buddhist texts in the future. She also offers courses in Buddhist English, which is in line with her aim of supporting the international spread of Buddhism. She has lost sight of the monastic order during this process. 5

Two Modes of Internationality in the Buddhist Urban Context

What role does global involvement and awareness play for Mrs. Ma and Ms. Xu? Especially in the case of Mrs. Ma, ‘internationality’ seems to be connected to the appreciation of herself and her organization on a large scale. Mrs. Ma is very explicit about the primarily pragmatic focus of her Buddhist belief. Buddhist teaching, as she formulates it and actively tries to live it, is connected with taking over the caring attitude of a Bodhisattva in her own life, to serve sentient beings (liyi zhongsheng 利益眾生). The concept of Buddhism, as she perceives it, helps her to overcome the gap between herself and the tradition, to which she has to adapt. This takes place for her in two social fields—in her family, where Buddhism helps her to reorganize her traditional life without questioning it as such, and also in society, where her organization opens up to her a new horizon of action, within which she can apply her practical skills. Internationality in this context equals enlarged social outreach and asserts

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Mrs. Ma’s social success, as it broadens the scope of her actions beyond her family to include an international dimension. Mrs. Ma portrays herself as being highly moved by the fact that although she would not normally expect to be able to travel abroad due to her inability to speak English and her poor elementary school education, her organization enabled her to visit Sri Lanka and provide help in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004: We volunteers are just there [sc. in Sri Lanka] helping to motivate and also to appease. Because they [i.e. the people affected] suffered such a big disaster—family members died, the house is gone. They need so, so much the care and encouragement of humans. I do not know English, but we have translations. [. . .] And we helped to solve several issues. [. . .] And we also thought at that time, we should motivate the local people to take care of each other. So as much as possible we took these local people with us and showed them [sc. how we do it]. So there are now also volunteers, volunteers in Sri Lanka [slightly revised for readability; EMG].25 Going to Sri Lanka for disaster relief, Mrs. Ma felt appreciated, taken seriously, and able to pass on exactly the practical knowledge that had enabled her to transform her own life. She notes with satisfaction that with her help, the organization has spread internationally by winning followers. Her message to the interviewer is clear and is promoted by her organization: “Average, poorlyeducated people like me are enabled to play an active role in the social life of Taiwan and even internationally. Participating in our organization is an advantage for everybody, as people who are normally low in the social hierarchy are highly valued and can enlarge their scope of activity even internationally and flourish.” This “broader scale of association, a national or even international stage on which women can perform without sacrificing any traditional respectability” is also noted as a characteristic of the whole of the organization by Huang and Weller.26 For Ms. Xu, ‘Buddhism’ accompanied her through the hardships of her life and transformed into a resource, until she is finally able to make her daily 25 “[14.3:05]我們志工就是在那邊哬 幫忙帶動啊 還有安撫, 因為他們受到那麼大 的災難—家裡的人死亡, 房子沒啦. 非常非常需要人的關懷鼓勵. 那我不會講英 語, 可是我們有翻譯[. . .]還有幫忙處理一些事情[. . .] 還有我們那時候, 就覺得說 應該要帶動當地人. 他們彼此關懷  所以我們就把他們當地人盡量帶在身邊作 給他們看 所以那邊現在有志工 斯里蘭卡的志工 [14.4:12].” 26 Huang and Weller (1998), p. 393.

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life a direct expression of her developed ‘Buddhist’ belief. Primarily, Buddhism proves valuable for her, because she feels that it helps her to overcome her painful experiences. It calms her mind, but also leads her to an intellectual understanding of life’s purpose. While she is coping with her personal problems, she goes through a process of re-formulating her understanding of Buddhism as an international message: I was quite interested in Buddhism, because I thought Buddhism can help me to solve the biggest problems and difficulties of human life. I also thought: I have studied so much since being little. Why could all this not help me? But Buddhism could. Later, I thought Buddhism is so good—I want to introduce it to foreigners. [laughs] Oh, I only can speak English, but my English was not so good. So I decided to go for advanced studies and I went to study English for an M.A. [slightly revised for readability, EMG].27 It is not the multitude of studies that revealed a helpful resource for coping with life, but what she experienced as ‘Buddhism.’ Ms. Xu feels the need to pass on this ‘real’ knowledge. Interestingly, Ms. Xu does not want to introduce Buddhism to her close social environment, but wants to reach an international, English-speaking audience. This may, even on a subconscious level, be connected with social acknowledgement, as in the case of Mrs. Ma, but it also goes beyond that. Ms. Xu’s aim to participate in the international exchange of Buddhist wisdom is defined by her as her new task in life and therefore it is more crucial to her self-concept than in the case of Mrs. Ma. The increased global interconnectedness of urban Taiwan today shapes her career as well as the context in which she constructs her career’s meaning. Ms. Xu is part of a Taiwanese culture of academic and religious global awareness and agency. Michael Hsiao described the shape of globalization for the case of Taiwan with recourse to Peter Berger, who identifies four fields in which globalization takes place—business culture, popular culture, intellectual culture and popular religious culture. Absorbing ideas, values, and ideologies from outside, the agents of the intellectual discourse in Taiwan become the ‘carriers’ and ‘localizers’

27 “[4.0:24]  我其實對佛教比較有興趣, 對啊, 因為我覺得它, 佛教的東西, 可以幫助 我解決人生最大的問題跟困難. 啊. 我也想說: 我從小到大 我念那麼多書, 為什 麼 欸 這樣沒有辦法幫我? 可是佛教可以. 所以我對佛教比較興趣的. 那所以後 來我覺得說: 佛教這麼好.  我要介紹給外國人. [laughs] 那我只會英文, 可是我英 文不太好. 所以我想說我要再去進修. 所以我跑去念英文研究所 [4.1:15].”

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of these new concepts (Hsiao 2002, 59).28 Ms. Xu finally became an English teacher at a Taiwanese high school. Even though her habitus and status as a teacher put her in a position from which she might pass on her Buddhism— inspired attitude towards life to the younger generation, thus becoming a ‘localizer,’ she does not make this her explicit mission. Her vision remains the inverse direction of transmission, namely to reach out from the local internationally. Hence it is her wish to finish her Buddhist studies and become a translator of Buddhist texts into English. Asked about her vision for the future, she stated: I think I will not change my current way of life too much [of studying Buddhism and being a teacher of English; EMG]. I like to follow this way of life. But one thing is, I might not continue to study—regardless of whether it has to do with Buddhism or not. I might rather use the method of translation to explain the current situation of Buddhism, Buddhist sutras or some good basic reasoning that has been expressed in Buddhism [slightly revised for readability, EMG].29 In her biography, it seems, Ms. Xu is concerned about leaving behind the phase in which she performed the will of her mother that she might study. By the time of the interview, Ms. Xu is developing her own agenda, and Buddhism plays a crucial role in it: it serves as the motivating force for her to become an international distributor of Buddhist knowledge. Global awareness is an integral part of Ms. Xu’s Buddhist outlook on life. In comparison with Mrs. Ma, who acts internationally, but reproduces the mission of her organization, Ms. Xu has undergone a long biographical process, the outcome of which shows that she has become an active agent in a transnational Buddhist field, while defining herself relatively independently from a Buddhist organization. Wei-Hsian Chi has argued that contemporary social change in the religious sphere of Taiwan is due to the increasing involvement of lay people in active roles as decision-makers: former ‘consumers’ become ‘producers.’30 In this respect, Ms. Xu defines her Buddhist agenda 28 Hsiao (2002), especially p. 59. 29 “[14.02:50]  我想我目前的生活形態不會改變太多. 我喜歡按照這個生活的形 態 有一個是我可能不會再 繼續 我不會再繼續唸就是 跟佛 不管跟佛教有關還 是沒有關 就是深造 繼續唸書 可能不會 我比較可能用翻譯的形式 去把佛教 的 要不然就是佛教現在的狀況 要不然就是把佛經 要不然就是佛教講過比較 好的那個道理作翻譯[14.3:35].” 30 See Chi (2005).

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‘productively’ by herself. By contrast, Mrs. Ma has experienced a change, and become very ‘productive’ in her daily life, but she remains a ‘consumer’ in that she adopts her organization’s rhetoric and programmes. The two cases can also be seen as two modes of reaction to the social change in Taiwan: Since the 1960s, Taiwan has become increasingly shaped by capitalism and a market-oriented economy that undermines established moral values and social cohesion. The construction of one’s own religion as a morality that providing an alternative to the urban, capitalistic, and market-oriented economy has been described by Robert Weller, who discusses direct and moral interaction with the market as two options, then goes on to state: “[R]eligions present alternative moralities to the market and its economy either directly by providing services like hospitals or schools or indirectly by shaping people’s general understanding of a proper human life.”31 The cases presented here show the effect of these two variations of reaction, actualized in concrete biographies. Although I do not wish to claim any one-directional causality, the case of Mrs. Ma shows clearly how Buddhist charitable engagement fits her personal biographical situation. In the case of Ms. Xu, it is possible to see how the process of her “understanding of a proper human life” has taken shape in the course of her life. The two modes of constructing an alternative to the market economy both convince through their spirited strength. They show, moreover, that—even though the charity-oriented oganizational form of reaction is as active socially as the shaping of people’s understanding of life—the qualitative analysis of individual biographies is capable of discovering modes of human behavior and patterns in peoples’ mindsets. 6

Urban Buddhism in Taiwan: Reflecting on the Role of Taiwan as an International Diffuser of Religion

Of what relevance is an analysis that focuses on the impact of globalization on the urban Buddhists’ mindset in Taiwan? “Taiwan lies at the boundaries of the world” is the opening sentence of an article by Robert Weller, in which he also articulates the religio-historical dimensions of Taiwan’s role at the margins between China and Japan. And it is exactly this position at the margins that gave Taiwan a global dimension throughout its history, as “[p]art of the answer to the particularities of Taiwan’s current religious vigor lies in its long history of involvement in global trade, market economies, and borderland politics.”32 31 32

Weller (2006), p. 47. Weller (2001), p. 233.

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As the cases analysed in this article (with regards to Taiwan’s role in the international process of the diffusion of Buddhist belief) show, life ‘at the edge’ is, in the case of Taiwan, life at the intersection of cultures. Life in Taipei has historically been and still is informed by cosmopolitan scripts that drive the aspirations and actual lives of the citizens. ‘Buddhist’ imaginaries with international ambitions—as illustrated by the interviews discussed—have established themselves successfully in this cosmopolitan context. This has led to the perception of ‘Buddhism’ as an emergent form of association and a factor that contributes to the formation of a transnational identity. In combination with Buddhism’s positive historical image as a value stabilizer, ‘Buddhist’ patterns of identification have proved to be a new way of cultural reproduction in the interplay between a creative preservation of tradition and the integration of new resources. Buddhist patterns of identification therefore respond to the needs of people living in the constant cultural flux of the metropolitan areas. Taiwan seems a place where passion for experimentation finds a field of action on a small, local scale. However, international agency can also be flexibly tested due to the democratic political context which gives players in the religious field a comparatively free hand. The small and highly urbanized Taiwanese society is advantageous for Buddhist organizations and individuals who want to act on a global scale. This might make Taiwan a forerunner in religious development and, in consequence, a diffuser of developed religious movements and religious orientations. Internationally, the discussion about the relationship between urban life and its influence upon religious movements, and self-perception, is centered on detailed case studies of selected cities. The discussion of ‘religion in the city’ has a long-standing tradition that can be traced back to the early days of sociology. This strand of research has been especially developed in the United States, where it is closely connected to the topics of migration and ethnic diversity. Recent research projects have analyzed religious groups as offering a mode of “assimilation of children into their parents’ habitus” or “intergenerational and interpersonal solidarity,” promoting family values, facilitating the satisfaction of migrants’ practical needs as well as fostering positive identification among the younger generation.33 Still, along with the phenomenon of religion in American cities, there exists one commonality that attracts attention: social engagement via Buddhist communities can be important for Buddhists, as in the case of Mrs. Ma. The task of social welfare is a generic part of nearly every contemporary Buddhist institution. However, an in-depth analysis of the situation of the religious communities in Chicago reveals that, according to Lowell 33

For the former, see Orsi (1999b), p. 56; for the latter, Warner 2000, pp. 302 and 298.

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Livezey, ‘social action’—comparable to the range of activities in which Mrs. Ma is involved—“is not the central dynamic of urban religion.”34 With regard to urban Taiwan, one could this argument one step further and hypothesize that not only does the ‘interpersonal solidarity of the group’35 absorb the energy of its participants, but that a premise for the flourishing of urban religious groups might be that they respond to the transnational milieu of their participants. The participants, then, can use the resources of the whole group creatively to meet the need for a more consistent definition of their individual role within society. ‘Buddhism,’ in this case, is attractive, as it provides a dynamic space to the negotiation of rival claims on resources. According to the statistical investigations, ‘Buddhism,’ as a pattern of identification and form of association, occurs more frequently in the urban areas of Taiwan. The qualitative findings deepen the understanding of this discrepancy between city and the countryside: in an increasingly transnational context, a ‘Buddhist’ self-construction can contribute to subjective well-being, ensuring social or ideological cohesion, and can be experienced by the believer as a tool for successful self-imagining. Cases like that of Ms. Xu therefore deserve further investigation as they display modes of individualized Buddhist agency within the urban and transnational milieu. For Ms. Xu, Buddhism ultimately serves as a vehicle for overcoming her life’s pain, evolving into a resource that shapes the choice of her study and occupation in a transnational perspective by leading her to develop her own dreams and concepts under the label of engaging in the ‘spread of Buddhism.’ Bibliography Barrett, T.H. and Francesca Tarocco (2006). “Dongya zongjiao jiemi: Yige xin de puxi 东亚宗教揭密：一个新的谱系 [East Asian Religion Unmasked: A New Genealogy].” Dangdai zongjiao yanjiu 当代宗教研究 4, pp. 37–43. Bechert, Heinz (1966–1973): Buddhismus, Staat und Gesellschaft in den Ländern des Theravada-Buddhismus. Vols. 1–3. Frankfurt: Metzner and Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Brown, Callum (1996). Religion in the City: A Review Essay.” Urban History 23 (December 1996), pp. 372–79. Campany, Robert Ford (2003). “On the Very Idea of Religions (In the Modern West and in Early Medieval China).” History of Religions 42, pp. 287–319.

34 35

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Carnes, Ton and Anna Karpathakis (2001). New York Glory: Religions in the City. New York: New York University Press. Chandler, Stuart (2004). Establishing a Pure Land on Earth: The Foguang Buddhist Perspective on Modernization and Globalization. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press. ——— (2005). “Spreading Buddha’s Light: The Internationalization of Foguang Shan.” In: Linda Learman (ed.), Buddhist Missionaries in the Era of Globalization. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press, pp. 162–84. Chau, Adam Yuet (ed.) (2011). Religion in Contemporary China: Revitalization and Innovation. London: Routledge. Chi, Wei-Hsian (2005). Wandel der Sozialform des Religiösen in Taiwan. PhD dissertation, Universität Bielefeld. Eickelpasch, Rolf and Claudia Rademacher (2004). Identität. Bielefeld: transcript. Freiberger, Oliver (2000). Der Orden in der Lehre: Zur religiösen Deutung des Saṅgha im frühen Buddhismus. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Guggenmos, Esther-Maria (2006). “‘Engaged Buddhism in Taiwan?’ Zum Profil eines gesellschaftlich engagierten Gegenwartsbuddhismus.” China heute 25:3 (145), pp. 105–16. Guggenmos, Esther-Maria (2010). “I believe in Buddhism and Travelling”—On the Attractiveness of Denoting Oneself a Lay Buddhist in Contemporary Urban Taiwan. An Analysis of Lay Buddhist Self-construction within the Context of Social Change and Buddhist Reformatory Efforts based on Narrative Biographical Interviews. PhD dissertation, Ghent University. ——— (2012). “Engaged Buddhism in Taiwan.” In: Anita Sharma (ed.), Buddhism in East Asia. Delhi: Vidyanidhi, pp. 232–253. (Slightly updated version of Guggenmos 2006). Günzel, Marcus (1998). Die Taiwan-Erfahrung des chinesischen Saṅgha. Zur Entwicklung des buddhistischen Mönchs- und Nonnenordens in der Republik China nach 1949. Göttingen: Seminar für Indologie und Buddhismuskunde. Harrison, Paul (1995). “Searching for the Origins of the Mahāyāna: What Are We Looking For?” The Eastern Buddhist 28, pp. 48–69. Hsiao, Hsin-Huang Michael (2002). “Coexistence and Synthesis: Cultural Globalization and Localization in Contemporary Taiwan.” In: Peter L. Berger and Samuel P. Huntington (eds.), Many Globalizations: Cultural Diversity in the Contemorary World. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 48–67. ——— (ed.) (2006). The Changing Faces of the Middle Classes in Asia-Pacific. Taipei: Center for Asia-Pacific Studies, Academia Sinica. Huang, C. Julia (2005). “The Compassion Relief Diaspora.” In: Linda Learman (ed.), Buddhist Missionaries in the Era of Globalization. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press, pp. 185–209.

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Weller, Robert P. (2001). “Living at the Edge: Religion, Capitalism, and the End of the Nation-State in Taiwan.” In: Jean and John L. Comaroff (eds.), Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism. Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 215–39. ——— (2006a). “Religions and Philanthropies in Chinese Societies.” Society 44:1, pp. 42–49. ——— (2006b). Discovering Nature: Globalization and Environmental Culture in China and Taiwan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Weller, Robert P. and Huang, C. Julia (2007). “Charisma in Motion: The Compassion Relief Movement in Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, and the United States.” In: Sherman Cochran, David Strand and Wen-hsin Yeh (eds.): Cities in Motion: Interior, Coast, and Diaspora in Transnational China. Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, pp. 272–94. Weller, Robert P. (2008). “Within and Beyond the Market: Religions, Moralities, and Philanthropies in Chinese Societies.” In: Jonathan B. Imber (ed.), Markets, Morals & Religion. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, pp. 231–46.

chapter 7

Globalization vs. Localization: Remaking the Cult of Confucius in Contemporary Quzhou Xiaobing Wang-Riese Among all Chinese indigenous belief systems, Confucianism was affected most profoundly by the impact of globalization in the twentieth century. Criticized mercilessly by modernists, who regarded Confucianism as the biggest barrier to modernizing Chinese society, it subsequently lost its privileged position in state ideology. Already in 1912, Kang Youwei 康有为 (1858–1927), Chen Huanzhang 陈焕章 (1881–1931), and other followers of Confucius had established the Association for Confucian Religion (Kongjiaohui 孔教会) with the aim to rethink and reform Confucianism, thus securing its survival in the modern world.1 Their main program was to convert Confucianism from a philosophical-ethical teaching dependent on state hierarchy into an institutional religion similar to Christianity.2 According to these reformers, Confucius ought to be regarded as the founder of the religion and venerated as a deity alongside Heaven (tian 天), so as to highlight the structural similarity to Jesus and his heavenly father as they are venerated by Christians.3 Later New Confucian scholars like Xiong Shili 熊十力 (1885–1968), Feng Youlan 冯友兰 (1895–1990), Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909–1995), Liu Shuxian (Liu Shu-hsien) 刘述先 (*1934), and Du Weiming (Tu Wei-ming) 杜维明 (*1940), reinterpreted traditional Confucian philosophy by systematically applying Western philosophical and religious (e.g. Buddhist) concepts.4 While the first attempt was considered a failure, and the Kongjiaohui was therefore reorganized in 1937, the second attempt of a philosophical constitution of modern Confucianism remains vigorous on an academic and theoretical level until today. Its influence on Confucian practice, however, has remained limited. During the first 30 years of the People’s Republic, Confucianism was rejected completely in mainland China. Even at the end of the 1980s, ten years after Deng Xiaoping 邓小平 (1904–1997) had introduced his new economic policy, 1 2 3 4

See Zhang Songzhi (2008). See Kong Fanling (2003), pp. 27–32. Ibid., pp. 33–41. See Liu Xuefei (2003); Tan Sor-hoon (2008).

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many Chinese cultural elites still saw the adoption of Western political values as prerequisite to China becoming a strong nation.5 In the 1990s, during the era of Jiang Zemin 江泽民 (*1926), politicians and the people in mainland China began to rediscover their own cultural traditions. Following the example of politicians in Southeast Asia, for example the former president of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew (Li Guangyao) 李光耀 (*1923), leaders in mainland China searched for new spiritual support for the nation in Confucianism.6 In 1994, a global organization named International Confucian Association (Guoji Rulian 国际儒联) was founded with the support of the governments of China and other East Asian countries.7 Today, Confucius is venerated in the People’s Republic as a great thinker, philosopher, and educator, who combines the roles of cultural idol, national patron, and cultural ambassador. In the wake of this renewed veneration, Confucianism and its contribution to modernity have again become the subject of scholarly debate,8 while annual offering rituals to Confucius have been reinstated or revitalized in many places and are often performed on a large scale.9 Government-sponsored Confucius Institutes (Kongzi Xueyuan 孔子学院) promote Chinese language and culture across the world.10 The veneration of Confucius and the rediscovery of Confucian values is one aspect of how China seeks to meet the challenges of economic and cultural globalization. I have been investigating the revival of the cult of Confucius in my hometown Quzhou 衢州 (Zhejiang 浙江 province) since 2005. On three occasions I visited the city to carry out extensive fieldwork.11 Quzhou is home to a second family temple of Confucius’ descendents. The original one is in Qufu 曲阜 in Shandong 山东 province. Since 2000, the annual offering ritual to Confucius is held at the Family Temple of the Southern Lineage of the Kong Clan (Kongshi Nanzong Jiamiao 孔氏南宗家庙) by order of the local government in Quzhou, on the 28 September. Confucius’ statues are on display in 5

6 7 8 9 10 11

Following this belief, thousands of students demonstrated in Beijing at the Tian’anmen 天安门 Square for ‘democracy and freedom’ in the spring of 1989. As is well known, this movement was finally suppressed by the central government with military force on 4 June 1989. See van Ess (2003), pp. 111–2. See Little (1995). See Bell and Hahm (2003), Bell (2008), Zhu Ruikai (2000). See Billioud and Thoraval (2009). Some studies on this institution and related cultural strategies have been published recently in English, e.g. Ding and Saunders (2006), Paradise (2009), Starr (2009). To date, I have carried out fieldwork in April, 2005 (2 weeks), October, 2006 (2 weeks), April, August & September, 2007 (8 weeks).

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many significant places, such as the central park, campuses of schools, and colleges; passages from Confucius’ life story and the Lunyu 论语 (Analects), a collection of his sayings and conversations with pupils and rulers of his day, are also being displayed on public sites, such as on bridges and the city wall. Even a special radio program featuring recitations from the Analects is broadcast once a week by a local station. Meanwhile, the local government promotes Quzhou as a “well-known cultural and historical city” (lishi wenhua mingcheng 历史文化名城) in order to draw more political attention from the central and provincial governments, to attract economic investment, and to foster tourism. The aim of my research is to focus on the concrete case of the cult of Confucius in Quzhou to find out how these different agendas (political, economic, and cultural) are linked and negotiated against a background that is both local and international. By way of personal interviews and participant observation, I intend to reveal the specific motivations of local political and cultural agents in practicing Confucianism. One of my main questions is: does the revitalization of Confucian traditions aim at the globalization of Confucianism, as propagated on many international and national occasions by modern Chinese Confucians? Or does it actually serve the political and economic interests of local societies? 1

Where is Quzhou?

This is a question even Chinese often ask. Since I myself was born close by and spent the first 17 years of my life in the region around Quzhou, I know the city well. However, most Chinese have not the faintest idea where Quzhou is and what could be associated with its name. It has been noted that in the past the famous actress Zhou Xun 周迅, who comes from Quzhou, always affiliated herself in public with the city of Hangzhou 杭州, the provincial capital, because the low popularity of her hometown Quzhou would have made it more difficult for her to develop and maintain the public image of a film star. Yet today, she does associate herself with Quzhou, but only after having become successful in China. The government of Quzhou once tested how well known the city was among citizens in mega cities, such as Shanghai 上海 and Guangzhou 广州, by showing people the two Chinese characters for qu and zhou. To their surprise, over half of the persons questioned were not able to read the first character. Thus, they probably had never before taken notice of the city. The low profile of Quzhou is quite a serious obstacle for the local government and enterprises. If it were 30 years ago, they might only feel a little depressed about this, but life would still go on without any change. However,

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with the coming of age of the market economy, the ‘popularity’ (zhimingdu 知名度) of a city is directly associated with its market value and ability to attract domestic and foreign financial investment, as well as export opportunities for local products. Hence, the force of competitive structures to which Quzhou is subjected is tremendous. As one of the most prosperous provinces of China, Zhejiang is marked by the economic emergence of middle-sized and small cities with strong intra-provincial competition. Among the cities of southwest Zhejiang, Quzhou ranks not only below Jinhua 金华, which profits enormously from its traditional renown as producer of ham under the brand Jinhua huotui 金华火腿, but also below Yiwu 义乌 which, through its own efforts, has developed into a trading metropolis during the last 20 years. Wholesalers from all over the world come to Yiwu, neglecting other regions of southeast China, in order to buy low cost products to be retailed on the world market. At many Chinese international airports, e.g. in Shanghai and in Guangzhou, one can see eye-catching advertisements announcing the trade fair held at Yiwu. Even Hengdian 横店, a small town 50 kilometres north of Quzhou, has successfully promoted itself as a great tourist attraction for the past dozen years, after local entrepreneurs in cooperation with famous film director Xie Jin 谢晋 built a pseudo palace called ‘Movie World’ (Yingshicheng 影视城). The mock palace further serves as a stage for ancient costume films. As a historic city built 1200 years ago, Quzhou lies on the crossroads between the provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian 福建, Anhui 安徽, and Jiangxi 江西. It was an important military base and the ruins of the old city wall and gates have been preserved. Irrespective of this traditional setting, industry and trade have developed at a very slow pace. The largest enterprise of the city is a chemical plant, which is not only the largest tax payer, but also the largest environmental polluter. According to official statistics, the gross product of the region was 3.87 million RMB in 2006.12 Divided by 2.47 million inhabitants, the gross product per capita averages 15,700 RMB, equalling about $2,100 US dollars. Up to 2006, only 19 joint ventures with foreign financial investors had been registered,13 even though a special Economic Development Zone ( Jingji kaifaqu 经济开发区) had been established in the south of the city in 1992, with special offers for foreign investors. Mr. Wu, one of my former classmates in middle school, acted as administrative director of this special zone several years ago. He told me that every staff in the local government is assigned a certain number of tasks to introduce trades and financial investments into the special zone. Anybody who does not fulfil this quota is financially penalized. 12 13

Quzhou tongji nianjian (2007), pp. 13, 40. Ibid., p. 129.

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For these reasons, during my talk with him, I was asked repeatedly to introduce German investors, or at least to help him with German translations. The Bureau for Attracting Investments (Zhaoshangju 招商局) did employ a retired German businessman as a broker, but, unfortunately, he could not speak a single word of Chinese. The reasons why Quzhou’s economic development is slow compared to other cities in Zhejiang province, are certainly manifold: the distance to the metropolis of Shanghai (ca. 500 km), and to Hangzhou (ca. 300 km); the lack of ship transport; the lack of a business mentality among the local people and of a traditional business culture, to name but a few. From the point of view of the local government, the low profile of the city of Quzhou, both in China and abroad, presents an additional challenge. For instance, in 2005, the city of Quzhou searched for a potential twin city in Bavaria (Germany). Mrs. Gao 高, who is a member of the Advisory Board for Foreigners’ Issues (Ausländerrat) in Munich and also a former classmate of mine, endeavoured to introduce Quzhou to several Bavarian towns. An advertisement was placed by her on the internet, but not a single Bavarian town showed any interest. From the Chinese point of view, this failure can only be ascribed to the low popularity of Quzhou, and therefore, the situation needs immediate attention. If a city wants to become famous, it must have something special or unique. As a historic city, Quzhou, besides its partly preserved city gates and wall, can boast two ancient temples within the old city, namely the Palace of the Goddess of the Sea (Tianfei Gong 天妃宫)14 and the Memorial Hall for Zhao Bian (Zhao Bian Ci 赵抃祠).15 However, this kind of temple can be found everywhere in China, and Zhao Bian is not a historical figure famous enough to attract tourists. In China, the touristic value of historical monuments often depends not on the sophistication of their architecture or the building style, but rather on the importance of the person associated with it. The more famous a person, the more attractive is the place or building connected with him. Following this rationale, it is easy to identify the most special historic site in Quzhou. In the centre of the old city, alongside the former Temple of the City God, there is a building complex owned formerly by Confucius’ descendents: the Confucian Family Temple and the residence of the patriarch of the Southern Lineage. In front of the temple, across the street, the Park of Residential Hill (Fushan Gongyuan 府山公园) contains a large pagoda 14 15

This type of religious site is also called Temple of Mazu (Mazu miao 妈祖庙) in other regions. Zhao Bian (1008–1084) was a scholar from Quzhou who served as an advisor to the Imperial Academy of the Northern Song Dynasty.

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surrounded by trees and plants. The setting and background are thus almost perfect: no Chinese is as well-known around the world as Confucius—except perhaps Mao Zedong 毛泽东 (1893–1976); the Southern Lineage of his descendents is not only authentic, but their status was also recognized officially in the Chinese empire. Luckily, the original site of the building complex still remains. Moreover, the last ‘Official for Sacrifices to the Exalted First Teacher of Culture of the Southern Lineage’ (Dacheng zhisheng xianshi nanzong fengsiguan 大成至圣先师南宗奉祀官) is still alive. By contrast, the most recent representative of the Northern lineage, the ‘Official for Sacrifices to the Exalted First Teacher of Culture’ (Dacheng zhisheng xianshi fengsiguan 大成至圣先 师奉祀官) and Duke Yansheng (Yanshenggong 衍圣公) Kong Decheng 孔德 成 (1920–2008), still lived in Taiwan until 2008, but he had no clan temple on the island. Also, no member of the Kong clan had been officially nominated to conduct offerings in the original Kong family temple in Qufu. Hence, the local people in Quzhou could proudly announce: “Qufu has a temple but no person, Taiwan has a person but no temple, but our Quzhou has both a temple and a person (Qufu you miao wu ren, Taiwan you ren wu miao, Quzhou you ren you miao 曲阜有庙无人, 台湾有人无庙, 衢州有人有庙)!” Why are there two officially recognized ‘Officials for Sacrifices to the Exalted First Teacher of Culture’? Why does another Confucian Family Temple exist? The story begins in the year 1128, two years after Song Gaozong 宋高宗, Zhao Gou 赵构 (1107–1187, r. 1127–1162), ascended to the throne. Both his father and his elder brother, the last two emperors of the Northern Song dynasty had been captured by the army of the northern state of Jin 金. According to the historical records, Zhao Gou ordered the 48th descendent of Confucius, Duke Yansheng Kong Duanyou 孔端友, to move to the south to fulfil his ceremonial obligations. Thus, Kong Duanyou immigrated to Zhejiang, accompanied by many of his clan brothers and other family members. They settled in Quzhou in the year 1136, and took residence in the state school.16 After the death of Kong Duanyou, who had no sons, the title of Duke Yansheng was inherited by his nephew Kong Jie 孔玠 in 1132. However, at the same time, in 1133, the Jin ruler in the north appointed another of his nephews, Kong Jie’s brother Kong Fan 孔璠, who had remained with his father in Qufu, to take care of the temple and mansion, as the new ‘Duke Yansheng.’ Thus, for about 150 years there existed two such Dukes, one in Qufu serving the Jin and later the Mongolian rulers, the other in Quzhou serving the Chinese emperors until the end of the Southern Song dynasty. In 1282, the Mongolian emperor in Dadu 大都, today’s Beijing 北京, wanted to 16

See Wang-Riese (2008), pp. 23–45.

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call the 53rd Duke Yansheng in Zhejiang, Kong Zhu 孔洙, back to Shandong. The latter refused, however, and resigned from his office declaring that he wanted to stay in the place where his ancestors were buried. Thus, his cousin in Shandong officially inherited the title while the Kong family members in the South lost their special status and became commoners. During the Ming 明 dynasty, some Confucian scholars from the south reclaimed this history in front of the Chinese emperor and successfully petitioned him to reinstate the political and economic privileges of the ‘true’ descendents of Confucius. Although the title Duke Yansheng remained with the Northern lineage, the patriarch of the Southern lineage received the title of ‘Erudite in the Five Classics’ (wu jing boshi 五经博士) in the Imperial Academy. The Emperor awarded the family a certain number of fields and servants, and granted it exemption from taxes, so that its members could devote themselves to the maintenance of the family temple and the seasonal offering rituals to Confucius. Thereupon, the Confucian Family Temple in Quzhou was rebuilt on its original location around 1520, since the old one had been completely destroyed at the end of the Southern Song Dynasty.17 After the downfall of the Chinese Empire in 1911, the Kong family, in Qufu as well as in Quzhou, lost most of its privileges. As mentioned above, both patriarchs of the northern and southern lineage were degraded to ‘Official for Sacrifices’ (fengsiguan 奉祀官) during the Republic of China. After the next political turn in 1949, the Confucian temple and the Mansion Kong in Quzhou became public property. They were partly torn down and partly used for offices by the military administration. When the building complex was returned to the city at the beginning of the 1980s, it was extremely delapidated and needed to be rebuilt almost completely. Since 1985, the local government began renovations and reconstruction of the Confucian Family Temple. In 1988, it was opened to tourists. In 1996, it was recognized as a national historical monument to be safeguarded (Quanguo zhongdian wenwu baohu danwei 全国重点 文物保护单位). According to a government report, the restoration project, completed in 2000, was worth over two million US dollars.18 Even so, not many historical relics remain in the temple. Before the latest renovation began in 1998, an archaeological team investigated the estate completely and found only a few fragments of musical instruments and a bell produced in the eighteenth century. Neither old furniture nor offering vessels remained. It is said that most of them had been stolen or destroyed 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid., pp. 125–32.

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by Japanese conquerors in the 1940s. The only two relics preserved in the Confucian Family Temple are a statue of Confucius, sculpted after the family had moved to the South, which was inspired by a famous painting by Wu Daozi 吴道子 (ca.680–759) of the Tang 唐 dynasty; and two wooden statues of Confucius and his wife. According to legend, these statues were carved by Zigong 子贡, Confucius’ pupil, from a tree growing on the grave of the master when he was staying beside the grave to mourn his teacher for six years. That is certainly not true. What is true is that the two statues were brought from Shandong as evidence of his filial piety and official legitimacy when the 48th Duke Yansheng moved from the north to the south. Unfortunately, according to my local informants, these statues which had been preserved in the Cultural Bureau of Quzhou from 1949 onward were borrowed by the Confucian Family Temple in Qufu in 1959 for a special ceremony and have never been returned. The statues we see in Quzhou’s temple today are copies. The key figure who enables citizens of Quzhou to feel privileged again, is the 75th descendent of Confucius, Kong Xiangkai 孔祥楷 (*1938). Kong inherited the title of ‘Official for Offering the Exalted First Teacher of Culture of the Southern Lineage’ from his uncle in the 1940s. In the 1950s, he left Quzhou with his mother, brother, and sisters. After finishing school, he went to the north to study mining, and subsequently became an engineer in a mining enterprise in Northeast China. During all the years of his professional life, he kept his identity secret and followed a career under the Communist regime. In the 1980s, he was director of a mining enterprise, and later, vice president of the College of Metal Industry in Shenyang 沈阳. At that time he joined the Chinese Communist Party. During the years from the 1950s to the 1980s, Kong Xiangkai returned to Quzhou three times. The first time was during the Cultural Revolution (1966– 1976). He visited the Family Temple secretly and took a photo as a souvenir. The second visit occurred in the middle of the 1980s. This time he was officially recognized as a descendent of Confucius and, accompanied by those in charge of the temple, he visited the largely dilapidated buildings. Finally, during the third visit to his hometown at the end of the 1980s, he was greeted by high ranking local Communist cadres. The mayor met him personally and asked him to return to Quzhou to help the city promote the Confucian Family Temple as an important historical monument. Shortly thereafter, Kong Xiangkai moved back to Quzhou. He acted first as assistant to the mayor, then as director of the United Front Department (Tongzhanbu 统战部), and finally, was appointed vice president of the Political Consultative Conference of the city. After his retirement in 2000, he became head of the Administrative Committee of the

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Confucian Family Temple, which corresponds to his inherited role as official for sacrifices.19 2

Modern Offering Rituals to Confucius in Quzhou

In 2004, after several years of preparation, the first International Confucius Cultural Festival in Quzhou (Quzhou Guoji Kongzi Wenhuajie 衢州国际孔子 文化节) was held. It lasted for about a week and consisted of a series of events including an International Forum of Confucianism (Guoji Ruxue Luntan 国际儒学论坛), trade and investment fairs, and the offering ceremony to Confucius at his family temple. Thus, it is a true mixture of economy and culture as expressed in the popular slogan: “Culture sets the stage, the economy is the main act” (Wenhua da tai, jingji chang xi 文化搭台, 经济唱戏). Yet, to the surprise of the organizers, the economic impact of the festival remains extremely weak in contrast to its political and cultural echoes. The most positive reactions came from foreign visitors who attended the International Forum and the offering ritual. In the report of the Administrative Committee of the Confucian Family Temple, I read an extract from a letter purportedly sent by the American sinologist, Deborah Sommer, called by her Chinese name, Sima Dailan 司马黛兰: I noticed that you made some changes in particulars which have, however, significant meanings. . . . You abandoned gorgeous dressing and dancing, abandoned sacrifice of ox and sheep, abandoned the noise made by the ancient musical instruments. It was wonderful to set a piano in front of the Hall of Great Accomplishment (Dacheng dian 大成殿)! It was also a great change that you deleted the two characters shenwei 神位 (place of deity) from the table of Confucius. Confucius was a human, not a deity . . . It is the right time to return him his true identity as a human.20

19 See Dizhangsun Kong Xiangkai (2006). This is a book with collected articles on the person of Kong Xiangkai by his acquaintances. It was edited by the government section of propaganda and is given as a gift to attendants at related events. 20 Cited and translated from the info sheet Wo shi 2004–2006 nian san ci jisi Kong Zi dianli gaikuang (n.d.; hereafter: Ji Kong gaikuang). However, Dr. Sommer informed me that this letter was not written by her. She kindly wrote down her own reflections on these rituals und gave permission to publish them (see appendix).

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Deng Liguang 邓立光, a scholar from Hong Kong, praised the “exploding cultural dynamics” (bengfa chu de wenhua nengliang 迸发出的文化能量) of the offering ritual to Confucius in Quzhou and commented that “it shows the courage and the epoch-making significance in revitalizing traditional culture” (xingshi le fuxing chuantong wenhua de qipo he huashidai yiyi 显示了复兴传 统文化的气魄和划时代意义).21 Compared with the positive comments made by foreign scholars, domestic observers in China were uncertain about how to judge and evaluate the first offering ritual to Confucius in Quzhou after a break of more than 50 years. For most Chinese, the new sacrificial ritual seems unorthodox as it was performed in a very modern way rather than trying to imitate the traditional rituals performed in Qufu or Taipei. As documented in a DVD recording, the ceremony lasted approximately one hour and was divided into two parts with a total of five steps: Part I: The offering ritual ( jili 祭礼) 1. Opening of the ceremony through ringing the bell accompanied by tape music. Representatives of citizenry offer five (actually six) cereals (wugu 五谷) in front of the Statue of Confucius in the Hall of Great Accomplishment. 2. All participants in the yard bow thrice to Confucius. 3. The main sacrificer (zhuji 主祭), enacted by the president of the Political Consulting Conference of Quzhou and accompanied by Kong Xiangkai as associate sacrificer (peiji 陪祭), read a sacrificial text ( jiwen 祭文) to Confucius in front of the Hall of Great Accomplishment. Part II: The praising ritual (songli 颂礼) 1. Actors and children recite passages from the Lunyu (Analects) on the platform. 2. A small chorus sings the “Hymn of Great Commonwealth” (Datong song 大同颂) with the text from the Liji 礼记 (Book of Rites) and music composed by Kong Xiangkai.

21

Deng Liguang: “Cong Quzhou jikong kan zhongguo de wenhua fazhan 从衢州祭孔看 中国的文化发展 [A look at China’s cultural development from the perspective of the Quzhou Confucius ritual],” in: Xingdao Ribao 星岛日报, 14 October 2004, here cited and translated from Ji Kong gaikuang.

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Approximately 600 officials, students and pupils, citizens, as well as domestic and foreign guests, attended the ceremony. Most of them were dressed in business suits or school uniforms. The recitation from the Analects and the choir singing were performed on the platform in front of the temple, which is called yitai 佾台 and would originally have been used for special music and dance performances during the sacrificial offering to Confucius, called ji Kong yuewu 祭孔乐舞.22 Ma Ziyue 马子跃, a well-known military singer and friend of Kong Xiangkai, led the choir in his military uniform of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. However, other singers, and Kong Xiangkai himself, who acted as associate sacrificer of the chief sacrificer, were dressed in ‘Mao suits’ or, more correctly ‘Zhongshan suits’ (Zhongshanzhuang 中山装), thus adhering to a more traditional style than those wearing Western business suits. Also, the pupils reciting from the Analects were dressed in recreated traditional costumes. Despite these traditional elements, the ceremony as a whole did not seem to create a particularly ‘traditional’ atmosphere for the majority of the audience. Another modern aspect of the sacrificing ritual to Confucius in Quzhou is visible in its action patterns, which apply to most modern political ceremonies held in China. Following the orders of the city’s political organizations, a great many people are gathered at a public site, where everybody is assigned a well-defined place. A representative of the government hosts the ceremony and gives orders to the participants through a microphone such as, “first bow, second bow, and third bow.” During the whole ceremony, participants must keep silent and stand straight, as if they were in a military parade. The scene of children and artists reciting passages of the Analects is reminiscent of the recitations of Quotations from Chairman Mao (Mao zhuxi yulu 毛主席语录) during political assemblies in the past. The abandonment of the old sacrificial ritual style in Quzhou might have practical and financial reasons. The traditional ji Kong yuewu is not only difficult to reconstruct in its complexity, but also costly to prepare. However, the most crucial factor in the modernization of the ritual is Kong Xiangkai himself. It was he who insisted on offering to Confucius in such a modern way, believing that only in this way he can express his emotions towards his ancestor authentically. Indeed, I suspect that Kong Xiangkai was influenced by the practices of the Mao cult during the Cultural Revolution. The Analects, for instance, are treated similarly to the former Little Red Book (Hong bao shu 红宝书, literally ‘Red Treasure Book’), also known as the ‘Mao Bible.’ Printed in a small format of 8cm × 6cm, so that it can be carried in a pocket every22

On the historical developments and performances of ji Kong yuewu, see Lam (2002).

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where and read at any time, the Analects are presented as a gift to visitors at the Confucian Family Temple. The recognition of foreign participants provides sufficient justification for Kong Xiangkai and his followers to defend their choices in dealing with the offering ritual. Local cadres and other stakeholders likewise had no objections to this project, probably because China Central Television (CCTV) reported on the event and “even an international expert of Confucianism, Tu Weiming, has come” (lian guoji ruxue zhuanjia Du Weiming ye lai le 连国 际儒学专家杜维明也来了), as a cadre whom I interviewed expressed it. Those who had kept questioning the legitimacy of a modern expression of the Confucius cult finally gave up their skepticism completely when the ‘Globally Coordinated Offering Ritual to Confucius’ (Quanqiu lianhe ji Kong 全球联 合祭孔) was held in Quzhou on 28 September 2005. For the first time more than ten Confucian temples in China united to hold an offering ritual at the same time. Even UNESCO joined the organization board and sent representatives to attend the ceremony at the main site, the Confucian Family Temple in Qufu.23 The complete ceremony was broadcast live from Qufu and five other Confucian temples around China in a special program by CCTV1. The Confucian Family Temple in Quzhou was among the five temples involved.24 Other offering rituals in Confucian temples in Taiwan and overseas were also summarily introduced during the program. For Quzhou, the event was not only a great opportunity to present itself to the whole of China and even the world. It also provided the compelling evidence that the modern offering style designed by Kong Xiangkai had been widely accepted. Kong continued to experiment with different sacrificial styles. For this special occasion, he invented a so-called School Offering (xueji 学祭) to Confucius as ‘the first teacher’ (zui zao de laoshi 最早的老师) by about 600 young teachers and pupils from local schools, accompanied by 100 elder ­teachers. It calls to mind the combined celebration of the Birthday of Confucius and Teachers’ Day ( Jiaoshi jie 教师节) in Republican China.25 However, since the official Teachers’ Day in the Peoples’ Republic is held on 10 September, the School Offering to Confucius in Quzhou had to be defined 23 24 25

See http://www2.sdnews.com.cn/news/zt/05kongzi (accessed 15 February 2010). The remaining four temples are located in Jiading 嘉定 (Shanghai), Wuwei 武威 (Gansu), Deqing 德庆 (Guangdong) and Jianshui 建水 (Yunnan). The actual birthday of Confucius is unclear. It is usually considered to be the 27th day of the eighth month according to the traditional Chinese calendar. This date was set to 28 September of the Western Gregorian calendar in 1952 by the Guomindang 国民党 government in Taiwan.

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differently. While teachers receive cards, flowers, gifts, or special services from their pupils on Teachers’ Day, they themselves present offerings to Confucius as the founder of the teaching profession in his temple on his ‘birthday.’ The Four Treasures of Study (wenfang si bao 文房四宝), namely writing brush, ink stick, ink slab, and paper, are added as sacrificial objects to the five cereals. In the second part of the ceremony, the ‘praising ritual,’ a choir with 60 amateur singers presented the suit of songs Dongnan queli 东南 阙里 (Hometown in the Southeast), written and composed by Kong Xiangkai to tell the history of the Southern lineage of Confucius’ descendents. At the end, all participants sang the ‘Hymn of Great Commonwealth’ in the same way as the year before. The whole ceremony lasted almost one hour and was the longest one from 2004 until today. In 2005, Quzhou achieved greater attention, with most of the support coming from domestic visitors. The existence of ‘Confucius’ Hometown in the Southeast’ and the second Confucian Family Temple in Quzhou became widely known in China through several TV documentaries.26 The idea of a School Offering and its rituals were judged to be “absolutely original” and stirred much interest from politicians and scholars. The term “modern sacrifice to Confucius” (dangdai ji Kong 当代祭孔) began to appear in the mass media as a result of the officially sanctioned coverage of the event by CCTV. One commentator even went so far as to criticize other ritual performances in traditional costumes as “farce” (naoju 闹剧), “as if they were going mad or were stupid” (zhuang feng mai sha 装疯卖傻): It is actually a very serious issue to commemorate the great thinker and educator Confucius, but we turn the ceremony into a farce. In a country as big as China, among more than one billion Chinese, it is surprising to see that only Zhejiang (Quzhou) people sacrifice Confucius in a contemporary way. Isn’t this ridiculous?27 26

27

The international channel of CCTV followed this topic further and made several programs out of it. One of these is Sizhe tongyuan 泗浙同源, which can be viewed on http:// www.cctv. com/video/wwwwxinwen/2006/09/wwwwxinwen_300_20060925_76.shtml (accessed 9 July 2013). 纪念伟大的思想家、教育家孔子本来是一件很严肃的事, 而我们却把它搞成一 场闹剧。诺大一个中国, 十亿多华人, 竟然只有浙江是现代人祭孔, 这不够荒 唐吗？ “Ji Kong jiu ji Kong, hebi zhuang feng mai sha” 祭孔就祭孔, 何必装疯卖傻 [Sacrifices to Confucius are sacrifices to Confucius, how could they make people go mad or be stupid]? Jingji yaoqing canyue 经济要情参阅, 14 October 2005, quoted in Ji Kong gaikuang.

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The Grand Sacrifice (daji 大祭), accompanied by the International Confucius’ Cultural Festival and the International Forum of Confucianism, is celebrated every second year (2006, 2008 and so forth) with participants from all over Zhejiang province and other regions of China. Every other year (2007, 2009 and so on), the Minor Sacrifice (xiaoji 小祭) or School Offering takes place, which involves school teachers, college students, and pupils from Quzhou and other regions of Zhejiang. Quzhou continuously enjoys its increasing popularity. For local politicians, nothing could be more prestigious than when Xi Jinping 习近平 (*1953), then a member of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party and former Governor of Zhejiang province, sent a congratulatory letter for the opening of the International Confucianism Forum in 2006.28 This was evidence of the fact that the local event had finally achieved recognition at a high political level. 3

The Agents of the Quzhou Confucius Cult

A closer look at the immediate context of the cult in Quzhou allows me to raise the question: are these events really meant to propagate and globalize Confucianism as the slogans used to publicize the events suggest? Or are they actually politically staged performances to improve the popularity of the city and boost local confidence under the label of ‘globalization’? The local government spends a lot of money inviting foreign guests, domestic scholars, and media stars to participate in the events so that they can be presented as ‘international,’ ‘high level,’ and ‘successful.’ In 2007, when I first visited the event myself, I was asked to bring along my German husband. As one of the few foreigners present, he received much more attention by journalists than I did. He was even interviewed by a local TV station directly after the event, although he had never before been involved with Confucianism. When the interview was shown on the evening news, the reporter began with the following statement: “Not only we [Chinese], but also Mr. Bai [his Chinese name] from Germany admires Confucius very much . . .” Among the guests were also a group of five or six foreign students from Hangzhou who were taken to Quzhou by their Chinese teacher following an invitation from the local government. The girls and boys were not aware of the formal nature of the event and came leisurely dressed in shorts and sandals. Since the organizers did not allow visitors to take part in the ceremony in such informal dress, they fell into panic. 28

This letter was published on the first page of Quzhou Daily (Quzhou Ribao 衢州日报) on 28 September 2006 with the original signature of Xi.

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Mr. Chen, an English teacher at a local high school who had been asked to accompany and translate for the group, had to lend them his own shoes and trousers so that the young people could attend the ceremony. Thus, everyone was happy in the end, and the foreign students even took a group photo with patriarch Kong Xiangkai after the offering ritual. When I attended the third International Forum of Confucianism in Quzhou in 2008, I noticed that most of the foreign or domestic scholars had not prepared their papers carefully and looked at this event as an opportunity to enjoy the generous hospitality of the organizers. The local government as the main organizer, on the other hand, was not really interested in Confucianism either, but only in the political and media attention this event was able to create. The rather marginal role of Confucianism as such compelled me to further investigate the interests of various stakeholders involved in Quzhou’s modern Confucius cult. What are their motivations for staging such an event? What are their aspirations? 3.1 Kong Xiangkai, Patriarch of the Southern Lineage of the Kong Clan As already mentioned, Kong Xiangkai has been the main designer and conductor of the events. It was he who insisted on offering sacrifices to Confucius in a modern way, since he believes that he can thus express his emotions towards his ancestor more authentically. “If I put my daily dress away and perform the ritual as an actor dressed in an ancient costume, I am not offering sacrifices anymore, but performing a play.”29 I asked: “Then, how did you offer sacrifices in the 1940s? What do you think about the continuity of the sacrificing ritual?” His answer was: “I do not remember much about the details. I was only a little child at that time. I only remember that the people were busy cutting animals and preparing them as sacrifices on the eve of the ceremony. It was very clamorous (nao honghong de 闹哄哄的).” I was surprised that he used such a negative expression to describe the preparation process of the offering ritual undertaken 60 years ago by his father and uncles. Perhaps his attitude has been shaped by a modern education under the influence of Communist ideology, which causes him to reject the traditional sacrificing style as ignorant and backward, as many modern Chinese do. Obviously, Kong Xiangkai leans towards a contemporary ritual which allows him to feel authentic. He even criticized publicly the music and dance performances held in Confucius’ honor ( ji Kong yuewu) in Qufu and other places. For him, they are nothing more than absurd folkloristic performances intended 29

This and the following statements were made by Kong during an interview given to me on 1 October 2007.

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to attract tourists. He believes that people should pay more attention to the spiritual content of the ceremony and emphasized repeatedly that the sacrificing ritual should only aim “to propagate the thought of Confucius” (xuanchuan Kongzi sixiang 宣传孔子思想), not to promote traditions. For the same reason, he and his colleagues in the temple insist on using the Analects as the sole basic text in the campaign for Confucianism. Other Confucian classics, such as the Book of Rites, the Book of Change, and the Book of Odes are completely neglected. Even in the gift shop of his temple, one will not find a single copy of the three ritual books (san li 三礼) of Confucianism. Kong Xiangkai engages in popularizing the Analects among pupils, students, and citizens. He started a class for reading canonical books (dujingban 读经班) in his temple which takes place once a week. Children from seven to twelve are selected to attend. Accompanied by their parents, they come to read and recite passages from the Analects together. To encourage their participation, Kong ordered bags, books, and other small gifts to be presented to the children at the expense of the temple. Also, a competition of recitation from the Analects among pupils is held every year, shortly before the public offering ritual to Confucius. Several prizes are awarded for the best interpretations of the Analects through recitation or theatrical performances. “It does not matter if the children do not really understand the words they are reciting. At first they should remember the sentences, and then try to understand them in their later life,” Kong said. Furthermore, a society for studying and spreading the Analects was established by Kong several years ago. Its members gather regularly to read and discuss this book. The most successful activity of this society was to set up a special program for teaching and reciting passages from the Analects in cooperation with a local radio station. The program is called ‘On-Air Classes on the Analects” (kongzhong Lunyu ketang 空中论语课堂). Podcasts of the lessons are available on the internet so that interested persons can hear them repeatedly. In contrast to his enthusiasm in promoting the Analects, Kong shows less interest in enhancing solidarity among members of the Kong clan. He has not tried to establish a stable relation with the Kongs in Qufu. There also was no contact between him and the former official head of the Kong clan in Taiwan, Kong Decheng, who had left the mainland in 1949. He has never even visited any villages in Quzhou where his clan brothers are still living. Only a few of them have had the honor of being invited to attend the annual sacrificing rituals once or twice. Why? To this question his answer was short and clear: “I am quite aware that my task is not to unite the Kong clan, but to spread Confucian thought to more remote regions (Wo hen qingchu wo de renwu, bu shi ba Kong

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jia ren tuanjie qilai, er shi ba Kongzi sixiang chuandao geng yuan de difang qu 我很清楚我的任务, 不是把孔家人团结起来, 而是把孔子思想传到更 远的地方去).” In a TV interview with a reporter from Beijing on the historical conflicts between the Northern and Southern lineages, he even suggested provocatively that both lineages should not compete with each other for official recognition of their authenticity as Confucius’ descendants, but rather for who is doing a better job of promoting Confucius’ thought.30 What does Kong mean by “remote regions”? Is his motivation and goal the globalization of Confucianism? I think the answer is “yes.” Although he himself did not express it so, several observations led me to this conclusion. Firstly, he always takes time to meet foreign visitors to the temple, to talk, and to take photos with them, as he did with the foreign students attending the rituals of 2007. Secondly, while I interviewed him, most of his attention was not on my questions concerning details of the ritual and its organization, but more on the comparison of Confucianism with other world religions, such as Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. During our conversation he asked me why the other three old civilizations developed monotheistic religions while China did not? It seems likely that he is concerned with the religious character of Confucianism and its position in the world. Yet, he did not give his own answer to the question. He argued that his profession was engineering, not cultural research. Zheng Gang 郑岗, an Activist in the Movement Promoting the Confucius Cult Zheng Gang, a young man of about 25 years, is a faithful follower of Kong Xiangkai. He is working as a Chinese teacher at a local high school, but his hobbies are theatre and acting as an announcer. For several years, he has been a member of the Society for Popularizing the Analects (Lunyu Pujihui 论语普 及会) and of the Society for Confucian Studies in Quzhou (Quzhou Kongzi Yanjiuhui 衢州孔子研究会). He is also responsible for the “On-Air Classes on the Analects” on the radio. During the offering ritual to Confucius in 2005 and 2006, he was one of the persons who carried out sacrifices to the statue of Confucius. He also wrote and staged a short play which was performed on the eve of Confucius’ ‘birthday’ in 2007. 3.2

30

See http://www.cctv.com/video/wwwwxinwen/2006/09/wwwwxinwen_300_20060925_ 76.shtml (accessed 15 February 2010).

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The following are some extracts from my interview with him:31 I come from Quzhou but left the city to study at university in 1999. In 2003, after graduation, I came back here and began to work as a school teacher. Because of my hobby, I was introduced to Mr. Kong by a colleague who is a member of the musical ensemble of the Kong Mansion. There are many amateur musicians, singers, dancers, and actors in the group, and we are all volunteers. Since I like announcing, I always act as compère at concerts and other performances. [. . .] When I was a young pupil, I heard about Mr. Kong and knew that he is the true successor of Confucius. . . . He is a great man with rich life experience. [. . .] For me Confucius is a cultural hero (wenhua yingxiong 文化英雄). He is the example for us teachers, our model teacher of myriad generations (wanshi shibiao 万世师表). His life emanates a kind of tragic aesthetic, since he tried to do something impossible. [. . .] There were many thinkers at the time of Confucius, but only his thoughts had great and profound influence on later generations. For this reason, Confucius became a prominent person in the world. [. . .] To venerate Confucius today means to venerate his books and his thought, but not to venerate the person, similar to Buddha. The offering ritual is only an expression of our respect towards history and culture. When I brought the sacrifices, that is the five cereals, to him, and when I kneeled in front of his statue, I thought that I was venerating a belief, a kind of spirit, and a culture. We should show some respect to culture. The most important thing is spirituality, since the young generation to which I belong lacks this. We are the post-1980 generation. Unlike earlier generations who always had some sort of belief, we are free. We possess too many material things, but no belief. So it is good if we can reconstruct a belief for ourselves. But what we believe in should not be a person or Buddha, but a thought. We believe in the cultural spirit represented by Confucius and the long Confucian tradition lasting for two thousand years. [. . .] Thus I think it is a good idea to offer sacrifices to him in our everyday clothes. That means we are indeed venerating him, not only performing a ritual to him as if it were a play . . .”

31

Given on 23 September 2007.

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The life of Zheng Gang seems to revolve around activities in the Confucian movement. He gains spiritual profit from his participation in the events, and shares his experiences with other people. Zhang Hongping 张红萍, Director of Nishan Elementary School 尼山小学 Nishan Elementary School is located only about several hundred meters away from the Confucian Family Temple. Its predecessor was the private school sponsored by the Kong clan. It was transformed into a public school during the Republic. After 1949, it was renamed “The People’s Elementary School.” Only after 1992 was its old name reinstated. When I visited the school on a September morning, I saw calligraphies with passages from the Analects everywhere on the campus: at the entrance, in the corridor, in the teachers’ office, and in classrooms. There is also a bust of Confucius in the court yard. Every class has its own Confucius corner, usually designed as a wall newspaper on which everyone can publish his or her small articles about Confucius and his Analects. According to Zhang Hongping, the current director, there are additional special lessons for teaching Confucius’ texts to the pupils. Zhang and her colleagues have edited a textbook in six volumes for different reading levels, from class 1 to class 6. The title of the book is Primer of Confucian Learning (Ruxue kaimeng 儒学开蒙). A second edition is in the making and its title will be changed to The Southern Lineage’s Garden of Learning (Nanzong xueyuan 南宗学园), because the new title represents more ‘local features’ (difang tese 地方特色) and thus conforms better to the marketing strategy of the publishing house. At about 9:10 am, it was time for the usual morning break. The pupils gathered in the courtyard and began to do gymnastic exercises accompanied by music from loudspeakers. This is a general program called ‘exercises to radio music’ (guangbo ticao 广播体操) which is completed in every school in China. After that, they played another gymnastic exercise without music but accompanied by the recitation of a Confucian text entitled Dizigui 弟子规 ‘Principles for young pupils’ by a scholar of the Qing dynasty. It consists of short, threeword sentences and contains instructions on how to show filial piety to ­parents and elder brothers.32 According to Zhang Hongping, teachers and pupils from the Nishan School participated in each of the annual sacrificing rituals in Quzhou. Most of the children chosen to recite passages from the Analects during the ‘Praising ritual’ 3.3

32

For more detailed information see Wang-Riese (2008), pp. 180–84.

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came from Nishan School, allegedly because they are better trained than pupils from other schools. “Our school has a long tradition and earlier connection to the Confucian temple,” she said proudly. Even so, such special programs should not take too much time from the pupils. “The children are busy,” she said, “their parents have prepared for them many kinds of special training, such as English, piano, or computer lessons, for the time after school. The Confucian classes are of course beneficial, because the children learn to respect and love their parents, but they are definitely not as important as English lessons, which are certainly more useful for their future.” 3.4 Local Communist Party Cadres and Government Officials The annual offering ritual to Confucius and the accompanying cultural festival are officially organized by the local government. The events originally had two goals: to promote Confucian culture and to advertise Quzhou. A former director of the prefectural CCP committee explained: Making offerings to Confucius is an important way of discovering and propagating Confucian culture as well as the best opportunity to advertise Quzhou. . . . We should place this piece of chess (i.e. Confucian culture) strategically. We will study, discover, expand, and use the Confucian culture to produce a market label. In keeping with the requirement to create excellent products of profound [impact] on a large scale and in an accomplished way, we should discover and expand the essence of Confucian culture and give it full play in establishing a famous cultivated city.33 While the first goal, the promotion of Confucian culture, belongs to the familiar stock of slogans employed by propaganda departments, the second aim of advertising and improving the city’s reputation is indeed close to the heart of local cadres. In other words, the aim is to utilize Confucius as a globally known cultural idol to serve Quzhou’s economic and social development. From this a number of tensions arise: should Kong Xiangkai and his staff submit to the political interests of the local government at the expense of what they 33

祭孔活动既是一种挖掘、宣传孔子文化的重要手段, 也是宣传衢州的一次极 好机会。. . . . . . 我们要把孔子文化这颗棋子重重落定。把孔子文化的研究、挖 掘、弘扬和效应作为一个品牌工程来规划和实施.围绕做精、做深、做大、做 好的要求, 深度挖掘并弘扬孔子文化的精华, 充分发挥其在建设文化名市中的 独特作用. Quoted from Ji Kong gaikuang.

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perceive to be a genuine Confucian culture in Quzhou? Should the promotion of Confucianism as part of China’s global spiritual heritage take precedence over the construction of a living Confucian culture at the local level? Despite the ambiguity of the term ‘Confucian culture,’ the interviews I conducted with local cadres have led me to believe that the local government’s main priority is to selectively reinvent traditions that enhance Quzhou’s attractiveness as a tourist destination, for example old-style music and dance performances used during the offering ritual. Also, it is true that the modern offering ritual has been well received by politicians and scholars, but how can a boring political ceremony with a low entertainment value be expected to draw ‘normal’ tourists to Quzhou? Furthermore, the municipal administration faced serious problems when attempting to register the offering ritual to Confucius onto the ‘List of representative objects of China’s non-material cultural heritage’ (Zhongguo feiwuzhi wenhua yichan minglu 中国非物质文化遗产代表作名录). According to Mr. Lin, vice-director of the cultural bureau, the first application in 2007 failed because a newly invented tradition, such as the modern offering ritual in Quzhou, does not fall into the category of traditional culture worthy to be safeguarded. The reviewers of the application from Beijing suggested, however, that cooperation with the Confucian Family Temple in Qufu may open up another chance for Quzhou to promote its own offering ritual to Confucius, for the ritual held in Qufu has already been included in that list. Yet, both historical tensions between the Southern and Northern lineage as well as the fact that over the last years Kong Xiangkai has done little to improve relations with his relatives in the north present barriers to cooperation between the two branches of the clan. 3.5 Zheng Xiaorong 郑小荣, Owner and Manager of the Quzhou Hotel In spite of the high expectation of the local government, the economic effects of cultural festivals in honor of Confucius are insignificant. Although a trade fair was organized in 2004, and again in 2006, to coincide with the International Confucius Festival, almost all contracts signed on these occasions are said to have been pre-arranged. The Confucius Festival did not generate significant additional trade volume, nor did the enhanced visibility of the city attract more investors. It is remarkable that local entrepreneurs are not really involved in the event. All financial costs are borne by the government. Only a few enterprises, hotels and restaurants among them, profit directly from the event through hosting guests invited by the government. But even the cooperation between these few companies and the government is less than smooth. According to Zheng Xiaorong, the Quzhou Hotel developed a suit of dishes named ‘Feast of the Kong Mansion’ (Kongfu yan 孔府宴) for hosting special guests in 2005, but this offer was largely ignored by the gov-

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ernment and the temple administration. The demand was so small that the hotel removed the “feast” from the menu shortly after the end of the festival. The excessive luxury of the ‘feast’ and its high price might further explain the small number of orders. Nevertheless, Zheng Xiaorong is one of the few local entrepreneurs who are interested in developing local ‘cultural products’ (wenhua chanpin 文化产品), even though he has no clear idea about what kind of products would find a substantial market. With this in mind, he criticised the economic policy of the local government for failing to boost tourism and the service industry in the wake of a big event like the Confucius Festival. In his opinion, the Communist cadres only know how to distribute resources but not how to encourage and control a market economy effectively.34 In summary, most stakeholders in the Confucius Cultural Festival in Quzhou have their own reasons and motivation for participating. While the school teachers and pupils are relatively enthusiastic about the Festival, many local cadres and entrepreneurs maintain an ambivalent attitude towards it. On the one hand, they consider it an opportunity to develop the local identity and economy, and thus support it actively. On the other hand, they are somewhat skeptical about the established ways of operation, for the actual benefits remain far below their expectations. Even Kong Xiangkai, the key protagonist in the event, expressed doubts concerning the future sustainability of the offering ritual during our conversation. That might be the reason why Mr. Xu, director of the Propaganda Section (Xuanchuanbu 宣传部) of the local party committee at the time, offered me a book contract to evaluate the modern sacrificing ritual to Confucius in Quzhou from the viewpoint of an overseas Chinese with a European educational background. Obviously, the committee feels the need for support from abroad to boost the confidence of the local people in the value of their historical heritage and the current way of celebrating it. Since it would give me access to interviewees and information for my investigation, I certainly could not refuse such an invitation. Yet, it was quite clear that an objective assessment based on rigorous academic analysis would not fulfill the interests of my sponsor. Therefore, I confined myself to collecting all existing materials and adding some appreciative comments to them in my book Nanzong ji Kong 南宗祭孔. Only in the last part of the book did I try to voice a few critical comments and suggestions in an indirect way under the heading “future vision.” These included the advice that the modern Confucius festival should try to involve more citizens, rather than present itself as an official political event. All these comments were benevolently accepted by the 34

Interview with Zheng Xiaorong on 29 September 2007.

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censors, and the book was published in the summer of 2008, shortly before the opening of the 3rd Confucius Festival in Quzhou. Conclusion With the collapse of the Chinese empire and the central position of Confucianism in Chinese state ideology at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Confucius cult was widely abandoned in China. Also, the attempts of Confucian scholars to establish a Confucian religion so as to assure its survival in a globalizing world, failed. However, it is impossible to completely abolish such a grand tradition which has been dominant in Chinese society for more than two thousand years. The texts of the Confucian canon guarantee the continuous transmission of its doctrines and many Confucian temples remain as conduits of local cultural heritage. Thus Confucianism and the Confucius cult were able to gain new life as soon as new opportunities presented themselves in modern China. Ironically, the economic and cultural globalization which caused the downfall of Confucianism in the first part of the twentieth century is now the main driving force behind the revitalization of Confucian traditions. With China’s increasing significance on the global stage, the role of Confucius and Confucianism as representatives of China’s cultural heritage and national identity has grown proportionately. However, in the eyes of most local political agents, the foremost task of the modern Confucius cult is to serve the development of the local economy and society. Hence, the aim of socalled ‘international’ events held by local governments is primarily to garner domestic political and media attention, as well as to foster local identity. The globalization of Confucianism is of only secondary interest. In contrast to the utilitarian agenda of local party cadres, we can also observe the emergence of a civil movement centered on the modern Confucius cult. This movement, which has been studied by Billioud and Thoraval in Qufu, engages in reviving the popular religious-spiritual dimensions of Confucianism.35 In Quzhou, this trend is represented by the head of its Southern lineage, Kong Xiangkai, and local intellectuals, such as school teachers and students. They seek to promote Confucius’ thought as part of our universal spiritual heritage, but also to turn the political-ceremonial ritual into a social event with impacts on the daily life of the common people. For academic investigators, it is interesting to follow this movement and to observe whether the opposing intentions of diverse agents will be reconciled in the future. 35

Billioud and Thoraval (2009), pp. 91–93; for ‘popular Confucianism’, see also Clart (2003).

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Appendix: Reflections on the Autumn 2004 Rituals at the Southern Kong Temple of Confucius

Deborah Sommer, Associate Professor of Gettysburg College 7 April 2012

In the fall of 2004, I was very fortunate to be able to attend the ceremony for the reestablishment of the rites to Confucius at the temple of the Southern Kong clan in Quzhou. At the time, I was living in Nanjing and was spending the fall semester as an International Research Fellow at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies. At the kind invitation of Mr. Kong Xiangkai, I was able to attend the rituals at the Southern Kong temple. I also attended the international conference and the cultural performances held in Quzhou in conjunction with the rituals. I was very impressed at how the events both honored the Southern Kong temple’s unique historical heritage and expressed it in a meaningful way for a twenty-first century audience. Over the years, I have attended several rituals commemorating Confucius and other scholars in various places in China, and so I can appreciate the uniqueness of the ceremonies at Quzhou. For many years, I have studied the ritual system in premodern China, and as I understand it, one of the key ideas in conducting rituals is the following: one must be able to interpret ancient principles in a way that is meaningful to modern participants. In that sense, the 2004 rites at the Kong temple were very successful. I found it fascinating that Mr. Kong himself oversaw the composition of the ritual’s music, which was performed with modern instrumentation. The ritual attire, which was designed in the style of 1940s clothing rather than Song, Ming, or Qing attire, expressed continuity with the period of the 1940s, which was the last time the rituals had been performed at the temple. In particular, I was fascinated by the images at the Quzhou temple. Much of my own research has focused on the history of the use of images 塑像 and spirit tablets (牌位 or 神位) in Confucian temples. Over the centuries, Confucian scholars argued about whether one should use images or tablets in rites to Confucius, and they also discussed what kinds of titles should be used on spirit tablets. In the sixteenth century, for example, most images of Confucius were eliminated by imperial decree in most official kinds of temples. For various complex religious and philosophical reason, scholars at that time believed that the custom of using three-dimensional images was not appropriate for most official Confucian temples. In these sixteenth-century debates, it was considered appropriate, however, for ancestral temples of people who were descended from Confucius. Debates about images and tablets continued for centuries.

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It is fascinating to see how these issues are dealt with at the Quzhou temple. There is a large three-dimensional statue of Confucius in the main hall, which is a traditional kind of statue. Such statues were permitted in ancestral Kong temples even after the sixteenth-century imperial reforms. The inscription on the spirit tablet, however, represents a modern, secular, and humanist idea: traditionally, such inscriptions would say that this is a tablet commemorating the spirit (神) of Confucius. The Quzhou inscription, however, eliminates the term “spirit.” Hence, what is commemorated by this statue is not just the phenomenon of a particular, individualized “spirit” of one human being from one clan. What is commemorated is something much larger, something that is accessible to all who come to visit the temple. Based on my visit to the temple and to the city of Quzhou, that “something larger” seems to me to be the principles of personal development, education, and community civic pride. To me, those principles are also the central values (精神) taught by Confucius in the Analects (論語). By removing the term “spirit” (神) from the spirit tablet on the main altar, the Quzhou temple returns our attention to the central values (精神) of the Analects in a modern way.

Bibliography Bell, Daniel E. and Hahm Chaibong (eds.) (2003). Confucianism for the Modern World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bell, Daniel E. (2008). China’s New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. Billioud, Sébastien and Joël Thoraval (2009). “Lijiao: The return of ceremonies honouring Confucius in Mainland China.” China perspectives 2009/4, pp. 82–100. Clart, Philip (2003). “Confucius and the Mediums: Is there a ‘Popular Confucianism’?” T’oung Pao 86, pp. 1–38. Ding Shen and Robert A. Saunders (2006). “Talking up China: An Analysis of China’s Rising Cultural Power and Global Promotion of the Chinese Language.” East Asia 23:2, pp. 3–33. Dizhangsun Kong Xiangkai 嫡长孙孔祥楷 [The Authentic Successor Kong Xiangkai] (2006), ed. Zhonggong Quzhou Shiwei Xuanchuanbu 中共衢州市委宣传部. Beijing: Renmin Ribao Chubanshe. Kong Fanling 孔凡岭 (ed.) (2003). Kongzi yanjiu 孔子研究 [Studies on Confucius]. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. Lam, Joseph S.C. (2002). “Musical Confucianism: The Case of ‘Jikong yuewu.’” In: Thomas A. Wilson (ed.), On Sacred Grounds: Culture, Society, Politics, and the Formation of the Cult of Confucius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 134–72.

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Little, Reg (1995). “Confucius in Beijing: The conference of the International Confucian Foundation.” Culture Mandala: The Bulletin of the Centre for East-West Cultural and Economic Studies 1:2, (accessed 9 July 2013). Liu Xuefei 刘雪飞 (ed.) (2003). Xiandai xin ruxue yanjiu 现代新儒学研究 [Studies on the New Modern Confucianism]. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. Paradise, James. F. (2009). “China and International Harmony: The Role of Confucius Institutes in Bolstering Beijing’s Soft Power.” Asian Survey 49, pp. 647–69. Quzhou tongji nianjian 衢州统计年鉴 [Quzhou Statistical Yearbook] (2007), ed. Quzhou Shi Tongjiju 衢州市统计局. Beijing: Zhongguo Tongji Chubanshe. Starr, Don (2009). “Chinese language education in Europe: The Confucius Institutes.” European Journal of Education 44, pp. 65–82. Tan, Sor-hoon (2008). “Modernizing Confucianism and ‘New Confucianism.’” In: Kam Louie (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Modern Chinese Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 135–54. van Ess, Hans (2003). Der Konfuzianismus. München: Beck. Wang-Riese, Xiaobing王霄冰 (2008). Nanzong jikong 南宗祭孔 [The Southern Lineage’s Sacrifices to Confucius]. Hangzhou: Zhejiang Renmin Chubanshe. Wo shi 2004–2006 nian san ci jisi Kong Zi dianli gaikuang 我市2004–2006 年三次 祭祀孔子典礼概况 [An overview of the ceremony of the three sacrifices for Confucius in our city between 2004 and 2006] (n.d.). Internal info sheet provided by the Confucian Family Temple of Quzhou. Zhang Songzhi 张颂之 (2008). “Kongjiaohui shimo huikao 孔教会始末汇考 [Collected enquiries into the story of the Confucian religion].” Wen-shi-zhe 文史哲 304 (2008), pp. 55–72. Zhu Ruikai 朱瑞开 (ed.) (2000). Ruxue yu 21 shiji—Goujian, fazhan dangdai xin ruxue 儒学与21世纪 — 构建、发展〈当代新儒学〉. [Confucianism and the Twentyfirst Century—Constructing and Developing a ‘New Contemporary Confucianism.’ Beijing: Xuelin Chubanshe.

chapter 8

Tibetan Buddhist Books in a Digital Age Hildegard Diemberger This paper examines a particular aspect of the Buddhist revival that has taken place throughout the Tibetan areas of China since Deng Xiaoping 邓小平 introduced radical policy changes in 1978. By looking at ethnographic cases from diverse Tibetan regions it explores the role of sacred texts in this process. It suggests that a deeply engrained attitude towards books as Buddhist relics informs not only the current recovery of sacred texts that have survived the Cultural Revolution but also the production of digital objects derived from them. These play an important part in local, transregional and international networks devoted to the preservation and revival of the Tibetan cultural heritage, in a process that often transcends the boundary between the religious and the secular. After providing a brief outline of the political and cultural background of the current revival, this paper will focus on the recent re-discovery of important texts and archives and discuss the distinction between books as ‘cultural objects’ (Ch. wenwu 文物) to be preserved and their content (Ch. neirong 内容) to be studied as well as on the use of books as ritual objects and as the basis for the revival of ritual practices. It discusses how new technologies are used to meet religious and secular needs for the reproduction and distribution of sacred texts. By reshaping access to books, these technologies have had a significant impact on religious practices and on the reconstitution of Tibetan cultural heritage and have had wide-ranging social, cultural and political implications. 1

The Buddhist Revival in Contemporary Tibet: The Political Dimension

Deng Xiaoping’s policy change at the Third Party Plenum in 1978 introduced a radical transformation of Chinese society after the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. This led, among other things, to the re-enshrinement of the promise of ‘freedom of religious belief’ in the Chinese constitution (it had originally been mentioned in the Chinese constitution in 1954 but had later been discarded). This change of policy particularly affected those groups defined in

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China as ‘minority nationalities.’ Among these were Tibetans, who had been fully absorbed into China in 1951, and this triggered an enthusiastic revival of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibetan areas of China. This included the reconstruction of monasteries, the restoration of shrines, the re-establishment of rituals and festivals, and the recovery of those sacred items that had survived the Cultural Revolution. Traditional forms of Buddhist patronage re-emerged within the framework of the new market economy with Chinese characteristics. The Chinese authorities supported or condoned this religious revival at least in the 1980s, but also saw it as a social phenomenon that had to be studied and controlled by dedicated institutions.1 The decision to allow the revival has been linked to the revival of the United Front policy, a policy which had characterised the government’s approach in the 1950s towards nationalities that were not ethnic Chinese.2 Mao was deeply aware of the challenge that both religion and ethnicity represented to his political vision and in the case of a deeply Buddhist society like the Tibetan he saw these were deeply interlinked. At certain times he had expressed a pragmatic approach towards religion: “It is the peasants who put up the idols and, when the time comes, they will throw the idols out with their own hands . . . It is wrong for anybody else to do it for them.”3 His ultimate aim was clearly the full secularization of society, but he had a policy of encouraging strategic, short-term alliances with religious leaders. It was this policy that was known as the United Front: “Communists may form an anti-imperialist and anti-feudal united front with certain idealists and even with religious followers, but we can never approve of their idealism or religious doctrines.”4 The United Front policy of strategic alliance with the local leadership became a particularly important political tool in the Chinese government’s dealings with the Tibetan areas. Hardly any Tibetans had in fact embraced a communist view of the world when Mao embarked on the revolutionary project that led to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China and to the so-called ‘peaceful liberation’ of the Tibetan areas. The best-known 1 These include academies, universities, Buddhist associations and research centres such as the China Tibetology Centre (an organization directly under the United Front). 2 This policy, rooted in a system of strategic alliances deployed by the Communist party in its early days when facing different antagonists at the same time was adapted to address the needs of the Chinese government in dealing with non-Chinese nationalities in the 1950s. It is mainly reflected in the tasks of the United Front, an organ of the communist party dealing specifically with non-Communist components of Chinese society. See Dreyer (1972), pp. 416–50. 3 Mao Zedong (1961–65), vol. 1, p. 46. 4 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 155.

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exception was Bapa Phuntshog Wangyal, a Tibetan who was instrumental in the negotiations between Chinese and Tibetan leaderships at the time of the ‘liberation.’ At least in the 1940s he appears to have had his own vision of Tibet as part of a system of separate, Communist states. He would spend 18 years in prison after 1960 for the increasing discrepancies that emerged between his own vision and the official party line.5 Nevertheless, he remained a convinced Communist even after his re-habilitation in 1978. In his biography, his references, however, are not only to Marx, Lenin and Mao, but also to the famous eleventh-century Tibetan poet and mystic Milarepa: It was at the time of the Cultural Revolution, and I was able to read about it in the newspapers. I was shocked by what I read. I was not only angry at how unjustly I was being treated, but also angry at what was happening in China in the name of communism. When I saw pictures of thousands of people holding Mao’s small red book to ask for instructions in the morning and report their actions in the evening, I believed they must have lost their minds. I remembered the ancient yogi Milarepa’s words: ‘The world sees Mila as crazy, but Mila sees the world as crazy.’ [. . .] It was an accurate description of how I perceived my situation as I sat helpless in prison watching the madness raging outside. [. . .] I concentrated on studying logic, read and reread the works of Hegel and Marx and Lenin.6 The Tibetan cultural legacy thus in some cases remained significant even among those who had embraced a communist vision of society. As a Party member Bapa Phuntshog Wangyal would have become an atheist, so his view of Milarepa may have been fully secularized, or perhaps he had worked out his own way of reconciling aspects of Tibetan Buddhism with his own political vision. Buddhism and Communism have not always been seen as irreconcilable opposites and even in recent times some cadres have tried to argue for mediation between the two visions.7 In the Dengist era, this was sometimes proposed by arguing that society was at a pre-communist stage where different, less rigorous requirements were appropriate.8 Another approach was 5 Phuntso Wangyal aspired at a unified Tibet within a communist multi-ethnic China. This vision was seen as unacceptable among the Chinese leadership. For his biography see Goldstein, Sherap and Siebenschuh (2004). 6 Ibid., p. 254. 7 For a survey of arguments in this direction, cf. Welch (1972). 8 In January 1991 the Tibet had carried an article arguing that Tibetan Party members should be allowed to practise religion. See Zhang Shirong and Guo Wutian (1991).

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to argue that Buddhism did not really fit within the framework of religion as understood according to categories that emerged from Western cultural history and thus should not be targeted in the same way by Communist atheists.9 However, despite these efforts, an unresolved and uncomfortable tension between Party atheism, state secularism and Buddhist religious belief has persisted throughout Tibetan history since the arrival of Communism in 1949/50. Official attitudes have changed dramatically over time, ranging from the pragmatic tolerance of the 1950s and 1980s to the suppression of the late 1950s and the active attacks from the early 1960s to the late 1970s, including but not limited to the Cultural Revolution. Even when Tibetan Buddhism was not explicitly under attack, it seems to have been accepted by the Chinese government only from an instrumental point of view. It was explicitly viewed until 1981 as a force that should be eliminated from society, though at certain times this was expected to happen gradually rather than immediately. A significant change took place in 1981, when it was decided formally that this change would be gradual and that it would take place “of its own accord”: religion does not need to be eliminated by the Party but would wither away because of changes in economic and social conditions. This later view was described by one of the cadres in charge of religious affairs, Ye Xiaowen 叶小文 (*1950),10 the director of the State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA) and also a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee: When we talk about the long-term character of religion, we are generally talking about the gradual and prolonged process of religion naturally withering away, and the possibility and zig zag nature of religion rebounding during a certain historical period. . . . Since religion will exist over a long period of time throughout the socialist society and we will have to live with religion for a long time, and since there is a historical tradition of the unity of love of country and love of church, why wouldn’t we observe the objective law, bring the advantage of our tradition into

9 10

I have heard this argument in informal conversations with cadres and intellectuals but have not seen it in formal publications. Ye Xiaowen, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), played an important part in devising ethnic and religious policies. Since 1991 he has had leading positions in the United Front Work Department and the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau and was head of SARA from 1998 until 2009.

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play, and work hard to guide religious believers to better combine love of church and love of country?11 Statements like this show that the Chinese leadership has determined since the late 1970s that religion is not going to disappear very quickly with the modernisation of society. They seem however to imply that religion is seen as acceptable only temporarily and as part of a political strategy. Such an approach has led to what, in Tibet, is generally considered a certain degree of tolerance of religious activity, limited by tight regulatory practices that make a complete Buddhist revival problematic12 and regulated or policed by institutions that are often considered to have a cynical view of religious issues.13 2

Buddhist Revival in Contemporary Tibet and its Positioning in Tibetan Buddhist History

Among Tibetans the Buddhist revival of the Deng and post-Deng eras has been described as part of a continuum within Tibet’s Buddhist history.14 This has traditionally been divided into two periods: the “early spread of the doctrine” (Tib. bstan pa snga dar), which took place at the time of the Tibetan empire (sixth-nineth centuries) and came to an end with the murder of the Buddhist emperor Thri Ralpachen, followed by the murder of the anti-­Buddhist emperor Langdarma and the subsequent civil war; and the “later spread of the doctrine” (Tib. btsan pa phyi dar), which was initiated by Buddhist teachers or 11 12

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Ye Xiaowen (1997). Tibetans often lament that although many monastic building have been restored, teachings and ritual practices have only been revived in a limited and approximate way. Religious life in monasteries has also often been made difficult by a tight set of regulations and by the presence of government officials. Certain forms of religious life have emerged in Tibetan areas that are outside the conventional institutions. Antonio Terrone (2009), p. 85, for example, has written about “semi-monastic Buddhist centres [that] are registered as mountain hermitages (ri khrod) and religious encampments (chos sgar), thereby choosing an unofficial status rather than the qualification of a formal monastery and its associated restrictions.” The most famous example is given by the controversies around the recognition of reincarnations; see Barnett (2008). This conceptualisation builds on a widespread historiographic model, used especially in the genre called chos ’byungs (literally ‘the becoming of the doctrine’ but generally translated as ‘history’) in which Tibetan history is equated with the spread of the Buddhist doctrine.

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monks together with local rulers who revived Buddhism and introduced new Buddhist teaching from India during the late tenth and eleventh centuries. The current revival has been described as a third period, the “further spread of the doctrine” (Tib. bstan pa yang dar). This implies an equation of the Cultural Revolution and the persecutions of the early 1960s with the legendary persecution of Buddhism by Langdarma in the ninth century15 and emphasizes the ability of Buddhism to re-emerge and consolidate in new conditions. The use of this phrase—which is also employed in a different way in the Diaspora to describe the spread of Buddhism to the West after the 1959 exile— invokes a notion of continuing Tibetan history in which Buddhist teachings spread recurrently after a period of persecution, as well as recalling the imperial period of Tibet, when it was ruled by powerful Emperors from the seventh to the ninth centuries. This periodisation includes notions of restoration as well as change: It celebrates the revival of ancient religious ideals and practices at the same time as marking their adaptation to new circumstances. It thus has a pragmatic character. In the current case a blend of secular and religious elements can be seen in the attitude to Buddhist scholarship and to the conservation of Buddhist resources: there has been a significant development of Tibetan secular and even secularist studies of Buddhism among Tibetan scholars (both in and outside Tibet), who engage with Buddhism as part of their cultural heritage as well as or instead of treating it purely as a religion. These modern Tibetan scholars are often seen as part of the ‘further spread of the doctrine,’ for they promote the development of Buddhist resources notwithstanding their secular approach. In addition to the revival among Tibetans, Tibetan Buddhism has also acquired an increasing cohort of ethnic Chinese disciples in the last ten years as well as a significant following in the West in the last half century. These include disciples joining the ‘religious encampments’ (Tib. chos sgar) that have gathered around charismatic lamas in eastern Tibet; wealthy patrons, especially from the east coast, Taiwan and Southeast Asia, supporting Buddhist teachers and institutions in many Tibetan areas, and large numbers of

15

To what extent Langdarma actually suppressed Buddhism or simply tried to contain Buddhist interference in the running of the state is still debated. Recent research tends to indicate that the persecution of Buddhism attributed to him has more of a legendary than a historical character (see Karmay 2003, pp. 57–66). For the current discussion, however, this is largely irrelevant since in Tibetan traditional historiography, and in folk-models informed by it, Langdarma is generally considered a persecutor of Buddhism.

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tourist-pilgrims, who are often very generous donors.16 Although their reasons are very different, they follow in the footsteps of those ethnic Chinese who became followers of Tibetan Buddhism during the late Republican era, as described by Gray Tuttle in his study of the making of modern China.17 Buddhism has also revived among other groups such as the Mongols, who, as traditional followers of Tibetan Buddhism, have been rebuilding their own religious traditions, often networking with Tibetans, both in China and in exile, and sometimes cutting across ethnic boundaries.18 There is thus a limited but increasing number of people in China who are not Tibetans, especially among the middle classes, who appear to recognise Buddhist values and religious authority on their own merit and not through the lenses of political strategy. An increasing number of Han Chinese Buddhist pilgrims currently visiting Lhasa are a witness to this development. Some of them follow their own tradition of Chinese Buddhism and worship the holy sites according to their own ritual practices, others have apparently become followers of Tibetan Buddhism and thereby reflect a wider trend.19 3

The Buddhist Revival in Contemporary Tibet: The Re-discovery and Reprinting of Ancient Texts

Books have been central to the spread of Buddhism from its earliest days and were a prominent element in its arrival in Tibet at the beginning of recorded Tibetan history (the seventh century CE). Recovered ancient texts have therefore played an important role in the current process of cultural and religious revival, even if they have been conceptualised and understood in different ways by different people. 16 17

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See Terrone (2009), pp. 73–75; Germano (1998), pp. 53–55; Diemberger (2007), p. 315; Yü (2012). I am referring here to figures such as Nenghai (1886–1967) and Fazun (1902–1980) who built up powerful networks of Chinese followers of Tibetan Buddhism. See Tuttle (2005), pp. 212ff. I came across a female Hui disciple of a Tibetan Lama who had established himself in Western Inner Mongolia. This is of course an isolated case. Hui are generally considered to be Muslim except for those who are secularized such as party officials. This woman after a personal crisis had been a follower of the Falun Gong 法轮功 movement, which was criminalised in China in 1999, and eventually became a Tibetan Buddhist. There is also an increasing number of Han Chinese followers of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolian areas of China. See Yü (2012).

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Buddhist objects of worship are classified in the Tibetan tradition as “receptacles for body, speech and mind” (Tib. sku gsung thugs rten). This classification can be seen as connected to the Buddhist worship of relics in its widest sense as the cult of anything that embodies the presence of the Buddha and the later Buddhist spiritual masters.20 It refers to three categories of objects that can be used as primary forms of religious practice: statues and images which can be seen, scriptures and others forms of Buddhist writing that can be read, recited and studied, and actual relics with their containers, which are usually experienced in the form of reliquaries called stūpa in Sanskrit or chorten (Tib. mchod rten) in Tibetan, stepped, tapering structures that typically range in size from a small building to a large tower. Books as ‘receptacles for the speech’ of the Buddha and the Buddhist teachers that spread his message have thus been of particular importance as conveyers of religious ideas and as sacred objects that could be worshipped, studied, memorized, taught from, or activated through ritual actions such as public recitations or the turning of inscribed prayer-wheels. Sacred books have been rescued, rewritten, reprinted or even revealed at various times in Tibetan history. This has happened particularly among the more mystically oriented traditions such as that of the Nyingmapa, who have developed a practice known as ‘treasure revealers’ (Tib. gter ston) since the 12th century, meaning teachers or mystics who are able to discover sacred texts and well as ritual items and relics that had been hidden during the imperial period. These discovered texts have periodically been very influential in revivalist movements.21 In the current revival, books have again had an important 20

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Strong (2004), pp. 9 and 19–20, highlights the fact that Sanskrit and Pali words used to refer to relics have rather different connotations than their English counterparts. Ibid., p. 9, he observes that “dharma relics and body relics could be used in similar ways as stand-ins for the Buddha” and that ancient Buddhist classifications tend to mention texts along with bodily and contact relics. However “the inclusion of images among relics is more problematic for unlike body and contact relics (relics of use), they do not have the basis of any physical connection with the Buddha. For this reason, perhaps, bodily (or textual) relics were sometimes used to ‘reinforce’ and image ‘connection’ to the Buddha, and were inserted into images at the time of consecration.” See also Bentor (1995). The Tibetan classification of ‘receptacles for body, speech and mind’ tends to bring all the stand-ins for the Buddha and for the later spiritual masters together, even though differences among them are reflected in ritual practice. Tertons (gter ston) are spiritual masters who discovered books, ritual items, and even places, considered to have been hidden in the eighth century, during the Tibetan empire, to be revealed at the appropriate time. These masters would then pass these spiritual treasures on to their disciples. This idea has proved to be very powerful at different times in

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part both in the Tibetan areas of China and in the diaspora, whether as discovered treasure texts or as rediscovered or republished canonical texts. When the Dalai Lama went into exile in 1959 he was followed by about eighty thousand Tibetans, many of whom carried with them their most sacred possessions which they felt to be vulnerable, many of which were books. The priority given to the rescue of these books sometimes surprised outsiders, and even Tibetans. For example, the sister of the Dorje Phagmo, a high-ranking incarnated lama who went into exile briefly in 1959 before returning to Tibet,22 recalled her surprise in seeing innumerable boxes of books amidst the people fleeing from Tibet in 1959: As time passed we ran out of food and we started to look for berries and anything edible in the forest. Some people got poisoned because of eating the wrong things and many died. The lama [who we met there] had many horses that were fully loaded, but the containers were full of holy books. [. . .] When his people left the monastery they had mainly packed the holy books and not much else. Load after load were boxes of holy books . . .23 People had probably assumed they would be able to find food on the way and they certainly expected to return soon. But they had good reasons for thinking that sacred texts would be destroyed immediately, though in fact this did not happen till about five years later. Thanks to this attitude towards sacred books, entire collections were taken to India in a similar way. All these efforts were part of a general engagement to protect Tibetan religious heritage at a time when Tibetan monasteries and their contents had to be abandoned. Indeed, almost all religious books would be destroyed some five years later during the Cultural Revolution. In India the books that had arrived from Tibet were at first stored where possible and then gradually many of them

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history, especially in periods of crisis, and has been central to the development of recent religious movements around charismatic leaders such as Lama Jigme Phuntsho in eastern Tibet. See Germano (1998), pp. 53–55; Terrone (2009), pp. 73–75. The Dorje Phagmo is a high ranking lama in Tibet. She belongs to the most famous of the rare female reincarnation lines. The current Dorje Phagmo is considered to be the twelfth reincarnation of a prominent fifteenth century holy woman. She was born around 1938 and is currently the head of Samding monastery and a cadre in the administration of the Tibet Autonomous Region. In the spring 1959 she escaped into exile but returned to China in the Autumn of the same year. For an outline of her life and her complex position see Diemberger (2007), pp. 288–90. From an interview with Dorje Phagmo’s elder sister, July 1998.

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were re-printed. In the1960s a wealth of republished scriptures found their way not only into the Tibetan monasteries and teaching institutions newly established in exile but also into universities and ‘Dharma centres’ across the world. While some books and relics found their way into exile, the largest part of the Tibetan cultural heritage remained in the Tibetan areas of China. Here, once the Cultural Revolution got under way, religious items and the sacred structures that contained them were targeted for destruction and desecration as symbols of what was called ‘the Four Olds,’ i.e. old customs, old culture, old habits, old ideas. Books along with other religious objects therefore became the focus of strenuous efforts by ordinary people to hide and protect them. They were hidden in caves, private houses and remote shelters. Some 15 years later, once the practice of Buddhism was allowed again in the early 1980s, some of those volumes that had been hidden were gradually recovered and returned to their sacred homes, often enriched by narratives of their adventurous survival. It was generally recognized that the religious heritage of Tibet had been reconstructed in exile, where there had indeed been an extraordinarily vigorous construction of monasteries and proliferation of publications in Tibetan as well as translations in numerous languages, with a vast circulation of religious texts as well as scholarly studies. But by the turn of the millennium, it became gradually apparent to specialists that a significant number of rare and precious sacred texts had come to light within Tibet since the 1980s. Some were rare items that had been hidden and later revealed by their keepers, while many others were in monastic libraries that had somehow survived intact. During the 1990s, there was an enormous industry of publication by the authorities in China for the latter publications, consisting of items from the libraries that had survived within Tibet. In the last 5–10 years, items of the first kind began to appear in published form—the extremely rare texts that had been hidden and were thought to have been completely lost. These have become the focus of increasingly sophisticated efforts at protection and copying, including a massive re-printing activity. Tibetologists such as Matthew Kapstein have commented on the impressive amount of texts previously unknown in the West that have recently become available in Tibet.24 There are thus two main forms of sacred publishing in Tibet now: the books and documents preserved in archives established by the government25 which are handled primarily by officials and scholars, and 24 25

See Kapstein (2008), p. 24. These are housed in institutions such as museums, libraries, academies, universities, archives and cultural relics offices. These institutions often interface also with monasteries for the preservation of the collections kept there.

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the network of monastic libraries, private collections and personally held fragments and volumes that were hidden and recovered by individuals. The second type of operation, the semi- or unofficial networks of textual recovery and republishing involves a variety of people and institutions. Officials sometimes take part in them in different capacities, as do many scholars and monks. Lay people are also often involved in the work of textual recovery. I shall describe here a telling example that epitomizes this widespread phenomenon: N is a nomad who was born in a remote rural area of Shigatse Prefecture, in western central Tibet just before the Cultural Revolution. His family had always had great devotion for the local monastery, which was destroyed in the Cultural Revolution. N was not able to flee in 1959, but others from his area were, including monks and lay people who carried the collected works of the founder of the monastery into exile, where they arranged for them to be reprinted in India. In the 1980s and 1990s, the local people who had remained in N’s area were able to carry out partial reconstruction. In the 1990s a newly printed set was offered by exile Tibetans from that area to the reconstructed monastery and a stūpa was build to house the collection, becoming one of the main objects of worship there. However, the collection was missing several volumes. N, despite having had only one year of formal schooling, was able to train himself in Tibetan history and literature by studying the new government-issued reprints of classical texts, which he was able to buy in nearby towns. He studied the reprinted collection in great detail and decided to dedicate his time to finding the missing volumes. He traveled widely to try to find whether volumes of this collection had survived in other monasteries, so far only with partial success. This put him in touch with other scholars and groups of Tibetans involved in similar efforts across Tibet. Not far from N’s home area is another monastery that had been completely abandoned for many years, i.e. from 1959 until 1989. This monastery had been a printing house in early centuries and contained ancient printing blocks as well as a formidable library and mural paintings. In 1989, an official from Lhasa visited the monastery, which at that time was still completely abandoned. He later described that visit: I first went there in 1989 with two colleagues. At that time we were deeply aware that a lot had been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and we felt that we had to take care of what had survived . . . When we found the ruins of the monastery we saw ancient printing blocks exposed to the rain, and ritual objects that we felt to be very precious scattered all over the place. We felt great pity, we were very sad . . . And we felt that we should at least take care of the ancient printing blocks.

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This official, himself a member of the Communist Party, and his two colleagues were eventually able to organize permission and some financial support for a former monk and a more junior, local official to lead a collective effort to restore the monastery. In the following months a community of nuns gathered there and started to run the monastery. One day the nuns discovered that the ancient library of the monastery had been hidden in a cave in the mountains above the monastery, but the cave was very difficult to access and recovery of the texts there was too big a challenge for the nuns. Some time later, the head nun was invited to Lhasa by state officials to attend one of the ‘patriotic education’ (Ch. aiguo jiaoyu 愛國教育) sessions that all nuns and monks have been required to participate in since 1996. During this visit, she met other heads of monasteries and nunneries, including the leader of the main monastery in N’s area. She described the cave-library to him and he promised to help with the recovery effort. When the monk returned to his monastery he spoke to N about it, and eventually they both went and helped the nuns to recover what was left of the ancient library. The badly damaged texts, after some restoration, have found their way into the altar room of the reconstructed monastery. N produced a list describing the books and fragments that had been recovered, which is due to be published by one of the other organisations working on similar projects whom he had met in Lhasa during his search for the missing works from the founder of his tradition. Among the texts that N and the nuns found in the cave-library was one of the missing volumes he had been looking for. Official efforts to preserve Tibetan cultural heritage through state-backed institutions and scholars thus continue alongside what might be called a civil project or movement in contemporary Tibetan society that is focused on the recovery of sacred texts. As we shall see, this work often combines views and practices that are seen as ‘traditional’—forms of patronage, ways of handling sacred objects, veneration of canonical literature and so on—with practices that are seen as ‘modern,’ such as secular scholarship and new technology. 4

‘Cultural Relics’ to be Preserved or Texts to be Studied?

The state in post-Cultural Revolution China considers cultural patrimony to be an important element of state property and part of its responsibility. Significant sums are therefore invested in the construction and maintenance of institutions and personnel to register, record and preserve items that in China are termed ‘cultural relics’ and include precious texts. A significant amount of the valuable cultural objects in Tibet that have survived the Cultural Revolution have

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accordingly been taken into care by state institutions. Although images and statues have largely been returned to functioning monasteries, many ancient books are held in state libraries and archives to guarantee their preservation and are often difficult to access. The tension between preserving valuable texts as objects and using texts for teaching, ritual and study has thus led to some difficulties for scholars and officials, religious practitioners and administrators. The Austrian Tibetologist Ernst Steinkellner, who studied China’s extremely high-level preservation of ancient palm leaf manuscripts (taken from India to Tibet in ancient times and currently of great significance among international scholars), commented: As a material they are classified as ‘cultural objects’ (wenwu). With regard to their ‘contents’ (neirong), the ‘texts,’ they are obviously not part of Tibetan Studies. For they are written in Sanskrit. But because of their history they nevertheless form part of Tibetan culture.26 By referring to the distinction between cultural object and content, Steinkellner sought to highlight how these two aspects needed to be treated in separate ways, each according to their own merits. He highlighted the transnational character of these items that defied any simple classifications. With this distinction, he also clarified the recognition of the need for access to content by the scholarly community, both internationally and within China and emphasized the power of these items in fostering a dialogue across cultures: These texts, distant in time and content from our world as they are, must not only be considered in terms of their own material value as cultural objects. Since they contain texts, they may also serve as a symbol: a symbol for information (xinxi 信息) . . . that is given to us as a means to understanding another human being, another human religion, another human society. To actively care for texts of such cultural importance as those contained in these manuscript collections can also be understood as a symbol for an unconditioned readiness to listen and pay attention to the words and ideas of our present and past ‘neighbours’ in the global community that we all live in nowadays.27

26 27

Steinkellner (2006), p. 208. Ibid., p. 210.

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The issue raised in relation to the ancient Sanskrit texts preserved in Tibet is certainly valid more generally and applies to all ancient books and documents that have historical and/or religious significance. 5

Buddhist Book Culture

According to the Pāli canonical text Mahāparinibbannasutta, the Buddha said: “The Doctrine and the Discipline, Ānanda, which I have taught and enjoined upon you is to be your teacher when I am gone.”28 The last instructions of the Buddha before passing into Nirvana are often cited by Buddhist authorities to explain why teachings are given a primary role in the Buddhist religion. These were soon passed on in the form of texts rather than just oral teachings and gave rise to a book culture that spread across Asia. Here the copying and distributing of sacred scriptures became one of the distinctive features of a great variety of Buddhist cultures.29 From inception, the development of printing technologies has reflected links among different cultures: it emerged from the encounter of Indian Buddhist thought with Chinese culture as early as the seventh century and spread across East Asia. Printing technologies later also travelled through the communication networks of the Mongolian empire, stimulating further technological developments as well as cultural and social transformations. Tim Barrett has suggested that the discovery and development of printing in Tang 唐 (618–907) China was influenced to a significant degree by the Buddhist idea that texts could be used as relics and that their distribution was an act of merit, emulating the deeds of the sacred Indian ruler Aśoka.30 The notion that the multiplication and distribution of texts was a merit-accruing activity also informed the way in which printing was adopted by other Buddhist societies, including Tibet. Books, as embodiments of the words and deeds of the Buddha and of the masters who have carried on his legacy, have thus been more than a medium for conveying a message. For centuries they have also been ritual objects of a special kind: they have been the subjects of a religious morality that organised the way in which they were handled, multiplied and distributed. Detailed instructions are given for the handling of sacred texts in, for example, the colophon of one of the most widespread Buddhist texts, The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Verses: 28 29 30

See Warren (1984), p. 70. Barrett (2008). See Barrett (2008), pp. 131–32.

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When, through the Tathāgata’s sustaining power it has been well written, in very distinct letters, in a great book, one should honor, revere and worship it, with flowers, incense, scents, wreaths, unguents, aromatic powders, strips of cloth, parasols, banners, bells, flags and with rows of lamps all round, and with manifold kinds of worship . . . You have ministered to me, Ānanda, with friendly acts of body, acts of speech, acts of mind. Therefore, then Ānanda, just as you have given affection, faith and respect to me as I am present in this incarnation, just so, Ānanda, should you act after my decease towards this perfection of wisdom.31 Scriptures were to be treated as persons worthy of respect who could bestow blessings and the Tibetan vocabulary used to refer to books suggests that they are to be seen as dressed with monastic robes (Tib. na bza’) and belts (Tib. sku rags), invited (Tib. spyan ‘dren) from one place to another and met (Tib. mjal) by people as if they were religious personalities. Sometimes holy books are ‘invited’ to bless the fields in that the community carries them around in a ritual circuit (see Fig. 8.1). In many ways sacred books can be considered as sites of the distributed personhood of the Buddha and of those who followed in his footsteps embodying his legacy. These practices recall theories of non-human agency developed by anthropologists involved in the cross-cultural study of art objects and literary artefacts.32 These culturally-specific attitudes towards books have affected the technologies used to produce and reproduce them and have had an impact on the people that dealt with such literary artifacts in different capacities over the centuries. Such a Buddhist understanding of the book underpinned the introduction of printing technologies into Tibet, as it appears from early Tibetan prints such as the Perfection of Wisdom produced by the ruler of southern Lato in 1407 to accrue merits for his deceased father.33 As we shall see below, it is also currently affecting the way in which digital technologies are being adopted. Current findings suggest that the printing of texts in the Tibetan language began around the twelfth and thirteenth centuries CE outside Tibet, relying

31 32 33

Conze (1973), pp. 299–300. See Gell (1998); Diemberger and Phuntsho (2009); Boutcher (forthcoming). I have recently come across this print, one of the earliest from Central Tibet, in a local library in Central Tibet. More details will follow in a dedicated publication. The practice of copying sacred texts or producing a print edition to accrue merits for a deceased person was in any case very widespread.

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Figure 8.1 Books are carried around the fields to bless them. (Photograph taken by the author)

on Chinese and Tangut technologies.34 The earliest known examples are the Kharakhoto 1153 print of a Tibetan ritual text and the Hor par ma or ‘Mongolian Prints’ of Sakya Pandita’s work produced in Dadu 大都, current day Beijing 北京, with the patronage of the Mongolian Khans. However, it was only in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century that reproduction of texts using wooden blocks spread into central Tibet.35 Here, competing local rulers saw in the sponsorship of print editions a meritorious deed that would enhance not only their personal spiritual development but also the profile of their governance as Dharmarajas or Buddhist rulers. Still, they were not the sole sponsors, since printing projects were often promoted and supported by lay and monastic networks. Colophons of early Tibetan prints list innumerable names of donors from all walks of life who provided the materials that enabled the carving and the printing of the blocks.36 34

35 36

Tangut were great experts in printing technologies. Their rulers were also keen reenactors of the Ashokan ideal of Buddhist kinship and were known as great distributors of Buddhist texts and images, They also became the twelfth-century masters of movable type printing, cf. Barrett (2008), p. 97. Erhard (2000); Schaeffer (2009). See, for example, Clemente (2007), pp. 121–60.

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These patrons were motivated by what can be seen as a ‘morality of the book,’ a code of conduct that links the production and handling of the written or printed artifact to wider religious values (as detailed above). Similarly, the retrieval and restoration of texts following the Cultural Revolution has involved a new specialised ‘craftsmanship,’ i.e. information technology, and the emergence of spontaneous lay and monastic networks supported by multifarious forms of patronage, both local and international. In both cases, this ‘Buddhist morality of the book’ has been a key driving force bringing together people and combining the ritual handling of the book as sacred artifact with that of the book as medium conveying a message. 6

Sacred Books in the Digital Era

Ancient Buddhist cosmopolitanism, with its pervasive sense that texts are relics, laid the basis for the development and adoption of printing technologies in many Asian countries. Such an attitude remained an important cultural feature of Tibetan society over the centuries. Against this background, Tibetans’ current use of digital technologies to help with the preservation and access of their sacred texts can be seen as building on a similar mindset in that a new technology could be used to fulfill more efficiently a culturally encoded, expected behavior (see Fig. 8.2). This might explain why these innovations have been so readily adopted in Tibet and beyond.37 The adoption of new technologies rather than representing an agent of secularization seems to have become, at least in some contexts, enchanted by the objects they have been applied to: caring for and spreading the word of the Buddha is now, as it was then, an act of merit. The Tibetan religious text does not lose its sacred force when it is transformed into a digital object and these objects are sometimes still attributed some of the qualities of the printed or hand-written texts. But this is subject to change and variation, because the ways in which a CD or a hard drive containing religious texts is handled depend on the contexts in which they are found. I have seen CD and hard drives on altars next to traditional books, sometimes wrapped in book “robes” or swathed in white greeting scarves (Tib. kha btags) like a book or statue would be when presented. I have even seen CDs treated as prayer-wheels, spinning their sacred message at electronic speed. 37

Projects for the digitisation of Tibetan materials have mushroomed across the Tibetan Buddhist world not only in China but also in India, Nepal, Bhutan as well as Europe and America.

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Figure 8.2 Monk taking photograph of illumination with his mobile phone. (Photograph courtesy of Bruce Huett)

But of course these items are produced in such great numbers that there are also instances where they are discarded or treated as ordinary household items or commodities. The ‘morality of the book’ seems to have been an important driving force for a range of networks that deal with the recovery and reprinting of books, which have recently emerged in various Tibetan areas of China. The Paltseg Research Institute based in Lhasa is one of them and is currently the most successful and representative of the grass-root private organisations involved in book retrieval and reproduction in Tibet. It produced the catalogue of the Drepung monastery library; it brought to light the only known surviving central Tibetan manuscript from the imperial period (sixth to ninth centuries); and has recovered and published numerous materials in Tibetan that had been thought to have been lost.38 The Paltseg Research Institute is one of the organisations that have emerged by bringing together book rescuing effort of several people. It can be seen as 38

They recently published for example a collection of previously unobtainable works relating to the Kadampa school considered a sensation among Tibetologists.

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a rhizomatic structure in which people sharing a similar vision have gathered bringing with them their own expertise and their own networks. Some of the founding members are monks or ex-monks, others are lay scholars, and they have been training people, especially in the sites in which they carry out their book-rescue operations. They have been working in different monasteries, plowing through heaps of disordered folios, reconstituting volumes, separating complete from incomplete ones and wrapping them in their protective cloth, their ‘robe.’ In doing so they have been re-enacting centuries-old modes of handling literary artifacts. The staff also use scanners to digitize the texts, hard drives to store them, and computers to carry out optical character recognition or to allow digital input by typists. They are thus able to reproduce the most precious items and to list systematically the entire holdings of the collections they process. They had established a dedicated workshop in Lhasa where the part of their digitisation and computer cataloguing that is not carried out in monasteries has taken place in the last few years. The most important texts are input by hand into computers and prepared for re-print (see Fig. 8.3). A system of double-input—meaning that the same text is entered in twice by separate typists, and then compared electronically—is used to avoid errors, and the editing follows a method that recalls the instructions given by the famous Tibetan scholar of the Buddhist Canon, Buton, in a letter to his team in fourteenth-century Tibet.39 The staff read aloud or chant the texts that they are editing on their computers, not dissimilar to the practice found in the study areas of monasteries. The workers at the digital editing house are mainly young students who had dropped out from higher education, as well as a few monks and nuns. The Paltseg has its main centre in Lhasa but it also has branches located in other parts of Tibet and is linked with similar operations taking place in Sichuan 四川 and Qinghai 青海. The main centre was originally established as a private company (Ch. gongsi 公司) but has recently acquired the status of a non-profit organisation (Ch. shiye danwei 事業單位)40 after a long legal procedure. The choice of registering a cultural, ‘non-profit’ operation as a commercial company or business is a commonly pursued option, since it is very difficult to register an organization as an official NGO in China, and

39 40

See Schaeffer (2009), pp. 14–16. The term refers to scientific research institutes, educational institutions, as well as government-sanctioned social and professional organizations (e.g., the Consumer Rights Association), health serviceshtt, cultural organizations, and athletic organizations.

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Figure 8.3 Paltseg monk typing text into computer. (Photograph taken by the author)

unregistered organizations are at risk of being considered illegal.41 Meanwhile the enterprise and its Buddhist vision has attracted increasing support on the part of Tibetan and Chinese donors so that it has grown in size and scope, and now includes a vocational training program aiming at the restoration of traditional Tibetan craftsmanship. Loosely linked to the original book rescue and reprinting project are a number of truly commercial enterprises such as restaurants and handicraft centres that help run the operation and can benefit also from the current favorable credit facilities. Funding also trickles in according to patterns that are reminiscent of ancient structures of patronage: from ordinary individuals who fund the reproduction of single volumes or collection of books, to wealthy Buddhist traders who make larger donations in cash or kind to support the entire operation, or who donate land to build new premises. However, no individual profit is apparently sought and everything is re-invested to keep the operation running and expanding. The publications can now be purchased across the world and have significantly enriched the 41

I mean organisations such as the TDF, Tibet Development Fund, which were established as official NGOs in the post-Mao era. The TDF had the Panchen Lama and Ngabo Ngawang Jigme as figure-heads but had important figures of the United Front of the Communist Party involved in its running. Despite the tensions between Buddhist and communist moralities, the cadres of this organisation have been able to carry out important restoration of religious sites and welfare projects.

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academic world of Tibetan Studies and the global Buddhist networks, as well as religious followers in Tibet. In Qinghai, a similar network has emerged known as the Ngak Mang Institute.42 Based in Rebkong and Xining 西宁, this organisation has been reprinting Tibetan texts, promoting research in Tibetan Buddhist culture and promoting the training of lay tantric practitioners. The leading figure is at the same time a tantric priest and a journalist with the Qinghai Daily. He is both a secular scholar and a religious practitioner, one of the many intellectuals who have a number of different roles. For example, the publishing of tantric texts poses different choices for him as a practitioner and as a modern scholarpublisher. The texts were originally intended for restricted circulation among initiates, but he has argued that the preservation and diffusion of this religious heritage has priority over traditional restrictions that require particular initiations to be taken before access to a text is granted. To address this issue, the Institute has thus published texts with the warning that whoever makes use of them is expected to have taken care of the necessary ritual requirements otherwise he or she would incur the relevant risks. Specific purification rituals also have to be carried out in situations where the typing of tantric texts into a computer might affect the person carrying out this task. Rather than leading straight to secularization, the most modern technologies seems thus to have become part of a sort of re-enchantment of the world. Digital technologies have certainly made an important contribution to the preservation and diffusion of rare Tibetan texts. In some cases the end product is a conventional book, in others a digital object stored on a CD or a hard drive. In some cases texts are published on the web. Websites have been acquiring increasing significance, especially for charismatic treasure revealers such as Lama Urgyen Kusum Lingpa, a spiritual master who has gathered a large ‘religious encampment’ around him. These are often popular among Tibetans and Chinese who are able to gain access to ritual texts and narratives of their teachers’ lives as well as to address other needs, not unlike the practice of Lebanese Imams described by Morgan Clarke, who routinely use the web to issue their fatvas, i.e. their ritual decisions on matters asked by their followers, and the many more instances in which the web is used for religious purposes across the globe.43 Digital technologies have also facilitated transnational networking in respect to Tibetan resources. One of the most significant new developments is the possibility that digital copies of important texts that have been housed 42 43

See http://www.ngakmang.org (accessed 1 July 2013). Terrone (2009); cf. M. Clarke (2010).

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in libraries and academic institutions around the world can be returned to the relevant monasteries. For example the Tibet Buddhist Resource Centre (TBRC), which is a digitization project in New York, not only has a significant presence for scholars but has also been distributing hard drives containing an entire library of Tibetan resources in Tibetan and Mongolian areas. Another example is the digital copies of rare texts preserved at the British Library that have been recently returned to several monasteries in Tibet. The networks that have emerged around certain books and collections of books have linked up academic and Buddhist institutions, scholars and practitioners, cutting across the divide between the religious and the secular, but now on an increasingly global dimension. Conclusion Books, whether texts printed on paper or created as screen images, clearly remain a central element in the current Tibetan Buddhist revival, the socalled ‘further spread of the doctrine.’ Increasingly, what is happening in the Tibetan areas of China is linked with developments in other parts of Tibet and of China, with exile communities, and with the world at large. As sacred artifacts, books are still highly significant in the living tradition in all their ancient and new forms. New technologies, such as digital text reproduction, rather than representing an agent of secularization and of a Weberian ‘disenchantment of the world’ seem to have become, at least in some contexts, enchanted by the sacredness of the objects they have been applied to. As in the case of Islamic communities, while digital technologies appear new and innovative, their perception and use has a firm basis in classical religious concepts.44 The Buddhist traditions of respect for sacred texts has continued, and has led formal and informal networks of people to engage in these operations, despite the sometimes difficult conditions in contemporary Tibet, where the politics of cultural revival constantly requires a balance between secular and Buddhist scholarship and between state-sponsored cultural preservation and grassroots initiatives.

44

See Bunt (2009).

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Bibliography Barnett, Robert (2008). “Authenticity, Secrecy and Public Space: Chen Kuiyuan and Representations of the Panchen Lama Reincarnation Dispute of 1995.” In: Robert Barnett and Ronald Schwartz (eds.), Tibetan Modernities: Notes from the Field on Cultural and Social Change. Papers presented at the Xth IATS Seminar, Oxford, 2003. Leiden: Brill, pp. 353–421. Barrett, Timothy H. (2008). The Woman Who Discovered Printing. Yale: Yale University Press. Bentor, Yael (1995). “Literature on Consecration (Rab gnas).” In: José Ignacio Cabezón (ed.), Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, pp. 290–311. Boutcher, Warren (2013). “Literary Art and Agency? Gell and the Magic of the Early Modern Book.” In: Liana Chua and Mark Elliot (eds.), Distributed Objects: Meaning and Mattering After Alfred Gell. New York and Oxford: Berghahn, pp. 155–175. Bunt, Gary (2009). iMuslims: Rewiring the House of Islam. London: Hurst. Clarke, Morgan (2010). “Neo-calligraphy: Religious Authority and Media Technology in Contemporary Shiite Islam.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 52, pp. 351–83. Clemente, Michela (2007). “Colophon as Sources: Historical Information from Some Brag dkar rta so Xylographies.” Rivista di Studi Asiatici 2, pp. 121–60. Conze, Edward (1994). The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines & Its Verse Summary. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications (first published in 1973). Diemberger, Hildegard (2007). When a Woman Becomes a Dynasty: The Samding Dorje Phagmo of Tibet. New York: Columbia University Press. Diemberger, Hildegard and Karma Phuntsho (eds.) (2009). Ancient Treasures, New Discoveries. Proceedings of the Eleventh Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Königswinter 2006. Halle: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies. Dreyer, June (1972). “Traditional Minority Elites.” In: Robert A. Scalapino and Gordon A. Bennett (eds.), Elites in the People’s Republic of China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, pp. 416–450. Ehrhard, Franz-Karl (2000). Early Buddhist Block Prints from Mangyul Gungthang. Lumbini: Lumbini International Research Institute. Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. (1993). The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gell, Alfred (1998). Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Germano, David (1998). “Remembering the Dismembered Body of Tibet.” In: Melvyn C. Goldstein and Matthew Kapstein (eds.), Buddhism in Contemporary Tibet. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 53–94.

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Goldstein, Melvyn C., Dawei Sherap and William R. Siebenschuh (2004). A Tibetan Revolutionary: The Political Life and Times of Bapa Phüntso Wangye. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Kapstein, Matthew (2006). The Tibetans. Oxford: Blackwell. Karmay, Samten G. (2003). “King Lang Darma and His Rule.” Alex McKay (ed.), Tibet and Her Neighbours. A History. London: Hansjörg Mayer, pp. 57–66. Kuijp, Leonard W. J. van der (1993). “Two Mongol Xylographs (Hor Par ma) of the Tibetan Text of Sa skya Pandita’s Work on Buddhist Logic and Epistemology.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 16, pp. 279–98. Mao Zedong (1961–1965). Selected Works. 4 vols. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. McLuhan, Marshall (2001). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. London: Routledge (first published in 1964). Pieke, Frank (2007). “Market Leninism: Party Schools and Cadre Training in Contemporary China.” BICC Working Papers Series No. 3, August 2007, (accessed 9 July 2013). Schaeffer, Kurtis R. (2009). The Culture of the Book in Tibet. New York: Columbia University Press. Sørensen, Per (1994). The Mirror Illluminating the Royal Genealogies. Translation of rGyal rabs gsal ba’i me long. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Steinkellner, Ernst (2006). “The Buddhist Tradition of Epistemology and Logic (tshad ma) and Its Significance for Tibetan Civilisation.” In: André Gingrich and Guntram Hazod (eds.), Der Rand und die Mitte: Beiträge zur Sozialanthropologie und Kulturgeschichte Tibets und des Himalaya. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, pp. 193–210. Strong, John (2004). Relics of the Buddha. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Sudbury, Jill (2007). An Enigmatic Renaissance: The Revival of the Bodongpa Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. DPhil thesis, Oxford University. Terrone, Antonio (2009). “Householders and Monks: A Study of Treasure Revealers and their Role in Religious Revival in Contemporary Eastern Tibet.” In: Sarah Jacoby and Antonio Terrone (eds.), Buddhism Beyond the Monastery: Tantric Practices and their Performers in Tibet and the Himalayas. Leiden: Brill, pp. 73–110. Tucci, Giuseppe (1955). “The Sacred Character of the Kings of Ancient Tibet.” East and West 6:3, pp. 197–205. Tuttle, Gray (2005). Tibetan Buddhists in the Making of Modern China. New York: Columbia University Press. Warren, Henry Clarke (1984). Buddhism in Translations. New York: Atheneum. Welch, Holmes (1972). Buddhism under Mao. Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press. Ye Xiaowen (1997). “China’s Current Religious Question: Once again an Inquiry into the Five Characteristics of Religion.” In: Human Rights Watch/Asia, China: State

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Control of Religion. New York, Washington, London, Brussels: Human Rights Watch, pp. 116–44. Yü, Dan Smyer (2012). The Spread of Tibetan Buddhism in China: Charisma, Money, Enlightenment. London: Routledge. Zhang Shirong and Guo Wutian (1991). “On the Regional Characteristics of Party Construction in Tibet,” (accessed 9 July 2013).

part three Chinese-Western Encounters: Global Visions and Cultural Flows

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chapter 9

A Modern Ruist Religious Vision of a Global Unity: Kang Youwei’s Utopian Vision and Its Humanistic Religious Refraction in European Sinology Lauren Pfister Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858–1927) was an unusual Ruist (‘Confucian’) scholar and statesman, advocating an alternative interpretation of Ruist traditions referred to as the New Text ( jinwen 今文) tradition,1 and standing with the Guangxu 光緒 Emperor in 1898 at the head of a major attempt to reform the Qing 清 Empire. Because he was such a prominent political figure, his works have continued to be explored by later scholars; he was in fact a prolific writer, producing materials related to numerous topics, but is still generally known in modern academic categories as a philosopher and/or politician.2

1 Accounts of Kang’s unconventional interpretation of Ruism by means of the principles of New Text Learning ( jinwenxue 今文學) have been addressed in a number of works across the past two decades, but the earliest in English was produced by Hsiao Kung-chuan (Xiao Gongquan 蕭公權, 1897–1981) in the third chapter of his monumental study; see Hsiao Kung-chuan (1975), pp. 41–96. 2 As a consequence, Kang Youwei regularly appears in all major accounts of the modern history of Chinese philosophical traditions. In addition, Kang’s work on the Book of the Great Unity itself is often interpreted from a political point of view, referring to it as a “unrealistic (or fantasy-like) socialism” (kongxiang shehuizhuyi 空想社會主義), a Marxist way of interpreting his utopian thought. See, for example, Zang Shijun (1997). Nevertheless, there is a further conceptual discussion needed here in order to clarify the following discussion. Though there is a relatively stark contrast between the categories of philosophy, political and religious studies in European and North American academic categories, not to mention in Hong Kong, Taiwan and other parts of cultural China, this is not the case in post-Mao Mainland China. Generally speaking, religious studies has been seen as a subcategory under the philosophical category, based upon understandings drawn from Marxist accounts of intellectual life. Though Philosophy and Religious Studies in Mainland China have started to be institutionally differentiated in the first decade of the twenty-first century, it is still the case that the national library categories in Mainland China place Religious Studies under the philosophical category. We will argue in what follows that this epistemological orientation is significant for producing some misunderstandings of Kang Youwei religious Ruism and its unusual content.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004271517_011

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Nevertheless, through the twists and turns of his unusual career, Kang became an advocate for a nationalized “Confucian religion” (Kongjiao 孔教) modelled after Christian national churches before and after the fall of the Qing dynasty.3 Due to his heterodox reinterpretation of Ruist (‘Confucian’) traditions,4 he continued to dream of a future condition of humanity that would embody all the highest values he could conceive within a post-traditional, eugenically-designed, and economically advanced society which sought to lead humans to an experience of ‘consummate joy’ ( jile 極樂) that indicates some ultimate state of human experience in a personal posthumous stage of life, carrying also some religious connotations suggesting a Buddhist-like ‘paradise.’5 This was in fact consistent with Kang’s special view of the neces3 According to Fan Yuqiu (2006), pp. 226–27, Kang had already conceived of “Confucian religion” and identified its historical precedents in the pre-imperial period as well as starting in the Han dynasty within his volume entitled Kongzi gaizhi kao 孔子改制考 [Investigations into Master Kong’s Institutional Reforms] published first in 1897. We will see that he developed this theme in a very different manner in the 1920s later in this article. See relatively thorough accounts of Kang Youwei’s particular way of addressing the Ruist worship of Master Kong (‘Confucius’) in Hsiao Kung-chuan (1975), pp. 105–122 in a section entitled “Confucianism as a Religion,” and Fang Delin (1992), pp. 159–217, where he discusses the process Kang Youwei employed in making Ruism into a religion (Ruxue zongjiaohua 儒學宗 教化). 4 Some significant confusion is caused by the fact that Don Price (2004), p. 434, speaks about “elite heterodoxy” within the late Qing period, but then places Kang Youwei and his follower, Tan Sitong 譚嗣同 (1865–1898), in opposition (with “elite contempt for heterodox beliefs and doctrines”) to what he is referring to by this term. The problem is that Kang’s own approach to Ruism was also heterodox, but still stood within traditions associated with Ruism, rather than those from Daoist or Buddhist traditions mentioned by Price. As we will see, Kang was eclectic in his account of Ruist religious humanism, and so this contrast may mislead others in considering Kang to be an “orthodox” Ruist figure. He was certainly among the Chinese elite in the Qing period, but his Ruist orientation was of the New Text school mentioned already above, and not of the Zhu Xi orthodoxy. Other more recent accounts of his New Text interpretive position and its commitments include those found in Fang Delin (1992) and Ding Yajie (2008). In the latter work there is an account of the way Gu Jiegang 顧頡剛 (1893–1980) criticized the principles of the New Text tradition in two long appendices; these are criticisms which are taken to be determinative in delegitimizing the claims of that unconventional tradition. The contrast of Kang’s claims with Zhu Xi’s 朱熹 (1130–1200) Ruist orthodoxy is highlighted in Chen Huidao (1994), pp. 159–79. 5 Chinese readers would recognize that this jile paralleled the Buddhist concept of jile shijie 極樂世界 or Sukhāvatī, the Pure Land of the Buddha Amitabha. As we will see below, Kang’s own concept is probably not Buddhistic in nature at all, but appeals to his Chinese readers as a religious value to be considered. In an earlier rendering of this term, Hsiao Kung-chuan (1968), pp. 118–20 referred to jile as ‘consummate happiness.’ This is also a felicitous rendering of the term, reflecting another way of referring to the Ruist humane religious attitudes

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sary development of history: concrete religious traditions (such as Buddhism, Christianity, and Kongjiao) were required during the age of Minor Peace (xiao­ kang小康), but would be replaced by a universal humanistic form of religion which he referred to as rendaojiao 人道教 during the early 1920s,6 with the intention that only in that context would the experience of consummate joy be realized within a posthumous state, made possible during the period of Supreme Peace (taiping 太平).7 Generally speaking, Kang Youwei’s Ruist religious interests promoted during the first years of the Republic of China have been situated by historians and other scholars within the context of his Ruist reformist political agenda, but his later utopian religious vision has rarely been connected with any form of Ruist religious tradition.8 Nevertheless, Kang was living self-consciously as a Ruist prophet,9 trying to discern the shifting turns of cultural transformations, eclectic in his approach to Ruist and other Chinese traditions, and painfully aware that modern China could not ignore the new international situation which he felt required a distinctively Ruist contribution to what might be

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which will be described below; nevertheless, we prefer to use ‘consummate joy’ in this article, since the realm that is described by this term is transcendent of normal human experience, and so is not limited to an earthly form of happiness. The use of this term appears in lectures published by Kang in 1923 and entitled Shanxi Kongjiaohui jiangyan 陝西孔教會講演 (Lectures to the Confucian Religious Society of Shanxi Province). A more recent version of these speeches appear in Tang Zhijun (1981); the use of this term within the lectures is described and elaborated in Fan Yuqiu (2006), pp. 221–229. More about the significance of the use of this term will appear in what follows. As we will see later, though the term zongjiao 宗教 or “religion” is used only twice within the Datong shu, it does not appear in this final chapter of the work. More about references to other religions, zongjiao and related terms will appear in our summary of the content of the volume which occurs below. Hsiao mentions this development in the context of Kang’s opposition to religions based upon divine authority (shenquan 神權), believing that the era of Supreme Peace (what Hsiao renders as ‘Universal Peace’) would not require these forms of religion any longer. As Hsiao explains: “With the arrival of utopia both [religious faith and political rulership] would have served their purposes and would disappear.” Kang himself wrote in a commentary to Analects 7:20 that Master Kong did not talk about “extraordinary things, feast of strength, disorder and spiritual beings” because “he wished to root out those traits in human nature, which existed in the Age of Disorder, and to prepare men beforehand for the coming of Universal Peace.” All quotations are in Hsiao Kung-chuan (1975), pp. 114–15. It is therefore all the more notable that Hsiao Kung-chuan (1975) realized these connections in Kang’s overall worldview, and that the development of these matters are very explicit in the book by Fang Delin (1992), who follows a chapter on Kang’s establishment of Kongjiao with his discussion of the Book of the Great Unity. In his very recent historical novel about Kang Youwei, Xu Gang (2011) refers to Kang even within the title of the work as a “prophet.”

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called ‘world culture.’ It is in this larger context, then, that Kang conceived of his own Ruist form of religious humanism, which he referred to as rendaojiao in the early 1920s for the twentieth-century international context. Nevertheless, as we will see within the final chapter of the Datong shu 大同書, Kang also projected a final form of ‘consummate joy’ for the whole of future humanity, one which was not clouded by apocalyptic cataclysms, but rather built upon a global extension of modern technologies and civilizational prerogatives which would bring happiness on earth and consummate joy whenever death arrived. We will assert here that Kang envisioned a humanistic utopia which did not set the worldly in opposition to the spiritual, but instead allowed each to have their proper place in the development of society and in addressing the needs of humans. From a historical perspective we can now perceive that Kang was anticipating other strictly secular utopian visions which would grip Mainland China under the guidance of Mao Zedong 毛澤東 (1893–1976), but he also presaged the ‘religious humanist’ tendencies of some early twenty-first century international Ruist advocates such as Tu Weiming (Du Weiming 杜維明, *1940).10 Though Kang’s own account of these matters remained an aberration in terms of the history of Ruism, it was in fact a post-traditional Ruist expression of what we have referred to already as ‘religious humanism.’ When Kang Youwei’s Ruist concerns are interpreted through this vision, it is easier to understand how he sought to transcend traditional boundaries and reach toward a globally extensive political community, making its ultimate vision one of ‘consummate joy’ that has clearly religious parallels and overtones. Unlike other chapters in this volume, then, this essay will seek to explore something that has never become a religious community actually lived out somewhere within Chinese cultural settings, but was a prophetic vision of a Ruist religious humanism decribed only in a posthumously published work by one of the most influential heterodox Ruist intellectuals and Chinese political figures at the turn of the twentieth century. Significantly, having had much more international experience than most Chinese persons of his own age, Kang believed he could see an alternative world that would fulfil not only his own Ruist spiritual concerns, but also suggest a trajectory for ultimate humane joy based upon those same concerns. As a consequence, and in spite of Max Weber’s well-known categorization of Ruism as the archetypical ‘this-worldly’ religion11 and Hsiao Kung-chuan’s

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See Tu and Tucker (2003–2004). We will not address Weber’s claims in any detail within this article, but refer interested readers to Pfister (2005) for a more extensive treatment of this problem which also

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critical rejection of Kang’s Ruist religious claims,12 Kang Youwei produced a truly globalized vision of eclectic Ruist religious humanism that sought to bring into convergence both Ruist values and modern post-traditional visions of a radically new form of humaneness. It was built upon what Kang envisioned would be technological and scientific advances associated with modernization, and aimed at overcoming all forms of suffering. What exactly constituted the nature of the ultimate Ruist religious experience of consummate joy will be explored only after we have passed through a longer process of understanding the both this-worldly and spiritual character of his utopian vision. 1

Twenty-first Century New Ruist Humanitistic Spirituality

In early twenty-first century North American and Chinese cultural contexts, certain contemporary Ruist traditions have adopted a humanistic orientation which they assert to be religiously significant. They made this rather startling claim—startling because many modern Ruists in the twentieth century have adamantly denied that there was any religious element in their tradition or their work—because they claimed their particular form of humanistic engagement should be considered to be a legitimate Tillichian form of an ‘ultimate concern.’13 Some have gone on to clarify that this form of ultimate concern was distinct from, while also paralleling, certain features found in the more pragmatistic and earlier form of the Humanist Manifesto.14 Others would go even further to characterize Ruist humanistic religion along the lines of John Dewey’s justifications for religious humanism in his notable tome, Our Common Faith.15 In this way some contemporary Ruists have been extending

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includes references to Richard Wilhelm, whose interactions with Kang Youwei will also be referred to in the latter part of this article. Hsiao (1975), p. 114, comes to the conclusion that “in crediting Confucius with ‘sweeping away divine authority’ [Kang] unwittingly brought Confucianism back from the realm of religion into the realm of moral philosophy.” We will argue that Kang’s form of Ruist religious humanism was based on other principles that Hsiao does not recognize as “religious,” but which later scholars such as Tu Weiming and Mary Evelyn Tucker do recognize as legitimate religious claims. As promoted by Tillich (1957). The first Humanist Manifesto was produced in 1933, and is found in The New Humanist 6:3 (May/June 1933). A latter Humanist Manifesto produced in 1973 had a much greater circulation and garnished signatures from a wider base of international supporters. Cf. Kurtz (1973). See Dewey (1934).

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a creative interpretive approach adopted by earlier conservative expatriated scholars who wrote their own Ruist manifesto in 1958,16 suggesting many of the same values found in Kang Youwei’s utopian vision published in 1935, but not necessarily extending them into a form of life that was recognizably international in scope and globalize-able. Particularly in this light, Kang Youwei’s prophetic Ruist vision of a radically altered global humane community united by various virtuous and technical means across international, racial and economic boundaries is in fact a major precedent anticipating themes seen in the Ruist manifesto of 1958 as well as the more recent promotion of ‘Confucian spirituality’ in the first decade of the twenty-first century. For these reasons there should be all the more interest in offering a detailed explanation of Kang’s posthumously published text,17 in order that those humanistic religious themes which he emphasized and which are found also in later documents might be highlighted, while other themes which reveal the more radical nature of his claims can also be understood in the light of his post-traditional Ruist form of life and thought. 2

The Traumatic Context Informing Ruist Humanistic Spirituality

The profoundly disorienting character of twentieth-century critiques of Ruist forms of life in China form the historical and cultural context for Kang Youwei’s vision as well as the backdrop for renewed discussions of Ruist humanistic spirituality starting in the 1980s by Chinese scholars living and working both within and outside of the People’s Republic of China. Noting that there was a profoundly disorienting impact of two Chinese revolutions in 1911 and 1949, modern historians describing Ruist traditions have pointed to the struggles faced by all traditional Ruists during these periods, particularly after the May Fourth Movement in 1919.18 As Feng Youlan 馮友蘭 (1895–1990) and others have shown, there was a multi-faceted political and cultural effort on the part 16 17

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Cf. the English version of this Ruist Manifesto at the end of Chang (1962). A summary and interpretation of its content appears in the first part of Pfister (1995). Since the Datong shu was written before Kang’s death in 1927, his vision of the Great Unity also predated the Humanist Manifesto of 1933. Yet since it was only made public in 1935, this point is not as significant historically or culturally as the precedent it established for the Ruist Manifesto of 1958 and the more recent advocates of Ruist humanistic spirituality. A more traditional account of the key intellectual figures in the May Fourth Movement, including the two central Chinese persons mentioned above, is covered in Chow Tsetsung (1960). New efforts at showing some of the complications, including both the radi-

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of many Chinese revolutionaries and their modernist allies to disenfranchise the well-entrenched Ruist hierarchy attached to the Manchu-led Qing Empire.19 Speaking of the post-May Fourth Movement era and the plight of Ruism, Tu Weiming characterized the general situation: The fate of modern Chinese intellectuals was much worse than that of their Indian counterparts. While centuries of colonization did not break the backbone of Indian spirituality, semicolonial status prompted the Chinese intelligentsia to voluntarily reject in toto the spiritual traditions that defined China’s soul.20 Employing an image of three levels of interconnected “shells” constituting the cultural matrix to reveal the nature of traditional Ruist civilization, Cheng Chung-ying 成中英 explains: The breakdown of Confucianism in the twentieth century started with the breakdown of its political and governmental shell; this was followed by a loss of faith in the social and moral shell; the process ended with challenges to the central core of Confucianism as a way of thinking, knowing, believing and acting.21 Summarizing the period we are discussing, he continues: The period from the May Fourth movement of 1919 to the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1950 [sic] was characterized by the slow demise of Confucian ethics and Confucian society. [. . .] [T]his is not to

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cal as well as the anti-radicalist critiques of modernity, are found in Kai-wing Chow, Tze-ki Hon, Hung-yok Ip, and Price (2008). Feng Youlan (1992) describes the period as essentially including the two key traditional philosophers, himself and Xiong Shili 熊十力 (1885–1968), with Liang Shuming 梁漱溟 (1893–1988) presenting a form of Ruism profoundly influenced by a Buddhist-inspired form of metaphysical speculation. Those histories of Chinese philosophy which are referred to as “contemporary” (xiandai 現代) either start with the demise of Ruism under the challenges of the New Culture Movement which was intensified by the May Fourth Movement of 1919, or start their discussion of the lives and works of key intellectuals who were modernists and radicals, such as Li Dazhao 李大釗 (1889–1927), Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 (1879–1942), and Hu Shi 胡適 (1891–1962). Cf. Xu Quanxing, Chan Zhannan and Song Yixiu (1992) and Guo Jianyu and Zhang Wenru (2001). Tu Weiming (2003), p. 90. Cheng Chung-ying (2003a), p. 162.

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say that there were no pockets of resistance, but as a social force and a moral persuasion Confucianism no longer held sway or exercised authority. Thus the moral and social shells of Confucianism were divested of vitality. The Confucian institution as a political-social-moral entity was reduced to its core of intellectual thinking, a thin thread of philosophical statements and articles of faith.22 This was the political and cultural context within which Kang Youwei’s Ruistinspired material-and-spiritual vision for a global community, the Great Unity (datong 大同), was presented. It may also explain why Kang self-consciously delayed its full publication until after his death, because the post-traditional cultural context in mainland China was still very unstable. Though there were some Chinese intellectuals such as Carsun Chang (Zhang Junmai 張君勱, 1886–1969) who stood in principled opposition to modernists such as Hu Shi 胡適 (1891–1962) in the 1920s, the intense opposition to Ruism which arose at that time tended to weaken any Ruist awakening. Even though there were also redemptive societies (also referred to as huidao­ men 會道門) influenced by Ruist doctrines which were quite active during the Beiyang 北洋 period (from 1912–1928), some of them maintaining their influences within China up to the watershed of the Communist revolution in 1949, their influences were at best temporary due to the general instability of the post-traditional political setting.23 A number of these groups did appeal to former Ruist trained scholars, but many were creative syntheses of a number of different schools, teachings and religions, and so had been previously considered by the Qing dynasty regime to be politically unacceptable (‘heterodox,’ xiejiao 邪教).24 It is notable that Kang Youwei was himself very involved 22 23 24

Ibid., p. 164. See the coverage of recent scholarship on these groups found in Goossaert and Palmer (2011), pp. 90–121. Goossaert and Palmer (2011), p. 94, describe redemptive societies of the Beiyang period as “often [having] their own scriptures, philosophical systems, liturgies (simplified from Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist sources), congregational modes of participation, and hierarchical national organizations. As such, they actually conformed as much if not more to the model of the Christian church that had become the new paradigm of religion in China, than the Buddhist, Taoist or Confucian institutions. [. . .] The variety of these groups was bewildering, and it is difficult to categorize them: they ranged from local spirit-writing cults presenting little difference from traditional temple cults to integrated nationwide organizations claiming to be full-fledged religions.” The description goes on to describe how many of them merged three elements together that attracted them briefly to a wide range of people. These included “(1) modern Confucian associations, (2) literati

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with one such group called the Wanguo Daodehui 萬國道德會 (literally, “The Myriad Nation’s Moral Society,” or more appropriately, The Moral Society for All Nations), which had been started officially in 1921 by a father-son team, the father being Jiang Shoufeng 江壽峰 (1876–1926) and the son named Jiang Xizhang 江希張 (1907–n.d.).25 This group purportedly “maintained a strong Confucian identity” but also was distinguished by its promoting “a universalist tendency, honoring the founders of all major religions and advocating the realization, on a global scale, of the ‘Great Commonwealth’ (datong 大同).”26 Obviously, Kang Youwei’s own New Text interpretation of Ruist traditions was being taken as the mainstay of this group, and so there is little wonder about the fact that he was made the society’s president during the last year of his life (1926–1927).27 In other words, the particular form of the Wanguo Daodehui was, as we will see in what follows, completely consonant with Kang’s futuristic vision of a Ruist religious humanism worked out on a global scale. Many Chinese intellectuals who were more inclined toward Ruist or other Chinese traditional teachings chose to emigrate from the mainland especially in the anticipation of the Chinese Communist takeover in 1949.28 Of course, the Chinese Communist Revolution was one which asserted a particular posttraditional way of responding to the tensions between a whole range of polarized values which reigned during the years before the Second World War. These included the tensions between traditional patriarchal hierarchies versus individual rights, transcendent religious visions versus radical materialism, imperially justified traditional institutions (such as the Qing code) versus more or less democratically determined modern institutions (such as common law and socialist law traditions), scholastic efforts to reassess and/or reassert traditional values and worldviews versus scientistic assertions of a post-traditional worldview based upon rationalist and progressivist assumptions.29 In order to overcome the polarities formulated in these oppositions, any alternative modern Ruist account would have to offer a coherent vision of how the Chinese

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spirit-writing groups, and (3) lay Salvationist groups which practiced, in varying combinations, meditation and inner alchemy, sutra recitation, vegetarianism, and millenarian proselytism.” See ibid., pp. 95–96. Ibid., p. 95. See ibid., p. 96. As documented in Hao Chang (1987), Thomas Metzger (1977) and Lauren Pfister (1995). Though one might think of a number of key people who represent the polar ends of these different values, the more liberal side of those values would be represented by a person of this period such as literary scholar and modernist, Hu Shi, while the more conservative side might be promoted by the Chinese historian, Qian Mu 錢穆 (1895–1990).

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world, and ultimately all other human beings as well, would respond to those tensed oppositions and provide justifications which others found both appealing and convincing. In fact, Kang Youwei was already seeking to work out this kind of alternative Ruist tradition during the last decade of the nineteenth century, one which initially appeared to be both modern and Ruist in character. It was apparently during the final two decades of the Manchurian Qing dynasty that Kang as a visionary Ruist reformer began to pen a manuscript that captured some of these most forward-looking and imaginative reforms. Having been the leading reformer and intellectual mentor to the Guangxu Emperor during the illfated Hundred Days’ Reforms in 1898, Kang’s political status made his creative projections about a new and thoroughly internationalized future in which Chinese values would have a major role a matter of serious concern for certain Chinese intellectuals and others who were following his career during the 1920s. In fact, he had already begun in the first few years of the twentieth century to imagine creatively what the earth and all its nations might be like if they learned something from the Chinese sage whom he extolled, Master Kong or Kongzi 孔子 (‘Confucius’), especially when combined with principles drawn from Daoist and Chinese Buddhist wisdom. What Kang wrote out was a vision far more bold and forward-looking in its content and scope than previous Ruist scholars had ever produced. His datong or Great Unity ultimately was designed to embrace the whole modern world. Why would such an unusual volume be of interest to his Chinese countrymen? On the one hand, Kang Youwei was one of the most well-travelled Chinese elite of his age. After the fall of the 1898 Reform Movement and his escape to Japan to avoid the murderous intent of forces loyal to the Empress Dowager Cixi 慈禧 (1835–1908), he travelled internationally to more than thirty different countries, and so had a profound impression of the advances in modern material culture that had brought European and North American modern states to their positions of power.30 Though he had already began to write about his radical vision of the Great Unity and show some portions of it to others in 1902 and 1903, publishing only the first two chapters of a much larger ten chapter work in 1913 and then again in 1919, Kang was still reticent to reveal the whole of his vision; in fact, it was a projection of a radical Ruist 30

Kang Youwei’s travels have been documented in the extensive two volume chronology of his life produced by Wu Tianren (1994), but see also Appendix II below for further details about his travels and their impact on his imaginative account of the globally extended Great Unity. In addition, his interest regarding ‘the quest for modern material civilization’ is the basic concern addressed in the fifth chapter in Wong Young-tsu (2010).

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reconception of world order and its basic principles of the good life, based upon his own version of an alternative Ruist religious humanism. Ultimately, the first time that the whole work was made available was only eight years after he died in 1927.31 Why was Kang Youwei so hesitant to reveal to others the whole of his vision for the future of all humanity? Kang’s Datong shu 大同書 (The Book of the Great Unity), as revealed in its first complete and posthumous publication in 1935, was indeed so radically visionary that since it was published it has been castigated as both utopian and bourgeois by Chinese radical scholars.32 From a Ruist humanistic perspective it was also far more syncretistic and anti-traditional than the dominant Cheng-Zhu 程朱 ideology supported by Qing imperial authority, a factor quite self-consciously understood by Kang when he prepared the first full draft of this work in 1903.33 Yet exactly in this sense, Kang Youwei was presenting an alternative tradition from within Ruist historical developments, one which was reforming itself, open to change, and willing to add on any truths from Chinese or other traditions deemed worthy of an authentically new humanity.34 Kang in this regard was following precedents of some Ming 明 dynasty Ruists who had readily adapted their own teachings and practices to either or both Chinese Buddhist and Daoist traditions.35 Nevertheless, the explicitly global or planetary reach of Kang’s vision was and is extremely 31 32

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See Kang Youwei (1935). Examples of this harsh ideological treatment can be found in Chen Huidao (1994) and Zang Shijun (1997). While this interpretive criticism should be noted, Fokkema (2011), p. 280, makes a point in emphasizing that Mao Zedong was reading Kang Youwei’s Datong shu as a source of inspiration for the People’s Communes in 1958. For questions related to the dating of the Datong shu, see Appendix II. Others have noted how Kang’s reform Ruism was opposed to Zhu Xi’s orthodox teachings, noting how he even argued that the form of Ruism being rejected by Chinese scholars and others in post-traditional China was actually Zhu Xi’s account of Ruist tradition, and so not the true ‘Confucian religion’ or Kongjiao, cf., for example, Fan Yuqiu (2006), pp. 226–29 and Chen Huidao (1994), pp. 159–79. A recent study of some popular anti-Cheng-Zhu-School writings during the late Qing period which indicate the same kind of syncretistic openness to alternative spiritual traditions is found in Zhong Yunying (2008). Works studying his New Text form of Ruist interpretations and his later developments include those by Hsiao Kung-chuan (1968, 1975), Lauren Pfister (1987, 1989, and 2003), Fang Delin (1992), and Ding Yajie (2008). Find this diversity expressed in the earlier overviews of Ming dynasty intellectual life in de Bary (1970, 1989). Precisely in this light it is extremely significant that a recent volume of selected readings dealing with the Heart-Mind School (xinxue 心學) of the Song and Ming dynasties begins with readings from The Platform Sutra, a major Chinese Buddhist scripture; cf. Ivanhoe (2009).

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unusual within Ruist traditions;36 Kang’s envisioning the whole of humanity in a new form of egalitarianism manifestly anticipates some of the problems addressed by advocates of ‘open democracy’ and its critiques, who see all such political conceptions as only ‘utopian’ in nature.37 In these ways it was simultaneously religiously non-orthodox, politically globalized, and ethically bound to a particular form of secularized morality that was both shocking for traditionalists and problematically utopian for twentieth century Chinese radicals. Because of these unusual elements within the work, we will present in the next section a brief synopsis of the whole volume, discussing the nature of its non-orthodox spiritual humanism as it links up with other of its major and controversial themes. Subsequently, we will go on to address one unusual ‘humane refraction’ of Kang’s religious, political and cultural claims in the later work of the similarly controversial missionary-scholar, Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930)—a fact that has been little noticed in cross-cultural religious and philosophical studies until very recently. Then, in conclusion, we will return to give final answers to the character of Kang’s Ruist religious humanism and its ultimate values, pointing out its linkages to late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century discourses on Ruist religious humanism, and offering in addition some further critical reflections about Kang’s unusual vision of a Ruist-inspired global human community and its this-worldly-and-spiritual guiding principles. 3

Major Themes in The Book of the Great Unity

The whole of the Datong shu contains ten chapters, each of the chapters being identified with one of the ten heavenly stems, a special series of traditional ordinals.38 Using these ordinals to identify the sequence of the thought of the book also suggests that Kang wanted to portray that the whole book was a complete or heavenly designed text. Because many others have already pro36

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It is a sign of this discomfort with the ‘global’ that the volume produced by Martin Lu and others (2004) entitled Toward a Global Community begins with a chapter by Tu Weiming (pp. 1–29), supporting a Ruist form of environmental ethics, and ends with a severe criticism by Thomas Metzger, cautioning readers about the inherent utopian values within the teachings of Confucius (pp. 227–242). Advocacy for ‘open democracy’ is presented in Hilton and Barnett (2005), but criticized as ‘utopian’ by the Cambridge University political scientist, John Dunn (2005) in his response. In the modern version prepared by Zhu Weizheng, the full text stretches over 320 pages. See Kang Youwei (1998), pp. 47–369.

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vided detailed accounts of the themes and problems addressed in the complete work, here we will not repeat these details in a thorough manner.39 Instead, we intend to present here an overview of the whole work and then focus on details that indicate how ‘globalized’ and religious Kang’s vision in this unusual volume was. Following this, we will go on to indicate some of the major problems which has made his futuristic world appear impossible to achieve. In the 1913 and 1919 truncated versions of this work, Kang Youwei not only introduced his desire to see all human suffering eliminated, but also indicated his first major “abolition” of contemporary human institutions. This was the abolition of national boundaries, a hope for creating a genuinely planetary set of political institutions which would no longer restrict any persons because of the accidents of their birth and family heritage.40 At the end of the first of these two sections, Kang also outlined six major realms of suffering and 38 specific experiences where human sufferings were undeniable; though he did not say so at the time, this list of realms and experiences in many ways anticipated what he would be writing about in the rest of his book.41 So, from the very first claim regarding how the world should be made better, Kang had already embraced the globe as the field for his imaginative vision of the future, and was concerned to eliminate all forms of suffering in order to make it realizable. This was an extension of a Ruist humane spiritual vision based upon ren 仁, one that emphasized addressing this-worldly responses while remaining open also to other spiritual concerns. Precisely in this approach one recognizes a basic theme of traditional Buddhist religious life: all is suffering. The six main realms of suffering for Kang include not only self-conscious intentional actions which destroy human life, but also identified the lack of humaneness among humans as another source of suffering, along with the twisting and abuse of human desires, problems caused by misdirected values and manipulated esteem, as well as distortions caused by all-too-human governmental structures and the vast destructions 39

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Among the most thorough are those made by Hsiao Kung-chuan (1975) in his major biography of Kang and Laurence Thompson’s selective translation of the Datong shu (K’ang Yu-wei 1958). A summary of notable summaries made in English, Japanese and Chinese appear in Lauren F. Pfister (1989), pp. 94–96, n. 10 of that work. One should also note the German translation by Horst Kube (K’ang Yu-wei 1974). It is appropriate to note here that the content of these two chapters involves just over 110 pages, or a little more than one third of the whole length of the modern volume prepared by Zhu Weizheng (Kang Youwei 1998). Both chapters are nearly equal in length, but are generally longer than most other chapters. Only the seventh chapter dealing with “abolishing familial boundaries” is longer at nearly 70 pages. Cf. Kang Youwei (1998), pp. 54–6.

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which occur as a result of major natural calamities.42 What makes these claims Ruist in character is that Kang does not go on to claim that they are all ‘empty’ or ‘without substance’ (reflecting a more Buddhistic approach to these matters); on the contrary, he takes them seriously as realities which must be faced directly. His way of handling them, therefore, was not driven primarily by desires for an other-worldly transcendence, but by what he promoted as a radical humanitarian way of dealing with these problems by means of a macro-political or global overcoming of all these forms of suffering. This does not mean that he denied any other-worldly concerns and beliefs, which we will see reinforced again at the end of his work, but his starting point was obviously concrete and this-worldly in character. In fact, the whole volume carries an internal structure that is obviously engaged with ‘real hindrances’ to the political and socially manipulative means for achieving the actual earthly humane civilization which is within Kang’s vision. The internal structure of the whole work is particularly obvious for those who read the Chinese titles for each of the ten chapters.43 Beyond the first chapter, the titles for each of the other nine chapters include the characters meaning “abolish” (qu 去) and “boundaries” ( jie 界). Though these are not easily rendered when they relate to the “boundaries” of “disorder” (involving problems of criminality and war in Chapter 8) or the “boundaries” of “suffering” as found in the final chapter, Kang Youwei’s primary intention is undoubtedly manifest. He is identifying elements in his own world at the beginning of the twentieth century which he senses need to be overcome in order to achieve a lasting and ultimate happiness. His goal is explicitly hedonistic.44 Yet it is also governed by a rather coarse utilitarian assessment of what matters, always being applied to his futuristic vision in ways that not only identify the problems, but also offer some rather startling solutions. Before we take up an account of those pragmatic means for realizing the Great Unity, let us return to the nature of the hedonism which drives his vision, and reveal within it the humanistic spirituality which he associates with his own particular form of non-orthodox Ruist tradition. What Kang means by hedonism relies on something that sounds like a utilitarian ethical principle that “the only thing that is good in itself is pleasure

42 43 44

Cf. ibid. See Appendix I. See this described ethically and then applied to particular claims found in the first section of Kang’s Datong shu in the discussion of Pfister (1989), pp. 71–75.

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and the only thing bad in itself is pain.”45 Within his whole visionary volume Kang’s explicitly stated objective follows the modern utilitarian ethical goal, but with an added bio-ethical concern: to maximize pleasure among all sentient beings, including not only humans, but also many forms of animals. Yet here is exactly where Kang faces some of the most daunting questions: A bold hedonism of this sort always faces problems in dealing with a number of very practical problems, including the limitations of natural and other resources, conflicts arising between parties who share the same pleasures, and the need to limit access to certain resources and pleasures due to various problems arising in different stages of human life. So, for example, within Kang’s global vision of the Great Unity human persons are not allowed to make decisive life choices for themselves until they are twenty years of age, and before that must be guided by teachers, medical doctors, and politicians. Also, there are hierarchies of values which Kang insists upon in order to limit the extent of hedonistic pleasure seeking. These hierarchies serve as limiting standards within all realms, and include valuing group activities over solitude, promoting the extensive use of techno-scientific systems to control living environments, and enforcing censorship of ‘unhealthy’ literature, music, and other social conditions as determined by medical doctors and teachers. While permission for sexual freedom is granted within this hedonistic humanism, it is allowed only after each person has reached the assigned age of maturity and has received their teacher’s confirmation that they have cultivated an appropriate level of social responsibility.46 What then are the ultimate goals for such a society and the humans who live within them? How do these reveal the form of humanistic religiousness which Kang believes is consistent with Ruist teachings? These telic conditions appear in the last three chapters, starting with the abolishing of ‘disorderliness’ in order that the Supreme Peace may be attained. Kang’s use of the term, “supreme peace” (taiping 太平) is an explicit reference to one of his favorite parts of the Ruist classical text of the Liji 禮記 (Record of the Rites), the seventh chapter in that massive volume entitled Liyun 禮運 (The Transmission of the Rites).47 45 46

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For a thorough account of utilitarian ethics and its basic principles, see MacKinnon (2012). See these and other limitations to Kang’s form of hedonism, which create living tensions within his ideal world, in Pfister (1989), pp. 73–74. Fokkema (2011) suggests that Kang may also have been inspired by other utopian writers he may have read; see pp. 278–280, where he specifically mentions Bellamy. This is a central interpretive text in Kang’s New Text Ruist interpretive school, and is elaborated with his own commentary in Kang Youwei (1987).

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In this text Master, Kong is portrayed as describing a perfectly harmonious society based on a public value that is universally realized within realms covered by “all under the heavens” (tianxia wei gong 天下為公).48 Though Kang’s way of expressing these ‘public values’ is radically new; his touchstone for promoting these values is specifically this ancient text within the Ruist canonical traditions. When he adds to this the “abolition of all categorical boundaries” so that “love of all living beings” is promoted, one discovers a “broad love” (bo ai 博愛) that echoes an expansive humane ethical tradition of Ruist altruism dating from Song dynasty texts such as Zhang Zai’s 張載 (1020–1077) Ximing 西銘 (Western Inscription)49 as well as his openness to Protestant Christian ethics which he and his students had also encountered in the years before the first Chinese revolution of 1911.50 It is only in the final chapter, as one would expect it to be, that Kang speaks of “abolishing all suffering” and so being able to attain an “consummate joy” ( jile 極樂). In the light of what we already know about the fact that Kang Youwei was referring to his understanding of ‘Confucian religion’ as a ‘humanist religion’ or rendaojiao (as opposed to a “spirit religion” or shendaojiao 神道教) in 1923,51 it is of interest to ask if we see this phrase and any of its related terminology within the Datong shu, particularly in this last chapter of the work. Notably, the term rendao 人道 appears very often within the whole work, but not even once in the last chapter; on the contrary, rendaojiao, shendao 神道 and shen­ daojiao do not occur even once within the whole volume. While there are references to Buddhism (Fojiao 佛教), Christianity (Yejiao 耶教), and Hinduism (Yindujiao 印度教) in the volume, it is notable that one of his major references to Kongjiao is when Kang contrasts its support for parental reverence or xiao 孝 as being more significant in the Chinese context than the influ-

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This portion of the seventh chapter has been rendered into English by James Legge, where he reders the image that “a public and common spirit ruled all under the sky”; see Legge (1885), pp. 364–66. A version of the Western Inscription is in Wing-tsit Chan (1963), and an elaboration of its organismic cosmology in Cheng (2003b), pp. 864–69. Cheng makes the transformative element of Zhang’s vision explicit: “The cosmos is like a great family organized in the Confucian spirit of mutual love, care, and respect. [. . .] This attitude and this understanding would eliminate all borders between races and nations.” Ibid., p. 869). So it is well known that Kang and Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929) had some intimate connections with the Welsh Baptist missionary, Timothy Richard (known in Chinese as Li Timotai 李提摩太, 1845–1919), especially during the last years of the nineteenth century. For details cf. Soothill (1924). See elaborations of these claims in Fan Yuqiu (2006), pp. 221–26.

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ence of Christianity within European settings.52 Still, even ‘Confucian religion’ (Kongjiao) does not appear within the last chapter. Even though the term zongjiao or ‘religion’ appears twice in the work, it does so only in dealing with how various kinds of religions will operate in the context of the development of the Great Unity, and not when it is finally realized; therefore, even this term does not appear in the last chapter.53 While these factors should be considered when we seek to offer an interpretation of what Kang Youwei is describing in that last, brief, and significant chapter of the Datong shu, we should also note here that he does refer to spirits and ghosts as well as other spiritual beings within the work. Sometimes they appear as simply shen 神 or gui 鬼, but he also refers occasionally to shenming 神明 and guishen 鬼神.54 The phrase which may include spiritual beings of many sorts, but also carries references including past sagely exemplars, is shen­ sheng 神聖; the one with a clear Daoist tone is shenxian 神仙, and it appears almost as often as the former phrase in the work.55 What this suggests, then, is that in spite of having opportunities to revise the text after the first draft had been completed in 1903,56 Kang chose not to include any specific reference to a humanist religion of the sort he was advocating under the rubric of Kongjiao within the Datong shu, and especially within its final chapter. Instead, he was envisioning another form of religious experience, one that could be universal in extension and based upon a “human way” (rendao 人道) that would also embrace “spiritual ways” (shendao 神道). So, as we can now affirm with greater precision, in the last chapter of his Datong shu Kang allowed his humanistic hedonism to reach its apex. Though it includes suggestions of Buddhist themes and a posthumous realm of human experience that is only hinted at in terms that could be either Buddhist or Daoist, no elaborations of these matters are added. About these final claims and their sparse descriptions we will speak more a little later as well as in our conclusion. Nevertheless, we can see that Kang’s Ruist religious humanism keeps his main focus firmly on this earth, and so he manages the desire for personal transcendence by always tempering it with a globally extensive political realization of the highest expression of happiness. By these means, then,

52 53 54 55 56

As found in Kang Youwei (1998), p. 236, which is in Datong shu, Ch. 6, first subsection. See Kang Youwei (1998), pp. 126 and 321, which are in Datong shu, Ch. 2, second subsection, and Ch. 8, eighth subsection respectively. The former occurs five times and the latter four times within the whole work. Once again, the former occurs five times and the latter four times within the volume. See Appendix II for details.

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the full vision of Kang’s un-orthodox Ruist humanistic spirituality is made manifest. 4

Development of a Ruist Humanistic Utopian Vision

A brief review of the “boundaries” Kang Youwei argued must be overcome, leading to his own understanding of their constructive alternatives, reveals just how far he was willing to go in stretching his imagination to embrace and reorganize all sentient beings living on planet Earth. Not only does Kang intend to eliminate national, class, racial, sexual, and familial boundaries, but he would do so by means of “making humankind the same” and “equalizing all peoples and clans.” While the elimination of family oriented nuclei immediately suggests questions about parenting, and the elimination of sexual boundaries raises questions related to marriage and the limits of heterosexual relationships on the basis of mutual consent, the most far reaching and remarkable claims are related to “making humankind the same.” In this realm Kang reveals what the basic idea of “unity” or “sameness” (tong 同) entails when he promotes a Great Unity (datong 大同), and simultaneously demonstrates how his monistic view of the universe prompts him to consider proto-eugenic human engineering techniques in order to accomplish his aims. Because human emotions are inherently shaped by human differences, both in the personal conditions of physical life as well as the varying conditions of social and cultural development, Kang seeks to eliminate all differences— and he means literally ‘all’ differences. A radical uniformity of all human beings is presented as the proper basis for eliminating many forms of human suffering, to the point of arguing that all human beings were made of the same vital energy or qi 氣, and so their different skin colors and varying personal features could all ultimately be molded into a single, uniform, and identical physical form. By this means Kang promoted the ‘white race’ as the ‘most beautiful’ of human races—a surprising claim for any Chinese person to make, especially during his own era. Throughout the work, then, he elaborated what he imagined would be a eugenically reorganized global humanity based upon this standard of human attractiveness. In order to achieve this eugenic goal, Kang argued that by moving people into various parts of the globe, the darker skin colors could be lightened, and the lighter ones maintained. In addition, he promoted changes in diet, intermarriage, and even sterilization in order to achieve this goal of reaching a total uniformity among all human individuals. Assuming that medical sciences will increase the possibilities for reshaping these features in all humans, and believing that all human beings are

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perfectible in physical, moral, and intellectual dimensions, Kang ultimately envisioned a world where every male and every female look exactly alike in their mature physical form.57 Having reached this level of radical uniformity, many of Kang’s other utopian schemes become more imaginable. Kang dreamed of a new and global network of communities in which the realm of the ‘public’ always extended to all people in all places within the globe. Anticipating technological advances that uncannily mirrored something like computer networking and video-conferencing, Kang imagines a thoroughly egalitarian world where all people will be educated up to their capacities, invited to be involved in direct elections through technologically engineered voting systems, and never be allowed too much time in positions of power, so that corruption cannot develop any basis among the “Heavenly People” (tian­ min 天民)58 of the era of the Great Unity and Supreme Peace. Kang Youwei’s vision of a world which has reached the stage of the Great Unity is clearly an earth-bound paradise, and so fulfils his vision of a radical and unorthodox Ruist humanistic spirituality. Nevertheless, this is not the whole of his vision; there is also a transcendent dimension within this vision of reality found at the end of his volume involving the final boundary to be overcome, and so essentially extending the overcoming of suffering into transcendent realms. So we find in his short final chapter that Kang promotes an elevation of human excellence into a level of experience where “wandering throughout the universe” is the ultimate experience of consummate joy.59 Undoubtedly there are clear resonances here with the ideals of Daoist immortality and certain Chinese Buddhist teachings, but the final state is manifestly the transcendent fulfilment of all human desires, because technical and institutional means of reordering the Great Unity have already eliminated all the major forms of this-worldly human sufferings. To understand what the nature of this transcendent joy could be, we add other insights drawn from the last book published by Kang Youwei before his death, reflecting on these matters from another interpretive angle. 57

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All this is made explicit in the fourth chapter of his book, so that over an assumed period of time when these transformations are in process, “the populace of the Great Unity will gradually coalesce into a single white race of the heartiest physique and same physical attributes.” See Pfister (1989), pp. 83 and 107. Once again Kang’s use of what may seem to be extravagant terminology is in fact based upon ancient Ruist precedents. The use of the term tianmin or ‘heavenly people’ occurs in Mencius 4A:7 and 7A:19. See these claims related to ‘consummate joy’ in the tenth and final chapter of the work; cf. Kang Youwei (1998), pp. 360–69.

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Although Kang Youwei chose not to advocate any explicit form of Ruist religion in his Book of the Great Unity, he did do so in his last published work before his death, in a volume entitled Lectures on the Heavens published in 1926. Within the pages of this volume Kang took time in the midst of his elaborations on astronomical discussions to affirm the presence of a “supreme lord” or God (Shangdi 上帝), and to challenge Buddhist cosmological speculations with responses relying on the putatively sceptical attitudes of Master Kong about these matters.60 It is particularly noteworthy at this point to return to Kang Youwei’s lectures of 1923 and see how at that time he could justify supporting the existence of God within the context of his humanistic religion. What he argued for was the supremacy of Kongjiao over other religions, because the other religious traditions focused on the divine or spiritual side of religious experience at the expense of losing various dimensions of the human side of religious experience. So he argued that both soul and body, human and divine, broad love and parental devotion should be included in the finest form of religious life. In this way, then, he went on to argue that ‘Confucian religion’ did precisely this.61 Denying that there was any ‘special revelation’ which privileged the divine side of religious experience, Kang Youwei argued that the teachings honouring both Heaven (tian 天) and ancestors (zu 祖) in Ruist religious life was the best of all traditions; within his rendaojiao there was shendaojiao, but it was a form of spiritual religion which was subordinate to the ‘human way.’ The two forms of religion in Kongjiao were balanced in such a way, according to Kang, that the human and the divine were both properly emphasized. In his mind, this was

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Much more could be stated here about the character of these passages, because they suggest texts that might have been used as lectures for the Wanguo Daodehui in supporting their eclectic vision of religious universalism. But here we will simply note that Kang addresses the matter of the existence of God from a position that affirms the general belief in many religious and philosophical traditions, including Ruist scriptural citations from the Shijing 詩經 (Book of Poetry). Kang goes on to support the existence of the supreme lord by the presence of prophetic anticipations, including those claimed in the Ruist scripture, the Zhongyong 中庸 (The State of Equilibrium and Harmony). In the case of the Buddhist cosmological explanations, he ends that section on a strong skeptical note, citing Master Kong as saying these are things he did not know, and then lauding his skepticism as being truly sagely. See the section dealing with the existence of Shangdi in Kang Youwei (1990), pp. 167–171, and the final conclusion regarding Buddhist cosmological speculations ibid., pp. 184–187. This is argued in his 1923 lectures found in Tang Zhijun (1981), esp. vol. 2, p. 100, and commented on in Fan Yuqiu (2006), pp. 224–25.

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the contribution of Kongjiao to the twentieth century, and would be the ideal form of the universal religion in the age of the Great Unity. So we see in this regard, and will revisit these in our concluding reflections, that Kang Youwei’s Ruist monotheistic orientation sought to make humane cultivation or ren an ultimate value; it was realist in ontological orientation, and so did not adopt a Chinese Buddhist orientation which would resist any claims about the substantial nature of the phenomenal order. Instead, Kang as a Ruist realist affirmed the value and reality of all dimensions of material and spiritual civilization. In so doing, he was seeking to unite both this-worldly and spiritual concerns into a single Ruist-inspired humanistic religious vision. 5

Richard Wilhelm’s Humane Refraction of the Great Unity

Though Kang Youwei was associated with the American missionary and cultural intellectual, Gilbert Reid (known in Chinese as Li Jiabai 李佳白, 1857– 1927), in the context of the redemptive society named the Wanguo Daodehui,62 his greater ideological influence on an international scale came through his relationship with another foreigner, the German missionary-scholar and later Reform Ruist advocate, Richard Wilhelm, known in Chinese as Wei Lixian 衛 禮賢.63 Wilhelm was only partly aware of the content of Kang’s Ruist utopian vision, having met Kang and interacted with him during the years 1922 and 1923; at that time, as we have already noted, only the first two parts of the larger ten-part Datong shu had been published. Nevertheless the German sinologist recognized the global embrace within Kang’s understanding of what he called the datong. In this light is it significant to note how Richard Wilhelm found a way to respond constructively and critically to Kang’s humanisticallyinspired utopian Ruist religious vision by means of a refractory interpretation of its basic idea, one which Wilhelm referred to in German as Neue Menschheit, or a ‘New Humankind.’ Though Wilhelm had enough awareness of the radical propositions which undergirded Kang Youwei’s vision of the Great Unity that he was extremely cautious in adopting it as a whole or even supporting any of its more radical 62 63

Confirmed in Goosseart and Palmer (2011), p. 96. Though the Chinese name for Richard Wilhelm is normally presented with these three characters found above, Wilhelm did not adopt the family name Wei (fourth tone) 衛 until 1924; previous to 1924 he used a family name which was its homonym (having the same sound and tone), but written as 尉. The significance of this change has been explained in one section of Fei Leren [L. Pfister] (2005).

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claims, he nevertheless was attracted to other parts of the globally extended humanistic hopes that informed Kang’s Ruist reformism. From Wilhelm’s perspective there were some important reasons for being drawn to these aspects of Kang’s vision. As a post-World War I German intellectual who saw the overweening pride and self-destructiveness inherent in the policies of German nationalists, values adopted also by the German national Christian church, Wilhelm was disgusted with the inhumanity and lack of repentance among his own people in the face of such vast and unforeseen military destructiveness. Following the deaths of his father-in-law, Christoph Blumhardt (1842–1919), who was his theological mentor, as well as Wilhelm’s most influential Chinese teacher up to that time, Lao Naixuan 勞乃宣 (1843–1921), Richard Wilhelm began to move in his own and new intellectual and spiritual directions. Wilhelm turned decisively against the Lutheran form of Christianity which he had previously supported and embodied while being a missionary in Qingdao 青島 from 1899 to 1920.64 Living through a traumatic period of just over a year after he had returned to Germany in late 1920, Wilhelm was given the opportunity to travel back to Beijing 北京 in 1922 in the capacity of a cultural advisor to the new Weimar Republic ambassador. Notably, it was while he was en route to the capital of the recently established Republic of China that Wilhelm met Kang in Shanghai 上海 several times, as has already been mentioned, and then subsequently also in Beijing.65 In all they met as many as six times, and so took time to discuss many matters related to their shared convictions.66 That there was some interest expressed by Richard Wilhelm in Kang Youwei’s global vision is underscored by the fact that one finds in his Chinese library a copy of

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See Gerber (2007). So in this light we must correct the recent claim of Nylan and Wilson 2010, p. 193, that after the failure of the 1898 Hundred Days’ Reforms Kang Youwei “never returned to China.” There is more than adequate evidence from the chronology by Wu Tianren (1994) and the recent publications related to Richard Wilhelm’s sinological work in the 1920s— especially found in Walravens (2008)—that Kang Youwei was not only back in China, but travelling around many places within the mainland during the 1920s. Richard Wilhelm, Date books 1922 and 1923, Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Munich. This is also confirmed by Zimmer (2008), pp. 17 and 19. They met for the first times in Shanghai in late March 1922, and then later Kang Youwei visited Wilhelm in Beijing during the year 1923. It is notable that these fact were not recorded in Wu Tianren’s (1994) chronology, and so they are new discoveries that have interpretive importance for understanding Wilhelm’s own sinological development, as will be explained in the following discussion.

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the 1919 publication of Kang’s Datong shu.67 With all these factors now being understood, we are obliged to ask further questions. What exactly attracted Richard Wilhelm to Kang Youwei? Beyond the fact that both of them shared positions of some political influence in the hierarchies of their own countries during this period, was there something more substantial in Ruist teachings that drew them together so often during 1922 and 1923? One sign of the honor Wilhelm gave to his Chinese senior was the fact that he published an obituary for Kang in a newspaper. For no other Chinese figure did Richard Wilhelm, as the Professor of Chinese at Frankfurt University, publish an obituary in such a public medium, even though he did include obituaries of other key Chinese intellectuals in journals he created while in that position. Kang Youwei was for him such a notable and unusual public figure that Wilhelm felt obliged to publish his obituary in a major Frankfurt newspaper.68 This would not mean that Wilhelm was unaware of some of Kang’s eccentricities and the difficulties of parts of his personality.69 Instead, he was a kind of person who could look beyond these problems if there was something of substance in the person and his work. In fact, then, it was in the new interpretations of the Ruist canonical literature which Kang had produced that Wilhelm found more to reconsider and to laud. One of the most significant evidences manifesting Kang Youwei’s influence on Richard Wilhelm’s sinological research is found in the unusual case of Wilhelm’s publication of the Liji or, in its German transliteration, the Li Gi. In fact, Wilhelm reshaped the rites classic by reordering its chapters in what 67

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Found in the catalog of the former library of the China Institute which Richard Wilhelm created in Frankfurt soon after his arrival from Beijing. During the Second World War this institution and the whole library was destroyed, but the German librarian scholar and sinologist, Hartmut Walravens, located the catalog within the archival materials in Munich mentioned in the previous footnote. No previous scholar has ever noted that this catalog existed, and so it constitutes a major discovery for twenty-first century bibliographers and sinologists. Cf. Walravens (2008), pp. 201–37. The volume of the 1919 version of Kang’s Datong shu appears on p. 233 as item 497. Cf. Anon. (1930), p. 108, referring to an article entitled “Kang Yu We gestorben” and published in the Frankfurter Zeitung in the issue for 8 April 1927 (= Wilhelm 1927). Shen Weibin (1992), pp. 196 and 200, writes about “Kang’s bizarre eccentricities, uncritical swallowing of Western ideas, and bold yet periodically farfetched explanations of traditional culture” as well as “the arrogance of Kang’s character.” Wanting to “form his own school of thought,” Kang “did not hesitate to conceal the origins of some of his theories.” In all these ways Shen senses that Kang was a difficult person to work with. Wilhelm was clearly not unaware of these difficulties.

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appeared to be his own categories, but in fact had much to do with Kang’s influence on his understanding of Ruism. This work, Li Gi, was published soon after Wilhelm himself passed away at the age of 57 in 1930, but it reveals a startling alignment with some of Kang Youwei’s most basic Ruist reformist teachings. In this redesigned scripture of the Liji which he rendered into German, Wilhelm highlighted three major chapters of the original work by moving them to the very front of the book. There in what he referred to as the “Foundational Treatises (Grundlegende Abhandlungen),” constituting the first of the nine sections in the 43 chapter work, the very first three chapters he presented were specifically ranked in an order to indicate their importance. First of all came the Zhongyong; then the Daxue 大學 (the Great Learning) was second; the Liyun stood in third place.70 Based on what has already been described previously, this reordering of the content of the Liji displayed Wilhelm’s unquestionable alignment with Kang Youwei’s New-Text-reform Ruist annotations. Kang had highlighted these three chapters in his effort to innovate within the Ruist canon, projecting an unorthodox Ruist humanistic spirituality to replace the previously dominant Cheng-Zhu orthodoxy. Even though Richard Wilhelm was undoubtedly supporting that effort to innovate within the Ruist canonical literature, he did not explicitly mention this in any of his translations or renderings of this version of the Li Gi. As might be expected, precisely because Wilhelm sensed that he was dying, it may have been impossible for him to complete this work and so make his reliance on Kang Youwei’s ideological position explicit. Fortunately, this is not the only work which reveals Wilhelm’s interpretive commitments which relied on Kang Youwei’s interpretations.71 The most significant interpretive justification for realizing that Richard Wilhelm had made a selective use of Kang Youwei’s New Text ideology is found in the Wilhelm’s explicit sinological and diachronic interpretation of Ruist traditions, which he published in 1928, entitled K’ungtse und der Konfuzianismus (Master Kong and Ruism). It is a small booklet seldom referred to by other scholars, but is undoubtedly one of the most sinologically astute presentations 70

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Cf. Richard Wilhelm (1930), the three chapters appearing at pp. 3–20, 21–9, 30–43. In the third and fourth subsections of the “Transmission of the rites” (his German rendering being Die Entwicklung der Sitte), Richard Wilhelm presented portions of the work as describing “Humans in the cosmic position” and “customs as religion” respectively, cf. ibid., pp. 38–40). Further details about this unusual volume are found in the latter part and the comparative charts found at the end of Fei Leren [L. Pfister] (1995). The fact is that for those who are aware of Kang Youwei’s post-1898 justifications for his New Text interpretations of Ruist traditions, this reordering of the Liji text is already adequate indication of his reliance, but there are even more explicit references to the New Text tradition during this period in other works, as we will now make clear.

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of the different traditions in Ruism (‘Confucianism’) which Wilhelm ever published. Previously Wilhelm had written for a more popular readership, but in this 1928 text he presented his most forceful justifications for an innovative understanding of Ruist traditions. Notably, this is within a year after Kang Youwei had passed away, and so it bears a particular emphatic position in Wilhelm’s own sinological writings that has not always been understood by sinologists and other scholars. Notably, it is in this little volume that Wilhelm also refers directly to both Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao a good number of times throughout the text,72 and also makes mention of the ‘Ruist reform’ positions in several other places.73 From this we can see that the interpretive position Richard Wilhelm had adopted already by that time was positively and distinctively influenced by the modern Ruist Reformers and their humanistic vision of spirituality, and particularly by Kang Youwei. This interpretive emphasis is further corroborated by the fact that in the catalog of the Library of the China Institute, there were included nine volumes by Kang Youwei and seven by Liang Qichao, one of these being the latter’s well-known biography of his teacher.74 No other modern Chinese authors or other Ruist authors had as many independent works represented in that library, and so it indicates that Wilhelm purposefully set out to learn more about the modern Ruist reformers by obtaining their own writings and other relevant materials. In fact, Richard Wilhelm had already begun advocating a new international vision of a China-European cross-cultural synthesis after he returned to Germany in 1925. Undoubtedly, Wilhelm hoped it would be considered a major justification for and contribution to what he referred to as the neue Menschheit (‘new humanity’). Notably, this was also based upon Wilhelm’s own version of a Ruist-inspired humanistic religious spirit.75 While Wilhelm rejected the utopian political and scientistic orientations of Kang’s radical text, which he had only heard about from Kang personally, Wilhelm’s own vision of a “new humanity” was a humanistic vision with unorthodox Christian and Ruist 72 73 74

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See Wilhelm (1928), pp. 58 and 76 for references to Kang, pp. 48, 67 and 69 for references to Liang. Cf. ibid., pp. 44, 50, 57, and 95, where Wilhelm makes judgments clearly guided by the Ruist reform position adopted by these two modern Ruist scholars. See the specific books in Walravens (2008), pp. 203–04, 206, 217, 228, 232–33 and 244. Those authored by Kang Youwei are items 48–50, 90, 264, 494, 497, 499–500, those by Liang Qichao are items 429–33, 501 (which is his biography of Kang Youwei) and 503. A biography of Liang Qichao appears as item 513. His most explicit references to and descriptions of the “new humanity” which he promoted are found in the set of collected essays edited by his wife, Salome, and published a year after his death. Cf. Wilhelm (1931).

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c­ ommitments; in the latter case it was rooted in the modernized acceptance of Kang’s understanding of Ru traditions.76 Humanely refracted, because he would not have accepted Kang’s technocratically totalitarian form of utopianism, Richard Wilhelm was nevertheless an advocate of a more diversified, but also strongly this-worldly, vision of cross-cultural harmonies. In this, he corrected Kang’s uniformitarianism, and offered instead a more sensitive account of humane life that could overcome the technological malaise that had created the disasters of the First World War in Europe. From this perspective we might argue that Wilhelm was more insightful than Kang, and ultimately also more humane. Nevertheless, his own departure from Christian orthodoxy also ­paralleled Kang’s departure from Ruist orthodoxy, so that both men ultimately supported a form of a Ruist-inspired humanistic spirituality which was ultimately unpalatable for their contemporaries.

Conclusion: Post-Secular Thoughts about Kang Youwei’s Global Vision of Ruist Religious Humanism

Kang Youwei’s Great Unity was a globally extended vision which promoted a Ruist form of humanistic religion, one based upon a utopian realization of what he took to be the full embodiment of the Ruist understanding of ren or humane cultivation. In terms of its vision of a posthumous transcendent experience of ‘consummate joy,’ it is a realist affirmation of the humanist after-life in a universe where all suffering would be overcome. In this sense, it involves a more explicit Ruist monotheism that affirms the reality of a Supreme Lord (Shangdi), while still advocating a religious orientation that would expect no transcendent salvation coming from that deity, but instead a spirituality that would be worked out by eliminating suffering through humane cultivated means on the material plane. As we have seen, it offers a positive portrayal of a Ruist heaven, involving an after-death experience of ‘wandering through the heavens’ that affirms the value and reality of the universe as the place where humans after death would be able to experience an ultimate form of joy. Precisely in this sense, then, Kang’s vision avoids the Buddhist rejection of material realism through the doctrine of śūnyatā (kong 空) or emptiness, and suggests a synthesis of Daoist and Ruist values of freedom and joy ­experienced 76

Here we should recall that the two sections of this reduced version of The Book of the Great Unity did include the first “abolition,” that is, the abolition of national boundaries. So in spite of the fact that Wilhelm never saw the whole manuscript, he could already sense some of the futuristic and impractical elements of Kang Youwei’s utopian vision.

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in an unrestricted spiritual state after death. Though this vision was never realized as part of Kang’s own advocacy of ‘Confucian religion’ or any other forms of spirituality in the redemptive society in which he participated, the Wanguo Daodehui, there is little doubt that his promotion of such a Ruist humanistic spirituality was consonant with the basic values and worldviews found within the ‘anthropocosmic’ vision supported by Tu Weiming and Mary Evelyn Tucker in their two volumes describing Confucian spirituality produced in 2003 and 2004. Here we can put Kang Youwei’s understanding of Ruist humanist religion— the Kongjiao that is promoting his synthetic version of rendaojiao—into the historical framework of the later development of ‘Confucian spirituality’ in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. One way to do so is to rely on the recent interpretations of Paul Tillich’s ‘ultimate concern’ as a way of advocating the religious affirmations of Kang’s monotheistic Kongjiao, and so grasping in a new way its anticipations and challenges to the contemporary debates relating to Ruist religiousness or ‘Confucian spirituality.’ Jonathan Z. Smith characterizes the best account of Tillich’s ‘ultimate concern’ as being that of Theodore M. Green, who referred to it as an “ultimate concern for the ultimate.”77 It is contrasted with idolatry, which is offering an ultimate concern toward something which is finite and not ultimate.78 So Tillich referred to the deity as “the God above the God of theism,” a form of ultimate concern addressing an ultimate which one takes “most seriously without reservation.”79 In this sense, Tillich was trumping any traditional discussion about deity by means of his understanding of ‘ultimate concern;’ this parallels what Kang Youwei was seeking to accomplish by arguing that Kongjiao still believed in the existence of deity, but focused on its existential impact within human experience through tianming 天命 or the decree of Heaven. Kang’s rendaojiao or Ruist humanistic religion was a trumping of theism because it incorporated it within its humanist vision. Rather than rejecting theism, Kang sought to devalue its claims to special revelation, and refocus the role of the divine in the processes of fulfilling human nature. In this way he sought to trump all shendaojiao with his own account of the Ruist form of rendaojiao. Precisely in this sense, then, Kang’s arguments set up a tension with those advocates of ‘Confucian religion’ 77 78 79

Quoted in Smith (2010), p. 1148. As affirmed by Smith (2010), but also found in Tillich’s dialogues in Brown (1965) as well as in the later discussions of Phillips (1995) and Whitney (2012). Quoted in McBride (1988), p. 246. The implications of this trumping of the traditional concept of God in its legal application within the USA is the main concern of McBride’s article.

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who either deny or ignore the role of deity within their own worldview, since from a Tillichian point of view this might well lead to an idolatry of something not truly ultimate. Nevertheless, while Kang’s vision clearly anticipates a number of the themes related to humanistic spirituality which are being readdressed in the twentyfirst century Ruist discourse about ‘Confucian spirituality,’ especially as they related to the possibilities and problems involved in the assertion of a peculiar form of Ruist religious life in post-traditional settings, Kang’s Great Unity was also too radical and unrealizable, making it essentially impossible for later scholars to take it up as a viable form of religious Ruism. In this sense, we face the ironic situation of affirming that Kang’s vision was surely an unusual expression of Ruist religious humanism, but simultaneously was so utopian in its ‘this-worldly’ claims that it lacked adequate justification and the means to realize its claims. What marked it off most profoundly as a contribution to Ruist spirituality was its mixture of an undeniable global vision with its radical expectations built upon a utopian reliance in techno-scientific system that would guide humanity through a massive eugenic transformation, ending in a final stage of blissful wandering throughout the universe, in which individual persons after death would live on in a spiritual existence experiencing transcendent ‘consummate joy.’ Regarding this understanding of ‘consummate joy,’ we still find that there was very little that Kang Youwei was willing to elaborate, even though he left adequate hints about the matter so that the claims already made can be substantiated from the last few works published under his name. Why did he not elaborate this ultimate realm of Ruist bliss? Perhaps it was because the sage whom Kang admired, Master Kong, had said that he himself did not know about those matters; so, even though Kang clearly intended to be prophetic, he also could not say for certain what the full nature of the posthumous spiritual body was, and how it would experience that ‘wandering through the universe’ in ‘consummate joy.’ Even how it would relate to the supreme being which Kang did believe in is left unclear. As a consequence, we can only surmise that Kang remained relatively quiet about these matters because he ultimately had only a few hints about their reality. Though he believed they were real and advocated a consummate joy that was transcendent, in the end he felt restricted by the very same sagely wisdom he relied upon to not say that much about it. Here, as we have mentioned previously, the fact that Kang Youwei in 1923 could argue that Kongjiao was an inclusive humanist religion—that is, one that addressed both human and spiritual realities, but focused its attention on human experience and denied the power of any exclusive revelation from a divine being to trump this emphasis—reveals far more precisely what he

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intended to be the nature of the consummate joy within the Datong shu. Kang was a religious advocate, and believed that Kongjiao offered a synthetic religious option that was unique in world history, embodying within its humanistic religion all that was needed to be affirmed within the spiritual religious traditions. Precisely in this light, then, Hsiao Kung-chuan’s judgment regarding Kang’s religious claims appears to be imbalanced and inadequate. Hsiao criticized Kang for rejecting the reality of divine revelation in other religious traditions, believing that this actually undercut Kang’s own Ruist religious claims, but as we have seen, Kang believed he did not need to have a special revelatory source for his Ruist humanistic spirituality because he had insights already received from Ruist sages who had lived and proclaimed their understanding of these matters without the need for reliance on special revelation. In this sense, Kang’s vision of Ruist humanistic religious life was both this-worldly and spiritual. Kang Youwei essentially sought to combine what Max Weber apparently could not anticipate in his sociological accounts of religious traditions—a genuine synthesis of this-worldly-andspiritually-transcendent themes within a Ruist-inspired vision of a universal religious experience. Precisely in this sense, then, Kang did anticipate the claims of conservative Ruist scholars in 1958 who pointed to some form of religious affirmations within Ruist traditions that were humanistic in orientation, spiritual in character because they promoted an ultimate concern in the character of ren, but did not require a specific religious institutional expression to advance their claims. So, while neither Hsiao or Weber could adequately account for the religious synthesis elaborated in Kang Youwei’s Ruist humanistic spirituality, they pointed toward the unorthodox character of Kang’s claims that does deserve further critical reflection. Even though we have not attempted to provide a thorough description of all the nine chapters of the Datong shu—where the ‘abolition’ of the old world and the transformation of a new world embodying the Great Unity presents Kang’s wide-ranging and imaginative future—it should now already be manifest why Kang Youwei’s utopian vision would be unacceptable to many of his own contemporaries as well as those who were his ideological enemies. For example, what would have happened if Adolf Hitler had ever become aware of Kang’s teachings about the ‘white race,’ and so augmented it into his doctrines of ‘Aryan race’ supremacy? Undoubtedly, following the advent of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights confirmed in 1948, Kang’s advocacy of a ‘white skin’ uniformity is replete with ethical, cultural, and political problems associated with racism. In addition, the radically utopian character of his prototechnological scientism that dreams up such a eugenically engineered world leaves one wondering: how much suffering would Kang be willing to enforce

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upon countless numbers of people in order to achieve his idealized ‘overcoming of all sufferings’? Ironically, it is quite evident that the techno-scientific processes he advocates promoting are so harsh and impersonal, all for the sake of reaching a uniformity of human experience and forms that would “eliminate sufferings” among human beings, that it can only appear to be nothing else but cruel, inhumane, and totalitarian. In this light, one also wonders about the fact that Kang Youwei gave the highest privileges of empowerment to three levels of experts: teachers, medical doctors, and financiers. In the context of post-modern critiques of modern meta-narratives, it is not hard to imagine how someone like Michel Foucault would have criticized Kang’s institutionalization of educational and medical structures,80 nor would it be difficult to imagine the criticisms that Jacques Ellul would have laid against his scientistic optimism and gross ignorance about the wasteful and destructive results of accepting the ‘technological bluff’ that Kang had unwittingly supported.81 Finally, is not David Smick’s searing critique of contemporary financial systems and their economic policies82 a necessary corrective to the excesses of the very kind of financial wizards that Kang hoped to create? One may always respond that Kang Youwei’s vision of the Great Unity assumed a form of uniformity in physical and personal characteristics that has not yet been reached, and so all of these critiques would be inappropriate, but then again, one must ask whether the suffering caused by the transformation of all humanity into Kang’s particular conception of a futuristic and eugenically reorganized Great Unity, as already referred to above in relationship to the immense amount of suffering it would cause, would even be worth attempting to realize. While all these questions should be asked, and in doing so reveal the eccentric and radical character of Kang Youwei’s Datong vision, we have also documented here at least one transmission of Kang’s doctrine that appeared in a more humane and palatable form. As we have learned above, Richard Wilhelm’s refractory transmission of a ‘new humanity’ was profoundly indebted to Kang Youwei’s own reformist Ruist claims. Whether Wilhelm’s work in his sinological translations and his vision of new humanity will receive a reemphasis in future scholarship is yet to be seen. Though neither Kang’s nor Wilhelm’s visions managed to gain ascendency during the period before and after the Second World War, we are aware that there remains a general concern among 80 81 82

See Foucault (1989). See Ellul (1967, 1979 and 1990). See Smick (2009).

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those promoting Ruist humanist spirituality that may return to Wilhelm’s claims as they consider what form of Ruist teachings would be suitable for the conditions of twenty-first-century post-traditional modernity in China and elsewhere. Within this post-secular age, it may be that some new awareness of this concern for Ruist humanistic religious life and a new global humanity based upon humane principles—not those driven by Kang Youwei’s utopian scientism, but of a more humane and realizable sore—will once again find advocates within our own age. Appendix I: Outline of the Ten Chapters of Kang Youwei’s Datong shu 大同書 or The Book of the Great Unity83

Chapter

Chinese Original

English Rendering (by author)

甲/I 乙 / II

人世界觀眾苦 去國界合大地

丙 / III

去級界平民族

丁 / IV

去種界同人類

戊/V

去形界保獨立

己 / VI

去家界為天民

庚 / VII

去產界公生業

辛 / VIII

去亂界治太平

壬 / IX

去類界愛眾生

癸/X

去苦界至極樂

In the Human World We see that All Suffer Abolish National Boundaries and Unite the Great Earth Abolish Class Boundaries and Equalize all Peoples and Clans Abolish Racial Boundaries and Make Humankind the Same Abolish Sexual Boundaries and Preserve Independence Abolish Familial Boundaries and Become Heavenly People Abolish Livelihood Boundaries and Make Life Vocations Public Abolish Disorderliness and Govern by Means of the Supreme Peace Abolish Categorical Boundaries and Love All Living Beings Abolish Suffering and Attain Consummate Joy

83

This summary can be compared to note differences with my previous summary made twenty years ago in Pfister (1989), pp. 65–66.

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Appendix II: Naming and Dating the Datong shu 大同書

Quite a bit of discussion continues to be raised regarding the dating of the initial teaching which Kang Youwei gave related to the Great Unity, especially in relationship to the three published versions of the work which appeared between 1913 and 1935.84 Generally speaking, it is clear that some inchoate ideas were expressed by Kang as early as the mid-1880s, but the first full draft of the whole volume was probably completed while Kang was traveling in India in 1901 and 1902, and was actually seen by his major disciple, Liang Qichao in 1902.85 Nevertheless, Kang only produced the first two sections of the ten chapter work in its first appearance in 1913, and refused to publish the whole till the day he died, because he believed the time was not right for it to be received. While there is good historical evidence in written correspondence and secondary literature to support the fact that Kang had written a larger manuscript by 1902 and completed editing it in 1903, it is also manifest that Kang continued to edit the work in subsequent years. Many of the detailed descriptions of cultural and historical matters found in various countries and documented in The Book of the Great Unity, most of which Kang had visited in the period between 1898 and 1911, would have been known only to an eye-witness, and yet he did not visit these places until after 1903. One helpful summary adds these details: there are 45 countries and places mentioned by name in The Book of the Great Unity, and Kang Youwei had traveled in 77 per cent of them. His references to aspects of Europe and the United States of America often appear together, and are mentioned in the same place more than 60 times; other countries which are mentioned separately more then 30 times are India and the USA. Kang had traveled in the former country during 1901 and 1902, but had visited the USA only in 1905.86 All of these details, when they are carefully worked out between Kang’s biographical chronology and the full version of The Book of the Great Unity, indicate that he had continued to work at the manuscript well beyond 1903. 84 85

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See details in footnote 38 above, which includes Zhu Weizheng’s synopsis of the most relevant publications; cf. Kang Youwei (1998). Though there are many claims related to the dating, a general summary could affirm the following: Kang initiated his discussions of the Great Unity in 1884, but only in a very inchoate form, and wrote out the larger and more futuristic manuscript between 1901 and 1903, completing the final editing while in Darjeeling, India. Previously, other scholars have put the date in 1902. For one interesting account, consult Zhu Zhongyue (1999). Relevant details revealing these matters are worked out carefully in Chen Xiumei (1996). Chen also documents Kang’s references to England, Germany, Japan, France and Canada, because they are relatively less often but also significantly described. In her argument Chen convincingly indicates through a wide range of cases how only an eye-witness could have known certain attitudes and facts, something which could not have been gleaned from reading books or newspapers in China.

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Tu Weiming and Mary Evelyn Tucker (eds.) (2003–2004). Confucian Spirituality. 2 vols. New York: Crossroad. Walravens, Hartmut (ed.) (2008). Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930): Missionar in China und Vermittler chinesischen Geistesguts. Nettetal: Steyler Verlag. Whitney, Lawrence A. (2012). “Experience and the Ultimacy of God.” Journal of Speculative Philosophy 26:1 (2012), pp. 43–60. Wilhelm, Richard (1927). “Kang Yu We gestorben.” Frankfurter Zeitung, 8 April 1927. ——— (1928). K’ungtse und der Konfuzianismus. Berlin und Leipzig: de Gruyter. ——— (trans.) (1930). Li Gi: Das Buch der Sitte des Älteren und Jüngeren Dai— Aufzeichnungen über Kultur und Religion des alten China. Jena: Diederichs. ——— (1931). Der Mensch und das Sein, ed. Salome Wilhelm. Jena: Diederichs. Wong, Young-tsu (2010). Beyond Confucian China: The Rival Discourses of Kang Youwei and Zhang Binglin. Routledge: London. Wu Tianren 吳天任 (1994). Kang Youwei xiansheng nianpu 康有為先生年譜 [Chronological records of the life of Kang Youwei]. 2 vols. Taipei: Yiwen Yinshuguan. Xu Gang 徐剛 (2011). Xianzhi you beichuang—zhuiji Kang Youwei 先知有悲怆—追 记康有为 [Prophets Are Melancholy—Posthumous Reminiscences about Kang Youwei]. Beijing: Author’s Press. Xu Quanxing 许全兴, Chen Zhannan 陈战难 and Song Yixiu 宋一秀 (1992). Zhongguo xiandai zhexueshi 中国现代哲学史 [A History of Contemporary Chinese Philosophy]. Beijing: Beijing Daxue Chubanshe. Yang, Mayfair Mei-Hui (ed.) (2008). Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Yao, Xinzhong (ed.) (2003). RoutledgeCurzon Encyclopedia of Confucianism. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon. Zang Shijun 藏世俊 (1997). Kang Youwei datong sixiang yanjiu 康有为大同思想研究 [Studies of Kang Youwei’s Concept of the Great Unity]. Guangzhou: Guangdong Gaodeng Jiaoyu Chubanshe. Zhang Wenru 张文儒 and Guo Jianyu 郭建宇 (eds.) (2001). Zhongguo xiandai zhexue 中国现代哲学 [Contemporary Chinese Philosophy]. Beijing: Beijing University Press. Zhong Yunying 鐘雲鶯 (2008). Qing mo Min chu minjian Rujiao dui zhuliu Ruxue de xishou yu zhuanhua 清末民初民間儒教對主流儒學的吸收與轉化 [The Reception and Transformation of Mainline Ruism by Folk Ruist Teachings in the Late Qing and Early Nationalist Periods]. Taipei: Guoli Taiwan Daxue Chubanshe. Zhu Zhongyue 朱仲嶽 (1999). “Kang Youwei ‘Datong shu’ chengshu niandai de xin faxian” 康有為《大同書》成書年代的新發現 [A new discovery regarding the dating when Kang Youwei completed the writing of his work, The Book of the Great Unity]. Wenwu 8:3, pp. 92–93. Zimmer, Thomas (2008). “Richard Wilhelm: 1920–1930.” In: Hartmut Walravens (ed.), Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930). Missionar in China und Vermittler chinesischen Geistesguts. Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, pp. 13–32.

chapter 10

The Buddhist-Christian Encounter in Modern China and the Globalization of Culture Lai Pan-chiu Buddhism and Christianity are among the most ‘globalized’ world religions, contributing enormously to the globalization of culture.1 Studying their encounter in modern China is particularly significant for the understanding of globalization. However, the studies in this area remain relatively rare and the perspective of the globalization of culture has not been properly adopted for exploration. Most historical surveys of modern Chinese Buddhism tend to emphasize the Buddhist adaptation to modern society or the modernization of Buddhism. The perspective of globalization is usually sidelined.2 In fact, many of these works prefer to take Western science rather than Christianity as the key issue for modern Chinese Buddhism.3 Only some of the specialized studies on individual Buddhists or Buddhist organizations pay particular attention to the global perspective and make occasional references to the encounter with Christianity.4 In these studies of modern Chinese Buddhism, the Christian side of the encounter is usually omitted. Though this shortcoming is addressed in the more focused surveys of the Buddhist-Christian encounter in China, most of these tend to study the encounter primarily within the Chinese context.5 This essay aims to contribute to the subject by adopting a new perspective, namely the globalization of culture, rather than discovering any new material or providing further historical details. This is not to suggest that the global context or the perspective of globalization is the only legitimate context or perspective for the understanding of the encounter. What is argued here is

1 Globalization has been discussed in various disciplines, including economics, politics, geography and sociology. This paper will focus on the globalization of culture addressed primarily from a historical perspective. For an overview of these approaches to globalization, see Pieterse (2004), pp. 7–21. 2 E.g., He Jianming (1998), Deng Zimei (1994), McMahan (2008). 3 E.g., Ma Tianxiang (1998), pp. 275–300; Chen Bing and Deng Zimei (2000), pp. 410–33. 4 E.g., Chandler (2004); Pittman (2001), pp. 105–52. 5 E.g., Lai Pan-chiu (2003), von Brück and Lai (2001), pp. 68–103.

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that the global perspective can supplement the prevalent local perspective6 to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding. This essay consists primarily of a historical study of the formation, process, and impact of the Buddhist-Christian encounter in modern China from the perspective of the globalization of culture. Firstly, it endeavours to show that the encounter was shaped by a number of factors that were part of the globalization of culture. These include the activities of Christian missions and the cross-cultural dissemination of Western science. Secondly, through focusing on some individuals involved in the encounter, namely Yang Wenhui 楊文會 (1837–1911), Timothy Richard (1845–1919, known in Chinese as Li Timotai 李提摩太) and Taixu 太虛 (1889–1947), this essay will demonstrate that they also considered the meaning of the encounter against the global context. Thirdly, it will be shown that the impact of the encounter on both Buddhism and Christianity can be understood from the perspective of globalization. As well as providing a historical study, the essay also addresses the theoretical discussion concerning the globalization of culture. There are currently three major paradigms or theories: The first attempts to understand cultural globalization in terms of a clash of civilizations. The second, which may be called Westernization, Americanization, or even McDonaldization, views globalization as the expansion or ‘universalization’ of Western culture or values. The third prefers to interpret globalization in terms of a hybridization of cultures.7 This essay will provide critical remarks on these paradigms in its analysis of the encounter. 1

Yang Wenhui and the Buddhist Revival in Late-Qing China

Chinese Buddhism experienced a revival in the late Qing 清 period, though in what sense it is a revival should be further clarified and remains a subject of academic debate.8 It is widely recognized that the most prominent leader of this reform, or revival, was a lay Buddhist named Yang Wenhui, who is widely hailed as the ‘Martin Luther’ of Chinese Buddhism. An analysis of the history of Yang’s reform, in particular the proposals and practices associated with it, will show that the reform was shaped to a certain extent by the process of globalization.

6 E.g., Chen Yongge (2003). 7 Pieterse (2004), pp. 41–58. 8 Welch (1968), pp. 262–69.

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It is quite correct that the Buddhist reform in the late Qing was sparked off by a rather local issue—the threat of Buddhist temple properties being converted into schools (miaochan xingxue 廟產興學). A proposal to this effect was advocated by Zhang Zhidong 張之洞 (1837–1909) in 1898 with the underlying motivation to strengthen China in order to save the country from the threat of the foreign powers.9 Viewed from this perspective, it appears that from the very outset, the Buddhist revival was indirectly inspired by the challenge posed by the globalization of imperialist power. In a more direct way, Yang and many of his fellow Buddhists may have felt the challenge of Christianity, which seemed to represent a much more advanced civilization.10 In this sense, the Buddhist reform led by Yang was launched as a reaction to Christianity as a global or globalizing religion. Yang’s proposals for reform focused mainly on the printing and circulation of Buddhist texts for study and practice.11 He retrieved many of the lost Buddhist texts from Japan and founded the Jinling Buddhist Press (Jinling Kejingchu 金陵刻經處) to reprint these texts. He also established the Buddhist Research Institute (Foxue Yanjiushe 佛學研究社) and Jetavana Hermitage (Zhihuan Jingshe 祗洹精舍), which became the first modern Buddhist seminary in China.12 As Holmes Welch points out, Yang was not the first to do this; however, he was probably the first Chinese Buddhist who had had the opportunity to travel to Europe to learn from Western culture, including Western science and technology, and who had come back with the vision of making Buddhism a global religion in a scientific world.13 The global character of Yang’s reform is reflected not only in his being inspired by Western civilization, including Western science and technology as well as the political institutions in the West, but also in his collaborations with Buddhists from other parts of the world. Yang traveled to Europe in 1878 at the age of 42. While in Europe, he met Nanjō Bunyū 南條文雄 (1849–1927), a Japanese Buddhist who helped Yang to obtain about 300 Buddhist texts no longer available in China at the time.14 In England, Yang observed that Chinese studies of Buddhism lagged behind Europe and Japan.15 When he returned to China in 1881, he began to advocate not only Western science and t­ echnology, 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Xiao Ping (2003), p. 77; cf. Goossaert (2006). Welch (1968), p. 21. Chen Bing and Deng Zimei (2000), pp. 80 and 334. Yu Lingpo (1995), pp. 354–61. Welch (1968), p. 10. For details, see Xiao (2003), pp. 126–69. Welch (1968), p. 21.

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but also the Western model of church-state relationship. In 1885, he visited Europe for a second time, sojourning at both London and Paris before returning to China in 1890. In 1894, at the age of 58, Yang began to work with Timothy Richard, a Christian missionary from Britain, on the English translation of the Dasheng qixinlun 大乘起信論 (Treatise on the awakening of faith in Mahāyāna). In 1895, Richard introduced Yang to Anagārika Dhammapāla (Ch. Damo Boluo 達摩波羅, 1865–1933), a famous Sri Lankan Buddhist.16 During their meeting in Shanghai 上海, Yang and Dhammapāla discussed how to cooperate with each other in reviving Buddhism internationally, including the revival of Indian Buddhism. Afterwards, Yang attempted to establish a Buddhist seminary in which students had to learn Buddhist scriptures, Sanskrit and English in order to promulgate Buddhism globally.17 Considering the background of Yang’s collaborators, the reform launched by Yang was itself a result of international collaboration reflecting the process and impact of globalization. With regard to the issue of temple property, Yang argued that in modern nations in both the East and West, religious organizations actively engaged in social activities as a means for further development. Vital for the revival or success of religion in these nations was religious education, especially through religious schools at different levels. Yang believed that as all the advanced countries made use of religion to educate people about morality, China should do the same to bring about a religious revival. To this end, Yang urged that instead of acquiescing to the government confiscating Buddhist temple properties for the purpose of secular education, it would be much better for Buddhists as well as for the nation as a whole to make use of the temple properties to establish modern-style Buddhist schools for the enhancement of Buddhism and public education. As Yang explained himself: Reform is all the rage now! Those who propose reform often attempt to appropriate temple property to finance public education. I am afraid that they do not understand the needs of the nation and the people. It would be better to use Buddhist property to revive Buddhist education, and for learning modern technology, just as Protestantism and Catholicism have done in opening schools to educate their followers. [. . .] Chinese Buddhism has been in decline for generations, and not only will it be ridiculed by neighboring countries, but also Buddhist property will be seized by the powerful, if it is not reorganized soon. If Buddhism, which has been respected for generations, is neglected and destroyed, later generations 16 17

For Dhammapāla’s effort in reviving Buddhism, see Gombrich (1988). Welch (1968), pp. 8–9.

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will be unable to benefit from the Buddhist Dharma, which can save the world. Under these circumstances, we should petition the government to formulate a new policy that half of all Buddhist and Daoist properties should be used for schools. The classes in each school can be divided into two categories, internal and external. The external class will teach secular subjects while students may also read Buddhist texts for half an hour and learn Buddhist doctrine for another half an hour [every day], just as students in the schools sponsored by Western people concurrently study Christianity.18 It is apparent that Yang’s proposal had been inspired by what he learned from his encounter with the Western world, including Western Christianity. In fact, Yang made further proposals to revive Buddhism by imitating aspects of Western culture, including the proposal that Buddhists should adopt the Christian practice of a weekly gathering for religious service.19 It can be said that, to a certain extent, Yang’s reform was about strengthening Buddhism by imitating the Christian model in order to compete with Christianity on the religious market, not only locally in China, but also internationally or globally. In short, Yang’s reform was motivated by his ambition of meeting the challenges brought forth by the process of globalization, and his proposals for reform were also shaped by global trends. To be more precise, the reform launched by Yang was partially inspired by his encounter with Western science and Christianity, and the ultimate goal of his reform was the globalization of Buddhism or ‘Buddhicization’ of the globe.20 Furthermore, Yang’s reform can be considered as an international joint venture, if not part of a global enterprise, involving the collaboration of, not only fellow Buddhists from Japan and Sri Lanka, but also Christian missionaries from Britain. 2

Timothy Richard and (Anti-)Globalization

Timothy Richard remains one of the best-known Christian missionaries to China. From the perspective of globalization, one may be attracted to the significant role he played in the dissemination of ‘Western learning’ (xixue 西學) in China. As well as introducing Western-style higher education into China through founding a university in Shanxi 山西 province, he also established 18 19 20

Yang Wenhui (1995), p. 7. Chen Bing and Deng Zimei (2000), p. 41. See further Zhang (2004), pp. 384–392.

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a printing press which published Chinese translations of books and articles introducing Western science and society. Many political reformers in modern China were inspired by these publications.21 However, apart from his missionary, educational, and political activities, Richard also engaged in dialogue with people of other religions, and even spent time translating Buddhist texts from Chinese into English.22 In this respect, Timothy Richard can be regarded as an agent of cultural globalization. However, as we shall see, in some other respects, Richard can also be regarded as a critic of globalization. Through personal contacts with Buddhists in China, especially Yang Wenhui, Richard found that Buddhism, though remaining in disarray, was still full of life and even enjoying a revival. Being fascinated by the amazing similarities between Christianity and Mahāyāna Buddhism, Richard published the English translation of the Dasheng qixinlun because he believed that “it is capable of producing brotherhood amongst men of different religions, when interpreted in the light of Christianity.”23 The translation was accomplished with the assistance of Yang Wenhui.24 However, Yang and Richard differed so fundamentally from each other in terms of both the aim and strategy of translation, that Yang refused to cooperate with Richard any more. For Yang, the aim of translating the text into English was to disseminate Buddhism to the West and to convert Westerners to Buddhism. For this reason, Yang was not satisfied with Richard’s using a lot of Christian terms to translate the Buddhist text. However, Richard had his own motivation for the use of Christian terms to translate the Buddhist text which had to be considered within the global context. Richard’s use of Christian terms to translate Buddhist texts and to highlight the similarities between Christianity and Mahāyāna Buddhism was not for the purpose of converting Chinese Buddhists to Christianity, but for establishing some sort of common ground for cooperation or friendship between Buddhists and Christians, and “to pave the way for one great world-wide religion of the future.”25 Richard clearly sensed that an era of globalization was coming, but his discourse on a global religion did not refer to the triumph of Christianity or a Christian monopoly of the global religious market. He wrote: 21

Several studies on Timothy Richard have focused on the social and political aspects of his work, notably Bohr (1972, 2000), and Wong (1999). 22 Soothill (1926) provides a more detailed biography of Timothy Richard and also deals at some length with his interest in inter-faith dialogue. 23 Richard (1910), p. 47. 24 Richard (1907). 25 Richard (1910), p. 4.

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The time of universal intercourse dawned upon mankind with the advent of steam and electricity within the last century. With this there has arisen the feeling that the next step in religious evolution is not a monopoly of any one of these competitive religions but a federation of all, on a basis that acknowledges with gratitude all that is best in the past in different parts of the earth as Divine, and then finally following the one which surpasses all the rest in authority and in usefulness to the human race.26 Richard expected the global religion he advocated to be able to “strengthen the forces struggling against the selfish materialism of this age by the united efforts for the promotion of universal good-will, by all the children of God of every race.”27 In other words, his global vision was not about the market shares of individual religions, but about how different religions could collaborate with each other and contribute to the healing of global illnesses, including poverty, oppression, violence, war, ignorance, and selfishness.28 Underlying Richard’s endeavor in promoting Buddhist-Christian dialogue was his global vision delineated in terms of “the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth.”29 Though Richard’s terminology sometimes remained rather Christian, it is quite clear that for him the ultimate aim of his missionary work was neither the salvation of individual souls nor the Christian monopoly of the global market of religion, but how different religions could cooperate with each other to establish global justice and to address global issues such as materialism, poverty, and militarism. Against this background, it is obvious why Richard wrote Brotherhood vs. Militarism in the same year as the outbreak of the First World War in 1914,30 and why he published a bilingual booklet, An Epistle to All Buddhists (Zhi shijie Shijia shu 致世界釋家書), in 1916. The aim was not to convert Buddhists to Christianity, but to invite Buddhists and Christians to form a partnership to work together for the benefit of the poor and oppressed. What Richard looked for was “to lay the foundation of a new and world-wide civilization” and to “help to unite all nations to one another.”31 From above, we can see that Timothy Richard understood the significance of his encounter and dialogue with Buddhism against the global context. His aim was to establish a bond between Christians and Buddhists so that they 26 27 28 29 30 31

Ibid., p. 34. Ibid., p. 142. Ibid., pp. 35–6. Ibid., pp. 35–6. Walls (2002), p. 257. Richard (1916), p. 11.

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could cooperate with each other to fight against Western imperialism and the prevalent globalization of militarism, materialism, etc. If globalization meant the global dominance of Western imperialism or colonialism, his position can be better described as anti-globalization or post-colonialism.32 To put it in a more positive way, we may say that Richard’s global vision involved not only the unity of religions, but also the cooperation between Christians and nonChristians for the establishment of global justice and peace. 3

Indigenization of Christianity in China

During the Republican period, Christianity in China had to face a series of challenges, including rapid social change and the rise of nationalism, antiforeign sentiment and scientism, to name but a few. These factors affected not only the religious ecology of China as a whole, but also the competitiveness or development of Christianity in China seriously and adversely. For example, as a result of the rise of nationalism, the government’s policy of recovering sovereignty over education (shouhui jiaoyuquan 收回教育權) from the Christian churches inevitably reduced the influence of Christianity on Chinese society and culture. The rise of modern science, together with scientism, which had affected the religious outlook in the Western world, influenced the religious landscape in China as well. Christianity was introduced into China, together with Western science and technology, during the late Ming 明 and early Qing 清 dynasties. In late Qing, some Protestant missionaries made use of ‘science’ to criticize traditional Chinese religions as unscientific superstitions.33 However, in Republican China, due to the rise of scientism,34 science was welcomed as a panacea for social ills, while Christianity became a prime target of criticism. Many Chinese Christian theologians attempted to respond to these challenges by advocating indigenization (bensehua 本色化), a very ambiguous concept which might mean different things to different theologians. However, it is rather interesting to note that although these challenges arose ‘locally,’ many of them were by no means particular to China. Some reflected global trends taking place in many other countries. Other than the rise of scientism, the Chinese government’s policy of taking back the right of managing schools during the Republican period reflected, to a certain extent, a global trend because

32 33 34

See further Lai Pan-chiu (2009). Lai Pan-chiu (2008). Kwok (1965).

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similar policies on education had been adopted by several Western countries during the second half of the nineteenth century.35 In part due to the endeavour of Yang Wenhui and his followers, Buddhism enjoyed some sort of revival and attracted the attention of some Chinese intellectuals. Many champions of constitutional reform and modernization, including Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858–1927), Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873– 1929), Tan Sitong 譚嗣同 (1865–1898), Yan Fu 嚴復 (1853–1921), and Zhang Taiyan 章太炎 (1868–1936), actively assisted and participated in the Buddhist revivalist movement. They even adopted some Buddhist ideas to form the basic principles of political reform or to justify their own revolutionary agenda. At the same time, these intellectuals had frequent contact with Western missionaries who also participated directly or indirectly in the social and political reforms in China. As a result, even Christian missionaries could easily sense the impact of Buddhism on China, especially on the modern Chinese intellectuals. In spite of the widespread collapse of Buddhist temples, the presence of Buddhism, as well as its challenge to the proclamation of the Christian Gospel, could not be overlooked. Soon after the establishment of the Republic of China, religious freedom was protected by the Provisional Constitution promulgated in 1912, and the privileges of Christianity granted by the Qing Empire were cancelled. This was the first time in the history of China that religious freedom was formally guaranteed by law. The result seemed to be an equal opportunity, or level-playing field, for the development and competition of all accepted religions, no matter whether they were local or foreign in terms of origin. During this period, the Buddhist reform movement started by Yang Wen-hui continued and was led by a new generation of Buddhist leaders, including Taixu and Ouyang Jingwu 歐陽竟無 (1871–1943), who had been inspired by Yang.36 They successfully established several Buddhist seminaries or colleges, including the China Inner Learning Institute (Zhina Neixueyuan 支那內學院), and Wuchang Buddhist College (Wuchang Foxueyuan 武昌佛學院) in the early 1920s. Many new Buddhist organizations and institutes were founded, and an increasing number of intellectuals became interested in Buddhist studies. Chinese Buddhism re-emerged as an active and energetic competitor to Christianity. In addition to the efforts made by Buddhist monks and laypeople, the influence of the Anti-Christian Movement during the 1920s also affected Christianity adversely.

35 36

Similar cases can be found in Britain (1870–1871), USA (1872), Prussia (1873) and France (1880–1886). See Maclear (1995), pp. 253–56, 261–64, 267–70 and 275–77. He Jianming (1993, 1992).

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In fact, some Chinese Christians converted to Buddhism in the years before and after the May Fourth Movement of 1919. The impact of the new constitution on religious freedom and the revival of Buddhism can be seen from a remark made by a Christian in the early 1920s. It reads: After the change of polity, while some common people advocated for national religion, others opposed it. When religious freedom was written into the Constitution, some religious people were motivated by religious competition, while non-religious people also became more interested in religion. Some Buddhist masters, who had been well known for Buddhist studies, such as Yuexia 月霞 (1858–1917), Dixian 諦閑 (1858–1932), and others, suddenly became active in propagating Buddhism. Subsequently, the voice of institutional Buddhism, which had been silent for centuries, became heard again. Some learned Christians, enjoying the taste of Buddhism and abandoning what they had learnt, joined lay Buddhist organizations. They were so contented that they thought they could find Christ in Buddhism.37 The political developments together with the Buddhist revival posed a significant, as well as new challenge to Christianity in China. There were some Christian missionaries, including Karl Ludvig Reichelt (1877–1952),38 who attempted to imitate the Chinese Buddhist externals, including ritual and some other aspects, in order to welcome Buddhists to the Christian community and to convert them in due course. Reichelt’s effort could be understood as an attempt to compete with Buddhism for the religious market through adopting the Buddhist ‘packaging.’ Although Reichelt’s strategy was criticized by some Chinese Christians as well as Western missionaries and scholars,39 it reflected some international trends of missionary thinking,40 and was also approved and supported by many Christian intellectuals in China. Some Chinese Christian intellectuals, for example, Wang Zhixin 王治心 (1881–1968), proposed that in order to indigenize Christianity in China and meet the challenge posed by the revived Chinese Buddhism, Christianity 37 38 39

40

See Chen Jingyong (1924), p. 1. About the life and work of Karl Ludvig Reichelt, see Sharpe (1984). For example, some scholars suggested that the failure of Nestorian Christianity in the Tang 唐 period (618–906), was due to its over-dependence on Buddhism, and hence, neglected the true meaning of Christianity. See Zhong Ketuo (1983), p. 8. See Thelle (2003).

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should learn from Chinese Buddhism,41 especially its successful experience in ­indigenization.42 Wang emphasized that the most serious challenge to Christianity was not from the apparent confrontation with science, but from Buddhism, which denied the existence of God the Creator and was atheistic at its core. If Christians failed to study Buddhism thoroughly, it would be impossible to understand its underlying threat and to compete with it.43 During this period there were several Christian intellectuals, including Francis C.M. Wei (Wei Zhuomin 韋卓民, 1888–1976), Xu Songshi 徐松石 (1900–1999), also known as Princeton S. Hsu, and others, proposing that Christianity could indigenize itself through learning from the Buddhist experience of indigenization. Apparently, some Chinese Christians realized that Buddhism had become a serious competitor and Christianity should imitate it in some respects. It is thus quite fair to say that the indigenization of Christianity in China was, to a certain extent, inspired by the revival of Chinese Buddhism.44 4

Ven. Taixu and Globalization

During the Republican period, many Buddhists continued their reform in response to the challenges brought forth by the new socio-political situation and the continued challenge from Christianity. Many Buddhists might think that although Buddhism had existed in China long before Christianity, the number of Christian believers in China would have surpassed that of Buddhists since the late Qing period. The attraction of Christianity was not down to its doctrine, but to its adaptation to societal needs, its skillful propaganda and administrative competence. As a result, Christianity had successfully spread everywhere and become the most influential religion in the world. So in order to compete with Christianity, many Chinese Buddhists engaged in polemic debates with Christians in an attempt to learn from Christianity’s positive experience of modernization, especially the Christian social services.45 With regard to the modern Buddhist reform in Republican China, some academic studies have already been undertaken.46 These studies are primarily 41 Wang Zhixin (1925), pp. 1–2. 42 Ibid. 43 Wang Zhixin, (1924), p. 2. 44 See further Lai Pan-chiu (2000). 45 See He Jianming (2000). 46 Deng Zimei (1994), He Jianming (1998), Chen Bing and Deng Zimei (2001), Welch (1968), and Pittman (2001).

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focused on how Chinese Buddhists made use of their Buddhist heritage to reform Chinese Buddhism from within. Very little attention has been paid to the external challenges, such as Christianity, which spurred Buddhist reform at that time.47 Furthermore, the role the Chinese government played in the reform of Buddhism has merely been briefly mentioned without having been properly discussed.48 However, although the Buddhist reform movement during the Republican era was kindled by the revival commenced in the late Qing, it was also influenced by external challenges and guided by the Chinese government. In fact, in their advocacy of Buddhist reform, both Buddhist leaders and government officials made references to the successful experience of Christianity, which was recommended as an ‘advanced’ or ‘modernized’ religion to be imitated.49 For some Buddhist leaders, particularly including Ven. Taixu, the main aim of reform was not merely to compete with Christianity for Chinese souls or the religious market in China, but to disseminate Buddhism to the West and the rest of the world as the long-term goal. In other words, the Buddhist reform in Republican China, which was launched to a certain extent under the influence of globalization, took the globalization of Buddhism as its objective. Following in the footsteps of Yang Wenhui, Taixu endeavoured to ‘internationalize’ or ‘globalize’ Buddhism and recognized Japanese Buddhism as an important partner in this joint venture.50 In 1922, Taixu formally established the World Buddhist Federation (Shijie Fojiao Lianhehui 世界佛教聯 合會) with a view to disseminate Buddhism to the world, especially the West, through joining forces with Buddhists from other countries. To this end, Taixu attempted to forge an alliance with Japanese Buddhists. In 1923, he had the chance to share his vision with Inaba Enjō 稻葉圓成 (1881–1950), a leader of True Pure Land Buddhism in Japan, who subsequently helped Taixu to organize the World Buddhist Conference (Shijie Fojiao Dahui 世界佛教大會) and invited several Japanese Buddhist leaders to attend the first meeting held at Dalin Temple (Dalin Si 大林寺) in Lushan 廬山 in 1924. Though the word ‘world’ was included in the title of the conference, the participants were mainly from China and Japan. Furthermore, many Chinese Buddhist leaders did not attend. However, the name ‘World Buddhist Conference’ itself revealed Taixu’s global intent.51 47 48 49 50 51

Pittman (2001), pp. 242–50. Ibid., pp. 57–58. He Jianming and Lai Pan-chiu (2003/2004), pp. 41–69. Xiao Ping (2003), pp. 223–42. Welch (1968), pp. 55–57.

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In 1925, when the next conference was held in Japan, the name was toned down and modified to East Asia Buddhist Conference (Dongya Fojiao Dahui 東亞佛教大會) so as to reflect more accurately its actual composition. However, the Chinese government took the event seriously and even sponsored the traveling expenses of the Chinese representatives.52 Afterwards, Taixu visited Singapore in 1926, and then Europe and America in 1928–1929. Though Taixu proclaimed the success of his lecture tour, other reports indicate that his attempt to link Buddhism with science in his lectures was far from impressive.53 However, as we are going to see, these visits remained rather important to Taixu’s reform, because he took the opportunity to observe first hand the theological education in the West and some other aspects of Western culture and society. Taixu had indicated as early as 1910 that he found the Christian doctrines far from impressive, although some aspects of Christian practice, such as their organizations and charitable works, were admirable and Buddhists should learn from these.54 His subsequent reforms, as Taixu himself admitted, were formulated after having carefully studied the social, political, and religious situation in the Western countries he visited.55 Taixu was especially attracted to and influenced by the system of Western theological seminaries and religious institutes,56 and tried to draw on the experience of Christian involvement in education in the West.57 He successfully established the Wuchang Buddhist College and the Chinese-Tibetan Buddhist College (Han-Zang Jiaoliyuan 漢藏教理院), and administered the Minnan Buddhist College (Minnan Foxueyuan 閩南佛學院). All these colleges were well known for their ­modern Buddhist education and became the model for many other institutes of Buddhist learning.58 By comparing these Buddhist colleges with Christian seminaries in the West, it is rather clear that, apart from some differences in religious curriculum and daily ritual practices, there are many similarities in their respective religious education.59 Other than sangha education, Taixu’s reform also placed emphasis on charitable work. In this regard, he also referred to the successful experience 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

Xiao Ping (2003), pp. 227–36. Xiao Ping (2003), p. 231; Welch (1968), pp. 65–66. He Jianming and Lai Pan-chiu (2003/2004), pp. 44–45. Taixu (1970e), p. 68. Taixu (1970c), p. 260. Taixu (1970a), pp. 253–254. Taixu (1970e), pp. 93–95. Gu Dingyi (1990).

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of Christianity in Europe and America, suggesting that Christianity made tremendous contributions to social service in modern society, and that Buddhists should learn from the Christians in these respects. He stated that the enthusiasm of European and American Christians for social service not only surpasses that of Buddhists in China, but also all other religious followers. Christians in Europe and America are actively involving themselves in social service so that Christian social activities are much developed. Nevertheless, some Chinese intellectuals, who studied abroad, often take for granted the fact that people in Europe and America do not believe any more in religion. In contrast, besides a small number of people who are engaged in philosophical studies and scientific research, very few people do not have religious faith. This situation owes credit to Christian social service. Buddhism will become a new world religion, accomplished in both theory and practice, if Buddhists can carry out ‘Six Perfections and Other Myriad Practices’ of the Bodhisattva. That is why for the last twenty years I have consistently urged Buddhists to follow the practice of Mahāyāna Buddhism, to prioritize the people’s interest. Only then can the spirit of the Buddha be manifested and the Buddhist duty fulfilled.60 When Ven. Taixu delivered a speech at West China University (Huaxi Daxue 華西大學) in June 1938, he admitted candidly that his Buddhist reform had, in part, been inspired by Christianity: My endeavors for Buddhist reform in the last twenty or thirty years have been partly inspired by the spread of Christianity in China. Christianity has exerted tremendous influence on modern Chinese culture, social service, and religion. Although Buddhism, which possesses profound doctrines, was practiced in China for a long time and was adapted to the Chinese life, it has not made any preeminent contribution to the state and society in recent years. Under these circumstances, it is necessary to reform Buddhism by drawing on Christianity. Furthermore, Chinese society as a whole needs to be improved by the Christian spirit.61

60 61

Taixu (1970b), pp. 332–333. Taixu (1970d), pp. 335–336.

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From time to time, Taixu wished to compete with Christianity through learning from the example of Christianity, including the prison ministry.62 Taixu also attempted to form alliances with Buddhists from other countries. For example, Taixu managed to send five monks to Sri Lanka to learn the Theravada Buddhist tradition.63 Though the project was far from successful, with four of the monks even turning to secular life, the attempt once again clearly indicated Taixu’s vision and dedication to the globalization of Buddhism. In fact, his attempt to harmonize Buddhism with science, and his endeavor to argue for the relevance of Buddhism to contemporary social life, were also part of his effort to make Buddhism attractive to the Western world and competitive to Christianity.64 Xue Yu may be quite right in suggesting that Taixu’s attitude towards Christianity went through several stages: from criticism (1913–21) via a quest for reconciliation (1921–37) to collaboration (1937–47).65 But given the fact that Taixu’s suggestions for collaboration were made mainly due to the AntiJapanese War, one has to be cautious about whether he actually meant to give up competing with Christianity. Furthermore, although Taixu talked about the formation of a new universal or global culture, the approach he advocated for remained largely in terms of the globalization of Buddhist culture.66 Taixu’s reform seemed to be motivated primarily by a rather local concern—the modernization of Chinese Buddhism. However, his attempt was not without its global aspects. In addition to his attempts to learn from and compete with Christianity, he worked with Buddhists from Japan and Sri Lanka in order to disseminate Buddhism to the Western world. He also attempted to enhance his international profile and reputation through visiting overseas countries several times—once to France, England, Germany, America and Japan during 1928– 1929 and subsequently to South and Southeast Asia during 1939–40. From time to time, he endeavored to establish some sort of ‘world,’ ‘international,’ or ‘global’ Buddhist organization. He even attempted to reconcile Buddhism with science, in order to refute the scientific criticism Buddhism met with in China, and to make Buddhism attractive to Westerners. All this indicates that Taixu considered his work from a global perspective.67

62 63 64 65 66 67

Welch (1968), pp. 129–30. Welch (1968), pp. 62–63. Welch (1968), 65–66. Xue Yu (2003), pp. 157–201. Li Huqun (2008). See Welch (1968), pp. 51–71; also Pittman (2001).

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Although Taixu’s achievements in globalizing Buddhism were rather limited during his lifetime, his proposal for a Humanistic Buddhism inspired many of his followers to carry on the task of reforming Buddhism, establishing a Humanistic Buddhism, and globalizing Buddhism. The most notable example was the effort made by Ven. Xingyun 星雲, founder of Buddha Light Mountain (Foguangshan 佛光山), which has established branches on all five continents. Other than being probably the most famous Chinese Buddhist organization, it is also the most important example of modernization or globalization of Buddhism.68 With hindsight, one may say that the globalization of Chinese Buddhism was partially and indirectly induced by the globalization of Christianity, among some other agencies of globalization of culture. Conclusion As the above discussion has shown, the Buddhist-Christian encounter in modern China was shaped by several global factors, including the missionary activities of Christianity, the dissemination of modern science, and the rise of nationalism. Prominent individuals involved in the encounter, including Yang Wenhui, Taixu, and Timothy Richard, were well aware of the global context as well as the significance of the encounter. The introduction of Christianity, together with modern science and other aspects of Western civilization to China, exerted a tremendous imfluence on the religious ecology of China. In response to the challenge brought about by Christianity, many Chinese Buddhists attempted to reform several aspects of Chinese Buddhism. Some Chinese Buddhists even seized the opportunity to form an alliance with Buddhists from other countries in order to disseminate Buddhism to the West and globalize Buddhism. As a result, from the late Qing dynasty to the end of the Republican era, Buddhist reforms or revivals changed from focusing on protecting temple property and strengthening the sangha, to emphasizing how Buddhists could address societal needs and globalize Buddhism. In this process, some Buddhists attempted to learn from Christianity in order to compete with it. Many Buddhists endeavored to imitate different aspects of Christianity, above all its methods of managing religious education and its administration of various organizations, such as social services. They tended to exaggerate or idealize the achievements of Christianity in education and social services. Sometimes their borrowings were quite selective, inconsistent, unsystematic, subjective, and even confusing. What the Chinese Buddhists proposed 68

See Chandler (2004).

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learning from Christianity seemed to depend on the ways in which they understood how and where such adaptations were needed. Furthermore, the aspects of Christianity that Chinese Buddhists were attracted to mainly concerned the external activities, such as missionary activities and social services, rather than what they called the ‘inner learning’ (neixue 內學), referring mainly to theology and spirituality. This kind of approach towards Christianity was quite similar to one of the prevalent approaches at the time, namely to ‘learn from the strength of the barbarians so as to overcome them’ (shi yi zhi chang yi zhi yi 師 夷之長以制夷) and ‘Chinese learning as the essence and Western learning as functional’ (zhongxue wei ti, xixue wei yong 中學為體, 西學為用). In spite of the limitations of this approach, Chinese Buddhism gradually and successfully modernized, and became globalized, by the end of the twentieth century. The globalization of Chinese Buddhism is probably not an isolated incident. When compared with the case of Japan, certain parallels become apparant. In Japan, the relationship between Christianity and Buddhism had already begun to change from conflict to dialogue slightly earlier than was the case in China.69 Japanese Buddhists also attempted to deal with the questions of science, politics and nationalism—again slightly earlier than the Chinese Buddhists.70 Similarly, a form of Humanistic Buddhism, or Buddhist Humanism, was formed in Japan and then became a globalized religious organization. The best known example is probably the Sōka Gakkai.71 A similar case can be found in Sri Lankan Buddhism.72 In other words, the globalization of Chinese Buddhism in response to the globalization of Christianity reflects an international, if not thoroughly global, trend of development. The impact of the encounter can be seen not only in the subsequent development of Chinese Buddhism, but in Christianity as well. The Christian attempts at indigenization during the Republican period, as we have seen, had been inspired to a certain extent by the revival of Chinese Buddhism. This process of indigenization of Christianity in China, again, was not an isolated incident or an exceptional case. It is part of the global movement of Christianity and similar cases can be found in Japan, India, and Africa. In other words, the missionary activities of Christianity, which can be regarded as one of the major contributing factors for the globalization of culture, have brought not only Westernization but also ‘vernacularization.’73 69 70 71 72 73

See Thelle (1987). See Harding (2008). See Seager (2006). In fact, similar cases might have appeared in Hinduism and Islam. See Gombrich (1988), Harris (2006). See Sanneh (1989).

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With regard to the theoretical issues concerning the globalization of culture, the case of Buddhist-Christian encounter in modern China does not support the theory of a clash of civilizations. Though there was competition between Buddhism and Christianity, there were also attempts to enter into dialogue with each other, learn from each other and even work with each other for the well-being of the nation and the whole world. As for the paradigm of McDonaldization, the encounter studied here did not result in the one-sided imposition of Western or American culture. On the contrary, Chinese Buddhism became globalized, and Christianity became more ‘localized’ or ‘indigenized’ in China. Furthermore, there were also Westerners, for example, Timothy Richard, who became critical towards the imperialism of Western civilization, or at least some aspects thereof. With regard to the hybridization theory, the encounter did result in some sort of mutual influence between Christianity and Buddhism. Given that one religion borrowed elements or learned from the other and vice versa, and that these elements were recognized by both sides as non-essential if not superficial, it is possible to argue that some sort of hybridization took place during the encounter, or emerged as one of the results of the encounter. However, it is also important to note that the religious identities of both Buddhists and Christians remained basically clear and distinct during the whole process. The encounter, or dialogue, did not result in the formation of a new, third religion, which combined elements from both Buddhism and Christianity in a syncretistic way without identifying itself as either Buddhist or Christian. Therefore, if hybridization means the formation of a new and hybrid identity that is different from the previous two parties, this was clearly not true of the Buddhist-Christian encounter in modern China. As Peter Burke suggests, there are a variety of alternative approaches to cultural hybridization; there are also various possible outcomes of cultural hybridization, including cultural homogenization, counter-globalization, and cultural diglossia or cultural bilingualism. One of the possible ways to highlight the positive side of hybridization is to describe it in terms of ‘creolization.’ Unlike the concept of hybridization, which is borrowed from botany and may imply a smooth and natural process, the concept of creolization, which originated from linguistics and refers to the convergence of two languages to form a third one, may mean the “crystallization” of new cultural forms without implying the emergence of a homogenous global culture.74 In line with this understanding, based on the present study, what the encounter contributed to can also be interpreted in terms of the creolization of not only a new form of Buddhism, namely Humanistic Buddhism, but also a new yet fragile cultural 74

Burke (2004), p. 121; Burke (2009), pp. 112–115.

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order, in which the two religions are further globalized, localized as well as diversified, thus contributing to the further pluralization of the global ecology of religion as a whole.75 Bibliography Bohr, P. Richard (1972). Famine in China and the Missionary. Timothy Richard as Relief Administrator and Advocate of National Reform, 1876–1884. Cambridge, MA: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University. ——— (2000). “The Legacy of Timothy Richard.” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 24, pp. 75–80. Burke, Peter (2004). What is Cultural History? Cambridge: Polity Press. ——— (2009). Cultural Hybridity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Chandler, Stuart (2004). Establishing a Pure Land on Earth: The Foguang Buddhist Perspective on Modernization and Globalization. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press. Chen Bing 陈兵 and Deng Zimei 邓子美 (2000). Ershi shiji Zhongguo fojiao 二十世纪 中国佛教 [Twentieth-Century Chinese Buddhism]. Beijing: Minzu Chubanshe. Chen Jingyong 陳金鏞 (1924). “Chen xu 陳序 [Preface].” In: Wang Zhixin 王治心 (ed.), Jidutu zhi foxue yanjiu 基督徒之佛學研究 (Buddhist Studies by Christians). Shanghai: Guangxuehui, p. 1. Chen Yongge 陈永革 (2003). Fojiao honghua de xingdai zhuanxing: Minguo Zhejiang fojiao yanjiu 佛教弘化的现代转型. 民国浙江佛教研究 [The Modern transformation of Buddhist promulgation. A study of Buddhism in Zhejiang Province during the Republican Period] (1912–1949). Beijing: Zongjiao Wenhua Chubanshe. Deng Zimei 邓子美 (1994). Chuantong fojiao yu Zhongguo xiandaihua 传统佛教与中 国现代化 [Traditional Buddhism and China’s Modernization]. Shanghai: Huadong Shifan Daxue. Gombrich, Richard (1988). Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Goossaert, Vincent (2006). “1898: The Beginning of the End for Chinese Religion?” Journal of Asian Studies 65, pp. 307–36. Gu Dingyi 古鼎儀. (1990). “Taixu sengjie jiaoyu gaige yu xiandai xifang senglü jiaoyu 太虛僧伽教育改革與現代西方僧侶教育 [Taixu’s saṅgha educational reform and the modern Western education of monk intellectuals].” In: Huo Taohui 霍韜晦 75

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for their useful suggestions (especially the reference to Burke’s works), Dr. Necky Cheung for editing an earlier draft, and Rev. Ambrose Mong for proof-reading the final draft of this chapter.

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(ed.), Taixu dansheng yibai zhounian guoji huiyi lunwenji 太虛誕生一百周年國際 議論文集 [Essays from the International Conference Commemorating Taixu’s 100th Birthday]. Hong Kong: Fazhu Xuehui, pp. 331–338. Harding, John S. (2008). Mahayana Phoenix: Japan’s Buddhists at the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions. New York: Lang. Harris, Elizabeth J. (2006). Theravāda Buddhism and the British Encounter: Religious, Missionary and Colonial Experience in Nineteenth Century Sri Lanka. London: Routledge. He Jianming 何建明 (1992). “Minchu fojiao gexin yundong shulun 民初佛教革新运 动述论 [On the Buddhist Reform Movement in Early Republican China].” Jindaishi yanjiu 近代史研究 2, pp. 74–92. ——— (1993). “Lun wan Qing zichangjieji geming dui jindai fojiao de yingxiang 論晚 清資產階級革命對近代佛教的影響 [On the Impact of the Later Qing Burgeoise Revolution on Modern Buddhism].” Shijie zongjiao yanjiu 世界宗教研究 2, pp. 24–34. ——— (1998). Fofa guannian de jindai tiaoshi 佛教观念的近代调适 [The adjustment of Buddhist concepts in modern times]. Foshan: Guangdong Renmin Chubanshe. ——— (2000). “Buddhist-Christian Encounter in Modern China: A Case Study of Ren Jian Jue Banyuekan.” Ching Feng (New Series) 1:2, pp. 121–42. He Jianming and Lai Pan-chiu (2003/2004). “Christianity and the Modern Chinese Buddhist Reform.” Dialogue and Alliance 17:2, pp. 41–69. Kwok, Daniel W.Y. (1965). Scientism in Chinese Thought, 1900–1950. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lai Pan-chiu (2000). “Influence of Chinese Buddhism in the Indigenization of Christianity in Modern China.” Ching Feng (New Series) 1:2, pp. 143–59. ——— 賴品超 (ed.) (2003). Jindai zhongguo fojiao yu jidu zongjiao de xiangyu 近代 中國佛教與基督宗教的相遇 [The Buddhist-Christian Encounter in Modern China]. Hong Kong: Daofeng Shushe. ——— (2008). “Chinese Religions: Negotiating Cultural and Religious Identities.” In: Alan Race; Paul M. Hedges (eds.), Christian Approaches to Other Faiths. London: SCM, pp. 270–88. ——— (2009). “Timothy Richard’s Buddhist-Christian Studies.” Buddhist-Christian Studies 29, pp. 23–38. Li Huqun 李虎群 (2008). “Taixu lun Zhongguo chanzong he shijie datong wenhua 太虚论中国禅宗和世界大同文化 [Taixu’s arguments on Chinese Zen Buddhism and the culture of Great Harmony around the world]”. Zhexue men 哲学门 (Beida Journal of Philosophy) 9:1, pp. 231–44. Ma Tianxiang 麻天祥 (2000). Ershi shiji Zhongguo foxue wenti 二十世纪中国佛 学问题 [Chinese Buddhism in the Twentieth Century]. Changsha: Hunan Jiaoyu Chubanshe.

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Maclear, J.F. (ed.) (1995). Church and State in the Modern Age: A Documentary History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McMahan, David L. (2008). The Making of Buddhist Modernism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pieterse, Jan Nederveen (2004). Globalization and Culture: Global Mélange. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Pittman, Don A. (2001). Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism: Taixu’s Reforms. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press. Richard, Timothy (1910). The New Testament of Higher Buddhism. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. ——— (1916). An Epistle to All Buddhists. Shanghai: Christian Literature Society. ——— (trans.) (1907). The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana Doctrine: The New Buddhism. Shanghai: Christian Literature Society. Sanneh, Lamin (1989). Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Seager, Richard Hughes (2006). Encountering the Dharma: Daisaku Ikeda, Soka Gakkai, and the Globalization of Buddhist Humanism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Sharpe, Eric (1984). Karl Ludvig Reichelt: Missionary, Scholar and Pilgrim. Hong Kong: Tao Fong Shan Ecumenical Center. Soothill, William E. (1926). Timothy Richard of China: Seer, Statesman, Missionary and the Most Disinterested Adviser to China. 2nd ed. London: Seeley, Service & Co. Taixu (1970a). “Huanyou zhi dongji yu guaxiang 寰遊之動機與感想 [The motives for and a reflection on the world tour].” In: Taixu dashi quanshu 太虛大師全書 [The complete works of Taixu]. Vol. 55. Taibei: Taixu Dashi Quanshu Yinying Weiyuanhui, pp. 240–255 (first published in 1929). ——— (1970b). “Fofa zhi lizheng yu shixing 佛法之理證與行事 [The Buddhist realization of truth and practice].” In: Taixu dashi quanshu 太虛大師全書 [The complete works of Taixu]. Vol. 55. Taibei: Taixu Dashi Quanshu Yinying Weiyuanhui. pp. 330–333 (first published in 1930). ——— (1970c). “Jianshe xianda Zhongguo fojiao tan 建設現代中國佛教談 [A discussion on the development of modern Chinese Buddhism].” In: Taixu dashi quanshu 太虛大師全書 [The complete works of Taixu]. Vol. 33. Taibei: Taixu Dashi Quanshu Yinying Weiyuanhui, pp. 219–279 (first published in 1935). ——— (1970d). “Zhongguo xu yejiao yu Ou-Mei xu fojiao 中國需耶教與歐美需 佛教 [China needs Christianity and the West needs Buddhism].” In: Taixu dashi quanshu 太虛大師全書 [The complete works of Taixu]. Vol. 41. Taibei: Taixu Dashi Quanshu Yinying Weiyuanhui, pp. 335–341 (first published in 1938). ——— (1970e). “Wode fojiao gaijing yundong shilüe 我的佛教改進運動史略 [A brief history of my Buddhist reform movement].” In: Taixu dashi quanshu

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太虛大師全書 [The complete works of Taixu]. Vol. 57. Taibei: Taixu Dashi Quanshu Yinying Weiyuanhui, pp. 67–121 (first published in 1940). Thelle, Notto R. (1987). Buddhism and Christianity in Japan: From Conflict to Dialogue, 1854–1899. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press. ——— (2003). “The Conversion of the Missionary: Changes in Buddhist-Christian Relations in Early Twentieth Century China.” Ching Feng (New Series) 4:2, pp. 131–56. von Brück, Michael and Whalen Lai (2001). Christianity and Buddhism: A Multi-Cultural History of Their Dialogue, trans. Phyllis Jestice. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Walls, Andrew F. (2002). The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Wang Zhixin (1925). “Zhongguo bense jiaohui de taolun 中國本色教會的討論 [A discussion on the indigenization of Chinese churches].” Qingnian jinbu 青年進步 79:1, pp. 11–16. Welch, Holmes (1968). The Buddhist Revival in China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wong Man-kong (1999). “Timothy Richard and the Chinese Reform Movement.” Fides et historia 31:2, pp. 47–59. Xiao Ping 肖平 (2003). Jindai Zhongguo fojiao de fuxing: yu Riben fojiaojie de jiaowang lu 近代中国佛教的复兴. 与日本佛教界的交往录 [Records of the Revival of Modern Chinese Buddhism. Its Exchanges with Japanese Buddhists]. Guangzhou: Guangdong Renmin Chubanshe. Xue Yu (2003). “Buddhist-Christian Encounter in Modern China: Taixu’s Perspective on Christianity.” Ching Feng (New Series) 4:2, pp. 157–201. Yang Wenhui 杨文会 (1995). “Zhina fojiao zhenxing ce yi 支那佛教振兴策一 [A proposal for Chinese Buddhist revival].” In: Yang Renshan ji 杨仁山 [Collection of Yang Renshan], ed. Huang Xianian 黃夏年. Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, p. 7. Yu Lingpo 于淩波 (1995). Yang Renshan jushi pingzhuan 楊仁山居士評傳 [A Critical Biography of Yang Renshan]. Taibei: Xinwenfeng. Zhang Hua 张华 (2004). Yang Wenhui yu Zhongguo jinxiandai fojiao sixiang zhuanxing 杨文会与中国近现代佛教思想转型 [Yang Wenhui and the Transformation of Thought in Modern Chinese Buddhism]. Beijing: Zongjiao Wenhua Chubanshe. Zhong Ketuo 鍾可托 (1983). “Nianlai Zhongguo jiaohui gaikuang zhi guancha 年來中 國教會概況之觀察 [Overview of Chinese Church Over Years].” In: Zhongguo jidu jiaohui nianjian 中華基督教會年鑒 1927. Reprint ed. Taipei: Zhongguo Jiaohui Yanjiu Zhongxin and Ganlan Wenhua Jijinhui, p. 8.

Part four Knowledge Transfer, Academic Networks, Identity, and the Study of Religions

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chapter 11

How the ‘Science of Religion’ (zongjiaoxue) as a Discipline Globalized ‘Religion’ in Late Qing and Republican China, 1890–1949—Global Concepts, Knowledge Transfer, and Local Discourses Christian Meyer* If we are to ‘study religion globally,’1 the category ‘religion’ itself cannot be taken for granted. However, instead of doubting the applicability of the term to non-Western traditions and dismissing the term wholesale2 the effective history and actual presence of the category ‘religion’ in modern discourses worldwide sheds a specific light on the problem. With regard to this contemporary perspective, scholars dealing with the relation of globalization and religion— first and foremost among them the well-known sociologists of religion Roland Robertson and Peter Beyer—have not only called for a critical reconstruction of a ‘genealogy of religion’3 in order to reveal why and how ‘religion’ has been constructed in discursive ways as an “essentially and increasingly contested category.”4 Following their own global sociological perspective, both scholars have even attempted to demonstrate how the concept of ‘religion’ in the * I would like to thank Philip Clart and Naomi Thurston for their helpful comments and proofreading of the final draft of this chapter. Research for this chapter has been generously supported by a grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG) for a one-year research at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2007 to 2008 and by another one from the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities (IKGF) “Fate, Freedom and Prognostication” for a year at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg from 2010 to 2011. 1 Robertson (2001), p. 18f. 2 As prominent scholars of Religious Studies, such as Willard Cantwell Smith (as early as 1963), have suggested with reference to pre-modern non-Western traditions, also directly pointing to the Chinese case. Smith (1963), p. 69. For more recent contribution cf., for example, McCutcheon (1997) and Fitzgerald (2000). For counter-arguments even for pre-modern China cf., for example, Campany (2003). 3 Robertson (1988), cf. Beyer (1998). For similar attempts in the history of the concept of ‘religion’ see Feil (1986–2007) or the seminal article by Jonathan Z. Smith (1998). 4 Robertson (2001), p. 14; cf. ibid. p. 4: “globally institutionalized, yet often contested, category” (Robertson 1988); cf. also Beyer (2006), pp. 6–8.

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modern globalizing world—though being “of mainly Western origin”—has in fact become a “socioculturally produced category” that has “been generalized across most of the world“ and therefore become global.5 Most interestingly now, Robertson as well as Beyer have referred specifically to the Chinese case: In his article “The Globalization Paradigm: Thinking Globally” (first published in 1991), which focuses on the matter of ‘religion,’ Robertson ascribes to East Asian religious traditions a high potential for adaptation, suggesting that as they have “a great emphasis upon syncretic harmonization (or unification) of religious standpoints,” they should be “more in tune with the late-twentieth century global circumstances” and therefore at an advantage compared to more exclusivist traditions.6 Interestingly, he shortly later also refers to the concept of ‘inculturation’ in Christian missionary approaches to show how the ‘exclusivist’ religion of Christianity deals with the problem of universal claims and local adaptations. Both aspects might also be examined for its relevance in the Chinese case. While Robertson’s remarks on China obviously remain rather vague and rather stereotypical, reflecting a general image of traditional Chinese religions as less exclusivist and generally syncretic,7 Peter Beyer as another prominent expert in the field of globalization, as well as a sociologist with a profile in the field of religion, has more thoroughly dealt with the Chinese or East Asian cases as part of a global ‘genealogy of religion.’ In general, Beyer’s concern is to show how in the modern period global interaction did not only contribute to the Western coinage of the term, but also how in the reverse direction traditional concepts in modern non-Western societies were reformulated and reshaped8 by establishing their respective (national) ‘religions’ in order to respond to the Western challenge. This reaction can be seen as unavoidable as none of the non-Western societies appeared to be able to evade the global influences of the Western universalist model of what a ‘modern’ state, nation, or society should look like. Therefore, reacting to the Western hegemony, most societies inevitably remodeled their own understanding and ­‘incorporated’ 5 Robertson (2001), p. 14. 6 Ibid., p. 15. 7 While pointing out the less exclusivist nature of what is called religion in China compared to the Abrahamic religious traditions, Robertson fails to offer further analysis on this point He is obviously referring back to the famous motif of the ‘Three Teachings [i.e. Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism] forming a unity’ (sanjiao heyi 三教合一), which has often be simplified and misunderstood as a generally pluralistic attitude in Western tradition; for a critique of this understanding see Gentz (2006) and a similar English version in Gentz (2011). 8 As he describes it, mainly by the representatives of religious traditions.

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themselves into the emerging ‘global social system.’9 According to Beyer, however, the Chinese, or more generally East Asian examples, compared to the Muslim, Indian or Buddhist cases, represent a “contrasting case of how the modern idea and social reality of religion have been appropriated.” In contrast to South India, where an invention or “positive construction of Hinduism” took place, he sees in China “a more negative orientation to the concept,” or even uses China as a case in point that “raises the possibility that modern society could do without a religious system.”10 In contrast to Robertson, Beyer focuses on the actual difficulties of applying the category of ‘religion’ to “Chinese religion”11 and defines it in contrast to the former examples as an exceptional case. With his interest in identifying local reinventions of religious traditions, the “formation of religions” in the “Chinese situation over the last century and a half” appears to him rather “ ‘accidental.’ ”12 He even argues that “though Western observers observed what they saw as two distinct Chinese religions, Confucianism and Daoism, the Chinese carriers of these have never adopted the project of imagining and constructing one or more religions out of their religio-cultural traditions.” Beyer further accumulates some historical evidence to bolster his view of missing ‘carriers’ of reformulating or reinventing Chinese traditions as ‘religions’ in the decisive period. He states in his earlier article from 1998:

9

10

11

12

See Beyer (1998), cf. also Beyer (2006), p. 225: “global religious system.” Beyer understands ‘system’ in the Luhmannian sense as a distinct social subsystem defined by binary codes (transcendence/non-transcendence or other comparable binary codes in non-Western traditions with family resemblance) distinguishing it from other social subsystems. Beyer (2006), p. 225 and Beyer (1998), p. 167. Though his attention is focused on the model of system in the Luhmannian sense, the important fact of institutional formation as national religious organizations in the Republican period (and their institutional reappearance in the early PRC) due to public and political pressure and after 1949 together with Marxist definitions of religion as a distinct field are completely ignored by Beyer or slip his attention; for national institutional formations in the Republican era see, e.g., Goossaert (2008). Beyer initially uses the term ‘Chinese religion’ in the singular without specifying what is meant by this; later he speaks about “Chinese religions” (in the plural). Goossaert (2006), p. 310, is more precise, defining ‘Chinese religion’ as a “pluralistic and internally contested religious system,” “a merely heuristic, but nonetheless useful, concept” which, however, also includes distinct agents, among them “clerical communities (Confucian, Buddhist, Taoist).” Beyer (1998), p. 167.

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One important factor was that during the critical 19th century there was in China no category of traditional religious specialists with sufficient legitimacy to lead such a project. Certainly Daoist priests or Buddhist monks and nuns could not claim this. The only abstract possibilities were the Confucian literati; but these were not religious or even ritual specialists [sic!], and their legitimacy was too much tied to the traditional imperial state. The passing of the latter eliminated the institutional bases of the literati just at a time when such support would have been critical.13 In a later book chapter on this topic, Beyer elaborates his points involving more material and thereby partly relativizing earlier statements and correcting some flaws. For example, he now discusses the reform attempt of “Kang Y[o]uwei and his supporters to create a Chinese national and eventual state religion on a Confucian base”14 or that of the reform Buddhist monk Taixu. But he dismisses them as “failed” attempts.15 His main points remain that the “new intelligent­ sia” (p. 229), which he identifies with the “May Fourth group” (or “New Culture Movement in the 1920s”)16 as main potential ‘carriers,’ “rejected the contemporary value of religion altogether” or “rarely even mention religion.”17 And therefore, even as he eventually admits that “the recognition of the category of religion is clear in this case as well . . . [and that] it is also in the character of religion to be problematic and an arena of contestation,” his tendency is still to show how the appropriation of ‘religion’ in China took place predominantly with the “more negative orientation” already mentioned.18 It is obvious that much of Beyer’s genealogy of the Chinese case hereby follows an account that is strongly influenced by a secularist, partially even “orthodox-leftist” genealogy of the Communist party. This Communist genealogy refers primarily to the May Fourth Movement as one of its major forerunners, emphasizing the leftist, anti-religious positions within the movement and thereby in essence hiding its heterogeneous make-up (which we shall examine later), in which these positions never even constituted a majority. 13 14 15

16 17 18

Ibid., p. 167. Beyer (2006), p. 231. For Taixu 太虛 ibid., p. 243: “ultimately unsuccessful;” for Kang Youwei 康有為 ibid., p. 231: “Kang Y[o]uwei’s proposal . . . ultimately failed to capture the imagination and loyalty of very many Chinese,” though he adds: “. . . but it shows that the re-imagination of elite cultural traditions in terms of the category of religions was conceivable” (p. 231). Cf. his historically inaccurate phrase on the “May Fourth Movement and the subsequent New Culture movement in the 1920s;” ibid., p. 235. Ibid., p. 235. Ibid., p. 225.

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Beyer complements his description with selected material from discourses on the Confucian and Buddhist cases, while glossing over their actual diversity and excluding elements that do not fit into his pattern. Relying on his sources and informants,19 Beyer consequently presents the Chinese case only as an example of a “negative orientation” in appropriating the category of ‘religion’ in contrast to more positive ways in other cases, such as India or the non-Chinese Buddhist case. His general approach is therefore a dismissal of most positive examples (see Kang Youwei’s and Taixu’s “ultimate failures”) and a subsumation of ‘the’ Chinese (or even East Asian) example monolithically as one case—which is then related and contrasted with either the Western or even more other non-Western cases. Thereby, however, he does not even take seriously his own appraisal of the modern concept of religion as ‘contested.’20 The analysis of non-Western traditions thus tends to simplify actual discursive complexities in contrast to much more elaborately and deeply examined insights on Western discourses—as happens so often when (Western) experts from other fields are dealing with non-Western cultures,21 most famously seen in Max Weber’s studies of world religions. It is therefore the task of scholars in the field of Chinese religions—a task hardly feasible for generalists such as Robertson or Beyer—to draw a much more precise picture of the ways in which China became part of the wider, global ‘genealogy of religion’ and to show more concretely which external influences, channels of transfer as well as domestic discourses were relevant in this process. As Robertson himself put it as early as 1988, such a project should in fact involve careful attention to the concreteness of the diffusion of categories and modes of discourse from one civilizational context to another, the relationship between diffused and indigenous patterns of thought and, not least, the ways in which participation in the global-human circumstance

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Here Beyer naturally relies on his informants, whose obviously more general views on the matter are rendered, and secondary sources—many of which are, however, outdated: for example Grieder (1981), or Chan Wing-tsit (1978), the latter originally published in 1953. More recent contributions to the field, such as Goossaert’s articles or Chen Hsi-yuan’s (1999) and Nedostup’s (2001) theses—available at least at the time of his book version— are not used. Beyer (2006), pp. 6–8. See also Gentz (2006), pp. 19–20.

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involves, in varying degrees, acceptance of globally structured categories and styles of communication.22 The question of how China became part of the general (global) genealogy of religion, as envisioned by Robertson and Beyer, leads us to the first half of the twentieth century, when the term ‘religion,’ translated as zongjiao 宗教, entered China via Japan around 1900 and was incorporated into the Chinese lexicon through broad public and general use in the following decades. While the earliest Chinese uses of the translational term23 in the context of the Confucian reform movement with the call for Confucianism as a ‘state religion’ (or ‘state teaching,’ guojiao 國教) by Kang Youwei and his followers as well as by Liang Qichao have already been examined,24 this article focuses on the following period, when heated debates on religion took place in China in the 1920s. These debates were mainly led by members of the young generation of new Chinese intellectuals and academics in the context of modernization and identity discourses in the new Republic. The existence of this new group reflects the changed conditions of the important transformative period when ‘Western learning’ (xixue 西學) was widely and continuously introduced to China. Especially the new forms of Western academic disciplines which defined new fields and taxonomies of knowledge25 were received not only in publications (translations and new writings): they were also established institutionally in forms of new Western-style universities. Both processes, the introduction of modern academic disciplines and their institutionalization, constitute important aspects of globalization. The concrete analysis of the processes of appropriation, however, ties in with the local conditions and discourses. While there were also non-academic attempts of religious groups to reformulate, reshape, or ‘invent’ their respec-

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Robertson (1988), p. 129. While the combination of the two Chinese characters zong-jiao or shū-kyō are found in a few instances, esp. in Buddhist writings, the standard use as a combined binom has to be understood basically as a new translational term or neologism. Cf. also Beyer’s at least misleading categorizing of zongjiao or shū-kyō as “older words . . . that came to be used” in changed ways; Beyer (2006), p. 11. See especially Chen Hsi-yuan (1999) and Chen Hsi-yüan (2002), for Liang Qichao also Bastid-Bruguière (1998). Cf. also the most recent series of volumes on the formation of modern academic disciplines (‘Formation and development of academic disciplines in twentieth-century China series’) published by Chinese University Press, see Moloughney and Zarrow (2011), Dirlik, Li and Yen (2012) and Makeham (2012).

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tive traditions,26 responding to the demands of the new ‘modern’ models of knowledge, the more influential public debates were in fact closely connected to the emerging academic field. Additionally, both were related to the ongoing political debates and movements and therefore appear together as the main field in which the ‘contested’ category of ‘religion’ gained its currency in modern China. Though other fields should therefore not be excluded a priori, the following article will concentrate on the intellectual and academic field. Its focus will be on the discipline that specifically dealt with religion, what has been known in English under a variety of names, including ‘Science of Religion,’ ‘Comparative Religion,’ ‘History of Religion(s)’ or most recently ‘Religious Studies’ (or alternatively ‘Academic Study of Religion’).27 This approach presents not only new research on a hitherto almost completely neglected field but at the same time brings an aspect into play that is often forgotten when the question of religion in modernity or its relation to globalization is raised: that is the inter-relation of the new academic and the religious fields (whose separation appears as a modern invention). While the recent (re)emergence of ‘Religious Studies’ as a seemingly new discipline in the 1980s in China has been largely observed, its early emergence in the first half of the twentieth century, especially in the 1920s—except for “a few isolated scholars” who worked in the field28—has been neglected or even negated. Schipper, an expert on Daoism, writes as late as 2002: Although since the beginning of the twentieth century in China there have been a few isolated scholars studying Buddhism, Taoism, and even Chinese Islam, from the viewpoint of their respective historical develop-

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See above, Beyer (e.g. 1998, p. 162) with reference to Hobsbawm. According to the Chinese term zongjiaoxue 宗教學, its most literal translation as ‘Science of Religion’ shall be used here as far as other terms are not used in English original renderings (such as ‘Comparative Religion’ as course titles); when the two major approaches, the comparative and the historical ones, are meant specifically, these respective terms shall be applied. ‘Religious Studies’ might be used when relating to more recent debates. The terminological problem is unique to the English language, and is not found in other languages, where close equivalents to ‘Science of religion’ are used (German: Religionswissenschaft, Japanese: Shūkyōgaku). The Chinese term was, as we will see, taken over from the Japanese at a time when ‘Science of Religion,’ coined by Max Müller, was still popular also in English. Schipper (2002) p. 378, cf. similarly He Guanghu (2003), He, Chung and Lee (2008) and Lai Chi-tim (2006). For the historian of religion Chen Yuan 陳垣 (1880–1971), who is often mentioned in this context, see Dirk Kuhlmann’s contribution to this volume.

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ments, a ‘science of religion,’ as a regular academic pursuit, is something which has appeared only quite recently. With regard to institutionalization he states further: “Before 1979, no Chinese academic institution ever recognized the study of religion as a scientific discipline in its own right.”29 Similar, mostly short statements on this period are found by various other authors.30 In response to this state of research this article will set out to show how in the 1920s a ‘Science of Religion’ (zongjiaoxue 宗教學) as a new discipline was not only discussed and called for by major intellectuals, but actually constituted an integral part of the discursive ways to approach the modern category of ‘religion’ and apply it to the modern Chinese situation. The primary emphasis will be on secular and religious intellectuals to the extent that they took part in the public debates or contributed directly to the academic field. A first focus will be on introductory works as a useful indicator of a new field, a second one on the question of institutionalization. Due to their eminent role for the field, but also as an example of the issue of identity as part of globalization, Christian Chinese intellectuals will be highlighted. The overall argument of the article is that the perspective on the academic debate on and contributions to the emerging ‘Science of Religion’ does not represent the genealogy of religion as part of ‘globalization of religion;’ however, such a case study sheds light on how the globalization-related issues of distribution of Western knowledge (including modern Western-shaped disciplines), modernization discourse, and identity issues in interaction shaped the ­formation of this new discipline in particular local ways as an example of globalization (or actually glocalization) of ‘religion’ in China. Unlike Beyer’s assessment, I therefore make no claim of being representative by focusing on potential carriers of reshaping local religious traditions (as he especially does in his earlier article) or intellectual critics of religion; rather, I argue that globalization of the ‘contested category of religion’ takes place as an ongoing ­process within a multitude of simultaneous processes and phenomena. 29

30

Even with regard to the Christian universities in China Schipper (2002), p. 378, claims: “In the 1920s and 1930s, when China had many universities founded by foreign religious groups, such as the Protestant Yen-ching and the Roman Catholic Fu-jen Universities in Peking, the Protestant St John’s, and the Roman Catholic Aurora University in Shanghai, these institutions were never allowed to teach religion in any form.” Though Schipper recognizes the problem of state acknowledgement, he disregards the actual curricula development and strategies of dealing with the problem, as we will see below. Cf. He Guanghu (2003); He, Chung and Lee (2008); Lai Chi-tim (2006).

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The focus on the discipline therefore only presents one aspect of this, though an interesting one as it brings several issues related to globalization together. The article will concentrate specifically on three aspects relevant for the question of globalization: 1) channels of transfer, 2) local discourses and 3) the question of identity—with 2) and 3) being related to the concept of ‘religion’ or the history of religion(s), respectively, as universal concepts.31 1

Developments up to 1920: Early Channels of Transfer

1.1 The Missionary Transmission Comparative Religion as an idea and new discipline reached China even before 1900. However, in this period its introduction as a new subject took place only at Christian colleges (and later universities), mostly as part of theological ministry education, and to a lesser extent as a supplement to the general college curriculum. To this end, the missionaries, mainly Americans, were able to draw on the extant curricula in their own countries, where courses in Comparative Religion had been introduced in the late nineteenth century.32 A closer look at the periodical the Chinese Recorder, the major forum of exchange among missionaries in China at that time, reveals that in the early 1890s the discipline, or at least individual courses on Comparative Religion, raised controversy between liberal and more conservative missionaries—much as was the case in the West itself. Interestingly, it was at this time that the long-term president of Shanghai’s St. John’s College (later St. John’s University) F.L. Hawks Pott pleaded for specialized training in Comparative Religion as part of the theological training of future Chinese pastors. In an article of 1892 on “How to Increase the Efficiency of our Native Workers,” published in the Chinese Recorder, he not only declared it necessary to know the non-Christian religious environment, but also criticized what he called a “denationalizing” of the Chinese neophytes33 (more or less implying what would later be known 31 32 33

For the origin of modern universal thinking in the nineteenth century, see also Beyer (2001), p. xii. For the American development of Religious Studies at selected academic locations see Shepard (1991). Pott (1892), p. 300. Francis Lister Hawks Pott (1864–1947) was the long-term President of St. John’s College/University from 1888 to 1941 and had been delegate at the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh in 1910. Later he also served as President of the Educational Association of China (1914–1915), President of the China Christian Educational Association (1916–1925) and the Association of Christian Colleges and Universities in China (1919–1921).

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as ‘indigenization’). With regard to the discipline of ‘Comparative Religion,’ he argued specifically: We should train our scholars most thoroughly in the branch of study called comparative religion. We should teach them to look below the surface, to distinguish the essential teachings and truths of the great historic religions, apart from their accidents, and to look upon the revelation given in Christ Jesus as that which fulfills all the past longings and aspirations of man. We should impress upon their minds the thought that they ought not always to be negative in their criticisms of other systems, not always denying their errors, but sifting the true from the false, cherishing that which is gold; and we should point out to them that Christ Himself re-enunciated many truths hinted at by the ancients. [. . .] Teach them to look upon Confucianism as for the most part noble and true, and that their business is not to try to sweep it all away in blind bigotry. The fundamental truth of Confucianism, that man should strive to live in harmony with the will of Heaven, lies at the basis of all true religion.34 These statements obviously reflect not only a liberal theological view but also the situation of the late Qing period when Confucianism was still the dominant and official ideology. It is also reminiscent of similar attitudes among older missionaries such as James Legge, who closely collaborated with the initiator of the project of Comparative Religion, Max Müller.35 A special background of this time was the World’s Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago in 1893—on the occasion of the World’s Columbian Exposition—, which was extensively discussed in the period of its preparation in the Chinese Recorder and which mirrored the growing attraction to the discipline. On this occasion the China missions were strongly represented, especially in the concomitant ‘Scientific Section.’ Apart from the one official delegate of the Qing government, it was missionaries who provided most contributions on Confucianism and Chinese religions.36 With its extensive participation and contributions 34 35 36

Pott (1892), p. 302. See Sun Xiao Dong’s thesis (Sun 2008). Among them one paper was presented by the German missionary Dr. Ernst Faber (1839– 1899) (titled “Genesis and Development of Confucianism”) on September 15. He and Rev. G.T. Candlin also took part in a “Symposium on the relation between Religion and Science” on September 20 as part of the conference. Furthermore a prize essay from a competition of the Chinese newspapers held by Dr. Barrows written by a Chinese “KUNG HSIEN Ho” and translated by Timothy Richard was presented. A last contribution on China (on

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from major religious groups, the World’s Parliament of Religions exemplified and strengthened the trend of dealing with religions globally. The disproportionate Christian missionary participation in the academic section shows the specific affinity of Protestant Christians to this project. Though the approach was obviously not shared by all, courses in Comparative Religion were increasingly established in the subsequent years not only at St. John’s but also at other Christian colleges and universities such as Hangchow Christian College, Shantung Union College (Cheeloo), Soochow University (all by 1905),37 the University of Nanking (Jinling Daxue 金陵大學),38 the Presbyterian Union Theological Seminary in Nanjing,39 Canton Christian College (later Lingnan Daxue 嶺南大學, attested as of the mid-1910s),40 and Fukien Christian University (since 1916 Fukien Union College).41 The context and character of these courses was, however, still clearly influenced by the missionary enterprise.42 Even before 1920, the newly established Yenching University, merged from several earlier colleges and universities and organized by its influential president John Leighton Stuart (1876–1962), comprised an even larger share of related courses in its Religion department compared to other universities of its time and herein points to a future trend. Its developments in the 1920s and 1930s will therefore be treated further below.43

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September 27) was a paper by Henry Blodget “Why Protestant Missions in China should Unite in using the Term Tien Chu for God.” For a general overview, see Barrows (1893), available at http://www.archive.org/stream/worldsparliament01barr/worldsparliament 01barr_djvu.txt (accessed 9 July 2013). See Gee (1905), Appendix A, p. xiii (Soochow), see Appendix A, pp. xv–xvi (St. John’s), and Appendix B, p. xxviii (Presbyterian Girl’s Boarding School, Shanghai, Kiangsu Province, Normal course, 1st year combined “Comparative Religions; Psychology”). Founded as Nanking University in 1888. Not to be confused with the later (National) Nanjing University 南京大學. The Chinese Recorder 38 (1907), p. 407. See Canton Christian College Bulletin, No. 8, Catalogue of the College Department, 1915, p. 4 (and pp. 15–16), cf. Canton Christian College Bulletin, No. 10, Catalogue of the Colleges of Arts and Sciences, 1917–1918, Canton, China, pp. 44–45. The interest in the course at this time is also reflected in a statement of the YMCA in Canton in 1912, which directly refers to the contextual use of such courses in the Chinese multi-religious environment: “They became Christians only after careful study in comparative religion, and at once entered into promoting Bible classes, evangelistic meetings and organizing schools for poor children.” See Scott (1954), p. 125. The China Mission Yearbook 3 (1912), p. 338. For a more detailed analysis of the curricula see also Meyer (forthcoming); some early courses in Comparative Religion have been recently mentioned in the article by Dunch (2009), pp. esp. 72, 77 and 81, however, without any in-depth analysis.

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Because of its relation to missionary institutions, the discipline was introduced rather early in China. However, it was limited in several respects: not only was it established at liberal Christian schools only, but even deeply into the 1920s it was taught almost exclusively by Western (missionary) teachers. Concerning our interest in globalization and transfer of knowledge the missionaries stand out here as important transnational or global figures. 1.2 The Chinese Transmission via Japan Though no fully comparable development is found on the Chinese side for the late Qing period, there are still some remarkable alternative traces; however, these never developed into substantial and long-term influence. The general context of these early transmissions was the Chinese reform movement. A special role was played here by those Chinese who stayed in Japan for study or in exile, such as the exiled reformer and disciple of Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929), or others who were influenced by the exiled reformers and spread their ideas through journals in China. In general, for reform-oriented Chinese, Japan constituted an important and convenient channel for adopting Western knowledge. Not only the new term for the Western concept of religion, shūkyō in Japanese pronunciation or zongjiao in Chinese, was shaped in Japan already since the 1870s, but also the discipline of ‘Science of Religion’ (literally translated from this early term as shūkyōgaku 宗教學) was developing there.44 As early as 1896, a Research Society for Comparative Religion (Hikaku Shūkyō Gakkai 比較宗教學會) was founded by Anesaki Masaharu 姉崎正 治, Kishimoto Nobuta 岸本武能太, and Yokoi Tokio 横井時雄 (1857–1928). A first professorship was installed in 1905 at Tōkyō University for Anesaki Masaharu. Around the same time a couple of introductory works for textbook purposes—such as Anesaki Masaharu’s Shūkyōgaku gairon 宗教學概論 (Outline of the Science of Religion) in the year 1900—were originally published or translated from English into Japanese. Some of them were later translated into Chinese.45 Finally, the regular periodical Shūkyō kenkyu 宗教研究 was founded in 1916. 44

45

The term shūkyōgaku was first used in 1884 by Ishikawa Shundai 石川舜台 after the Buddhologist Nanjō Bunyū 南條文雄 (1849–1927) and his early deceased companion Kasahara Kenju 笠原研寿 (1852–1883) had studied in Britain with Max Müller from 1876 to 1884, see Suzuki (1970), pp. 157–58. See below. An even earlier work than the one by Anesaki Masaharu was Uchiyama Shōnyō’s 内山正如 Bankoku shūkyō taii 萬國宗教大意 [Outline of Religions of all Countries], of 1891 that was later also translated into Chinese (as Wanguo zongjiao zhi 萬 國宗教志 by Luo Dawei 羅大維 in 1940).

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One important medium of knowledge transfer at this time was the growing volume of journals founded by reformers such as Liang Qichao himself. In this context the category ‘religion’ (or zongjiao) was used not only as a term, but also to indicate a new taxonomic field of knowledge, especially after Liang himself used the term frequently and even discussed and clarified its use as a genuine Western category.46 In these journals, which were highly influential in their day, we find zongjiao47—or even the term zongjiao-xue,48 which became the accepted equivalent of ‘Science of Religion’/‘Religious Studies’— as a rubric alongside other fields of knowledge. An analysis of articles within this rubric, however, should caution us: though a category of ‘religion,’ translated as zongjiao, is clearly introduced as a (new) ‘field of knowledge’ (xue 學), and includes articles in the field of history of religion(s) (such as on Chinese ancient religion or two translated articles on Indian religion),49 the category remains vague and does not show any significant sign of a clear understanding of the Western discipline in the strict sense. In particular, the central idea of Comparative Religion as highlighted by Max Müller or applied simultaneously in the courses of missionary schools does not become clear.50 Many of the articles in question are in fact politically engaged essays.51 The transitional character of how the new category was applied is also reflected in a work of the well-known scholar Liu Shipei 劉師培 (1884–1919) from 1905. In a series of programmatic ‘prefaces’ or ‘prolegomena’ on the classical ancient ‘history of knowledge of the Late Zhou’ (Zhoumo xueshushi xu 46

47 48

49 50

51

Liang’s “Bao jiao fei suoyi zun Kong lun” [To protect the teaching is not a proper way to respect Confucius] marks a first decisive turn in his treatment of ‘religion’ to a more negative interpretation and a dissociation from Confucianism; see Liang Qichao (2006). The category had, however, been used even earlier in the 1890s and more often since 1898, also by Liang himself. For these earliest uses see Chen Hsi-yuan (1999) and Chen Hsi-yüan (2002); for the influences on Liang see Bastid-Bruguière (1998). E.g. in Qingyibao 清議報 (edited by Liang Qichao himself) or Dongfang zazhi 東方雜誌. In the short-lived journal Xin shijie xuebao 新世界學報, this term was used alongside ‘history’ (shixue 史學), ‘psychology’ (xinlixue 心理學), but also ‘military studies’ (bingxue 兵學) and others. See Anon. (1901, 1906); on Brahmanism and Indian religion cf. Ma Xulun (1902a and b). For the idea of comparison as the “central axis of cohesion” (Abbott 2001, p. 140) of the discipline after Max Müller as an indicator in contrast to mere “interdisciplinary fields” of study see Sun (2008), p. 112. See for example Tang Tiaoding (1902), pp. 23–35, which distances Confucianism from the (mono)theistic religions of Christianity and Islam. Another contribution to the guojiao 國教/ Kongjiao 孔教 debate that attempts to differentiate Confucianism (Kongjiao) from politics in China is Anon. [Liu Shipei] (1904).

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周末學術史序), Liu outlines a new taxonomy of ‘fields of knowledge’ and thereby constitutes an interesting mixture of Chinese traditional and modern taxonomies. The text shows clear influence, for example, of writings earlier translated by Yan Fu 嚴復 (1853–1921), such as those of Spencer and Jenks.52 In these ‘prolegomena,’ Liu also included a chapter on ‘religion’ or ‘zongjiao’ (Zongjiao xue shi xu 宗教學史序 = Prolegomena to the ‘History of Studies on religion/zongjiao’).53 This chapter reveals the hybrid and transitional character of what Liu still sees as zongjiao. Accordingly, he introduces the term by interpreting its first syllable, zong in a very traditional Chinese way relating it to the feudalistic traditional zongfa 宗法 model of the agnatic clan system. Subsequently, Liu combines this, however, with a discussion of the ideas of Shangdi 上帝 and tian 天 (heaven) from classical tradition and relates them to the monotheistic idea in Christianity. In the years after 1900, especially after the old Imperial examination system had been abolished in 1905, public Western-style schools were also established in China. Thereafter and increasingly after the revolution of 1911/12, Western disciplines were gradually introduced and institutionalized. These included primarily the modern natural sciences and those disciplines that were tied to the idea of the nation, such as history and literature. Later, subjects like sociology, ethnology, anthropology, or psychology were added.54 The constitutional debates of the 1910s addressed the question whether Confucianism should become the ‘state teaching’ (guojiao 國教) or should at least play a privileged part in education; however, in spite of the aforementioned beginnings, an independent subject ‘Science of Religion’ was not introduced into the curric­ula for public schools at this junction and, as we will see, not at any time thereafter up to 1949. By 1920, courses in Comparative Religion had become a staple at most liberal Protestant colleges and universities; in some places they were complemented by additional non Christianity-based courses such as Psychology of Religion.55 52 53

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Liu Shipei (1960), pp. 8A and 8B. For an analysis of this work as a mixture of “Chinese traditional ideas” and “modern taxonomical principles,” see Kurtz (2006), esp. p. 272. Kurtz (2006, p. 272) also mentions these ‘Prolegomena to the History of Studies on zongjiao’ (Zongjiaoxue shi xu 宗教學史序) as one of the first five prominent chapters which he groups as ‘Science of Morality.’ He then concentrates, however, on the first four, on ­psychology, ethics, logic, and sociology. For the development of Chinese modern academia and the universities in general see Yeh (1990); for the development of disciplines like history, anthropology/folklore studies, or sociology see for example Schneider (1971), Guldin (1994), Liu Xin (2004), Dong Xiaoping (2004), Wong (1979) and most recently Moloughney and Zarrow (2011), Dirlik, Li and Yen (2012) and Makeham (2012). See for example the course offers in Psychology of Religion at Nanking University in 1919–20: The University of Nanking Bulletin, vol. VI, no. 1, Catalogue 1919–1920, p. 88),

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They supplemented a theological curriculum which was at this time still at the core of religion departments and aimed at an appropriate ministry education in a non-Christian environment, but were also offered as courses for general college education; in both functions, they were part of a general missiological strategy.56 Non-Christian religious traditions were still seen as the main local competitors; of these, Confucianism (or ancient Chinese tradition) in particular seemed to offer potential ‘points of contact.’ The main channels of transfer before 1920 were therefore the Christian missions with their institutions and personnel, which were responsible for an at least limited diffusion of the new discipline. At national universities such courses on religions were missing. Admittedly, there were some contacts and influences through Japan, where ‘Science of Religion’ (Shūkyōgaku) was being established as an institutionalized field around 1900—just at the time when Chinese students and reformers in exile were active translating and developing new ideas in Japan—, and where the category of ‘religion’ itself had indeed been adopted as a marker of an important field (or rubric) of modern Western knowledge. However, the idea of Comparative Religion as a discipline in the distinct Western sense did not yet fall on fertile ground in the wider Chinese discourse. 2

A New Wave of Interest in the ‘Science of Religion’ in the 1920s: Changing Discursive Conditions and Local Players

Beginning around 1920, heated debates on religion formed the backdrop of a renewed interest in the ‘Science of Religion.’ At the same time and partly in conjunction with this interest, the so-called Indigenization Movement (bensehua yundong 本色化運動) testified to the growing self-confidence of a generation of Chinese Protestants in the young Chinese missionary church. In contrast to the pre-1911 era, when Christian missionary institutions still operated for the most part independently of the Imperial institutions, the already wellestablished missionary infrastructure was well-prepared to attract and influence parts of the new intellectual elite. The breakdown of the Imperial system therefore led to an unprecedented convergence of the Christian circles and

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at the Ginling College for Women in the same year: Bulletin of Ginling College, Nanking, China, 1919, pp. 28–29; and the more detailed program at the newly founded Yenching University: Peking University Bulletin vol. 2, 1919–1920, pp. 15 and 31. For the inclusion of Comparative Religion in an early general college curriculum see for example the Hangchow Christian College in 1904: Hangzhou Yuying Shuyuan zhangcheng 杭州育英書院章程 (1904), p. 15. For a detailed analysis of the curricula see Meyer (forthcoming).

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mainstream Chinese society.57 Especially the new group of Christian Chinese intellectuals, often still with traditional family backgrounds, proved instrumental by functioning as the main agents by whose mediation the discipline of Comparative Religion became further appropriated in China. As Chinese intellectuals, they enjoyed opportunities unavailable to the foreign missionaries, and they took on an active role in the relevant discourses on modernization, education and national identity in Republican China. At the same time, the new antagonists of the Christian enterprise were not in fact ‘conservative’ Confucian officials or local elites, or for that matter representatives of the ‘pagan’ religions such as Buddhism (or even Daoism). Under the changing discursive conditions, the freshly emerged group of Chinese Christian intellectuals, who themselves claimed to transmit a modern and rational teaching, suddenly found themselves under attack from explicitly secular, anti-religious and anti-Christian intellectuals while at the same time the antagonism to Buddhism and Confucianism decreased. In the following paragraphs, I will therefore first describe the preconditions, motivations, and interests in the new discipline of ‘Science of Religion’ as they were expressed in public intellectual debates on religion in the early 1920s before turning to its actual formation as a ‘field’ manifest in introductory works as well as on the institutional level in a second step. The underlying argument of this central part is that the discipline of ‘Science of Religion’ was not introduced ‘mechanically,’ i.e. as merely a part of Western knowledge—alongside philosophy, history and the natural sciences or slightly later sociology, ethnology and psychology—, but that there were in fact specific conditions, channels of transfer, and ways of reception which influenced (and at the same time limited) its introduction. In this process, not only the general challenge for reform and modernization (a challenge triggered by the ‘global’ encounter with the West as well as identity debates) was instrumental, but also, and even to a greater extent, specific ‘local’ debates on the role of religion in a modern Chinese society. These led to the appropriation and thereby ‘globalization’ of the discipline. Debates on Religion in the Early 1920s: New Calls for and Growing Interest in a New Discipline ‘Science of Religion’ (or ‘Comparative Religion’) The debates on religion since around 1920 can be understood on the one hand as the product of a growing interest in the category of religion in general and, on the other hand, as an outcome of the intellectual New Culture Movement and 2.1

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For the relevance of Christians in local revolutionary and post-revolutionary activities in Fuzhou see, for example, Dunch (2001).

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the formation of a modern academic field since around 1915. The adoption of the term and category of ‘religion’ in translation as zongjiao (through the Japanese shūkyō) in the context of the reform movement around 1900 followed the constitutional debates of the new Republic starting in 1913. In these debates the proponents of Confucianism fought to establish their doctrine as the state religion or ‘state teaching’ (guojiao), or at least to secure for it a privileged position in education, but finally lost the battle. Conversely, this defeat was a clear decision in favor of the Western principle of ‘freedom of religious belief’ (xinjiao ziyou 信教自由).58 In this protracted debate, Christian representatives joined forces with more radical modernists against any renewed privileged status for Confucianism. On the other hand, the New Thought or New Culture Movement emerged from the same context, and some of its prominent leaders voiced their rather critical stance against any kind of religion. One of these was Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培 (1868–1940), who in 1917 became president of the prominent Peking University and recruited many outstanding intellectuals as professors at the university. In same year he pleaded in his famous article “Yi meiyu dai zongjiao shuo 以美育代宗教說 (Replacing religion with aesthetic education),” published in the New Culture journal Xin qingnian 新青年 (New Youth), that religion should “be replaced by aesthetic education,” thereby discarding religion as outdated and obsolete.59 Before long, Hu Shi 胡適 (1891–1953), one of the young leaders of the New Culture Movement, followed a similar secularist tendency. In his contribution “Buxiu—wo de zongjiao 不朽—我的宗教 (Immortality—my religion),” likewise published in Xin qingnian (in February 1919),60 he did not decry religion per se as superstition but did not attribute any personal relevance to it and instead applied a secular rhetoric of a ‘new religion’ of the collective ‘Greater Self’ (dawo 大我) in contrast to the ‘Small Self’ of the Individual Soul (xiaowo 小我). The liberal ‘pragmatist’ Hu Shi takes a moderately scientistic and less aggressive position: in contrast to the more radical Cai, he was a constant advocate of the principle of freedom of religion. Therefore, even among secular intellectuals who personally kept themselves apart from religion and who were the antagonists of Christian Chinese debaters, one has to differentiate between arguments and attitudes. Presumably not even the majority of New Culture Movement intellectuals can be subsumed as clearly anti-religious as the later Communist genealogy has put it. However, the power of their agitation and their anti-imperialistic arguments instigated increasingly heated debates. In these debates, we can identify several waves and an escalation of the controversy. 58 59 60

See Goossaert (2008), p. 211. Cai Yuanpei (1917), see also Ling (1981), pp. 32–33 and Lam (1983), pp. 8–9. Hu Shi (1919), see also Zhang Qinshi (1927), pp. 9–22.

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A first round61 emerged around the lecture series organized by the Young China Study Society (Shaonian Zhongguo Xuehui 少年中國學會) in 1920–21 with prominent guest speakers. The reason for its organization was a controversy within the society itself that was rooted already in its foundation on 1 July 1919, in the context of the academic New Culture Movement and the general trend to Western-style academization in the late 1910s. Two of the society’s explicit principles were to be ‘based in scientific spirit’ (ben kexue de jingshen 本科學的精神) and to ‘be active for society’ (wei shehui huodong 為社會 活動) in order ‘to create a young China’ ( yi chuangzao shaonian Zhongguo 以創造少年中國).62 For radical members, especially of the leftist Paris section with close relations to Li Dazhao 李大釗 (1888–1927), who co-founded the Chinese Communist Party shortly thereafter in 1921, the criterion of ‘scientificity’ excluded per se any religious confession or affiliation. Accordingly, less than a year later, in April 1920, members of this group, including Zeng Qi 曾琦, Zhou Taixuan 周太玄, and Li Huang 李璜63 requested that the regulations be changed so as to exclude people with a religious confession or affiliation; members holding a religious faith should be asked to leave the society voluntarily.64 The reaction was, however, far from being as unanimous as these critics had hoped.65 In order to find a solution to the issue, a series of eight public lectures was organized in Beijing 北京 and Nanjing 南京.66 Of the three anti-religious contributions, the one by Wang Xinggong 王星拱, clearly followed Cai Yuanpei’s argument that religion was outdated and ought to be 61

62 63 64 65

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On different phases of public debates on religion and the Anti-Christian Movement see also the slightly diverging periodizations by Zhang Qinshi (1927), Yang Tianhong (2005) and Ling (1981), p. 52. See Yang Tianhong (2005), p. 59. The latter at this time also studied with the sinologist and Durkheim/Mauss disciple Marcel Granet. Zhang Qinshi (1927), pp. 183–85, with additional remarks by Zhang himself. The first objection came from the researcher Tian Han 田漢 in November 1920 and was originally published in Shaonian Zhongguo 少年中國 in February 1921. Tian identified himself as non-religious, but pleaded for freedom of religion and saw no necessary contradiction between a ‘religious consciousness’ (quoting William James) and science. On the contrary, he accused the critics of exhibiting undifferentiated and ideological views. See Zhang Qinshi (1927), pp. 51–58. For a reference to James see also Tu Xiaoshi’s contribution in Zhang Qinshi (1927), p. 100. Five of these lectures are collected in Zhang Qinshi (1927), pp. 51–183. All contributions were first published in the journal of Shaonian Zhongguo in February and May 1921. For summaries and biographical notes to all contributors, a majority among them being professors at Peking University, see Lam (1983), pp. 168–70; cf. also Ling (1981), pp. 43–50.

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replaced by aesthetic education. Another lecture critical of religion was delivered by the British agnostic philosopher Bertrand Russell, who was in China at that time, a third came from Li Shicen 李石岑, a leading intellectual figure also in subsequent campaigns. In general, these critics equated religion with emotionality—as opposed to rationality—, subscribing to a radically positivistic rationalism and evolutionism in the tradition of Comte. A majority of five speakers, including Liang Shuming 梁漱溟,67 Tu Xiaoshi 屠孝實, Zhou Zuoren 周作人, Liu Boming 劉伯明, and Lu Zhiwei 陸志韋, however, took a much more moderate stance ranging from toleration to outright affirmation. They were generally guided by a humanistic viewpoint and relativized religion’s supernatural claims, thus presenting some degree of criticism. But they did not hold that even the rationalized, enlightened (or ‘purified’) religious faith of ‘higher,’ rational and ethical religions (such as Christianity in its modern interpretation, or Buddhism) were necessarily incompatible with modern society. On the contrary, they argued, religions of this kind had the potential to contribute meaningful aspects to human life, including emotion or mystical experience (Liang Shuming, Tu Xiaoshi). In this they saw no contradiction with the principle of scientific attitude (or scientific objectivity). Furthermore, these speakers agreed that religion, at least in its ‘higher’ or ‘developed’ forms, could take on a positive and constructive character in society. Consequently, the steering committee of the Young China Study Society in 1921 finally voted against the anti-religious bid.68 It is worth mentioning here two extensive twin articles written by one of the critics of religion studying in Paris at the time, Zhou Taixuan, who followed the position of the earlier French critic of religion Jean Marie Guyau (1854–1888) and his work L’irreligion d’avenir.69 In this book, Guyau had claimed that in advanced societies in the future religion would cease to 67

68 69

Liang Shuming had already shortly before made his name through his lectures and subsequent book on Dong Xi wenhua ji qi zhexue 東西文化及其哲學, (Eastern and Western cultures and their philosophies). The book was published in 1922, its preface is dated October 1921. It is based on the lectures he gave at Peking University. Several reprints followed in the same year, and by 1924 it had reached its fifth edition. In this contribution as well as in his book, he related religion to the aspect of ‘intuition’ (zhijue 直覺), adopting a core concept of Bergson’s philosophy of life. See the report on two voting rounds in Zhang Qinshi (1927), pp. 183–85. Guyau (1906). Cf. also Zhang Qinshi (1927), especially pp. 4 and 39–42. Guyau’s book also influenced several other writers, such as Durkheim, who wrote a review of it, the well-known anarchist Kropotkin or the philosopher of religion Josiah Royce. See also the quotation of the author Guyau and his works in the article of Xiao Zisheng “Ziran daode lun 自然道德論” in Fei zongjiao lun, p. 39.

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exist. While the philosopher Guyau was not an academic scholar of religion, Zhou Taixuan bolstered this position by additionally quoting scholars such as Durkheim, Spencer or Tylor. Max Müller or the famous French historian of religions, Albert Réville (1826–1906) are only mentioned at the beginning for the purpose of defining religion. Zhou’s contribution is noteworthy as it constituted one of the few French influences in the emergence of the field. At this time not only the universally applicable category of religion, but also the question of ‘scientificity’ and a requested ‘scientific’ attitude to religion as a ‘modern Western’ import came to the fore—however, yet without any direct calls for a new discipline to be established. A second wave brought an intensified agitation that went far beyond the limits of purely intellectual or academic controversies. In March 1922 the critics who had been defeated in the first round the previous year, organized a protest movement on occasion of a large conference of the World Student Christian Federation held in April 1922 at Tsinghua (Qinghua 清華) College (later University). Its first manifestation were the so-called Anti-Christian Student Alliance (Fei Jidujiao Xuesheng Tongmeng 非基督教學生同盟) in Shanghai (with a Communist background) and the more general Great Anti-religious Alliance (Fei Zongjiao Datongmeng 非宗教大同盟) based in Beijing. Both contributed significantly to the combined Anti-Christian/Antireligious Movement of the following years. One of their central demands put forward in a sharply aggressive rhetoric was the freedom of the academic field of all religious influences. This implied especially the ‘recovery of sovereignty over education’ (shouhui jiaoyuquan 收回教育權); i.e. the transfer of control over Christian mission schools to the Chinese state and people.70 Other demands included prohibiting compulsory participation in religious rituals as well as the non-admission of compulsory courses in religion in Christian schools. Such courses were, however, a primary objective of the missionary societies who ran these schools. In this context we find a call for the introduction of a new discipline, the ‘Science of Religion’ (zongjiaoxue), prominently presented by Cai Yuanpei himself. Instead of allowing any kind of religious education (including that taught by missionaries), all universities should establish the nonpartisan subject ‘Science of Religion’ as part of the Humanities (‘Faculties of Philosophy’). This would expel any religious influence in education and replace it with

70

This issue became a major focus in the following years, with a climax of agitation reached between May 1924 and April 1925.

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‘scientific’ instruction.71 Within only a couple of days, on April 10, 1922, this call was countered by a group of Christian researchers of religion claiming to be experts, with Jian Youwen 簡又文 (Timothy Jen Yu-wen) acting as their spokesperson. In an open letter, they insisted that while they themselves were in fact experts in the discipline, the critics were unqualified to speak on the matter, as clearly evidenced by the fact that they did not even understand the structure of the subfields of the discipline, such as Philosophy of Religion, Psychology of Religion, Comparative Religion or History of Religions.72 This response not only reflects the already existing curricula in Comparative Religion and other courses at Christian universities (that was still mostly taught by Western missionaries at this time) but also the ambitions of an emerging group of Chinese Christian academics newly trained in the field. Jian Youwen himself, son of a returned overseas Chinese from Singapore,73 had studied 71

72

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Cai Yuanpei, “Beijing zongjiao dahui yanjiang zhi yi 北京宗教大會言講之一” (9.4.1922) as reprinted in Zhang Qinshi (1927), pp. 199–201; cf. a similar call by Wang Jingwei 汪精衛, who later become the leader of the Guomindang’s 國民黨 left wing, in a polemic in the same year, see his contribution “Fei Zongjiao Datongmeng” and “Shehui jiaoyu ying zhuyi de wenti” in Fei zongjiao lun (separate paging); on the movement see also Hodous (1930), p. 490. “Duiyu Fei zongjiao yundong xuanyan 對於非宗教運動宣言,” signed by Jian Youwen 簡又文 (at that time editor at the Christian publishing house Guangxuehui in Shanghai), Fan Zimei 范子美 (also Fan Bihui 范皕誨, 1866–1939, first Chinese editor of the Wanguo gongbao 萬國公報, later working at the journal Qingnian jinbu 青年進步, both Shanghai), Yang Yihui 楊益惠 (YMCA), Ying Yuandao 應元道 (YMCA), Guo Shijian 郭志堅 (?) (10.4.1922), also reprinted in Zhang Qinshi (1927), pp. 207–12. Jian was born in Xinhui 新會 (Guangdong province) a son of the overseas Chinese merchant Jian Yinchu 简寅初 from Singapore, who had already been active for the Tongmenhui and Gemingdang. After attending the Christian Lingnan Middle School and the Canton Christian College (Lingnan Xuetang 嶺南學堂, later Lingnan University) and his baptism in 1910, Jian Youwen went to study abroad in the United States in 1914 where he received his BA at Oberlin College. From 1919, Jian studied at Chicago’s Divinity School (where he probably also attended courses in Comparative Religion) and returned to China in 1921 due to the death of his father. By this time he had obtained a Master’s degree with a thesis on The relationship between Christian apologetics and Chinese culture (University of Chicago, Department of Systematic Theology). In 1922 he became the first editor at the National Committee of the YMCA 1921–22 (Zhonghua Jidujiao Qingnianhui Quanguo Xiehui 中華基督敎靑年會全國協). After a short political engagement in Canton as director ( juzhang 局長) of the Education Department (Guangzhou Shi Jiaoyuju 廣州市教育局), he received his appointment at Yenching University as professor at the Religion department in spring 1924, teaching courses in the History of Religions, before he turned again to political activities after the experience of the May Thirtieth incident (1925), following his anti-imperialistic and revolutionary interests. In the 1930s Jian

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Comparative Religion in Chicago from where he had just returned. In 1924, he became professor at the Religion department of Yenching University, teaching topics in the History of Religions.74 Simultaneously to the open letter, he was preparing a new series, Zongjiao yanjiu congshu 宗教研究叢書 (with an English title: The Religious Studies Series). Its first volume, titled Xin Zongjiao guan 新宗敎觀 (original English title: New Point of View] was published shortly afterwards. In his own preface as well as another by the main editor Fan Bihui 范皕誨 (Fan Zimei 范子美), the discipline of ‘zongjiaoxue’ is mentioned several times.75 For Jian, the volume and the series were not only intended as a response to a “need for research” as it was “felt at that time among the domestic intellectual world” (obviously reflecting the academic debate of 1920–21) and the “desolate situation” of the field, but with its scientific approach it was also to provide a non-apologetic, “new view on religion and Christianity” that would show that religion cannot simply be identified with irrational superstition.76 According to Fan Bihui’s preface, the planned series was to encompass the subfields of Philosophy of Religion, Theology of Religion (zongjiao shenxue 宗教神學), Comparative Religion (zongjiao bijiaoxue 宗教比較學) as well as the relationship of “religion to science, philosophy and socialism,” each to be treated in a future volume.77 It has to be noted that in their interpretation the discipline included both Comparative Religion and Philosophy of Religion alongside a broader range of topics; this was not unusual for its time and also reflected views of Jian’s teacher in Chicago, the liberal Systematic Theologian Shailer Mathews (1863–1941). Accordingly, the first programmatic volume already treats a wide range of topics. It starts, however, with a selected general article which introduces figures such as Durkheim, Tylor and other prominent scholars and ‘classical’ topics of research on religion of that time such as mysticism, the issue of the origin of religion (referring to theories of fetishism, animism, totem, etc.) as well as various categories such as rites, priests,

74

75 76 77

became academically active again as a researcher of the Taiping movement as a Christian offshoot; cf. Jian (1973), first published in Chinese in 1935. After the war he lived in Hong Kong, Taiwan (as researcher at the Academia Sinica, Institute of Modern History) and the USA; see Wen Huazhan (2003), p. 4, cf. also Lam (1983), p. 174. The course titles in 1925 include: ‘History of Religion,’ ‘Philosophy of Religion,’ ‘Indian Philosophy,’ ‘Buddhism,’ ‘Christian Philosophy of Life’ and ‘Life and Teaching of Gautama’ (pp. 45 und 39), Jian left Peking already in fall 1926 for his political work and his courses were taken over by the just returned Xu Dishan 許地山, cf. Peking (Yenching) University Bulletin No. 12, 1925–1926 (UBCHEA 315–4818), pp. 39 und 45. Jian Youwen (1922). Zongjiaoxue is mentioned four to five times on pp. 3–5. Ibid., p. 3. Fan Bihui’s Preface in ibid., p. 9.

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myths, poly- and monotheism, holy scriptures, theology, or church as elements of ‘higher religion.’78 After an almost two-year pause, a third phase brought a further radicalization and politicization, in which the call for ‘recovery of the sovereignty over education’ (shouhui jiaoyuquan) of 1922 was instrumentalized for political agitation by the National Party (Guomindang, GMD) and the Communist Party, which had formed a united front in 1923. Owing to the increasing pressure, this demand was first adopted by the Beiyang 北洋 government in Beijing in 1925, and after 1927 by the new central GMD government. As we will see, as a consequence any kind of education on religion was now barred from official recognition or from forming part of the compulsory curriculum; this was the case not only for confessional teachings, but also for courses such as Comparative Religion or History of Religion(s).79 In the late 1920s and 1930s, the strong Anti-religious and Anti-Christian Movement (normally dated 1922–1927) gradually abated. Starting from the late 1920s, those voices that did not condemn religion per se or even conceded a positive role to the ‘higher religions’ such as Buddhism or Christianity finally overruled the critics within the GMD, while local popular religion and popular redemptive societies remained subject to persecution.80 The issue of national identity, which had played a role in the anti-imperialistic attacks against 78 79

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Ibid., pp. 2–5. Later volumes, however, never suited the original program, and the series was shelved the next year (1923) after only four volumes. The continuing agitation and excesses of violence in the course of the Northern Expedition 1926–28 against Christian missions are partly interpreted as a separate fourth phase of the Anti-Christian and Anti-religious Movement; see, for example, Ling (1981), p. 51; cf. similarly Yang Tianhong (2005). However, they do not show any specific influence on the formation of the discipline of ‘Science of Religion.’—In general, a diffuse, seemingly contradictory attitude of the GMD to Christianity has to be acknowledged. Its diverging tendencies of negative propaganda vs. ‘accommodative efforts’ and factual non-action against Christian institutions in these years should, however, not be so much attributed to different factions within the GMD, including for a time its Communist members, but, according to Murdock, rather to a ‘dual-pronged approach/strategy’ on the levels of the leaders of the party. This strategy aimed at a balance between diplomatic interest of not harming the contacts with the Western powers on the one hand and simultaneously using “popular anti-Christian activity“ in order to win control over Christian institutions as part of state-building on the other hand. The riots against Christian ­missions in the course of the Northern Expedition were therefore not intended by the leaders, though occurring due to the incendiary propaganda. Moreover, at this time the GMD included a large number of Christians and members of other religions; Murdock (1999), esp. pp. 260–62 and 281. See Nedostup (2009); for redemptive societies see esp. Duara (2003).

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Christianity and the call for ‘recovery of sovereignty over education,’ was of continued significance in the 1930s as part of nation-building now under the aegis of the GMD. In the education system, this became manifest through the establishment of growing curricula in National Studies (guoxue 國學). This trend was, as we will see below, also reflected in research on religions. The Formation of the Discipline of ‘Science of Religion’ in the 1920s as Reflected in the Emergence of Introductory Works The emergence of ‘Religious Studies’ or ‘Comparative Religion’ as a newly acknowledged field and its institutionalization occurred against the backdrop of the debates described above. Introductory works can be regarded as a useful indicator of the formation of a new discipline as they demonstrate a general interest in a new “field” on the one hand, while on the other hand their use as textbooks for courses points to their institutional relevance. This latter aspect will be treated in the following section. The wave of new introductory works to ‘Science of Religion’ (zongjiaoxue 宗教學), ‘Comparative Religion’ (bijiao zongjiaoxue 比較宗教學) or ‘History of Religion(s)’ (zongjiaoshi 宗教史) from around 1923, reaching a peak around 1925–26, is worth mentioning in particular. Moreover, the literature of this period differs clearly from that of earlier periods, written by missionaries for the use in Christian missionary schools and displaying an openly proselytizing character (also, these were mostly translations of Western works).81 In the 1920s, even Christian authors attempted to cater to a non-Christian (academic) public dominated by principles of rationalism, scientism, and even anti-religious attitudes. Our interest in globalization warrants an emphasis on the channels of transfer. This includes questions about the origins of these new introductory works, such as their authorship (as translators or original authors) by Christian, non-Christian, or secular writers, but also whether translations were based directly on Western works, or whether Japan served as mediator. As we will see, authors and channels are clearly related to the two antagonistic groups of Christian and secularist backgrounds. One of the earliest works was the translation of Frank Byron Jevons’ (1858– 1936) Comparative Religion by the liberal Yan Jicheng 嚴既澄 (1900–?), which appeared as Bijiao zongjiaoxue 比較宗教學 in July 1925. This work (as well as 2.2

81

See, for example MacGillivray (1910), a translation of George Monro Grant’s (1835–1902) The Religions of the World in Relation to Christianity (Toronto, 1894), and Hayes (1919), a translation of Samuel Henry Kellogg’s (1839–1899) Handbook of Comparative Religion (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1899).

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Yan’s own summarizing article)82 emphasizes the comparative method. In the same and the following years, other works appeared such as Zongjiao wenda 宗敎問答 (Questions and Answers on Religion), translated by Gan Haoze 甘浩 澤 from the Japanese original Shūkyō no wa 宗教の話 (originally published by Ajima Takeshi 安島健 in 1923). Cook’s The Foundations of Religion (originally published 1914) was translated by Chen Chu 陳礎 in 1925 as Zongjiao jichu 宗敎基礎 (in a series called New Knowledge, Xin zhishi congshu 新知識 叢書). Finally, among the non-Christian publications a translation of George Foot Moore’s The Birth and Growth of Religion was published by the scholar Jiang Shaoyuan 江紹原 in 1926. All of these works were published by the secular Commercial Press (Shangwu Yinshuguan 商務印書館), and all were translated (none was an original contribution) by non-Christians. Most of these were professional translators,83 with the exception of Jiang Shaoyuan, who had just returned from Chicago where he had studied Comparative Religion. At the same time two of the original authors, Moore and Jevons, were Christians or even theologians (Moore). Though the Chinese translators clearly selected books whose authors tried to be more neutral and showed no obvious Christian theological bias, the comparison with the earlier French activists suggests that the responsible Chinese translators were secular but not aggressively anti-religious. At the same time, some new Christian publications also appeared—apart from the earlier missionary works and the already mentioned new Religious Studies Series, edited by Jian Youwen, that had started as early as 1922 but was discontinued the following year. Two publications date back to 1926, one by a Lin Buji 林步基 titled Zhujiao cankao 諸教參考,84 and another one co-authored by Xie Songgao 謝頌羔 and Yu Muren 余牧人, Zhujiao de yanjiu 諸教的研究 (Studies on religions). Shortly thereafter, in 1928, Xie Songgao himself wrote another introduction titled Zongjiaoxue 宗教學 ABC in the encyclopedic ABC series of the secular publisher Shijie Shuju 世界書局. There are interesting differences between the two works: while the first is still intended for internal use as a textbook in Christian schools and was published in the Christian publishing house Guangxuehui 廣學會, the second was designed to appeal to a more general readership. The author, Xie Songgao had studied theology in the US first at Auburn University, graduating in 1921 and receiving his M.A. the following year in Boston before he returned to China in 1924 to work as an 82 83 84

See Yan Jicheng (1923). Unfortunately the biographical data available for Gan, Chen and Yan are rare, no entries are found in any biographical reference work for the Republican period. This book was obviously not very successful and was never reprinted.

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editor in the Guangxuehui. The main argument and strategy in both books is to qualify higher religions such as Christianity as rational, ethical and culturally constructive according to the dominant modernization discourse directed at the anti-religious attacks and to dissociate them from ‘superstitious’ primitive forms of religion (which for Xie included most of religious Daoism.) At the same time other ‘higher’ religions such as Buddhism—or, for that matter, Confucianism as a partly religious tradition—are generally not portrayed as opponents, but as allies in the common front against the generally anti-religious attacks. These two works are a unique contribution as they represent the first outlines and introductory works for the new discipline written by Chinese, while the other works by non-Christians were all translations. At the same time, Xie Songgao also relied on his Western templates,85 which he creatively adopted for a Chinese audience. If we ask therefore about the channels of transfer, it becomes obvious that in our case the Japanese channel of transfer played a relatively minor role as compared to other academic fields: not only the earliest works translated by missionaries before 1920, but also most translations done by Chinese (no matter whether Christians or non-Christians) were based on Western books, while only one was translated from the Japanese. Altogether from 1925 to 1939, there are only three translations of general introductory works based on Japanese ones—among them a Chinese version of Allan Menzies’ History of Religion (based on the first edition of 1895) translated from the Japanese.86 The channels of transfer in this field of globalization thus differ to some degree from those in other fields and show the specific role of the missionaries as global mediators with a natural linkage to the topic of religion in general. In other words, though there were also some Japanese as well as some French influences (for example the marginal contributions of the Paris section members of Shaonian Zhongguo), the American influence with its early sites of Comparative Religion/History of Religions in Chicago, Harvard and a few other places87 was incomparably stronger and was transmitted via two channels: firstly, the American-dominated Protestant missions in the first half 85 86

87

For these works the outlines of Barton (1919) and Hume (1925) served as points of orientation. For a detailed analysis see Meyer (forthcoming). Translated by the important scholar in the field Katō Genchi 加藤玄智 (1873–1965) as Sekai shûkyôshi 世界宗敎史 in 1901; interestingly, the Chinese versions, a partial translation in 1902 and the fuller one in 1933, do not mention Menzies as the original author; cf. Katō (1902, 1933). For an analysis of the six major locations of American Religious Studies see again the study by Shepard (1991).

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of the twentieth century88 and, secondly, Chinese students who had studied the new field abroad. Among Christian Chinese scholars only Xu Dishan 許地山, later a professor at the Religion department of Yenching University specializing in the history of Chinese religions, had studied first at Columbia University in New York before transferring to Oxford for the study of Sanskrit and Comparative Religion. Altogether, publications of the secular and well-established Commercial Press clearly reflect a new general interest in this new aspect of modern Western knowledge that followed on the heels of the debates on religion. It is therefore worth noting that in spite of Cai Yuanpei’s expressed interest in a ‘Science of Religion’ and with the exception of the few contributions from the Paris section of Shaonian Zhongguo, no radical critics actually contributed to the establishment of the field through academic introductions or engaged more continuously in the field. Less radical secular scholars produced translations, but did not contribute their own original research. This development is at least partly related to the institutional development. 2.3 Institutional Growth: Religion Departments and their Curricula Turning from the field of publications to the issue of institutionalization, we see the political factor resurfacing. Moreover, the ‘contested character’ of religion as a public question of modern society will thereby be reflected in its Chinese historical formation. On the one hand, the growth of curricula at Christian colleges and universities reflected the rising interest in the field. On the other hand, though, there were also single courses offered by some departments at public national universities; these could not only not build on existing Religion departments as the Christian universities could, but their establishment was even hindered by political precepts. The look at selected Christian schools shows first how Religion departments in wider sense—obviously as a response to the discursive conditions—developed from more purely Theology departments. Especially three major Christian universities in the late 1920s and the 1930s developed curricula with strong non-Christianity specific elements; these were Yenching, Lingnan and Cheeloo Universities, while courses at least on Comparative Religion were also continuously available at other Protestant universities. While this growth reflects the importance of the discursive topic and the challenge of the anti-religious/anti-Christian attacks, the pressures of these movements had direct political consequences: First, in 1925, the agitation 88

Feuerwerker (1983), pp. 168–69, records a total 6,636 missionaries in 1919, about half of whom were of US origin.

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forced first the Beiyang government in Beijing, then after 1927 the GMD government, not to recognize any kind of ‘religious curricula.’ In contrast to Cai Yuanpei’s early call for non-religious ‘Science of Religion,’ this also affected the curricula on religion. Paradoxically therefore, the Anti-religious/AntiChristian Movement on the one hand stimulated religious circles to engage in and occupy the academic field of ‘Science of Religion,’ while on the other hand unintentionally limiting its institutionalization even at non-Christian institutions. Interestingly, even Cai Yuanpei apparently did not eventually attempt to heed his own call when he founded the Academia Sinica in 1928.89 Instead he showed a special interest in ethnology and established a division for this field within the Institute for Social Research (Shehui Yanjiusuo 社會研究所) with himself as its first head (in addition to his function as president of Academia Sinica).90 The field of Comparative Religion or History of Religions was therefore left to religious, especially Christian, researchers, while critics of religion, especially of ‘superstitious’ local traditions, gathered in the fields of folklore studies (minsuxue 民俗學) or ethnology (or the overlapping field of cultural anthropology).91 Unlike the public universities, however, the Christian schools could build on their independent, transnational structures and had already established Religion departments which by the 1920s had been developed a wider array of courses. They were reacting to the discursive challenges of the time when rules for registration had not yet been established. After 1927, when most Christian universities (with the exception of Shanghai’s St. John’s)92 decided to register with the national government, they continued their programs, applying a strategy of offering the same courses that were offered in the non-state-acknowledged religion departments also within state-acknowledged departments. In 1929, Lingnan University, for example, offered all relevant courses within an again expanded curriculum in combination with the Philosophy department. It announced93 courses with titles such as ‘Introduction to the Study of Religion’ 89 90

91 92 93

For earlier attempts of installing such courses at Peking University see Makeham (2012), p. 22. This function was then taken over by Ling Chunsheng 凌純聲 (1901–1978), who had returned from Paris. Moreover, Cai initiated field research on non-Han ethnic groups, carried out by younger colleagues, see Guldin (1994), p. 31. For the development of these fields see again the overviews by Guldin (1994), Liu Xin (2004), Dong Xiaoping (2004) and most recently Dirlik, Li and Yen (2012). Yeh (1990), pp. 86–87, Lutz (1971), pp. 264–65. In the academic year 1929–1930 some of the courses were marked as “not offered in 1929–1930;” only in the following year, 1930–1931, were those courses held by the teachers

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(Zongjiao daolun 宗教導論),94 ‘Psychology of Religion’ (Zongjiao xinlixue 宗 教心理學)95 in addition to the already existing ones on ‘History of Religions’ and ‘Chinese Religious Ideas.’ More specialized were the newly announced courses ‘Introduction to the Study of Buddhism’ (Fojiao gailun 佛教概論)96 and ‘Christianity and Chinese Culture’ ( Jidujiao yu Zhongguo wenhua 基督教 與中國文化), some of them taught by Xie Fuya 謝扶雅 (1892–1991), another Christian scholar who had attended courses in Comparative Religion and History of Religions in Chicago and Harvard. Yenching University in contrast offered the courses of the Religion department simultaneously dispersed in various other departments (Philosophy of Religion in the Philosophy department, or courses such as in Buddhist Literature in the Literature department).97 The existence of Religion departments at least kept the curricula together in one place, lent some institutional integrity to the field and served as a backbone for courses provided. Religion-related courses at public national universities found at departments as different from one another as Ethnology, Philosophy, History or Sociology—according to the interdisciplinary character of the field of research on religion—lacked this kind of support structure. They were therefore not only fewer in number and less strategically planned, but also devoid of any coherence as a program. Lacking official acknowledgement they were never able to develop further. Apart from the growth of curricula at Christian universities, another important change was that in the 1920s Chinese teachers who had been educated in the West gradually replaced the missionaries as those responsible for these courses. Most of them also belonged to the Chinese Christian indigenization movement.

94 95 96

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Mr Kwan and Mr Stevenson; Lingnan University Bulletin 1929–1930, pp. 52–53 and 1930– 1931, pp. 132–34). Ibid., p. 52. Short description: “What religion is; the part it has played and will play in human life.” Ibid.: “An investigation by psychological methods of conscience, conversion, prayer, faith, and mysticism. [Not offered in 1929–30.]” “[N]ot offered in 1929–1930,” in the following year the title appears to have been changed to ‘Buddhist Philosophy’ (Fojia zhexue 佛家哲學). Another announced course ‘Religion[s] of India’ (Yindu zongjiao 印度宗教), is not found later. See, for example Yenching University, Bulletin 1930–1931, p. 17 (Chinese), pp. 53–65 (Philosophy) and pp. 91–94 (Religion), UBCHEA 314–4807; see also Ng (1999a) and (1999b), pp. 8–9.

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Localizing the History of Religions: The Discourse on National Identity and the Liberal Protestant Indigenization Movement

While the focus thus far has mainly been on the question of how the concept of ‘Science of Religion’ was adopted in Republican China, with an emphasis on its preconditions in local discourses on modernization (implying criteria of rationality, scientificity and social ethics) and a second focus on the effective channels of transfer, the following paragraph examines how the concept was localized with a special emphasis on the topic of local history of religions. While the history of religion(s) is naturally a universal concept, even the outlines of Western introductory works always show a kind of Western-centrism in terms of selection and above-average emphasis on Mediterranean religions (including Greek and Roman, but also Egyptian and Mesopotamian religious histories), which are included in the European image of the continent’s own genealogy. While translated works had to follow the patterns of their selected original texts (with the authors only defining the selection of writings), authors of any newly written introductory works would have to consider how to place and deal with religious traditions present in China, specifically those that were perceived as ‘local’ and related to Chinese perceptions of identity. These traditions included the Three Teachings (sanjiao 三教), with religious Daoism and also local popular religious phenomena being less well-reputed in the dominant public discourses (both often labeled as backward ‘superstitions,’ mixin 迷信). Even Islam and Christianity have to be counted as ‘local’ in China. They were in fact counted as the fourth and fifth teachings in a popular concept of wujiao 五教 beginning in the nineteenth century.98 However, both were still (much more than Buddhism) predominantly perceived as foreign teachings ( yangjiao 洋教), even if their presence among the Chinese could not be denied. In general, religious identities were very diverse in China. The issue of religious identity was therefore much less related to national identity, as was the case in countries with a dominant religious teaching (such as Christian and Islamic countries or even India), especially—as Beyer has correctly stated—after Confucianism had failed to redefine and reshape itself as the 98

It is already used by Tang Peng 湯鵬 (1801–1844): see Chen Hsi-yüan (2002), p. 44. Another nineteenth-century use is found in the work of the missionary Muirhead (1822– 1900) Ru Shi Dao Hui Yesu wujiao tongkao (1879). The use of the term ‘five teachings’ (wujiao) became very popular in Republican China, even in the circles of so-called popular redemptive societies that partly attempted to integrate Christian and Muslim aspects (see, for example, Clart 2007).

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national religion. Due to this basically multi-religious situation, the question of religious identity cannot to be raised with regard to a unified discourse positioned against a foreign Christian ‘West’ but ought to be addressed in relation to a diverse, multi-voiced chorus as part of the different religious or new secular groups. Moreover, this question overlaps with the issue of modernization, which was an even more dominant concern. Accordingly, the identity issue—or what Robertson along with Gluck calls “the idea of a need for national identity”99—is also mirrored in the reception of ‘Science of Religion’ and especially in outlines of nationally focused, particular histories of religion. These particular approaches, however, do not follow one unified project. Moreover, it is worth noting once again that Christian Chinese authors appear as the earliest and most productive in the field of Religious Studies. They will therefore again constitute the main focus of our examination. There are two reasons for their prominence: 1) As we have seen, Christian authors had a much stronger connection to the idea of the discipline, including its historical approach in the form of History of Religions. This was possible owing to their channels of transfer (missionaries and students abroad at theological seminaries with courses in the field). 2) As representatives of a perceived foreign religion, Chinese Christians had a special interest in reconstructing Chinese religious history as one that also included the history of Christianity in China; alternatively, they argued that Christian teachings were similar to and compatible with Chinese culture, so as to diminish the perceived distance and foreignness of Christianity by means of reasoned argument. Both interests could best be served by means of an historical approach. This apologetic concern was also congruent with a personal interest of Protestant intellectual Christians to reconcile their own double identity of being Christian and Chinese, which they had to negotiate in two different contexts: as Christian Chinese within Chinese society, but also as Chinese Christians within the churches and in relation to the foreign missionaries. In fact, the problem had become an issue for Christian mission even prior to the Republican era. Robertson mentions the missiological approach of ‘glocalizing’ universal claims, subsuming it under the concept of ‘inculturation,’ and he himself examines Catholic examples from Latin America.100 The same approach has been associated with liberal Protestant mission since the nineteenth century under the heading of ‘indigenization’ (and later, with a slightly different emphasis, of ‘contextual theologies’). It deals with the basic problem 99 Robertson (2001), p. 8. 100 Ibid., p. 15 and his articles on Liberation Theology in Latin America (1986, 1987).

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of putting the universal Christian claim (of Jesus’ ‘great commission’) into local, ‘contextual’ practice. The historical trend towards ‘indigenization’ was therefore already present in the late nineteenth century and was also found in the China mission. In our specific context, Pott’s concern regarding the ‘denationalizing’ of Chinese neophytes and his consequent call for Comparative Religion as part of local ministry education in 1892 must be viewed as an expression of this trend. More broadly, the program of ‘indigenization’ gained extensive influence between the first and third World Missionary Conferences, held in Edinburgh in 1910 and in Tambaram near Madras in 1938 respectively. At all conferences, missionaries from the China field, but also an increasing number of Chinese Christian delegates were present.101 In China, the work of the Edinburgh Conference was continued by the China Continuation Committee, which was established in 1913 and subsequently transformed into the National Christian Council of China (NCC, Zhonghua Quanguo Jidujiao Xiejinhui 中華 全國基督教協進會). The NCC was founded in 1922 and was a promoter of indigenization. The trend towards indigenization both worldwide and in China coincided with the increasingly hostile environment in the debates of the early 1920s, which it preceded. The Anti-Christian/Anti-religious Movement, however, accelerated changes in theological thinking and church structure.102 Whereas the primary concern in Xie Songgao’s introductory works in 1926 and 1928 had been the reasoned defence of Christianity and of any kind of religion against attacks depicting religion as irrational, morally and culturally obstructive, or even superstitious, the work of another Christian author, Wang Zhixin 王治心 (1881–1968), focused more on the problem of compatibility of Christian faith and Chinese culture. Wang explicitly chose the historical approach: his Zhongguo lishi de Shangdiguan 中國歷史的上帝觀) (The Idea of God [Shangdi] in Chinese History) of 1926 begins with an analysis of the early Chinese history of religion in order to prove the existence of an early Chinese monotheistic idea. The title is a deliberate reference to the Western academic discourse on an assumed ‘original monotheism.’ It 101 This just reflects the general trend: In Edinburgh, only 19 of 1,215 official delegates were not from the ‘Western’ world (the British Empire, North America, or Continental Europe). Most of these were from Asia, including the Chinese Cheng Jingyi [Ch’eng Ching-Yi] 誠 靜怡 (1881–1939); see Liu, Jiafeng, (n.d.). Kalapati (2010), pp. 1–2, states that “[b]y contrast out of the 471 delegates at Tambaram, more than half of them were from younger Churches. The Chinese delegation comprised as many as forty-eight members, which included the distinguished theologian T.C. Chao. The Indian delegation was even bigger.” 102 See also Zhang Qinshi (1927), esp. the preface. Zhang directly argues that the Christian church should draw its conclusions from the attacks and press ahead with the indigenization trend.

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was stimulated by Andrew Lang’s (1844–1912) research (as compiled in his Making of Religion, 1898) and more explicitly the similar sounding book titles of the two historians of religion, Father Wilhelm Schmidt (Der Ursprung der Gottesidee, 12 vols., 1912–1955) and Nathan Söderblom (Gudstrons Uppkomst, Das Werden des Gottesglaubens, first published Swedish in 1914, subsequently in German two years later), both of whom had theological backgrounds.103 In general, of course, both approaches were based on the older idea of an identification of the Chinese Shangdi, referred to in the classics and in official rituals, with the Christian monotheistic God, an idea that had already been suggested by the Jesuits. Wang now strove to apply this idea in form of an outline of the Chinese history of religion and tried to prove that an original monotheism in China had on the one hand developed into philosophically more abstract thinking in which it then, however, had abandoned the personal character of the idea of God and therefore had lost its potential to influence the religious masses, while on the other hand a popular religious belief in spirits developed that was characterized by superstition and polytheistic tendencies.104 While Wang’s 1926 work only followed the philosophical line, his Zhongguo zongjiao sixiang shi dagang 中國宗教思想史大綱 (Outline of the History of Religious Thought in China), which was published 1933 and constituted the first complete national Chinese history of religions, was based on the same idea and pursued both trajectories.105 Moreover, in this second book of 1933 another major line of argumentation relates to how the history of religion is articulated, more specifically on how to reconstruct the early and therefore longer history of Christianity on Chinese soil as part of the Chinese history of religions, and therefore not as a ‘foreign religion’ and an alien element per se. Wang deconstructed or at least called into question the traditional orthodox historiography that had been focused on Confucianism and the other two teachings (Buddhism and Daoism). This approach is applied especially in the later chapters of this work of 1933 and even further expounded in his 103 Schmidt (1912–1955); Söderblom (1926). The idea and the specific wording might have been delivered to Wang through missionaries such as Karl Ludvig Reichelt with his Scandinavian contacts to Söderblom or alternatively the missionary Rawlinson, who was almost simultaneously writing a book entitled Chinese Ideas of the Supreme Being (Rawlinson 1927). 104 See the Preface and Introduction in Wang Zhixin (1926). 105 In this version, however, Wang rejected the classical idea of an ‘original monotheism.’ Probably as a consequence of further readings in the history of religions, he assumed there had been a preceding phase of animism before a monotheistic idea could be identified in Shang and the idea of ‘Heaven’ (tian) in Zhou times. For a similar (re)construction of such two lines see also Liu Shipei (1960).

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later Zhongguo Jidujiao shigang 中國基督教史綱 (Outline of the History of Christianity in China) of 1940. In pursuing this approach, Wang was able to build on earlier research done by an historian of high renown, Chen Yuan 陳垣 (1880–1971), who also had a Christian background.106 In his influential Gu jiao si kao 古教四考 (Four studies on the ancient teachings), Chen had examined the particular Chinese history of Nestorian Christians in Yuan times, but had also reconstructed those of other traditions, such as Judaism, Manichaeism and Parsism.107 Chen’s research introduced a completely new approach to the history of religions in China that contrasted with the traditional historiography of the Confucian orthodoxy as well as those of the Three Teachings (sanjiao). This project, which Chen carried out through meticulous research, was adopted by Wang and then transformed in his comprehensive Outline of the History of Religious Thought in China. In the final chapters of this book and then in his separate Outline of the History of Christianity in China, Wang portrays the history of the recent Protestant mission and its role in modern Chinese society. He particularly emphasizes the charitable, educative, cultural and other modernizing contributions since the nineteenth century, thereby drawing again on the discourse on modernization in his time. Although Wang’s books relied much on other researchers’ ideas, his achievement lay in the reconstruction of the first comprehensive account of a general history of religions as well as of Christianity in China. The Christian occupation with a history of religion as a universal perspective on religion, but also with concern for a national history of religions, is a strategic element within the indigenization movement, in which apologetic and personal interests in identity converge.108 Although the earliest contributions came from Christian scholars, it is also worth mentioning efforts toward constructing particular histories of 106 On Chen’s Christian background see Liu Xian (2005); see also Kuhlmann’s chapter in this volume. 107 See Chen Yuan (1981). Originally published in separate contributions they include: “Yuan Yelikewenjiao kao 元也里可温教考 [On Christianity (‘Erkeun’ was the general name for Christian denominations at that time, CM) in the Mongolian Yuan dynasty],” 1917; “Kaifeng Yicileyejiao kao 開封一賜樂業教考 [On the history of the Jews in Kaifeng],” 1919; “Huoxianjiao ru Zhongguo kao 火祆教入中國考 [On Parsism in China],” 1922; and “Monijiao ru Zhongguo kao 摩尼教入中國考 [On Manichaeism in China],” 1923. Another study on the famous Nestorian stele from Xi’an 西安 was published by Chen in 1938. 108 This attempt to reconcile Chinese and Christian identity is even more explicit in other works of a more philosophical character, such as Wu Leichuan (1940) or Xie Fuya (1965), which are representative of this movement.

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Buddhism, Daoism and Islam in China, which began in the 1930s.109 These works successfully used a modern history of religions approach as a framework within which to articulate and negotiate their particular religious identities as part of the broader national identity. In this Buddhism and Daoism as ‘indigenous’ traditions (including Chinese Buddhism as one of the sanjiao) were in a more advantageous position to engage in the intensifying national identity debate than Christianity (or for that matter Islam), which was in a much more apologetic position in this respect, while at the same time, owing to its connection to the modern West, it had the advantage of being able to portray itself as a modern, progressive religion. We can therefore observe a multifaceted connection between the topic of globalization and the issue of identity. On the one hand, the idea of a universal history of religion(s) is here applied to a particular ‘locality,’ i.e. Chinese national history; at the same time—mediated by the idea of nation-state as the basic unit of the global—it integrates Chinese religious history into a broader horizon. The identity issue was hereby instrumental for the appropriation of the new idea of religion as a universal (global) phenomenon in the local context. On the other hand, Christian authors did not only play the role of mediators or apologetic representatives of their respective ‘foreign’ religion in local identity discourses, but also had to reconcile global and local identities in their own ‘Chinese Christian’ identities. They were therefore especially interested in the project of history of religions. Conclusion As far as we can see from our case study, the processes of globalizing ‘thinking religion’ as part of a global ‘genealogy of religion’ share features with other non-Western and Western contexts. At the same time there are clear differences to other non-Western cases as Beyer presents them. Especially after the attempt to define Confucianism as ‘state religion’ by Kang Youwei and his followers had failed, the appropriation of the ‘contested concept’ of ‘religion’ did not take place mainly through the activities of one nationally dominant religious group or its representatives, such as in Islamic countries or in India, where Hinduism was ‘(re-)invented.’ Conversely, though it is true that negative attitudes toward religion were present and discursively influential, they were far from being representative and general. Furthermore, one has to take into 109 Historical accounts of Confucianism were, however, published rather as part of histories of philosophy than of religion; e.g. Fung Yu-lan (1952–53).

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account not only the traditionally multi-religious situation in China, but also the even more diverse situation in Republican China with its new influences and conditions. The issue of ‘Science of Religion’ (zongjiaoxue) in Republican China thus leads us to a prominent chapter of the Chinese genealogy of religion, that is, of how the category ‘religion’ was received, negotiated and appropriated in early ‘local’ intellectual discourses and conditions. These complex, multifaceted processes took place as an interplay of more or less effective channels of transfer, the interrelated discourses of modernization and national identity as well as diverging interests and positions. ‘Science of religion’ as an allegedly objective and neutral approach to religion thus appears to be no less contested than the category of religion itself. At the same time, the academic field with its controversies and efforts related to and combined with public debates on religion in the 1920s, which proved to be instrumental to the reception and appropriation of ‘religion’ as a concept within the Chinese context. In this sense, the modern academic field itself, conceptualized as separate from the religious as much as the public field and at the same time conceived of as a functional element within modern society, appears as a new global factor relevant to the transformation of the traditional ‘religious field.’ Due to the strong trend toward modernization and reception of Western knowledge in this period, the negotiations between pro-religious apologists and anti-religious critics within the modern discourse strongly resemble the Western constellation, whose multifaceted arguments and positions were adopted and reproduced in their debates. The most relevant background for general and public appropriation of the term was clearly the strong discourse of modernization, which itself can be seen as the strongest power behind the globalization of knowledge in China at this time. It was a process which was clearly asymmetrical, analogous to the perceived weakness of Chinese traditional culture by the major discussants. Within this process, ‘religion’ as a new ‘universal’ (or ‘global’) category was only one of the concepts which arrived (and were adopted) within the massive transfer of knowledge, and ‘Science of Religion’ (zongjiaoxue) as a distinct discipline was only one among the whole package of academic disciplines which was called for and introduced to China, but surely not a minor one. In another discursive context, however, the question of ‘local’ identity also played a role relevant to some aspects of the formation of the discipline: as part of a rising Chinese discourse of ‘national identity’ and anti-imperialism, the question of identity became an issue between Christian apologetics and their critics, but also for the more ‘indigenous’ religious groups who all tried to present themselves as indigenous or in accordance with ‘Chinese culture.’

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In the Christian case this coincides with the global missiological trend of the indigenization approach in Protestant missions after the first World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh 1910. In the discursive context of the anti-Christian (mostly understood as anti-imperialistic) trend of the 1920s, the Protestant indigenization movement appeared, however, mainly as an apologetic force. The challenge presented by a Christian Chinese identity was reflected academically in the project of reconstructing the national Chinese history of religions by Christian scholars. The first outstanding example here was the historian Chen Yuan, who examined aspects of the broader Chinese history of religions that had hitherto been neglected owing to the dominance of the ‘Three Teachings’ of Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism. By examining not only the Nestorian vestiges of early Christianity, but also those of other minor and, to Chinese thinking, ‘foreign’ traditions such as Judaism, Manichaeism or Parsism in China, his studies were instrumental in deconstructing an orthodox, China-centered understanding of the Three Teachings by hinting at the early presence of (and implicitly the earlier Chinese acceptance of) alternative traditions. His results were adopted by Wang Zhixin, who put them together in his first general Outline of the History of Religious Thought in China in 1933, although Wang simultaneously took up another line of argument in identifying ‘points of contact’ in the earlier history of thought. Such points of contact related to the Christian concepts of theism and especially monotheism (referring to Shangdi as a ‘highest God’) was the inheritance of a longer tradition begun by the Jesuits. While these Christian attempts were made as early as the 1920s in Chen Yuan and Wang Zhixin’s early work, in the 1930s the ‘indigenous’ local traditions of Buddhism, Islam, and Daoism, too, were reconstructed by applying the new ‘history of religions’ approach, as scholars outlined the particular histories of their respective teachings within the national religious history. In general, however, no tradition in China was ever strong enough to monopolize the redefinition of ‘religion’ in its own sense and make itself the exclusive vehicle of national religion or—in the case of Christianity as some missionaries or neophytes had hoped—the legitimate heir of Chinese history of religion. Even the redefinition after the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Communist People’s Republic of China in 1949 in Mainland China— when the radically anti-religious definition officially prevailed and therefore strongly asserted one (Marxist, therefore Western-shaped) interpretation for some time—proved unsuccessful in the end. Instead, the re-emergence of the religious field and the renewed openness for Western modern concepts since the the 1980s have revealed the character of ‘religion’ again as an ‘essentially contested category.’ Moreover, the ‘Science of Religion’ (zongjiaoxue)— established as a discipline even at national universities—has reappeared as a

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domain which not only negotiates religion intellectually and academically, but which also has strong linkages to public debates, issues of modernization and even political agendas.110 Therefore, the introduction of the discipline in the Republican period with its relations to public debates is strongly reminiscent of the more recent developments in Mainland China and can even be regarded as a precursor in the Chinese ‘genealogy of religion.’ Bibliography

Archival Materials

UBCHEA Yale Divinity School, Archives of the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia, 1882–1974, Yale Divinity School Library Special Collections (microfilm), series IV. (China Colleges Files), box 160 folder 3022–3024 (Hangchow Christian College (University), “Catalogs, announcements”), box 181 folder 3246–3251 (Lingnan University, “Catalogs, bulletins 1899–1946”) and box 308 folder 4744–4747 (Yenching University, “Course announcements”)

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Abbott, Andrew (2001). Chaos of Disciplines. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press. Ajima Takeshi 安島健 (1925). Zongjiao wenda 宗敎問答 [Questions and Answers on Religion], trans. Gan Haoze 甘浩澤. Shanghai: Shangwu Yinshuguan (first published in Japanese in 1923). Anesaki Masaharu 姉崎正治 (1900). Shūkyōgaku gairon 宗教学概論 [Outline of the Science of Religion]. Tōkyō: Senmon Gakkō Shuppanbu. Anon. (1901) “Zhina shanggu zhi zongjiao de guannian 支那上古之宗教的觀念 [The concept of religion in ancient China].” Qingyibao 清議報 100, pp. 1–8. Anon. [Liu Shipei 劉師培] (1904). “Lun Kongjiao yu Zhongguo zhengzhi wushe 論 孔教與中國政治無涉 [On the problem of Confucianism (Kongjiao) and Chinese politics having no connection].” Dongfang zazhi 東方雜誌 1:3, pp. 189–91. Anon. (1906). “Zhongguo zongjiao yingelun 中國宗教因革論 [The historical development of Chinese religion].” Dongfang zazhi 東方雜誌 3:10, pp. 39–44. Barrows, John Henry (1893). The World’s Parliament of Religions: An Illustrated and Popular Story of the World’s First Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago in connection with the Columbian exposition of 1893. Chicago: Parliament Pub. Co. 110 See Chloë Starr’s contribution in this volume.

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chapter 12

Negotiating Cultural and Religious Identities in the Encounter with the ‘Other’: Global and Local Perspectives in the Historiography of Late Qing/ Early Republican Christian Missions Dirk Kuhlmann* Although in absolute figures, the missionary enterprise in late Qing and early Republican times remained a marginal phenomenon—in 1912 the number of Catholics did not exceed 1.5 million and there were only slightly over 200,000 Protestant Christians1 (compared to a population of about 500 million people)—it was a significant factor in several central issues of this period. Politically, the protection of missionary activities and the access of missionaries to the Chinese mainland were based on the so called ‘unequal treaties’ forced upon the Qing empire by the Western powers, which entailed severe restrictions on China’s sovereignty. Thus the activities of Protestant and Catholic missionaries and the military presence of Western powers in China were closely connected in the public and academic perception of the missionary enterprise.2 Secondly, social and cultural missionary activities, among them charity and educational activities can be regarded as part of the modernisation process * I am grateful to Chloë Starr, Christian Meyer, Thoralf Klein and Fr. Piotr Adamek (Monumenta Serica Institute), for their many suggestions and corrections on an earlier draft of this article, which have greatly improved the text. All mistakes, however, should be solely attributed to the author. This article is based on the thesis of my Ph.D. diss. “ ‘Das Fremde im eigenen Lande.’ Zur Historiographie des Christentums in China von Liang Qichao bis Zhang Kaiyuan” (University of Trier, October 2011) (forthcoming). An in-depth analysis of the trends which can be only addressed briefly here is offered there. 1 Latourette (1929), p. 537 (for 1912); Ch’en (1979), p. 95 (for 1910). 2 Liang Qichao was one of the first to criticise that conflicts between missionaries, converts and non-Christians—the so-called “missionary cases” ( jiao’an 教案), such as the Tianjin masscacre (1870) and the murder of two German missionaries in Shandong, which led to the German occupation of the Jiaozhou Bay area (1897)—were utilised by Western powers to extort more privileges from the Qing government; see Liang Qichao (1935–36a), pp. 53–58. It became a dominant argumentative pattern in the anti-imperialist discourse of the 1920s; cf. Wang Dong (2003), pp. 408–10.

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in late Qing and early Republican China: especially in the field of elementary and higher education among the Protestant missionary societies—and, to a lesser extent, Catholic orders—which provided a model for the development of a state educational system, based on Western modernity. As the history of the spread of Christianity in China touches upon questions of ‘identity vs. alterity,’ ‘alternate modernities’ and the concepts of dialogue/ negotiation, it is interconnected on several levels with the key theme of this volume on ‘globalisation’3 in China: the missionary enterprise itself can be characterised as part of a ‘globalising project’—the ‘religious ecumene,’ i.e., the concept of a worldwide Christendom, provides one of the most prominent examples of pre-modern globalisation.4 It also corresponds well to a sociological understanding of ‘globalisation’ as a process unfolding through individual interactions which consolidate into networks.5 In this way, missionary activities can be described as a series of interactions and consolidations aiming at spreading a global entity (Christianity) to a local non-Western context. Though Christianity was conceived of as transcultural by the missionaries, its alterity was perceived by the Chinese on two levels: On one hand it constituted a socio-cultural ‘other,’ being shaped by various nonChinese cultural contexts, i.e., Middle-eastern, Greco-Roman and European cultures. This ‘otherness’ was actually stressed by missionary educational activities introducing elements of Western modernity into late Qing and early Republican China. On the other hand was the doctrinal (or religious) ‘otherness’ of Christianity, which comprised of it being a monotheistic, exclusive and revelation-based religion that set itself noticeably apart from integrative traditional Chinese concepts such as the ‘unity of the Three Teachings’ (sanjiao heyi 三教合一), i.e. Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism. This ‘otherness’ of Christianity in late nineteenth and early twentieth century China challenged Catholic and Protestant missionary societies in fulfilling the two objectives of their profession: For the immediate aim of convincing individual converts the novelty of Christianity could be a strong argument, while for the long-term 3 Osterhammel and Petersson define ‘globalisation’ as term emphasising a processual development. It is closely linked to the equally processual concept of ‘modernisation,’ which is understood by both authors as a meta-term joining various phenomena, e.g. individualisation, industrialisation, urbanisation, into an over-all development. With its focus on the relations between peoples, nations and civilisations ‘globalisation’ adds a trans-national and trans-cultural perspective to the concept of ‘modernisation’ and can thus enhance the historical research on this process. Cf. Osterhammel and Petersson (2007), pp. 9–10. 4 Ibid., pp. 27–28 and Koschorke (2009), p. 27. 5 Osterhammel and Petersson (2007), pp. 20–23.

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goal of establishing Christian communities appropriate modes of interaction with the host culture were necessary to make these transformations last.6 The latter was attended to by indirect socio-cultural missionary activities in the fields of charity, public healthcare and education. Beyond their immediate purpose, e.g., as relief work, these activities can be interpreted as a way to exert a positive influence on Chinese society while preserving the ‘otherness’ of Christianity. They could also serve to promote Christianity as a ‘global’ phenomenon in the eyes of the Chinese public and shape socio-cultural conditions more favourable to missionary efforts. The inherent differences between a global ‘other’ and local ‘self’ with regard to cultural and religious identities also initiated negotiations between missionaries, converts as well as non-Christian Chinese on the question of the commensurability of Chinese and Western culture. In their mutual dynamics they resemble a process of ‘glocalisation.’7 The main positions in these negotiations included a rejection of Christianity and Western culture as an incommensurable ‘other’ vis-à-vis traditional Chinese cultural and religious identities (a stance taken by some non-Christian Chinese), secondly as its extreme counterpart Western-centrism/Westernisation advocating the replacement of Chinese traditional culture with elements of a Christian—and by implication Western— cultural identity (supported mainly by missionaries and some converts), and finally a partial accommodation, adaptation to the host cultural and religious identities, and ‘indigenisation’ as a thorough integration of Christianity into the Chinese socio-cultural context.8 While being aware of the fact that Christian missions in China by their very nature already provide rich material for a case study on the problems of negotiating or reconciling ‘other’ and ‘self’ aspects of identities in a process of ‘globalisation,’ this article pursues a meta-historical approach. By highlighting trends in the Mainland Chinese historiographical discourse on Christian missions in China, it offers a more profound insight regarding the changes 6 On these two objectives, i.e., conversion and plantation, see Sundermeier (1987), pp. 471–73. 7 Examples for these negotiations, esp. Catholic substitutes of the rites of ancestor worships proposed by Chinese literati converts are presented in the context of the Dominican mission in seventeenth to eighteenth-century Fujian in Menegon (2009), pp. 294–300. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, various Protestant missionary societies, the Catholic church and Chinese Christians strove to reconcile these differences predominately through the indigenisation of the spiritual leadership of the Christian churches; cf. Tiedemann 2010, pp. 571–84 (for the Catholic church) and pp. 600–7 (Protestant churches). On ‘glocalisation’ as a paradigm for researching Christianity in China, see Ng (2012), pp. 6–7. 8 On these stances and its affiliated intercultural strategies see Leutner and Mühlhahn (2001), pp. 36–39; Standaert (2002), p. 45.

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in the reflection on the concepts of religious and cultural identity/alterity, modernity and globalisation within academia and their evaluation of different historical strategies of approaching the ‘other’ in the global encounter. Tracing these changes is facilitated by the multi-interpretative nature of the historical phenomenon of Christian missions, which allows embedding it into various master narratives, e.g. the history of Sino-Western cultural exchange, the history of China’s modernisation, Chinese religiosity as well as anti-imperialist critique. In this analysis, different modes of perceiving the history of Christian missions in late Qing and early Republican China in the Mainland Chinese historiographical discourse, hereafter referred to as ‘discursive patterns,’9 will be traced along the three stages of ‘Emerging patterns of discourse (1911–1949),’ ‘A privileged pattern of discourse (1949–1979),’ and ‘The Rise of New Multiple patterns of discourse (since 1980).’ For the initial stage of this discourse, I focus on three intellectuals who commented on the topics of Christianity as well as historiography in miscellaneous essays and articles—Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929), Hu Shi 胡適 (1891–1962) and Chen Yuan 陳垣 (1880–1971).10 The second period of orthodox Marxist historiography (from 1949–1979) will be treated briefly, especially with regard to the revisions that took place in the third period, which is the historiography of the reform era. A full-fledged, insti9

10

Although in Mainland Chinese historiographical discourse, the term ‘paradigm’ is used for discursive patterns of the reform era, see, e.g., Wang Lixin (2004), pp. 110–19, I do not consider this term approriate. Thomas Kuhn’s concept of ‘paradigm shifts’ indicates a chronological sequence of various paradigms; cf. Raphael (2003), pp. 14–16. This does not suit the discourse of the reform era, which is best characterised as a coexistence of different discursive patterns (see below part 3). These discursive patterns consist of thematic aspects (choice of topics) and interpretative aspects (perception of Christian missions). Since this analysis concentrates on the emerging discourses on the history of Christianity in China, an emphasis is put on Liang, Hu and Chen. Key factors for this choice are the interest of the three authors in issues of the history of religions in China (for which see Wang Liu’er 2002a–c), as well as their influence on the development of modern historical science in China. Liang and Hu contributed the first concepts of a philosophy of historiography; cf. Edward Wang (2001), pp. 42–50 (on Liang) and pp. 55, 59–63 (on Hu). Chen Yuan exerted a great influence up to the People’s Republic as a methodologist of historiography and representative of the ‘fact finders’ school of historians, cf. Wang Xuedian (2004), p. 67. As a consequence, other discourses which concentrate on philosophical and theological aspects of Christianity, or were predominately shaped by non-historians, such as Wu Leichuan 吳雷川 (1870–1944), Wu Yaozong 吳耀宗 (1893–1979), Xu Baoqian 徐寶謙 (1892–1944) and Zhao Zichen 趙紫宸 (1888–1979), are not part of this analysis; for these see Malek (2004), pp. 77–98, and Fällman (2004), pp. 20–30.

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tutionalised historiographical discourse on Christian missions developed only from the 1980s on, so the focus of this article will be on this period. In specifying different patterns of discourse, this article addresses a number of guiding questions: Which perspectives are taken as basis of the narrative of the history of Christian missions in China—nation-state, society, traditional Chinese culture or the Christian churches? In which way are these perspectives determined by a ‘globalised’ dimension? Which topics are presented? What stance do they take towards the socio-cultural and the religious ‘otherness’ of Christian missions and its chances to become part of a Chinese ‘self’? 1

Emerging Patterns of Discourse: Liang Qichao, Hu Shi and Chen Yuan

Throughout the Republican era, Catholic and Protestant missions were still an ongoing phenomenon with which Chinese intellectuals were most closely acquainted through Christian higher educational institutions. In the 1930s, there were 13 Protestant and three Catholic universities. Until the late 1920s, all of these were exterritorial in that they were not part of the public educational system of China (consisting of three national universities at that time).11 Accordingly, degrees granted at these universities were not regarded as valid by the state, which meant that graduates from Christian colleges and universities were barred from a career in public service. On the other hand, the degrees were accepted by universities in the home countries of the missionary societies managing the Christian institutions. This special position became the object of attacks by the Anti-Christian Movement of 1922–1927, which was closely connected to the “recovery of sovereignty over education” (shouhui jiaoyuquan 收回教育權).12 It united intellectuals and officials from different political backgrounds, the CCP and the GMD being most prominent. Against this background, the following statements of Liang Qichao, Hu Shi and Chen Yuan, are to be interpreted as commentaries on the contemporary missionary 11

12

Luo Rongqu (1986), pp. 59–60. A petition for granting Christian colleges and universities an equal status to state schools presented to the Qing Ministry of Education by the Protestant Educational Association of China (EAC) was rejected in 1906; see Zhang Jianhua (1993), pp. 94–96. At the end of the 1920s, however, most Christian colleges and universities complied with the order of the GMD government to register, which also meant they were to drop compulsory religious education from their curricula. An exception to this was St. John’s (Shanghai), which did registered until 1948; see Yeh Wen-hsin (2000), pp. 77–88, esp. p. 87. Lutz (1971), pp. 237–42.

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enterprise as much as its critique. Liang Qichao’s and Hu Shi’s view on the missionary enterprise was mainly determined by the considerations of its utility for the modernisation of China, which was a central topic in their historiographic approaches. Both shared the conviction that historical research should reflect upon—or even initiate—contemporary socio-political trends. Liang Qichao’s articles offer a very negative evaluation of Christianity. Considering that Liang, like his former teacher Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858– 1927), had been closely acquainted with the missionaries Timothy Richard (1845–1919) and Gilbert Reid (1857–1927) prior to and during the Wuxu 戊戌 reform(s) of 1898, this at first seems rather surprising.13 However, taking into account Kang Youwei’s proposals in the course of these reforms, Liang’s analysis may be regarded as a critique of this culturally radical reformist approach, which may have hastened the ‘conservative backlash’ of court officials, led by the empress dowager Cixi 慈禧. Liang’s discursive pattern is best described as a ‘culturally-based resistance.’ It corresponds to the culturally-conservative turn in his reform proposals which unfolded during the early twentieth century. Although this turn manifested itself most prominently after Liang’s travels in post-war Europe in 1919, Liang highlighted traditional Chinese cultural resources of modernisation, especially Buddhism, as early as 1902, during his exile in Japan. In his article “Bao jiao fei suoyi zun Kong lun 保教非所以 尊孔論” (To protect the teaching is not a proper way to respect Confucius), Liang broke with Kang’s conviction that Christianity was the basis of good governance and state power in the West and should be taken as a model for a Confucian state religion, as a means to the modernisation of China.14 Liang’s conception of the socio-political development of Western modernity, which regarded technological and scientific progress as the basis of Western state power, now differed from Kang Youwei’s view. While still advocating following the Western model more closely, Liang pointed out that Christianity was rather a remnant of a more primitive stage of social development, whose 13 14

Prior to 1898, Liang for some time even worked as a private secretary for Timothy Richard; Soothill (1924), pp. 218–19 and 232. Liang Qichao (1935–36a). In the course of the Wuxu reforms, Kang strongly advocated changes beneficial to the missionary enterprise and took missionary activities as a model, e.g. in the field of education. Kang’s proposals included the abolishment of the examination system, the promotion of studies abroad, the conversion of temples in Western schools, and that Christianity should be protected in China without any obstruction. He even invited Timothy Richard to act as a foreign policy advisor to the Guangxu 光緒 Emperor—a position Richard never took up, since the reform movement had been suppressed in the meantime. See Soothill (1924), pp. 235–40.

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s­uperstitious teaching was incompatible with progress.15 As evidence he referred to the dwindling influence of Christianity in contemporary Western states.16 In Liang’s article “Lun fojiao yu qunzhi zhi guanxi 論佛教與群治之 關係” (On the Relationship between Buddhism and Democracy), also from 1902, Christianity featured as a negative point of reference for Buddhism. While the Christian doctrines were “irrational,” not open to critical inquiry, and fostered a spirit of dependence on God as a higher authority (thus resembling an autocratic political system), Liang regarded Buddhism as being more suitable to a democratic system, as it encouraged inquiries and proposed that every being could become a Buddha itself.17 Several of Liang’s essays and articles from the following Republican period offer a view on the history of Christian missions in China that becomes increasingly negative the more they engage in purely religious activities and the closer they are to his own times. A positive example mentioned by Liang in Zhongguo jin sanbai nian xueshu shi 中國近三百年學術史 (An Intellectual History of China in the Past 300 Years, published in 1926) are the Jesuit missionaries Matteo Ricci, Giulio Aleni and Johann Adam Schall von Bell, who introduced Western Renaissance sciences to China and contributed to a first high tide of scientific thinking in late Ming and early Qing times. As Liang emphasises, these missionaries were careful not to introduce any “superstitious religious teaching” (mixin de zongjiao 迷信的宗教) in order to maintain the goodwill of the Chinese.18 As his Qingdai xueshu gailun 清代學術概論 (Intellectual Trends in the Qing Period, published in 1920) shows, Liang still considered Christianity to be a rival to those cultural elements he wanted to elevate. Interestingly enough, despite his cultural-conservative turn, Liang Qichao maintains a glob­alised perspective by adopting patterns of Western history as a model for China’s modernisation: here, Liang again highlights the potential of Buddhism to become a source of modernisation by turning it into a ‘rational’ religion through a process akin to the Reformation.19 In the same chapter, however, he attacks Christianity, this 15

16 17 18 19

Similarly Liang’s Xin shixue 新史学 (New historiography), also published in 1902, which was influenced by Hegelianism and Darwinism, proffered historical science as a means to foster an ideology of modernisation in the Chinese people, that is, a nation-based patriotism similar to that in Western states, see Liang Qichao (1935–36c), 53. Liang Qichao (1935–36a), p. 1. Liang Qichao (1935–36b), pp. 46–50. Liang Qichao (1926), pp. 8–9 and 18–19. Unfortunately, Liang does not provide a definition of ‘superstitious’ (mixin 迷信). Liang Qichao (1938), p. 167.

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time putting forth cultural considerations and stressing the socio-cultural and religious ‘otherness’ of the missionary enterprise: Christianity is presented as a cultural identity alien to and incompatible with a Chinese national identity, or “national character” in Liang’s terms.20 Corresponding to this argument and his critique of the Wuxu reforms, Liang accords to the activities of Christian missions only a minimal impact on Chinese intellectual history, or, in the case of the Wuxu movement and the subsequent New Thought Movement (Xin sichao 新思潮, 1915–1919), even an obstructive influence, especially in the field of education.21 Even more negative is his later work Zhongguo lishi yanjiufa 中國歷史研究法 (Methods for Researching Chinese History), which he finished in 1927 in close cooperation with Hu Shi. Citing cultural and political reasons, he rejects Christianity on two accounts, the first being its intolerance towards adherents of different faiths, the second the suspicion caused by missionary activities, that Christians intended to dominate China on a sociopolitical level—with the Catholics trying to assume governmental power and the Protestants harbouring intentions of invasion.22 The former argument aims at the thought to be mainly Catholic missionary practice of intervening on behalf of converts in the magisterial courts of various levels—thus acting as equals to the officials. The latter most probably alludes to the statistical survey termed The Christian Occupation of China (Shanghai 1922),23 which, with its politically as well as culturally insensitive title, epitomised the Protestant missionary zeal of this era. This argument was put forth by Liang as early as 1902, too: referring to several ‘missionary cases’ ( jiao’an 教案), i.e., conflicts between missionaries/converts and non-Christian Chinese in late Qing China which often led to retaliations by foreign powers, Liang Qichao characterised the missionary enterprise as a form of “aggressive intrusion” (qinru 侵入) akin to the policy of imperialist powers in China.24 In the course of the AntiChristian Movement (since 1922) the related motif of missionary activities as 20 21

22 23 24

Ibid., p. 168. Ibid. Actually the missionary influence, e.g., of Timothy Richard, has been far from negligible: The Reform Society (Qiangxuehui 強學會, established by Kang Youwei et al. in 1895) took the Protestant missionary journal Wanguo gongbao 萬國公報 (Review of the Times) as a model for their own newspaper—in the beginning even using the same Chinese name and publishing reprints of articles. The Shishi xinlun 時世新論 (New Tracts for the Times), published February 1898 by the Reform Society, featured 31 articles by Richard (as compared to 44 by Liang Qichao and 38 of Kang Youwei), cf. Zhang (2006), pp. 9–11, Elman (2003), p. 9 and Soothill (1924), p. 234. See also Tsou (1996), p. 84. Liang Qichao (2000), p. 142. Cf. Stauffer (1922). See Tiedemann (2010), p. 603. Liang Qichao (1935–36a), pp. 53–56.

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‘cultural aggression’ (wenhua qinlüe 文化侵略), became a ready-made argument of participants of this movement (see part 2 below). By contrast, Hu Shi, as one of the pioneers of the New Thought Movement and the May Fourth Movement, took a very sceptical stance towards traditional Chinese culture and was more willing to take Western modernity as a model for China. However, as was the case with Liang Qichao and other conservative contemporary debaters, e.g., Liang Shuming 梁漱溟 (1893–1988), to Hu Shi the questions of cultural identities and modernisation remained interconnected.25 Initially, Hu Shi proposed a selective adaptation of elements of a Western modernity. Accordingly, Hu Shi’s historiographical approach intended to identify and reconstruct within Chinese culture sources for a modernisation of the country through scientific progress. This “reordering of the national heritage to recreate civilisation” (zhengli guogu, zaizao wenming 整理国故, 再造文明) was the main task of historical science.26 In this process, Hu Shi especially turned to non-Confucian traditions and was willing to consider Christianity as one possible cultural identity within the framework of a national identity of the inhabitants of China.27 However, his view on Christianity and the missionary enterprise remained ambivalent, as can be reconstructed from several articles published through the 1920s. Hu was far from sharing Liang Qichao’s concept of a ‘rational’ religion. In fact, as becomes evident in the autobiographical essay “Cong baishen dao wushen 从拜神到无神” (From worship to atheism, original article dated 25 December 1919), Hu’s view on religion is determined by the dichotomy of ‘superstition’ (mixin 迷信) vs. ‘rationalism’ (lixingzhuyi 理性主义).28 Mixin to Hu is the domain of religion, i.e. its transcendental aspects and ritual practice. 25

26

27

28

Cf. Eglauer (2001), pp. 298–300. As Eglauer points out, up to the 1930s the concept of ‘modernisation’ (xiandaihua 現代化) was mainly understood as a transformation in cultural identity, i.e., as ‘Westernisation’ (xihua 西化) which featured prominently as a synonym in Chinese discourses; ibid., p. 307. Hu Shi (1953a), pp. 727–28 and 736. ‘Reordering’ to Hu meant applying to historical sources a critical method based on initial doubt followed by verification and falsification; cf. Edward Wang (2001), pp. 55, 61–62. While this position entertains the possibility of a Chinese way of modernisation, by the 1930s, Hu Shi adopted Chen Xujing’s 陳序經 (1903–1967) view of complete ‘Westernisation’ (xihua) as the only viable model of modernisation. See Eglauer (2001), pp. 306–7. Hu Shi (1987). Though Hu actually uses ‘naturalism’ (ziranzhuyi) in this article, it is highly probable that this term to him is already closely related to Western ‘rationalism’ (lixingzhuyi, by implication scientific thinking). This association is explicitly stated six years later by Hu; see Hu Shi (1953b), p. 729.

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Hu’s negative childhood experience with popular Buddhism led him to favour the ‘naturalist’ (ziranzhuyi 自然主义) Neo-Confucian philosophy as a necessary counter-influence to the ‘superstitious’ aspects of religion.29 Hu’s discursive pattern on the history of Christian missions in China approached this phenomenon from the perspective of Chinese society. As can be exemplified by his articles from the 1920s, Hu Shi was interested in the socio-ethical function of religions. In this, he acknowledged the benign effects of a religious system especially with regard to improving individual morality, moreover, he also took into account the global character of Christianity as a positive element: Hu focuses on educational and empowering activities according to models of Western modernity, e.g. of the YWCA and thereby also stresses the socio-cultural ‘otherness’ of Christianity.30 However, contrary to Liang Qichao, Hu Shi attributes the positive aspects of Christian missions exactly to its ‘otherness.’ He even takes to some extent into account secular implications of religious aspects. In his contribution to an article titled “Xin Wenhua yundong zhong jiwei xuezhe dui yu jidujiao de taidu 新文化運 動中幾位學者對于基督教的態度” (Several scholars of the New Culture Movement on Christianity, 1922), Hu proposes a model for the development of religion that is characterised by a process of ‘degeneration’ (albeit with an inherent possibility of ‘renewal’). According to Hu, every religion consists of three elements: moral teaching (daode jiaoxun 道德教訓), theology (shenxue 神學) and superstition (mixin).31 While the latter two are inhibiting forces, he considers moral teaching to have a certain merit: Although the Christian moral teaching [like mixin and shenxue, DK] also is the product of two thousand years ago, part of it could be preserved, because humanity’s progress in [moral] conduct has not been as fast as its intellectual progress. This moral teaching in no way relies on superstition or theology. This is because it was propagated by a social-revolutionary prophet . . .32

29 30

31 32

Hu Shi (1987), pp. 66–68. Hu Shi actually had a first-hand experience in the evangelically influenced Protestant Christianity of the YMCA/YWCA from his sojourn as a foreign student in the USA, where he participated in a retreat of the Protestant Chinese Students Christian Association, which was affiliated to the YMCA, see Hu Shi (1959), pp. 53–55. Cf. also Hu Shi’s commentary to the YWCA presented below. Hu Shi (1922), p. 3. Ibid., p. 4. Emphasis in the original.

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Hu’s construction of Jesus as a ‘social-revolutionary prophet’ (shehui geming de xianzhi 社會革命的先知) corresponds to the revolutionary zeal of MayFourth intellectuals.33 As the statement quoted above shows, for Hu Shi the evaluation of a cultural identity, such as a religious teaching, is closely linked to their compatibility with a progressive development, i.e. a process of modernisation. This perspective becomes evident in Hu Shi’s approach the question of Christianity as a potential cultural constituent of a Chinese national identity, i.e. its indigenisation. Hu states that in the realm of religion, the Chinese, due to the very low educational level of the majority, are most prone to superstition. At the same time, they are receptive to moral teachings.34 The only successful method to indigenise Christianity in China—and to make it a positive force of modernisation—, according to Hu’s reductionist view on religion, was to concentrate on the ‘moral teaching’ (daode jiaoxun). If Christian communities failed to discard superstition and theology, the moral teachings would be washed away in the end.35 Hu acclaims Protestantism (literally the ‘new teaching,’ xinjiao 新教) as closer to this goal, because it was most popular among the middle classes (who were more amenable to moral teachings), while Catholicism (‘Roman old teaching,’ Luoma jiujiao 羅馬舊教) prevailed among (superstitious) rural people.36 Even (non-Christian) Chinese intellectuals should play an active part in this process of indigenisation, reducing its ‘religious otherness’ by emphasizing its moral elements, thereby increasing its social utility and modernising impact. Corresponding to Hu’s approach to national historiography—the ‘reordering of the national heritage’ (zhengli guogu 整理國故), and by studying Christian history and scriptures, the intellectuals were to attain a profound understanding of Christianity, which should enable them to determine elements suitable to be adapted and the negative elements to be discarded.37 33

Ibid. In this characterisation of the historical Jesus, he is quite on a par with Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀, the founder of the CCP in 1921, who also contributed a statement in the same article, cf. Chen Duxiu (1922), pp. 8–9. This interpretation reflects the liberal Protestant theology of the ‘social gospel,’ represented in China especially by the YMCA and YWCA, which many May-Fourth intellectuals were familiar with; see Fällman (2004), pp. 8–11 and 16–17. 34 Theological issues, according to Hu, were beyond the ken and interest of Chinese Christians and non-Christian intellectuals, Hu Shi (1922), p. 3. 35 Ibid., p. 4. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. Hu Shi here considers Protestant Christianity as a rather suitable cultural source of modernisation for China as opposed to Buddhism, which he considers a predominately superstitious religion (see above).

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However, Hu Shi’s main interest rested with missionary charity work and educational activities. A rather unrestricted positive view of the contributions of Christianity and the (Protestant) missionary enterprise to the development of Chinese society especially for the empowerment of traditionally marginalised women can be found in “Zhuhe Nü Qingnianhui 祝賀女青年會 (Congratulations on the [twentieth anniversary of the] YWCA 1928), where Hu even uses biblical metaphors. Here, Hu provides an alternative, ‘evolutionary,’ model of Christian spirituality: starting with the hope of reaching the ‘kingdom of heaven’ (tianguo 天國) in the afterlife, which was followed by striving for it in one’s heart-mind (xin 心) to its highest form, which Hu identifies as the moving force of the YWCA, i.e. seeking to establish it among one’s fellow human beings. As in 1922, this passage shows, that Hu’s perception of the missionary enterprise was at its most positive in those fields of work that challenged tenets of traditional Chinese society, and thus were compatible with the reform program of the New Culture and May-Fourth-Movement.38 With “Jinri jiaohui jiaoyu de nanguan 今日教會教育的難關關” (The current crisis of Christian education), published in the Christian periodical Shengming in 1926, Hu turns to contemporary criticism against missionaries based on a ‘new nationalistic movement’ and ‘rationalism.’ While the latter was a fundamental criticism of the Christian faith as such, the former aimed at reducing the foreign dominance in China, demanding the restoration of China’s educational sovereignty (turning missionary schools into non-religious state schools or at least under full state control) and calling for a prohibition on foreign missionary activities.39 Although Hu Shi claims to present these arguments playing the part of the ‘devil’s advocate,’ to a certain extent they match his own views on religion expressed earlier. According to Hu, missionary societies could meet this challenge by concentrating their efforts on the secular task of developing a few excellent colleges and universities, which in the long-run should be handed over to the government. Tackling the topic of the indigenisation of Christianity (in the context of schools), Hu recommends the professionalisation of Christian schools as purely educational institutions, advising missionaries to refrain from compulsory participation in religious rites and courses on religion for pupils, since these took advantage of the malleable minds of children. In fact, he further proposed restricting conversions merely to adults, who would make more reliable believers, having come to faith by conscious choice.40 38 39 40

Hu Shi (1953c), p. 738. Hu Shi (1953a), pp. 735–36. Ibid., p. 735.

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Of the three scholars discussed here, Chen Yuan was the only one to have a more profound experience of Christianity, and especially of Christian higher education. Prior to his historical studies, Chen studied Western medicine at the Boji Yixueyuan 博濟醫學院 (Boji Medical College), a Protestant missionary medical school in Guangzhou 廣州. Of eminent importance for this choice was that his father was cured from a grave illness in the adjacent Boji Hospital, after traditional Chinese medical treatments had failed. During his studies, Chen became acquainted with the Protestant church, which was a key influence in his plan to write a history of Christianity in China. Unbeknownst to most of his contemporaries, Chen Yuan was himself a Protestant Christian.41 His ties to the missionary enterprise in China remained close, even after leaving the Boji Yixueyuan. In 1923, he taught at Yenching University (and served there as the first director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute between 1928 and 1930). In 1929, he became president of Fu Jen Catholic University in Beijing 北京, a position he held until 1952. A greater part of his studies were devoted to the beginnings of Christianity in China. He reflected the history of Christian missions from the perspective of traditional Chinese culture and the Chinese Christian churches. As his articles “Jidujiao ruhua shilüe 基督教入華史略” (A historical sketch of Christianity’s arrival in China, 1924) and “Jidujiao ruhua shi 基督教入華史” (A history of Christianity’s arrival in China, 1927) show, Chen focuses primarily on the question of indigenisation and the contribution of missionaries to a Sino-Western cultural exchange. Both articles attribute the different phases of Christian missions to the predominance of specific confessions: the Tang dynasty to the Nestorians, the Yuan dynasty to Yelikewen 也里 可温,42 the Ming dynasty to the Catholics, the Qing dynasty, beginning with the arrival of Robert Morrison (1782–1834) in China, to Protestants. Like Hu Shi, Chen Yuan perceived Protestantism as a ‘modernised’ Christianity. Chen’s denominational attribution to the latter two dynasties is based on the criterion of the acceptance and influence of Christianity among the intellectual and political elite. Quantitative considerations are of minor relevance in Chen’s line of reasoning; thus, he acknowledges the Catholic mission of the Ming dynasty but neglects its late Qing counterpart, which was more numerous, but at the same time, more rural than the Protestant mission of that period.43 41 42 43

Chen Zhichao and Zeng Qingying (2006), p. 1. Cf. Liu Xian (2006). Yelikewen is an ambiguous term, which in Yuan times included Nestorian as well as Catholic Christians, cf. Chen Yuan (1980b), p. 102 and Yin Xiaoping (2009), p. 305–6. In his analysis, Chen Yuan obviously does not consider Jesuit missionaries at the early Qing court, like Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1592–1666) and Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–1688).

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His portrait of Matteo Ricci confirms this impression: Ricci is presented as the epitome of a successful integration of Christianity into Chinese culture (and a role model for contemporary missionaries). Key factors in Ricci’s success were his willingness to engage in cultural exchange. He learned from the Chinese ‘self,’ studying Hanxue 漢學, i.e. especially Chinese literature, and introduced the socio-cultural ‘other’ of xixue 西學 (‘Western learning,’ especially arithmetics and geography). By this he tried to reach the scholar-official elite (and not only the rural population or the lower classes, which implies an indirect critique of missionary approaches of the late nineteenth century) and through his respect for their culture (i.e. Confucianism and ancestor worship), including a firm opposition to Buddhism, he gained the respect and support of officials.44 Chen’s research focuses on the encounter between the global ‘other’ and Chinese ‘self’ is exemplified by Ricci and other Jesuit missionaries. His vision was that of a ‘glocalised’ Chinese Christian identity which adapted the ‘other’ into traditional cultural models: Chen’s conceptualizing of an indigenised Christianity was that of a profound cultural integration marked by the appropriation of the global religious ‘other’—i.e., Christian terms and theological concepts initially shaped in Western cultural contexts—by Chinese poetry, and in consequence, the development of a Christian-inspired literature. In this he takes Buddhism as a model, which reached this stage by the second century after its arrival in China.45 With this vision of a synthesis of ‘other’ and ‘self,’ i.e. a Sino-Christian identity, as a long-term result of the global encounter of Christian missions, Chen Yuan differed much from Liang Qichao’s and Hu Shi’s position. In Liang’s view, the global encounter with the Western ‘other’ provided some valuable patterns for China’s modernisation, such as the Renaissance and the Reformation.46 However, this project should be realised primarily relying on traditional Chinese sources of cultural and religious identities. Accordingly, with regard to Christianity and Christian missionaries, Liang proposed an extremely ‘localised’ perspective by promoting Buddhism. Contrary to Liang, Hu Shi’s perception of the global encounter between China and the West led him to adopt to a large extent the Western ‘other’ as the privileged model of cultural identity and most suitable source of modernisation versus a traditional Chinese ‘self.’ Though he included elements of Christianity in this identity, in this ‘global perspective’ Hu greatly diminished its religious elements identity. Corresponding to these points of view, the discursive patterns of Liang Qichao, Hu Shi, and Chen Yuan on the 44 45 46

Chen Yuan (1980b), p. 104. Chen Yuan (1980a), p. 91. Liang Qichao (1938), p. 167.

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historiography of Christian missions in China can be summarised as: 1) exclusion and resistance, based on cultural reasons (represented by Liang), 2) a selective appropriation into national history (represented by Hu) and 3), an ‘indigenisation’ of missionary history as a part of the national history (Chen Yuan). 2

Privileged Pattern of Discourse: Orthodox Marxist Historiography (1949–1979)

With the founding of the People’s Republic of China, historical research on late Qing and early Republican missions had to operate within the framework of a politically privileged pattern of discourse—labelled ‘cultural aggression’ (wenhua qinlüe 文化侵略). As we have seen, this term had been coined and used as early as the Anti-Christian Movement by first-generation leaders of the CCP such as Yun Daiying 恽代英 (1895–1931). Its main aim was to counter the positive image of missionary societies, especially the YMCA and YWCA, which were regarded as competitors for student members by the CCP.47 The term ‘cultural aggression,’ was understood to mean that missionaries willingly supported the Western powers’ control over China exerted by political and economic means. Indirect missionary approaches such as charity and educational projects were presented as serving the purpose of recruiting collaborators for ‘Western imperialism.’ Such a stance had become authoritative by 1939, when Mao Zedong reinforced the verdict of wenhua qinlüe for missionary activities in his article “Zhongguo geming he Zhongguo gongchandang 中國革命和中國共産黨” (On the Chinese Revolution and the Communist Party of China).48 Similar to Liang Qichao’s approach its focus is on the perspective of the nation-state/foreign policy and strategies of exclusion and resistance. However, this pattern of discourse tended to stress the socio-cultural and religious ‘otherness’ of Christian missions and the necessity to resist them to an even greater degree than Liang. Academic discourse was narrowed down to 47

48

Yun Daiying, like Chen Duxiu (see note 19), was quite familiar with certain aspects of the missionary enterprise. Prior to the founding of the CCP in 1921, he took part in YMCA activities and as Chairman of the Socialist Youth League, he recommended the adoption of YMCA methods popular among students. Cf. Han Lingxuan (1988), pp. 260–62, and Boorman and Howard (1971), pp. 92–95. Other examples among the CCP leadership as pointed out by Tao Feiya are Qu Qiubai, who was a subscriber of the Beijing YMCA journal Xin shehui 新社會 (New Society) after 1919, and Li Dazhao, who in 1920 studied American Christian utopian concepts; see Tao Feiya (2003), pp. 116 and 122. On the anti-imperialist discourse in the 1920s, see also Wang Dong (2003). Wang Lixin (2002), pp. 99–100.

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the topics of the protection of missions under the system of ‘unequal treaties’ and the ‘missionary cases’ ( jiao’an). As ‘fight against the foreign religion’ ( fan yangjiao douzheng 反洋教鬥爭), the jiao’an were constructed as a coherent national movement with a high level of political awareness of the participants and a precursor to the Boxer Uprising or Yihetuan 義和團 Movement of 1899–1901, rather than being analysed as single, locally diverse phenomena sharing common elements. Consequently, the historical conceptions of late Qing and early Republican Catholic and Protestant missionary activities construed in the period from 1949 to 1979 were restricted to a negative interpretation. Though this verdict did not necessarily need to entail a rejection of an indigenised Christianity, religious aspects of the missionary enterprise were nevertheless attacked as “ideology.”49 Two additional factors were of foremost importance to this development: On the level of theories of historiography, a dogmatic Marxist-Leninist ‘revolutionary discourse,’ initiated by Mao Zedong and the CCP, provided the sole applicable model for the modernisation of China, the national and— during the Cultural Revolution—even the cultural, identity of its inhabitants. According to this discourse, which was outlined by historians Fan Wenlan 範文瀾 (in 1953) and Hu Sheng 胡繩 (in 1949), ‘three [revolutionary] peaks’ could be discerned in the development of Chinese society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century—i.e. the Taiping 太平 (the Christian elements of whose doctrine were ignored), the Yihetuan (Boxer) Uprising of 1900, and the Xinhai 辛亥 Revolution of 1911.50 These central historical events were appropriated as a succession of revolutions, moving from a proto-bourgeois to a genuinely bourgeois nature, which in orthodox Marxism provided the precondition necessary for a Communist revolution. Hence, Communist rule was constructed as an inevitable completion to these earlier revolutionary efforts. Operating within this ‘revolutionary discourse’ model, studies on Late Qing and Republican era history had an auxiliary political function of providing evidence for the Communist ‘master narrative.’ The main formative influences were the ‘two processes’—the anti-­imperialist fight against the invasion of the Western powers and the anti-feudalist struggle 49

50

Examples for the historical research on Christian missions in this period are Li Shiyue’s interpretation of Christian missions as the “vanguard of Western imperialism,” in his “Jiawu zhanzheng qian sanshi nianjian fan yangjiao yundong 甲午戰爭前三十年間反 洋教運動”; cf. Sun E-tu Zen (1958). Eight years later Li published a biography of Timothy Richard (Li Shiyue 1964), again emphasising the cultural imperialist nature of the “transmission of Western teachings,” cf. Bastid (1964). Staiger (1992), p. 85.

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against reactionary forces within. Missionaries were among the targets of both processes as supporters of the ‘foreign invasion’ and as adherents of a religious faith that was criticised as a remnant of feudalism. They were regarded as an inhibiting force to the revolutionary movements mentioned above, and one which made it impossible to integrate missionary historiography as part of a national Chinese identity. At the same time and in contrast to this, the Yihetuan Movement experienced a very positive evaluation by historians of that period as an “anti-imperialist, anti-feudalist, patriotic peasant movement.”51 On the level of domestic policy, a key factor for this interpretation was the nominally inner-Church ‘accusation campaign’ of 1951, which was directed against foreign missionaries involved in parishes, hospitals, Christian colleges and universities and other institutions, and resulted in their expulsion in 1952. To a certain extent, this movement coincided with the even earlier critique of missionaries, as well as Chinese Christians, and their demand of a transformation of the missionary churches into local churches run by native ministers and laypersons (since the Protestant indigenisation movement in the 1920s).52 More important, though, was the blanket suspicion fomented by the CCP during the Korean War (1950–1953), that Catholic and Protestant missionaries were acting as spies for the USA. Historical research had to incorporate the contemporary propaganda into its analysis of the past in order to provide the regime with additional legitimisation. As we can see, in this discursive pattern the global encounter was perceived as conflict between a hostile ‘other’ and a defensive ‘self.’ Both were considered to be mutually exclusive (notwithstanding the fact that the CCP itself was shaped by the global encounter in nineteenth and twentieth century). Furthermore the politically enforced focus on the localised perspective of selfassertion, made an analysis of a selective adaptation of elements of the ‘other’ into the Chinese cultural and religious identity or a synthesis of ‘other’ and ‘self’ in a ‘glocalised’ identity inconceivable within this pattern. 3

The Rise of New, Multiple Patterns of Discourse: Historiography of the Reform Era (since 1980)

The political change of the reform and opening period that started in 1978 instigated a subtle, yet significant revision of the CCP’s stance towards religion and religious activities. With the new constitution of the People’s Republic 51 52

Staiger (1992), pp. 89–92. Wickeri (1988), pp. 138–40.

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of China promulgated in 1982, religious activities were legalised again, albeit with a strong emphasis of controlling and ‘confining’ these activities. Only three years later, in the academic debate on the Marxist concept of ‘religion as opium of the people’ (1985–1988), alternative concepts such as ‘religion as culture’ could be proposed without political repercussions. The impact of this can also be traced in the development of the historiography of Christian missions. Speaking of quantity, there was a significant increase in publications on the overarching topic of the history of Christianity in China. 500 relevant articles were published in the 1980s alone, already exceeding the entire research output of the previous 30 years.53 From 1980–2000, a total number of 1,000 articles respectively, 100 monographs, translations, and collections were devoted to this subject.54 While the discourse on the history of Christian missions of the Republican era was in its emergent stage, from the 1980s onward it became increasingly institutionalised as part of the broader research on Christianity.55 Thus it was and is reflected upon both from the view-point of Religious Studies as well as History. The following analysis will focus on the historians’ view-point and is therefore mainly based on tracing discursive patterns in selected articles— totalling 45—on late Qing/early Republican missionary topics published in the historical journals Lishi yanjiu 歷史研究 (hereafter: LSYJ) and Jindaishi yanjiu 近代史研究 (hereafter: JDSYJ) from 1980–2003. Both being published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS, Beijing) they offer a key reference on the state of the field, especially as an indicator of academic consensus.56 In addition, several influential researchers, seminal monographs and key conferences shall be highlighted. So far, three phases of mission historiography can be identified in the academic debates of LSYJ and JDSYJ. The first phase, from 1980–1988, is 53 54 55

Leung (1997), p. 191. Zhang Kaiyuan (2001), pp. 31–33. In 1978, the Institute for World Religions, originally founded in 1963 as a think tank for an atheist critique of religions, was reestablished in 1978 as a research centre for religious studies. Since 1998, a Centre for Christian Studies forms a separate department of the Institute. A centre for the research on the history of Christian schools in China was established by Zhang Kaiyuan at Central China Normal University in Wuhan in 1992; see Zhuo and Xu (2000), pp. 18–22. 56 The CASS, founded in 1977, has two functions in the Chinese academia: on the one hand, propagating the political directives for research, on the other hand, especially since the 1980s, the CASS has been a think tank for reform policy; see Goldman and Lee (2002), p. 506. Thus an analysis of the discourse in LSYJ and JDSYJ also offers profound insight into the extensions of the margins of research in the reform era.

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characterised by a revision of the Maoist conception of mission history integrating aspects of modernisation theories, that started in the mid-1980s. It was strongly influenced by the CCP implementing a gradual development model of modernisation—the ‘reform and opening’ policy (gaige kaifang 改革開放)— after the Maoist revolutionary model of modernisation, taken to extremes during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, had fallen into complete disrepute within the Party leadership. This called for new historiographical precedents. In 1980, the historian Li Shiyue 李時岳 established a ‘reformist discourse’ on the socio-political development of late Qing/early Republican China, which was based on a critique of the evaluation of the Yihetuan as a progressive movement. Stressing negative aspects such as their xenophobic and ‘feudalist’ elements, Li proposed an alternative model to the ‘three (revolutionary) peaks’ based on the criterion of modernisation. It consisted of the Yangwu 洋務 (or Western Affairs) Movement, the Wuxu Movement, previously deemed to be ‘reactionary forces,’ and the Xinhai Revolution, which was quickly included in the academic discourse of the 1980s. The ‘two processes’ were redefined as the struggles for national sovereignty and social progress.57 Another key factor favouring research on missionary historiography, especially as part of the history of China’s modernisation, was in the ‘cultural fever’ (wenhua re 文化熱) of 1985–1988. In the course of this intellectual debate on the characteristics of traditional Chinese culture, the question of how ‘modernisation’ and ‘culture’ relate to each other re-emerged. Proponents of a ‘Westernising’ model of modernisation created their own forum in the media—in the form of the documentary Heshang 河殤 (River elegy), which contrasted the agrarian and conservative ‘yellow civilisation’ ([rural] China) with the seafaring, progressive ‘blue civilisation’ ([coastal] China and the West).58 The most immediate impact was to be found in the wide adoption of the works of Max Weber (1864–1920) in the PRC, especially The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (a Chinese translation was published in 1987).59 Weber’s analysis reconfirmed and fortified the association of Protestantism and social progress or modernisation respectively, which had been present in the academic discourse on missionary historiography as early as in Chen Yuan’s and especially Hu Shi’s approaches. This line of reasoning was notice57 58 59

The developmental scheme that became academic consensus in the 1980s added the Taiping rebellion to Li Shiyue’s concept. Cf. Staiger (1992), pp. 85–87 and 96. Cf. Neder (1996). Gransow (1999), p. 60. For the edition, see Makesi Weibo (1987).

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ably expressed in Marxist terms for the first time during a symposium on jiao’an in modern China held in 1985. Critics of the Maoist approach advocated distinguishing between ‘feudalistic groups’ harmful to China’s development (the Catholic mission), and ‘bourgeois groups’ (the Protestant mission), which actually were an innovative force in feudal China and whose merits with regard to reform movements in China should be correctly presented.60 As a consequence of these intellectual trends, alongside the ‘cultural aggression’ pattern alternate discursive patterns arose: the ‘modernisation’ (xiandaihua 現代化) and ‘cultural exchange’ (wenhua jiaoliu 文化交流) pattern. With regard to the ‘modernisation’ pattern, academic evaluation of missionary activities was based on their perceived relevance and utility to the modernisation of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century China, adopting the perspective of the nation-state and Chinese society as in Liang Qichao’s and Hu Shi’s analysis respectively. ‘Modernisation’ as understood in these articles, indicates emulating a Western-style modernity, which means it is equivalent to a ‘Westernisation’ paradigm. Similar to Hu Shi, the socio-cultural ‘otherness’ of the Christian mission is considered as a positive factor, as it encompassed the introduction of elements of Western modernity in China. Accordingly, relevant articles in LSYJ and JDSYJ in the first phase, strongly focus on charity and educational activities of liberal Protestant missionary societies. Adopting a rather descriptive ‘history of events’ and institutional-history approach, they provide an overview of journals, organisations, and schools founded by Protestant missionaries and selected protagonists, e.g. W.A.P. Martin, John Fryer, Timothy Richard, Young J. Allen, Calvin Mateer and Alexander Wylie, as well as by societies such as the Presbyterian Church, the Methodists, the Episcopal Church, and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The focus of these studies is on the transfer of natural sciences and technology, which is valued positively. However, religious aspects of a transcendent nature, e.g. religious instructions in Christian schools and Christian concepts such as salvation, sin and redemption, are still mentioned negatively or rather avoided at all. Likewise, the topic of the indigenisation of Christianity in China is not touched by the participants in this discursive pattern, nor is the topic of ‘missionary cases.’ In this way, the ‘modernisation’ pattern did not challenge the ‘cultural aggression’ pattern right away by proposing alternative interpretations to this established academic topic. This pragmatic approach to research, that is focused on science and discarded the religious elements is closely aligned with the CCP’s partial modernisation project of increasing the level of technology and production, with minimal changes to the political and 60

Wu Jinzhong (1985), pp. 246–48.

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social system. Methodologically, as an ‘invention’ of a ‘tradition of modernisation,’ it is strongly reminiscent of Hu Shi’s approach. The early seminal work of that period, Gu Changsheng’s 顧長生 Chuanjiaoshi yu jindai Zhongguo 傳教 士余近代中國 (The Missionaries and Modern China, 1981), however, still followed the ‘cultural aggression’ pattern.61 Studies published in Lishi yanjiu and Jindaishi yanjiu from 1989 to 2000 increasingly reach beyond this narrow view to gain a more profound understanding of the missionary enterprise by adopting an intellectual history and history of mentalities approach. This perceptional shift is indicated by the emergence of the ‘cultural exchange’ pattern. It tries to put forth interpretations of the history of Christian missions in China beyond the criterion of ‘utility’ to reform movements and the hierarchic notions of superiority/inferiority applied to the analysis of the relation between Chinese and Western culture in the patterns of ‘cultural aggression’ and ‘modernisation.’ Though the perspective shifts to Chinese society and traditional Chinese culture, the main topic is still the transfer of Western knowledge to China. Seminal works of this period are Xiong Yuezhi’s 熊月之 Xixue dongjian yu wan Qing shehui 西學東 漸與晚清社會 (The Diffusion of Western Knowledge to the East and Late Qing Society), which also acknowledges materials of religious nature, and Wang Lixin’s 王立新 Meiguo chuanjiaoshi yu wan Qing Zhongguo xiandaihua 美國 傳教士與晚清中國現代化 (American Missionaries and the Modernisation of Late Qing China), which offered an integrated historiographic approach taking into account the topics of cultural conflicts ( jiao’an), Sino-Western cultural exchange, and educational reforms.62 This academic change was initiated at its earliest in the research on Christian colleges and universities in China, with an international conference held at China Central Normal University (Huazhong Shifan Daxue 華中師範大學, a former Christian school), Wuhan 武漢, in 1989. It was organised by the then president of the university and historian, Zhang Kaiyuan 章開沅, who had strong biographical ties to this topic. Zhang himself graduated from a Christian institution, Jinling University 金陵大學 (which was later, in 1952, merged with the (National) Nanjing University), where the American missionary and missionary historian M. Searle Bates, was one of his professors.63 At the 1989 conference, Zhang argued for a new interpretational framework that made a clear distinction between the educational and religious aspects of Christian colleges and universities on the one hand, and school politics 61 62 63

Gu Changsheng (1981). Xiong Yuezhi (1994), Wang Lixin (1997). Zhang Kaiyuan (2000), pp. 36–38.

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and the ­imperialistic politics of Western powers on the other hand. A centre for the research of the Christian colleges and universities in China was founded at China Central Normal University in 1994. Among the leading researchers in this field are Shi Jinghuan 史静寰, Ma Min 馬敏 and He Jianming 何建明 (the latter two having been doctoral students of Zhang Kaiyuan).64 Shi Jinghuan’s pioneering article on missionary educational activities was published after the conference in 1989.65 Though she still follows a ‘modernisation’ pattern, her study is the first which aims at understanding the controversial ‘religious otherness’ of Christian missions: Shi takes into account inner-Protestant theological debates on the turn from the immediate missionary goal of evangelisation to educational work as an indirect means to promote Christianity that took place at the 1877 and 1890 General Conferences of the Protestant Missionaries of China. Shi characterises within this process a trend towards ‘professionalisation,’ which she perceives positively as secularisation, e.g. in the diminishing of the religious contents of the curricula. Ten years later, Shi’s thesis was modified by Hu Weiqing 胡卫清, who proposes the existence of two professionalisation models of Protestant missionary schools: secularised and religious schools (which, according to Hu, were of high importance for the indigenisation of Christianity in China and the foundation of a Chinese Church, because it was in these schools that the indigenous church personnel were educated).66 In 1996, Wang Lixin specified the two missionary approaches of ‘liberal theology’ (e.g. the Student Volunteer movement) and ‘fundamentalist [i.e., conservative evangelical] theology’ (represented by the China Inland Mission), assessing their implications for the Chinese-Western cultural exchange. This shows a growing awareness of different theological positions within Protestant missions as well as of the transcendent aspect of Christianity’s ‘religious otherness.’ Wang is representative in casting a critical eye over the missionary aim of cultural transformation, while no longer considering the religious nature underlying this aim as problematic per se. Thus he sympathises strongly with the liberal theological and social-reformist approach, which was, according to him, more tolerant in denying the ‘eternal damnation’ for non-baptised Chinese and in attesting traditional Chinese culture, predominately the scholar-officials’ elite culture, a merit on its own. 64

65 66

In addition, the “Research Centre for East-West Cultural Exchanges, Central China Normal University” and a Zhang Kaiyuan scholarship program were established in 2001 at Huazhong Shifan Daxue; see http://eastwest.ccnu.edu.cn/zhongxinjianjian002.htm (accessed 12.3.2011). Shi Jinghuan (1989). Hu Weiqing (1999).

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Nevertheless, he explicitly acknowledges that the China Inland Mission, whom he characterises as rural-oriented and intolerant of the traditional [elite] culture, made an important contribution to the indigenisation of Christianity in China by stressing the necessity of a Chinese ministry.67 During the two phases of 1980–1988 and 1989–2000, the ‘revolutionary discourse’ and the affiliated discursive pattern ‘cultural aggression’ were decreasingly applied to historical research.68 Both were ill-equipped to adequately deal with the issue of describing the relation between the missionary enterprise and Chinese reform movements. Consequently, the number of articles focusing on ‘missionary cases’ ( jiao’an) declined, with a short revival from 1990 to 1991. Even the few articles that were published thereafter, are markedly shaped by the ‘cultural exchange’ pattern. Integrating the cultural historical, as well as history of mentalities, approaches, they primarily consider the jiao’an as examples of ‘cultural conflicts.’ Contrary to the ‘modernisation’ pattern, articles of the ‘cultural exchange’ pattern implicitly or even openly criticise the earlier research of the Maoist era for taking at face value charges levied against missionaries by contemporary scholar-officials for example that missionaries abducted children, killed them and removed their eyes and other organs in order to produce miracle cures.69 This trend has become even stronger in the third phase, starting in 2001. Within the ‘cultural exchange’ pattern studies on the topics of the indigenisation of Christianity in China have evolved, adding a ‘history of mentalities’ approach to the field and integrating the perspective of the Chinese Christian churches. Indigenisation is increasingly mentioned as a topic in conference reports and perceived as an ongoing process. In a conference report in 2001, He Jianming states that Christianity still has to undergo a ‘sinification’ similar to Buddhism in China.70 In 2002, Tao Feiya 陶飛亞 offered a case study on a Republican indigenous non-mainline Protestant Christian community—the Jesus family—, analysing their Christian utopian thinking.71 This trend, represented by the studies of Tao Feiya and Liu Xian 劉賢, among other ‘Scholars in Mainland China Studying Christianity,’ may eventually unfold into a new discursive pattern that focuses on the question of the development of local 67 68

69 70 71

Wang Lixin (1996). Until 2004, relevant ‘modernisation’ and ‘cultural exchange’ articles in Jindaishi yanjiu (17) and Lishi yanjiu (13) outnumber ‘cultural aggression’ articles (13 in Jindaishi yanjiu and 2 in Lishi yanjiu). Cf. Dong Conglin (2003), pp. 204–5 and 221–26. He Jianming (2001), p. 178. Tao Feiya (2002), pp. 128–130 and 145.

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Christianity in China, which might be termed a ‘History of Chinese Christianity’ pattern (Zhongguo jidu zongjiao shi 中國基督宗教史).72 Monographic studies devoted to this topic include Zhang Kaiyuan’s Chuanbo yu zhi gen 傳播與植根 (Mission and rooting). Recently, Zou Zhenhuan 鄒振环 in Xifang chuanjiaoshi yu wan Qing xishi dongjian 西方傳教士與晚 清西史東漸 (Western missionaries and the diffusion of Western historical science to the East) has highlighted the impact of missionary publications on modern Chinese historical science.73 In addition, the first meta-theoretical debates on the assumptions of mission historiography have been initiated in this phase and within the ‘cultural exchange’ pattern. For example, Wang Lixin challenges the ‘cultural aggression’ pattern as unscientific by explicitly stating its origins as a political slogan coined during the Anti-Christian Movement of 1922–1927, while Tao Feiya touches upon the involvement of the Comintern (and consequently the early CCP) in the Anti-Christian Movement.74 A notable feature of the scholarly discussion on missionary historiography since the 1990s, is the minimal influence of orthodox Marxist historical theories and nationalist discourses, as propagated in the ‘Asian Values’ debate or Zhongguo keyi shuo bu 中國可以說不 (The China that can say no), published in 1996.75 As mentioned above, the debates on this subject matter provide ample opportunities for scientific critique. However, the scope of this debate is restricted to academia. The presentation of positions which are academic consensus but inherently in opposition to officially propagated perceptions of history to a wider audience still proves to be problematic. They can still be met with sanctions: an example is Bingdian 冰點 (Freezing Point). This supplement of the Communist Youth League weekly magazine Zhongguo qingnianbao 中國青年報 was temporarily closed down after the publication of a

72

73 74 75

Such a paradigm shift is also proposed by Tze Ming Ng, cf. Ng (2012), pp. 41–42. and 246–48. On the definition of ‘Scholars in Mainland China Studying Christianity,’ a term coined by Chen Cunfu 陳村富 as a more neutral designation than ‘Cultural Christians’ (wenhua jidutu 文化基督徒), cf. Fällman (2004), pp. 43–48. Ibid., p. 46, Fällman notices four groups: “1) scholars studying Christianity from a purely academic viewpoint, without faith, trying to keep a neutral position towards the church, 2) scholars sympathetic to Christianity but not openly confessing faith and not associating with churches, 3) scholars openly professing faith but not attending church and not baptised, 4) a small number of scholars who are baptised and actually regularly attend church.” Zhang Kaiyuan (2005), Zou Zhenhuan (2007). Wang Lixin (2002) and Tao Feiya (2003). Cf. Song Qiang et al. (1996).

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critical article by Yuan Weishi 袁偽時, “Xiandaihua yu lishi jiaokeshu 現代化 與立誓教科書” (Modernisation and History textbooks) on 11 January 2006.76 Leaving out the minority position of ‘cultural aggression,’ one trend of the historiographical discourse on late Qing and early Republican Christian missions points to a ‘globalised’ perspective, which is expressed in the articles of the ‘modernisation’ pattern. According to this pattern, the dichotomy between ‘other’ and ‘self’ inherent in the history of the China mission was mainly resolved through a selective adaption of certain cultural elements of the ‘other,’ such as scientific, educational contributions and social work, while excluding religious elements from a Chinese identity. The second trend, which is of increasing importance, tells a different story, though: within the ‘cultural exchange’ pattern, the focus rests on the reconciliation of the same dichotomy in a ‘glocalised’ identity taking the indigenisation of Christianity as an example. Both patterns also vary to some extent in their relation to Western-style modernity. While the ‘modernisation’ pattern is still noticeably influenced by this model as a ‘standard’ or goal of modernisation, the ‘cultural exchange’ pattern explores alternative concepts of modernity through the research on the historical global encounter of Christian missions. Conclusion For the greater part of the twentieth century, discursive patterns on missionary historiography pursued a rather confined line of reasoning, i.e. their analysis was restricted to a single perspective (nation-state or society) or ‘master narrative’ and excluded incompatible aspects of Christian missions: with the sole exception of the ‘cultural aggression’ pattern, Christian missions were acknowledged as a ‘global’ phenomenon which exerted a certain influence in the history of China’s modernisation. At the same time it was regarded as a paradigmatic case of the challenges a global encounter poses to local cultural and religious identities. Therefore the research on the history of the China mission also features as an analysis into different feasible strategies in the global encounter with the West, ranging from self-assertion to ‘glocalised,’ i.e. inculturalised Christian identities. The evaluation of missionary activities was primarily based on their compatibility with various models of modernisation, which were closely tied to fixed conceptions of one national and one privileged cultural identity. This is the case with the models proposed by Liang Qichao in the Republican era, by 76

Yuan Weishi (2006).

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Fan Wenlan and Hu Sheng in the Maoist era and even historical interpretations following the ‘modernisation/Westernisation’ paradigm in the Reform era. Even Hu Shi, who acknowledged Christianity as one of several possible cultural identities in China, despite his attempts at an integrated discourse that took into account aspects of the Christian faith, ultimately subsumed this analysis under the criterion of its conformity to the aims of modernisation. In my opinion, the foremost reason for this is that these discourses were embedded into a conception of historical science that was predominately oriented towards the (secular) perspectives of nation-state and society—starting with Liang and Hu (and adopted by the Reform era historians of the 1980s)—that conceived of historians as actively participating in the socio-political transformation process of modern China, assuming the role of an advisor. The Maoist approach took this conception to extremes by almost completely reducing historical science to an instrument of propaganda. Up to the 1990s, a most striking continuity existed between the approach of Hu Shi and the ‘modernisation’ pattern studies: the image of Christian missions is constructed on rather similar lines to a feudalist’ or pre-modern confession (Catholicism) and a modernised one (Protestantism).77 To some extent this construction may be due to political reasons—i.e. as a means to avoid positive statements on the Catholic mission against the background of the problematic relation between Catholic church and state in the PRC and the equally strained Sino-Vatican relationship. However, as becomes obvious in the debates of 1980–2003 in Lishi yanjiu and Jindaishi yanjiu, this construction actually corresponds to a motivation from within academic circles: even in research on Protestant missions, the focus is on a rather small part of the entire Protestant missionary enterprise—the ‘liberal’ missionary societies which were most active in ‘Westernizing’ educational activities, and which most closely resemble Hu’s vision of an indigenised Christianity. Fundamentalist Protestant societies like the China Inland Mission, which was the single most numerous society in the late nineteenth century, are only mentioned in articles of the ‘cultural exchange’ pattern.78 77

78

In fact, in the two journals under review, nineteenth and twentieth-century Catholic missions are only analysed in connection within the ‘cultural aggression’ pattern. However, this is not to say that different aspects of the late Qing and early Republican Catholic mission beyond jiao’an, such as indigenisation and church history, are generally avoided by any means. There are several monographs published in the PRC that take these into account such as Yan Kejia (2001); Gu Weimin (2003) and reprints of Fang Hao (1988, originally published in 1967–1973) and from the Republican era Xu Zongze (1990). Cf. Wang Lixin (1996), pp. 71 and 74.

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The course of reform policy in the late 1980s, especially the failure to implement reforms of the political system, led to a disentanglement of historical science and national politics in the field of missionary historiography. Consequently, a truly integrated discourse in missionary historiography, which treated the issues of modernisation history and Christianity as a cultural identity and part of a national identity of the inhabitants of China, each in its own right, was only established in the 1990s. Studies from 1989 onwards, indicate a shift towards cultural issues, from the ‘modernisation’ pattern (and its close relationship to contemporary political needs) to a more encompassing ‘cultural exchange’ pattern, which is rather driven by a genuine scholarly motivation.79 The latter pattern can be described as a recovery of Chen Yuan’s approach: like Chen’s analyses of the 1920s, the ‘cultural exchange’ pattern aims at gaining a profound and more overall understanding of the missionary enterprise and of the origins of contemporary institutions, such as universities and Christian churches, which is to be attained by reconstructing the history of Christian colleges and universities and of the indigenisation of Christian churches in China. On one hand, this approach is more detached from contemporary political needs, on the other hand, it lets historians become even more involved in their research field: the topic of the Christian colleges and universities is so intimately related to the origins of the modern academic milieu in China and perceived as such, e.g., in the articles by Shi Jinghuan and Hu Weiqing, that its appropriation as part of the intellectual history of China can almost be called an ‘autobiographic study’ (with Zhang Kaiyuan this is literally the case). Research on the Christian churches takes on aspects of the discursive pattern as applied by Chen Yuan, especially his comparison of the different indigenisation histories of Buddhism and Christianity in China.80 This should not be taken as a direct indication of the researchers’ actual adherence to the Christian faith, although the increasing attention cast especially on this topic indicates that some researchers may at least have sympathies with Christianity as a part of Western culture or as a religion. In addition, a recent survey by Gao Xin stresses a closer familiarity of younger generation researchers (i.e., from 35 to 45 years) with church activities and a dual academic and religious interest in this field, which indicates a shift towards the 79

80

Since the 1990s, the CCP has also openly acknowledged the socio-political potential of religious associations in China (including Christian churches) which, under party control, could be harnessed in the transformation process of reform policy. This ‘utility oriented’ approach was endorsed by Jiang Zemin in 1993 and 2002 as well as Hu Jintao in 2006, cf. Ye Xiaowen (2007), pp. 1 (part 2.1.) and 2 (part 3). He Jianming (2001), p. 178.

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third and fourth group of Fällman’s ‘Scholars in Mainland China Studying Christianity’ (see above) in this generation.81 Liang Qichao’s discursive pattern was only taken up to a certain extent in the ‘cultural aggression’ pattern (in his rejection of Christianity, not in his respect for traditional Chinese culture). It is more influential within the ‘cultural exchange’ pattern in studies devoted to the critical evaluation of missionary activities with regard to Chinese traditional culture. To date, these are rather scarce, a more recent example actually being an article of the Hong Kong historian, Angela Ki Che Leung, on the segregation of lepers in late-Qing China which was advocated by Christian missionaries and Chinese reformers published in Lishi yanjiu.82 The stance of Chinese scholars towards missionary historiography can be most fittingly described by the concept of an ‘involved observer.’ This means that the missionary activities of the past were, and still are, perceived as related to current developments in Chinese society.83 Within the periods examined, two developments can be discerned. First, considering the level of autonomy available to the historians there is a development from a high level of ‘voluntary involvement’ (and a strong reformist agenda) in the Republican era to a period of ‘mandatory involvement’ (i.e. the primate of political directives in historical science) from 1949–1979 to an increasing level of ‘voluntary involvement’ again, since the 1980s. Second, there is a change in the selected topics and criteria which influence the research: in the Republican era the perceived need of reforming Chinese society and culture, shape the interpretation of missionary activities. From 1949–1979, this is replaced by the objectives of the state and party rule. To a certain extent, this is still the case well into the 1980s. Here, a close adherence to the new political agenda leads to a positive re-evaluation 81 82

83

Gao Xin (2010). Angela Leung (2003). Leung criticises Chinese reformers of ignoring more integrating Chinese traditional approaches of dealing with this illness in their adoption of the Western traditional method of segregation, which according to Leung’s informed critique was mainly based on religious reasons. The term ‘involved observer,’ suggested by the editors in an earlier version of this volume, has been adopted here to indicate a researcher grounded in contemporary sociocultural trends, which he regards as pertaining to his object of research. As mentioned above, this can, but does not necessarily have to, imply a personal affiliation to it. This use of the term differs from the one by the social psychologist Kenneth B. Clark, who coined this term stressing the latter aspect; cf. Clark and Wilson, (1989), pp. xxix–xxxi. The focus on the needs of contemporary society was highlighted by Yu Ying-shih 余英時 as a key feature of modern Chinese historical science (esp. of the school of the ‘overviewers’), cf. Wang Xuedian (2004), p. 71.

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of the contributions of missionary activities in the transfer of knowledge from the West to China (as an important part of globalisation on a conceptual level), providing historical precedents for reformist policies. Considering the patterns of discourse, from Republican approaches to the 1980s, selective appropriation, resistance and ‘cultural aggression’ were the dominating patterns, resulting in an incomplete (and mainly negative) representation of missionary activities that can be regarded as example of globalising threat. Even the more positive conception of the 1980s in the discursive pattern ‘modernisation’ (which is intrinsically connected to the model of globalisation) is due to the exclusion of aspects of Christian missions, considered to be problematic (i.e., transcendent aspects of its religious teaching). With regard to general trends in the Mainland Chinese historiography of Christian missions, there is a significant change in the research since the 1990s. The choice of topics, educational, social-reformist activities, and church history, indicate a shift from state/party rule towards a social and cultural focus again. The criterion of utilizing the past, which determined the discursive patterns of Liang Qichao, Hu Shi, ‘cultural aggression,’ and ‘modernisation,’ is enlarged by an increasing hermeneutic interest in understanding the past and relating it to present phenomena, visible in Chen Yuan’s approach and the ‘cultural exchange’ pattern. This development can be interpreted as an increasing level of autonomy of researchers in missionary historiography. While appropriation is still a dominant pattern, it is accompanied by the pattern of indigenisation, which leads to a less reductionist and more over-all, integrative representation of missionary history, taking into account multiple perspectives and allowing for various interpretations. Still, historians remain ‘involved observers’ who by that way also respond to globalising but also local trends and challenges: the topics of research articles of the 1990s can be connected to contemporary phenomena, e.g. emerging non-governmental systems of social services or health care, or the increasing visibility of religious groups.84 This strongly indicates that the research of mission history is regarded as increasingly relevant to current developments in Chinese society. Since these connections are not explicitly stated in contemporary articles on historiography, this question remains open to further research.

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On the former, see Wang Hongbin (1990), Guo Dasong and Cao Liqian (1994), Tian Tao (1995), Liu Jiafeng (2000). On the latter, especially the so called ‘religious fever’ or ‘Christianity fever,’ cf. Fällman (2004), pp. 31–38.

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Zhuo Xinping卓新平 and Xu Zhiwei 许志伟 (eds.) (2000). Jidu zongjiao yanjiu 基督 宗教研究 [Studies on Christianity]. Vol. 1. Beijing: Zongjiao Wenhua Chubanshe. Zou Zhenhuan 邹振环 (2007). Xifang chuanjiaoshi yu wan Qing xishi dongjian: yi 1815 zhi 1900 nian xifang lishi yizhu de chuanbo yu yingxiang wei zhongxin 西方传教 士与晚清西史东渐: 以 1815 至 1900 年西方历史译著的传播与影响为中心 [Western Missionaries and the Diffusion of Western Historical Science to the East: With a Focus on the Propagation and Influence of Translations of Western Histories from 1815–1900]. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe.

chapter 13

Sino-Christian Theology: Treading a Fine Line between Self-Determination and Globalization Chloë Starr At a speech to the Sixth Plenum of the Seventeenth Party Congress in October 2011, Hu Jintao 胡錦濤 recalibrated culture. In a reminder that the Party directs culture—news to the millions of young Lady Gaga fans in China steeped in an internationalized scene who had supposed this line to have been rendered obsolete by their instant, and possibly illegal, downloads from global websites—President Hu outlined the importance of the task of building a culturally strong Socialist state. The aim of this task of cultural construction is to enhance the moral quality of the people and the scientific quality of culture itself. What was especially provocative in Hu’s speech was the force of the linkages made between cultural development and national strength: In a world of increasingly frequent ideological and cultural exchange, blending and contest, whoever occupies the point of highest control of cultural development, whoever possesses the strongest soft cultural power, can gain the initiative in fierce international competition. At the same time, we must be clear about the fact that international hostile forces are plotting to intensify their imposition of Westernization and division in China, and the sphere of ideology and culture is the key area where they are advancing their long-term infiltration.1 The throwback to a more militaristic tone is clear even in translation, as is the tension that this policy line implies for a religion with strong foreign ties. Hu’s long speech adroitly side-stepped the question of what Chinese culture is, beyond the language(s) itself, or how the Party determines and nurtures it, and which aspects of culture are to be trained up for the ‘contest,’ but online media responses were quick to point out that a freer, less directive notion of culture might enable more of the flourishing and export of the arts that the Party wants. 1 Hu Jintao (2012).

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Christianity is part of modern Chinese culture, yet still seen as foreign. It comprises aspects which can enhance a strong socialist culture, but is always open to the charge of Western infiltration.2 Party leaders have made much in the last decade of the value of religion in enhancing the ‘moral quality’ of the people, and lauding religions which are ‘scientific’ in outlook, but Hu’s reminder that ‘Western’ is a negative factor, and culture the arena for national self-determination, recasts the question of Christian identity in a globalizing China. It also means that the work of scholars on the relationship of Christianity to culture enters the political arena. As Chin Ken-pa (Zeng Qingbao曾慶豹) writes, “For cultural nationalists, Chinese culture is superior to Western culture; for state nationalists, Christianity is nothing but an instrument of the infiltration of Western imperialism.”3 Hu’s political posturing, and the (Marxist) metanarratives of modernity that underlie it, are seen by many as outdated and irrelevant. But whether they agree with his reading of culture or not, academic theologians in China are working within the framework of a larger wrestling with the meaning of Chinese identity, and in particular, the ongoing search for a modernization that is not an indiscriminate Westernization. Sino-Christian theology is a child of the reform era. As research into religion became possible with the opening up of society from the late 1970s, academics studying Christianity sought to re-negotiate the relationship between Christian religion and culture, presenting it as a subject amenable to ‘scientific’ study, one which could have a positive moral impact in the humanities and in society. The value of Christianity outside of religious confession, writes Yang Huilin, lies in its method of search for the truth, showing the limits of human reasoning, and in its understanding of human values, questioning ultimate meaning.4 The rhetoric of much recent mainland scholarship on Christianity has insisted on China’s right to set its own agenda, to think beyond Western theologies, a move which imposes creative tensions on a subject whose historic and contemporary interlocutors lie beyond her borders. Since charges of liaison with the West and fomenting divisions in China were precisely those which led to the expulsion of (Western) church personnel and organizations in the 1940s and 1950s, preempting similar charges latent in Hu’s speech might seem a prescient move by scholars. Counter-cultural study of imperialist Christianity, performed by potentially suspect Western sympathizers, might, by insisting on its Chineseness and objectivity, come into line with Party aims. At the same time, however, a stream 2 The hardening line on culture and national strength was undoubtedly a factor in the deepening crisis with the Vatican over issues of authority in 2011, played out in e.g. episcopal ordinations. 3 Chin Ken-pa (2010), p. 142. 4 Yang Huilin (2010a), pp. 102–3.

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of Sino-Christian thought has made an equally bold move to counter such rhetoric by insisting on the absolute otherness, the foreignness, of Christianity, arguing that “Western religion not only needs to preserve its identity as a foreign enemy but should also intensify this identity.”5 This paper explores ‘Sino-Christian theology’ as a phenomenon in its relation to the wider world, examining how broader struggles with identity are reflected in debates within Chinese theology. It revisits definitions of the terms involved, assesses key ideas of two leading figures in the movement, and considers how the movement operates as a form of contextualization for the Chinese academic world. The paper explores the paradoxes of a movement which decries earlier nationalistic incarnations of Christianity in China, yet seemingly also wants to use its methodology to critique and improve China; which insists on the Chinese language as its focus, yet challenges models of indigenization; which has invested much time and energy in translating Western Christian classics, yet wishes to slough these off and perceive the Christ event directly; which has been in constant battle with church-based theologians (especially Hong Kong ones) over definitions, yet receives funding from Hong Kong Christian organizations. Sino-Christian theology prompts searching reflection on its economic, political and theological relations with world Christianity:6 politically, on its relationship with national or governmental agenda; economically, on its funding and location within international universities; theologically, on its relation with other people-based and language-group theologies, and in its construction by academics who may be neither Christian nor have any links to the church. The rethinking of what a distinctive Chinese Christianity might be, and how it can be developed within an academic framework, by a vocal new generation of scholars brings new questions to debates on religion in a global context. The project to infuse theology into the humanities in Chinese universities finds itself at odds with secularizing global currents, while drawing on, and drawing China further into, international theological debates. 1

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Sino-Christian Theology (Hanyu shenxue 漢語神學) is first and foremost an academic project: its paymaster is academia, not the church, and it has grown up as Chinese universities have expanded their scope domestically and their 5 Chin Ken-pa (2010), p. 147. 6 No distinction is made here between ‘world’ and ‘global’ Christianity, cf. debates on Sanneh (2003).

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reach internationally. Yang Huilin and Daniel Yeung’s introduction to the edited volume which first gathered essays in English on Sino-Christian theology, Sino-Christian Studies in China, presents a good starting point for an understanding of its form and content.7 Yang is a leading mainland academic, Yeung (Yang Xi’nan 楊熙楠) director of a Hong Kong institute. A compendium of intra-Chinese debates (all but one of the twenty plus contributors live and work in mainland China or Hong Kong, and all are Chinese), the volume was assembled for translation and published with a British press in order to publicize Chinese theological thinking abroad. The volume represents a series of dialogues, each requiring interpretation: between Hong Kong and mainland China; academia and church; Chinese language(s) and English; theology and the social sciences.8 The term ‘Sino-Christian Theology’ refers to two entities: both the movement began around 1993, and developed in the mid-1990s by the ‘church fathers’ Liu Xiaofeng 劉小楓 and He Guanghu 何光滬, and to all Christian studies or theological work in China/Chinese since the Tang dynasty.9 The recent movement of Sino-Christian Theology has been unusually well documented, with the Institute for Sino-Christian Studies in Hong Kong acting as co-ordinator and web interface. In the fifteen or twenty years since its inception, the movement has developed rapidly in definition and scope to become a publishing and intellectual phenomenon which has caused ripples through 7 Yang Huilin and Yeung (2006). A more recent English language volume presents twelve analytical essays by Hong Kong, Taiwanese, US and mainland scholars discussing the phenomenon: Lai Pan-chiu and Lam (2010). While some articles have appeared in English language journals like Ching Feng, the great majority of debate has been in Chinese media. 8 A Chinese collection edited by Yang Xi’nan (D. Yeung) (2000) presented articles by many of the same scholars translated in Yang and Yeung; a later three volume collection of essays, Li Qiuling and Yang Xi’nan (2010) reprinted much of the earlier collection (collating debate of the 1990s) as its first volume; volumes 2 and 3 of the compendium take the debates forward into the 2000s. 9 The two aspects of Sino-Christian Theology, as both a sub-set of Chinese theology and its entirety, is a common theme of discussion, see Lai Pan-chiu (2000). Different pairs of concepts, theoretical and temporal, have been supplied to correspond to the two views. Liu Xiaofeng notes that the history of the church in China and that of Sino-Christian studies differ, with genuinely Chinese Christian studies only appearing at the end of the Ming: Liu Xiaofeng (2000), p. 7. Li Qiuling adds that proponents of Sino-Christian studies usually avoid using the label for translated works, see Li Qiuling (2007), p. 66, n. 1. Lai Pan-chiu and Lam (2010), p. 9, suggest that the two usages correlate with a relation to orthodox theology, with the broad view engaging with Western theologies over the centuries, and the narrow dissatisfied with tradition, redefining its own mode as a discipline.

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the Chinese church and university humanity faculties, and beyond in the challenges it offers to Western notions of ‘Chinese theology.’ If the prime identifying mark of Sino-Christian Theology is its adamantly academic nature, Yang and Yeung’s introduction to their edited volume sets out one vision of this, with its agenda (now in good part realized) to have Christian theology recognized as a legitimate discipline in China, and an explicit call for theology to generate a body of ‘public intellectuals.’10 The authors anticipated a process whereby religious studies would first enter into Chinese experience, its thought be recast in academic language, and then participate in public discourse in the humanities, promoting its disciplinary understanding of values and ethics. Sino-Christian studies form an interpretive bridge into Chinese academia, and between Chinese academia and society, as Christianity could serve the state through its insight into the human condition and its push for social justice. The applied nature and philosophical tenor of this conception of the discipline is apparent. Although this form of Chinese theology allows for elements of the sacred, it has not, in general, adopted a theological rationale for its own existence, or posited God as its object. This stance is challenged in more recent writings, as professing Christian academics have taken up the debates.11 Sino-Christian Theology is deliberately contemporary, addressing the current socio-political situation in China and problems in the church. Modernity proves a key force in much mainland discourse on Sino-theology, often functioning as metonymy for the more nebulous ‘globalization.’12 The movement could be characterized, in its quest for identity and repeated discussions of ‘modernity,’ as an attempt to understand China’s changing society and place in the world at a time when that particularly mattered, during the grand modernity project of the 1990s, and an attempt to understand China’s relationship with its own past history of Westernization. The original scholars involved in the movement were historians, philosophers and sociologists, drawn into theology from other disciplines following the vacuum in theological studies in the PRC through to the late 1970s. As Jason Lam points out, a whole generation of scholars in China has come to Christianity not from theology.13 With very 10 11

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Yang Huilin and Yeung (2006), p. xvi. The younger generation of scholars studying Christianity are notably more likely to self-identify as Christians: see Gao Xin (2010). As this occurs, the relationship between Sino-Christian theology (as an academic discipline) and (faith-based) church theology is evolving too. See You Xilin (2006). Lam Tzu-Shun (2006), pp. 28–30. Other examples in this paragraph are given by Lam.

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few trained theologians still in academia, scholars came primarily from disciplines with some tangential connection, such as philosophy (where Marx and Lenin had discussed concepts like original sin), and brought their disciplinary understandings to bear in creating this new, functional, theology. The current generation of younger students, the doctoral students of Liu Xiaofeng, He Guanghu and others, is much less restricted in disciplinary focus, and Biblical Studies, doctrinal studies and church history are beginning to make their way into the academy. Controversy over Sino-Christian Theology raged in the 1990s. The title, the concept, and its theological underpinnings were all contested. During its early phase from the mid-1990s, debate revolved around use of the term ‘Cultural Christians’ as a label for those academics studying Christianity who might have no church affiliation, or necessary personal belief.14 These morphed into strident arguments over whether academics from ‘outside the church’ could be theologians, pitting mainland philosophers of religion against Hong Kong theologians.15 In fact, the debates in 1995 and 1996 were not so much about cultural Christians, but about the terms of theological debate and authority. Proponents of Sino-Christian Theology have bypassed, or deconstructed, debates surrounding local theologies by redefining their terms at the outset: this is not a theology of the church, for the church, as orthodox Western theology has held, but “from Chinese academia, for Chinese academia, facing the Church and society.”16 Many Sino-Christian theologians are not church-goers, and are more at ease operating outside the paradigm where theology, the reflexive thinking of the church, must come from within the body of believers.17 Some have deliberately tested out positions which challenge Western theologies. For others, Sino-Christian studies need not be considered in relation to 14

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An edited volume collates varied arguments on this theme: Hanyu jidujiao wenhua yanjiushuo (1997); see also Fällman (2004), pp. 38–48; Bao (2006); and articles by Peter K.H. Lee and Chan Shun-hing in Lai Pan-chiu and Lam (2010). The cause of international amity was perhaps not aided by Lo P’ing-cheung’s early calls for Hong Kong theologians to play a role in correcting erroneous theological understandings of mainland scholars. On the extra ecclesiam question, see Pang Chong Chee (2008). The definition limits ‘the church,’ of course, to institutional formations. For an overview of the conceptual differences between Hong Kong and mainland theologians and their impact, see Chan (2010). This phrase is repeated throughout the literature. Richardo (1988), p. 56: “[W]ithin the Christian context, theology is essentially an ecclesial discipline; it can only be done within a believing community . . . It begins with a collective memory lived and handed down in an ecclesial community.” Cf. Flemming (2005), p. 318: “[C]ontextualization is inherently an ecclesial activity; it is done by the church for the church”—an almost exact counter statement to that of Sino-Christian definitions.

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Western theology: rather, as an academic subject, it presents an invitation to develop theological methodologies in the wider humanities, or to research theological themes from within other social sciences. In the decade since the 1990s, work in Hanyu shenxue has continued to spread across a range of subjects, from philosophy to sociology to comparative literature, cultural studies and even theology, with a number of methodologies and perspectives in play. Its rapid development and unsystematic nature make the movement relatively difficult to categorize, but one sign of its maturity, as Wang Lu notes, was that by 2005, the term had lost its quotation marks in print.18 There was a growing sense that this was not just a new movement, but a recovery of older threads within: “even though the name is a recent event, Hanyu shenxue is neither a foetus awaiting a forced delivery nor an infant clamouring for food,” wrote Li Qiuling 李秋零.19 A three-volume anthology compiled by Li in 2010 included 15 academic articles with Hanyu shenxue in the title in the first volume, and 18 in the third.20 Lai and Lam note that the movement has no distinctly articulated theological position or shared doctrinal formula or methodology, but contend that by the late 2000s, a much more complex interplay had begun to develop between Sino-Christian theology and foreign theologies. This was no longer a uni-directional application of Western theologies, but a more bilateral, creative approach.21 2

The Term Question: Chinese Language and the Politics of a Name

The formative articles and assumptions of Sino-Christian Theology have now been debated extensively,22 but it is worth reconsidering the early arguments over the Chinese term, and the fact that it has passed by relatively unnoticed in English rendition, underscoring how little debate there has been in English over the movement. ‘Sino-Christian Theology’ is the translation adopted by Liu Xiaofeng and subsequently others, for Hanyu shenxue (literally, 18 19 20

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Wang Lu (2010), p. 817. Li Qiuling (2010a), p. 230. Li Qiuling and Yang Xi’nan (2010). Some of the early essays use the term Hanyu jidu shenxue 漢語基督, ‘Chinese/Sino-Christian Theology.’ One creates the neologism Hanyu nüxing shenxue 漢語女性神學, ‘Chinese Feminist Theology.’ Lai Pan-chiu and Lam (2010), pp. 7 and 12. The examples given include studies of Barth and Buddhism. For an overview in English, see “Retrospect and Prospect of Sino-Christian Theology: An Introduction” in Lai Pan-chiu and Lam (2010).

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Chinese-language Theology).23 For Liu Xiaofeng, the choice of a languagebased name provided an opportunity for new structures of thought. He wrote: “The original intention of the formulation ‘Hanyu shenxue’ was no more than to express a new scholarly consciousness and ideological perception, an attempt to understand anew China’s Christianity and its theology.”24 Liu rejected Huaren shenxue 華人神學 (theology by ethnically Chinese people) as not academic enough in accuracy or scope, and Zhongguo shenxue 中國神學 (i.e. theology from China) as excluding Malaysian and Singaporean theologians working in Chinese. For Liu, there are parallels with the use of ‘German philosophy’ to include Swiss or Austrian thinkers, and ‘English culture’ to include North Americans—but this analogy scarcely works in English, since the terms precisely do not distinguish language from state as they do in Chinese. The English rendition of Hanyu shenxue is problematic because it is not a direct translation, and it is not immediately clear why something closer to ‘Chineselanguage theology’ is not used. If it seems strange that the English needs the Christian element specifying, this perhaps reflects some sort of anticipation that ‘Westerners’ would not expect ‘Chinese theology’ to refer to Christian theology. ‘Sino’ has ostensive academic connotations, but now carries archaic overtones in English, undoubtedly not the intention of the translators. (This may reflect the German training of Liu and others, where Sinologie appears as standard; in American academia, sinology is usually taken as the classical subfield of Chinese Studies, i.e. emphasising the traditional aspect). The Chinese term has had plenty of defenders. Richard X.Y. Zhang dismissed the contention that Hanyu heralds a mainland cultural hegemony or carries overtones of “Hanyu chauvinism,” arguing that the term is a linguistically accurate signifier.25 Zhang quotes the seminal editorial of the re-vamped Logos and Pneuma: Journal of Chinese Theology, and argues that by adopting the term Hanyu shenxue the authors (including Liu Xiaofeng) “mean to evoke some measure of cultural identification.” The editorial itself embraces intellectual and linguistic realms:

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Strictly: theology in the Hanyu language, or language of the Han people. The point is moot because although this excludes other languages of China, the term has become synonymous in English with Standard/Mandarin Chinese. Emphasis in original. Liu Xiaofeng (2000), p. 3. Zhang (2006), p. 173. Zhang rejects alternatives such as the Taiwanese use of guoyu 國語 as more “time-sensitive and restrictive.” Contra He Guanghu, Zhang eschews muyu shenxue 母語神學 (mother-tongue theology) because it connotes regional dialect variants and orthographic differences. Cf. He (2006a).

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By “Hanyu shenxue” we mean that we shall undertake to develop the Christian theology and culture on the basis of social practices, historical and intellectual resources available in the background of Hanyu (Chinese) culture, with a view to shaping a Christian culture characterized by the Hanyu culture and intellection . . . [I]t is a common cause to which all of us scholars of Hanyu theology in the Hanyu speaking world, the mainland of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and areas in North America where Chinese ethnic groups live, pledge our full commitment.26 As the first editorial for a new project, the committed tone is understandable. There is an interesting ambiguity in the first phrase over whether the focus is developing and changing theology in the light of ‘Hanyu culture and intellection,’ or if attention lies with the shaping of a Christian culture in China. The model of theologizing here is a strongly anthropological one, foregrounding the Chinese cultural resources brought to the process of shaping this theology.27 A tension remains in this globalising discourse, however, between ‘evoking’ a cultural identification and inculcating, or ascribing, some pan-Han culture. With a strong sense of culture deriving from a common language, the editorial incorporates into its own Hanyu cultural ambit the entire ‘Chinese’ speaking world, a tension recurrent in Sino-Christian writings. Scholars have drawn attention to the de-territorialization of culture (and religion) as a feature of post-modernity, as people groups cross borders, and as culture itself is understood as more fractured, less bounded.28 But here the issue is the precise relation of Hanyu, the language, to Chinese culture. To assert a common written language for all of the ‘Hanyu-speaking world’ is just about possible; to assert a ‘common language’ is difficult, but seemingly to follow this through with a single cultural complex across dialects, nationalities and local practices does not bode well for dialogue with diasporic Chinese theologians, or scholars such as Peter Tze Ming Ng in Hong Kong working on models of glocal theologies.29 26 27 28 29

Quoted from Zhang (2006), p. 175. Cf. Bevans (2002) and Arbuckle (2010) for descriptions of this model and its operative assumptions, and the discussion below. See e.g. Tanner (1997), p. 53; Casanova (2001). The time frame for Hanyu shenxue ties in closely with the government promotion of Hanyu, both as the sole medium in China and as ‘Chinese’ to the outside world, including through its gargantuan Confucius Institute project—this may make use of the term appear more politicized to outsiders.

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The second question is the use of ‘theology’ here, and this is not so much a translation issue (since shenxue is precisely rendered ‘theology’) as a conceptual issue. As we have seen above, the movement is primarily an academic one. As in North America, ‘theology’ is done in seminaries in China, not in universities. The fact that the notion of ‘theology’ as an academic discipline is still risible to many in China indicates that term might be expected to refer more to normative, first-order theology, than to academic, derivative, discussion of that theology. This brings us back round to the Hong Kong theologians who argued that those of no belief or church membership, cannot, by definition, do ‘theology.’ Academic theologians in China are in synchronic dialogue with international academia, and in diachronic dialogue with historic theologians. While there are good grounds for arguing that specialized academic and everyday lay theologies should be seen as a continuum and not separate practices,30 it is not entirely clear why shenxue was coöpted as the term here, over other terms for ‘religions studies’ or ‘study of Christianity’ etc.31—unless to underscore the belief that this, too, is theology, that the artificial boundaries between disciplines and institutions, between individual and communal expressions of faith, their readerships and the meaning of that act of reading (as intellectual or spiritual activity) should not be binding for those involved in Hanyu shenxue. 3

Indigenization, Contextualization and Dissociation

If ‘Chinese’ and ‘theology’ are problematic, what of ‘Chinese theology’? This essay adopts an internal perspective on Chinese theological debates, rather than approach the topic from the fields of world Christianity, missiology or theology, but the movement inevitably intersects broader discussion on contextualization and ‘ethnic’ theologies, and arguments within Sino-Christian Theology have also focused on what ‘indigenization’ might mean for the contemporary church in China. The two scholars considered below, whose work is representative of the early years of the Sino-Christian theology movement, approach the question differently, although the issue of language is central to each.

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See Tanner (1997), p. 71. It is clear, however, that scholars involved are critically aware of this distinction between ‘Christian Studies and ‘Christian theology’: cf. Lau (2008), p. 160, and Liu Xiaofeng (2000), esp. p. 82.

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The question of how Christian thought is transformed into, or in, Chinese patterns of thinking and expression is an age-old one, and debates on inculturation have formed the sharp edge of the interface since the beginning of Christianity’s interaction with East Asia.32 Those who know little else of Chinese Christian history remember the Rites controversy. Various writers outside China, particularly Roman Catholic scholars, have analysed the dynamics of changing beliefs on how religion should be received and appropriated in a specifically Chinese setting.33 Tension between a worldwide expansion of (‘European’) Christianity and a “genesis of local theologies amidst the global reality of radical cultural plurality”34 is a modern update of debates on mission and colonization. In this much, Sino-Christian Theology is part of a global phenomenon, the world-wide rethinking of the church—in the broadest sense— by its newer constituent members. Liberation and post-colonial theologies are only two of the most obvious examples of local renegotiations of Christian theology, alongside black, feminist, Minjung, Mujerista and other movements. Theologians have moved far from a view of cross-cultural mission as a translation of universal views and values into target languages, through to models of contextualization which allow for the significance of local culture in theological thinking. There is an intricate nexus between debates on culture (whether among politicians or anthropologists), theories of inculturation, and more general theological thinking, which is why Sino-Christian dialogue with culture is so central to the question of its global relations. The three elements are tightly linked to globalization, since the “heightened awareness of interconnectivity”35 32

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Nicolas Standaert (1994), p. 99, defines ‘inculturation’ as “the process whereby those belonging to a particular culture express from within that culture, what they have received from another culture,” and where “a new creation” emerges which enriches both the new culture and the universal church. More recently, Arbuckle (2010) sees ‘inculturation’ more generally as the church’s dialogue with contemporary culture wherever it finds itself, but concurs that inculturation is a faith term, used to express the “dialectical interaction between Christian faith and culture, in which cultures themselves are challenged, affirmed and transformed towards the reign of God and in which Christian faith is likewise enhanced by this experience” and that inculturation is not synonymous with adaptation of the liturgy etc. to a local setting, but must involve the transformation of people, of the culture itself. The term is interchangeable for many with ‘contextualization,’ but where the latter emphases social and economic aspects. See Bevans (2002); cf. Pranger (2003), pp. 167–69. Discussed in Yang Huilin (2004), p. 8. Pranger (2003), p. xiii. Ott and Netland (2006), p. 18.

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that characterizes the contemporary global world has been instrumental in challenging modern notions of culture and the theologies that derive from them, and ushering in post-modern alternatives. Changes in theories of culture over the last few decades have led to theology itself being recognized as part of culture, a form of cultural activity.36 As a ‘classicist’ notion of culture, which was correlated with a single, universal theology of permanent achievement, ceded to ‘modern’ notions of culture as something pertaining to all people—the ways of being and meaning making of a homogenous people group—models of inter-cultural mission in turn centred on ‘translation’ models, where the (supra-cultural) gospel message was pared of its most egregious ‘Western’ cultural accretions, and re-presented in local language and imagery. A further shift in the understanding of culture among cultural anthropologists, foregrounding culture as a human product, dismissing universal narratives, rejecting rational criteria as the only source of knowledge, celebrating porous borders and diversity, and rejecting the necessary attachment of a people group to its culture and a culture to a particular physical area,37 led in turn to a reassessment of the locus of gospel knowledge and appropriate modes of transmission. This stage, which ran parallel to the reform era period in China, is linked to the recent emergence of contextual theologies. Here the task of theology becomes that of figuring out the relationship of God to humans within multiple, situated groups. Only with this development could there be a ‘Chinese theology’ which was not an ‘inculturated’ version (i.e. adapted to within Chinese thought) of a universal theology, some perpetual truth filtered through layers of past theologies to be translated linguistically or culturally into Chinese terms, but a dynamic theology which came out of, and was constructed, and understood within, Chinese thinking, in dialogue with Chinese perceptions of the divine. If Hu Jintao is working with a basically ‘modern’ notion of culture (as a stable, homogenous entity, pertaining to a definable group), then the theology underlying much of Sino-Christian theology works in tandem with a more post-modern understanding of culture, as fluid, contested and inconsistent, a world where “there will no longer be any one single and universal, basic formula of the Christian faith applicable for the whole church and, indeed, prescribed for her as authoritatively binding.”38 36

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Cf. Tanner (1997), p. 63. For an extended discussion of the relationship of Sino-Christian theology with theories of culture (esp. Kathryn Tanner’s work), along with an assessment of how Sino-Christian theology might function as a public theology, see Lau (2008). Arbuckle (2010), p. 3. Rahner (1974), p. 233, also quoted in Arbuckle (2010), p. 149.

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Here culture is “the meaning dimension of social life;”39 mission is a dialogue with cultures to discover the Word (or, ‘seeds’ of the Word) within them;40 ‘syncretism’ is all but inevitable, and no ‘pure’ Christianity can be said to have ever existed.41 Approaching theology as part of culture means correlating the Christian message with broader human frames of doing and knowing,42 which means both that theology must be in dialogue with social sciences and that it must critique its own tendencies to see itself as a separate entity or hide away from secular taint (whether in the theology of Watchman Nee or Wang Mingdao 王明道, or indeed in John Milbank, a well-read theorist in Beijing). Within academic philosophy and theology in China, study of post-modern culture, and a post-structuralist view of ‘culture as becoming’ has been one means for scholars to rethink the reductionist and determinist constructions of culture that prevailed in the early decades of the PRC, and to resist its homogenizing narratives. (The emphasis on linguistics and hermeneutics, on the indeterminacy and ambiguity of meaning found in the theological treatises of the Romantics, has similarly provided a way out of the Maoist era browbeating of language for many Chinese theologians.) It has also, as we shall see, led to a focus on the individual Christian, rather than communal expressions of belief. An intensified awareness of the global has brought a correlative emphasis on the particular, the local.43 Although the Chinese government’s promotion of a single, definitive culture persists to the present, its intent in celebrating and preserving order—as seen in daily rituals such as ‘news’ of visiting foreign dignitaries, or as evidenced in its reactions to the Arab Spring, or recent news black-outs of Tibetan self-immolations—derives from its clear awareness that chaos is a catalyst for radical cultural change, and that, in the newly globalized world of communications, individuals do have power.44 Elsewhere in the globe post-independence theologies have confronted issues raised by inter-religious dialogue and struggles for social justice, but liberation in China’s recent past has not been from poverty so much as monolithic thought reform. Chinese Christianity at the grassroots level has not followed Liberation Theology movements in championing solidarity across classes or castes, since China had (rhetorically, at least) eliminated all such distinctions in its progress towards socialism. The homogeneity of ultra-Communist-era 39 40 41 42 43 44

Tanner (1997), p. 31. Bevans (2002). Arbuckle (2010), pp. 171–84. Tanner (1997), p. 65. Ott and Netland (2006), p. 10. For Thomas Friedman, this ‘third stage’ of globalization began in 2000.

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China guided a sense of difference for many Christians, who came to define themselves over and against the state. Against a background of suppression and ideological conformity, defiance manifested itself as faith-clinging restatements of narrow orthodox truths, a privileging of Christian identity above that of the atheist state. At an academic level, it has manifested itself in a questioning of the relation of the individual to the religious group, an interest in what a culturally representative Christianity might mean, and in how local theologies relate to the international discipline of theology. 3.1 He Guanghu and a Chinese-medium Theology Renmin University 人民大學 philosopher He Guanghu developed a more theologically astute and less politicized reading of Hanyu shenxue than the nationalistic frame discussed above, drawing together the questions of language and of local theology. He’s ‘theology of the native language’ (or ‘mother tongue theology’) might be seen as substituting a global linguistic movement for a nationalistic one, and be prey to similar charges of Han-centrism, but the arguments are more subtle. He elaborated his ‘theology of the native language’ in two articles first published in the Canadian Chinese-language Weizhen Xuekan 維真學刊 (Regent Journal), setting out an alternative basis for the structuring of the discipline, which gives primacy to the language medium itself.45 Arguing that the theology of native language has a much broader scope than either indigenous or contextualized theologies, He claims that the distinction of language is becoming more and more relevant as other distinctions are obliterated by modern life. With greater internationalization of culture and communication, the socio-cultural basis of indigenous theologies is fading in significance, and, given the rapidly shifting nature of political and economic life, contextual theologies have increasingly short life-spans. He Guanghu contends that a language-based theology overcomes some of the tensions of ethnic or people-group theologies, and geographical or class-orientated theologies. He Guanghu’s understanding of ‘indigenization’ divides theology into three types: ‘indigenized,’ ‘contextual’ and ‘mother-tongue.’ He argues strongly against use of the Chinese term bense shenxue 本色神学 as a translation for ‘indigenous theology’ since it is precisely not bense (original, local) but a transposed theology—true ‘indigenous theology’ refers, for He, to early Biblical theology and the Church fathers, and not to the later array of local transformations

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He Guanghu (1996a) and (1996b). Both articles are reproduced in Yang Huilin and Yeung (2006). Others scholars who have lamented the lack of emphasis on linguistic concepts in contextualization include e.g. Renck (1990).

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of Christianity.46 He prefers bentu shenxue 本土神学 as a term, which stresses the ‘native land’ aspect—but argues that contextual theology is a better model than either. He Guanghu wants to retain the universality of theological method, noting that indigenization should not itself be a goal. His much quoted description of mother-tongue theology, “mediated in the native language or major language of the theologian, using the life-experiences and cultural resources expressed in this language as materials” is tied to an explicitly faith-based outcome: “reflecting, elucidating, and serving the religious faith of the locals.”47 For He Guanghu, Sino-Christian theology is one of the general class of native language theologies. Unlike Liu Xiaofeng’s interpretation of inculturation discussed below, He recognizes Chinese theology as one among many native tongue theologies, and sees its particularity in the specificities of Chinese language and in the daily life experiences of those inhabiting Chinese linguistic/ cultural worlds. For He, these are plural, and allow for different expressions in different regions. He argues that ‘Chinese’ theology, particularly in some earlier indigenizing forms, has been overly dependent on outdated classical thinking, engaged in endless comparative frameworks with Confucian or Buddhist Studies. For He, contextual theology, informed by contemporary life and its social frames, is a more obvious source for Chinese theology than indigenous theologies. Hong Kong theologian Benedict Hung-biu Kwok has argued that this stress on a contextual theology for a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural situation, directed out towards world academia, is motivated by China’s long isolation.48 The Janus-like relation between China and the West over the last thirty years is not lost on He, and negativity towards classical (‘moribund’) culture affects a reading of relations with other cultures too. In his advocacy of a language-based frame for doing theology, drawing on the philosophy of language and human anthropology, He Guanghu is aware that all languages both distort and illuminate Christian revelation.49 Languages have their own unique limitations, and a part share in the general limitations of all languages, and so the Chinese language and life experiences “will always serve as a ‘medium’ and ‘materials’ in Sino-Christian theology.”50 In line with mainstream Western theologians, He stresses also the transformation that 46 47 48 49 50

He Guanghu (2006a), p. 124. Ibid., pp. 122–23. Kwok (2010), p. 168. There are also clear echoes of theologians such as David Tracy in this thinking. He Guanghu (2006a), p. 121. He Guanghu (2006b), p. 107.

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language undergoes when cultural terms and ideas are used to express revelation. In a more recent article, He’s colleague Yang Huilin also links the question of language with the theology developed from it, arguing that the essence of Christian faith might be revealed more effectively in Chinese, since the language has little cultural connection with Christianity embedded in it: [D]iscussion on the linguistic features of the Christian faith will lead to the discovery that the essence of the Christian faith, its alterity and interlinguisticity, may be revealed more effectively in Chinese Christian theology than in any theologies of the West; this is so because there exists an alienating extension between Chinese culture and the Christian faith, which is generally thought of as a part of Western culture.51 Given centuries of negative sentiment towards Christianity as a foreign religion, He proposes an ‘inside-out’ approach for Sino-Christian theology, one which sets out ‘inwardly’ from Chinese thinking and life experience, and shuns foreign analyses which “hand out the conclusions of Christianity to the Chinese in the form of a ready-made gift.”52 Several criticisms of He Guanghu’s work have been published, although they have not stemmed the direction of thinking in others. As Li Qiuling notes, given that the number of non-Chinese speakers who read Chinese is relatively low, if we insist that the only vector of Sino-Christian theology is the Chinese language, its influence will be limited.53 Kwok Hung-biu has outlined a series of problems, including the narrow definitions of other theologies that He sets up against his own mother-tongue proposal. Kwok points out that He fails to make clear how language itself is also orientated towards the social environment, and why therefore Hanyu shenxue cannot dispense entirely with historical questions, including that of how to interpret the historic (and present) environments of Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland. Kwok takes up the 51 52

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Yang Huilin (2010b), p. 199. He Guanghu (2006b), p. 113. If this sounds exclusive, it is balanced with the ‘principle of openness’ towards outside revelation and with the possibility of creative transformation of Chinese culture through theology. He also proposes a ‘bottom up’ theological methodology for Chinese speakers within the fields of philosophical, moral and cultural theology, and a third strand of methodology that reaches ‘from a plane to a point.’ This latter considers the links between general revelation and special revelation, and suggests that Chinese language (general) revelation occurs in the plane of God, not in regard to the historically specific revelation of Christ, and forms a ‘surface’ from which Sino-Christian scholars must move up towards the centre. Li Qiuling (2007), p. 62.

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point of how language expresses revelation, in He’s understanding, and how to avoid reducing God to human terms—which, Kwok suggests, He does by revolving the base of theology from Godself towards the systematization of human explanations of God (a recurrent complaint against human culturecentred models of contextual theology).54 Kwok suggests that as it is difficult to study revelation outside of the church, Sino-Christian theology ends up with a one-sided God, a God who can be known through general revelation (in the world) only, a sort of Chinese-language natural theology. One of the problems with He’s theology is that the relationship between cultural reproduction and language has not been adequately clarified. The model seems to assume that a people group (outside of the main body of culture) reproduces old cultural patterns in their new environment. We know empirically from a burgeoning literature on Asian American experience in the United States, for example, that this is too simplistic. There is also the problem of content, if the Hanyu language is merely a tool, a vector for this theology. This gets to the heart of the relationship with other theologies: again, if language itself is a force, a mode of thinking, how exactly is the relationship between language and culture enacted in relation to theology, where Singapore, Taiwan, and China all share one language? He allows for multiplicities of theologies, but if the ‘cultural resources’ of He’s definition in effect relate as much to a people group or a bounded region as to language, then we have not really escaped the realms of ethnic theologies. 3.2 Liu Xiaofeng on Sino-Christian Theology and Inculturation He Guanghu’s Renmin colleague Liu Xiaofeng is one of the most prolific of this generation of Sino-Christian thinkers, although he has since moved away from these debates and burrowed back into the (Chinese, Latin and Greek) classics. In an article formed from two lectures given in 1994,55 Liu Xiaofeng set out his vision of how Sino-Christian theology first developed, and outlined a theological interpretation based, like that of He Guanghu, on linguistics. Liu’s paper melds two different approaches to the topic of Christianity in China: one historical and sociological, the other theological, and as such, presents a paradigmatic study of Sino-Christian methodology. For Liu, contemporary theology is a result of new ‘politico-economico-sociological’ circumstances in China, its history reflecting political changes and modernization in the 54 55

Cf. Bevans (2002), pp. 54–70. English version Liu Xiaofeng (2006). Liu’s initial article was expanded into a volume: Li Xiaofeng (2000). The debates surrounding Liu’s initial article were gathered in the volume by Yang (2000).

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Chinese-speaking world since the early 1980s. Liu’s article traces the history of Christianity in China in parallel with processes of nation state building, from the missionary period and the institutionalization of theology in Christian-run universities, through to the nationalization of the church in the PRC era and concomitant decline of Christianity in the intellectual arena. In Liu’s periodization of stages of development and modernizing, SinoChristian theology emerges as a discussion of conflict, between Christian faith and ethnicity, and between Christian nations and Chinese political/cultural thinking. Indigenization theories have been misguided, argues Liu, because the main clash was not between China and the West at a state level, but at societal and cultural levels. The recent revival in religion has come about not because of a crisis in faith, but because of general societal revival. The church has regained some of its platform because society is once again making demands on the church, to plug ethical gaps. Since an elitist ethics is in demand, the church has to tolerate non-ecclesial input from academics to meet this need (and, implicitly also the church’s own need for a role).56 Liu is insistent that China’s own deeply rooted humanistic traditions are the source for the country’s ethics, and that Christianity needs to break into this tradition to have any national impact. Christianity has been derided by Confucianists and Buddhists for the weakness of its intellectual resources in China, and Cultural Christianity should be understood in this context, as a necessary move towards credibility. Reconceptualizing contextual theologies as conflict mediation in this way presents debate from the ‘recipient’ side, but also draws on the new understandings of the role of human experience in the construction of theology described above, and particularly in the notion that privileging context fundamentally changes a reading of scripture and tradition, so that they function as a series of locally negotiated understandings. Liu’s perspective is predicated on the notion that Christianity’s spiritual impact should be diffused nationally via an ethical imperative. Valorizing Christianity’s ethical potential is hardly new in Chinese reception history, and many have written on the attention paid to Jesus’ character (renge 人格) as the basis of conversion in the Republican era.57 Liu’s emphasis on ethics is rooted in the notion that ‘confessional’ and ‘academic’ theologies are two separate entities: one to serve the church and one to perform as an academic discipline. For Liu, Christianity has been hampered as a dialogue partner in the humanities because there has only been ecclesiastical theology in China. 56 57

Liu Xiaofeng (2006), p. 62. Cf. Yang Huilin (2004), pp. 12–13; e.g. Liang (2008). As Yang Huilin notes, the mode of inculturation in the 1930s was scarcely different from Confucian ethics.

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The church, he argues, is secondary, a historico-social product formed to stave off or ameliorate the effects of persecution. A conditional church is dispensable, and Liu finds historical precedent for intellectual independence in German and Russian examples.58 A contextual, sociological explanation for Sino-Christian theology thus emerges, combining Chinese socialism with Western classical learning, with the main sources for academic scholarship being the modern social sciences and traditional Chinese scholarship. This historical description of Sino-Christian theology is followed by a more explicitly theological one. What seems at times a convoluted debate in philosophy and linguistics is important in its central concern for Chinese theology’s relation to the rest of the world. Liu Xiaofeng’s understanding of Christianity as a religion is tied into his Christology, or understanding of Christ, and parallels between his views on Sino-Christian theology as a phenomenon and the particularity of Jesus as a historically-incarnated individual become clear. Christian theology for Liu is particularly rich because it “actively assimilates philosophico-humanistic knowledge into its own confessional ratiocination of Christ and God,”59 and is, more than other religions, predicated on a historically particular individual. Liu wishes to separate out the Christ event, ideal Christian theology, from its concrete historical forms, to distinguish between “concrete historico-geographical theologies” and theology as an ideology. He argues that there is no issue of sinicization in the construction of Sino-Christian theology because that would be “grounded in the thesis that Christian theology is Western theology.” The notion that Sino-Christian theology is just one theology alongside Greek theology, German theology, or any contextual theology is, for Liu, mistaken, a product of “the cultural contexts of nation states in the process of modernization.” The questions for Sino-Christian theology are actually about its vertical relationship with the Christ event, not its horizontal links to other theologies, and how to break away from this “mindset of indigenization or sinicization,” and discuss the Christ event directly. Liu envisages a ‘pure,’ extra-linguistic initial Christ event, which may be separated from the accretion of theologies in the languages through which it has been transmitted. In China, unlike Europe, there has been no cross-over between language or cultural development and Christianity, and the reservoir of the Chinese language provides an alternative, ready-formed set of intellectual experiences. Liu posits two stages in the development of Chinese 58

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Liu cites Richard Rothe, Simone Weil, Kierkegaard, Solovyov as examples of or promoters of an independent intellectual Christianity outside of the church, see Liu Xiaofeng (2006), p. 87. Liu Xiaofeng (2006), p. 73.

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Christianity, paralleling this transition: the ontological model, or the development of Christian theology within existing systems of thought; and the ‘ontic’ model, where Christian theology is developed through existing life experiences and linguistic expressions.60 For Liu, the “ontic-christological construction of theology,” rooted in the life experiences of individuals rather than abstract ethical systems, should be the basic direction of Sino-Christian theology in the future. In other words, to partake in global theology as a historical form of theology, Sino-Christian theology may eviscerate itself of Western theological traces and early syncretist adaptations of Christianity and draw on its own cultural past and lived present to supply the theological meaning for Christ’s present action in China. Liu Xiaofeng’s ideas sparked immediate and continuing debate.61 Since Liu’s work is an attempt to rethink theological language itself, and thereby renegotiate the relationship of Chinese theology to world Christianity, criticisms of Liu have been correspondingly trenchant. A rounded attack came from Hong Kong academic Lai Pan-chiu, who amassed an array of theological backing for his critique.62 In one of the earliest refutations, Kwan Shui-man set out a three-stage critique of Liu’s rejection of the necessity of sinification and the indispensability of Western theology.63 Kwan suggests that the validity of Liu’s argument on indigenization “relies very much on the redefinitions 60

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These can be seen, in broad brush strokes as paralleling, the ‘translation model’ and the ‘anthropological model’ of contextual theologies (see Bevans 2002), which, as has been suggested, pertain to different understandings of culture and the relation of theology to culture. There is also a suggestion of the two-stage movement within the older translation model here (i.e. of first peeling away the Western context and then enveloping within a Chinese one), especially given the presupposition that the message can be separated from its expression. This latter is also the understanding of other Sino-Christian theologians, cf. Wang Xiaochao’s essay in Yang Huilin and Yeung (2006). The debates surrounding Liu’s initial article are gathered in the volume Yang Xi’nan (2000). Lai Pan-chiu (2000). Lai’s targets included: Liu’s two-fold division between religious (philosophical) faith and church dogmatics and the use of e.g. Aquinas and Schleiermacher in schematic support for this; theology in the service of society versus the service of the church; the problematic premise of Liu’s notions of indigenization, derived from his equation of Christianization with Westernization; Liu’s ideas on the relation of Christianity to traditional culture; Liu’s ideas on situatedness, or how cultural environment affects reception; Liu’s reading of Karl Barth. In his criticisms of the categorization of Western philosophers, Lai is mainly responding to Stephen Chan (Chen Zuoren 陳佐人), rather than Liu. A revised English version is in Lai Pan-chiu (2005). Kwan Shui-man (2006).

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of some of the concepts.”64 Kwan points out that Liu takes sinification to mean an attempt to transform Western theology along Chinese conditions so that a Chinese theology might take root in China, but then argues against theology being a Western import. In his substantive hermeneutical critique, Kwan takes issue with only one point: the assertion that the Christ event can be extra-linguistic—since if this cannot be sustained, then Liu’s notion of a vertical relationship between some ideal Christian theology and ‘real’ historical theologies is invalid. Via Gadamer, Kwan contends that there cannot be a pre-linguistic Christ event, and therefore Sino-Christian theology cannot be “a linguistic expression of the pre-linguistic Christ event,” since even if such a concept were possible, it would be beyond human grasp. He concludes that Sino-Christian theology must necessarily involve conversations with other historically situated theologies, and cannot choose simply to dispense with Western theology.65 While most other scholars in the discussion thread since have come to the same conclusion (one anticipated by John Paul II in his pronouncement in Fides et ratio “the church cannot abandon what she has gained from her inculturation in the world of Greco-Latin thought”), a variety of different routes takes them there.66 Jason Lam cogently explores the validity of Kwan’s refutation, while showing how Liu’s defenders have still not shown how to get around the question of horizontal relations to other languages.67 Others have since widened the terms of argument. Chin Ken-Pa explores how Liu Xiaofeng’s opposition to theological indigenization, and his emphasis on individualistic faith, is evidence of a non-nationalistic stance. Chin argues 64 65

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Ibid., p. 95. Ibid., pp. 100–02. The same point is well articulated by Li Qiuling (2007), p. 62. Kwan suggests that Liu’s thinking is related to the cultural crisis of the (1976) Tiananmen generation. Liu’s formulation of Sino-Christian theology, and his Barthian tendencies, he suggests, are informed by membership of the sceptical generation wary of human discourses, who spent the decades since the Cultural Revolution responding to that event by destroying established cultural systems. Cf., e.g., Li Qiuling (2010a); Wang Xiaochao (2010). Quotation from Fides et ratio, p. 72. Cf. Lam’s (2010) discussion of Kwan Shui-man’s critique and Xie Wenyu’s defence of Liu Xiaofeng. Lam demonstrates several other problems with Liu’s original position, including the effects of his narrow understanding of ‘indigenized theology’ as an attempt to adjust Chinese thought and Christianity to each other, and how Liu’s position on the Christ event looks suspiciously like Christomonism (p. 119), as well as the critique that Liu is never concrete about what the ‘Christ event’ is. This point is well made, since commentators throughout the debates seem to assume that everyone understands the concepts under discussion, with never a definition in sight. (He Guanghu, incidentally, is clear about his indebtedness to Tillich on the Christ event.)

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that in Liu’s writings Sino-Christian theology becomes not an attempt to reconcile Chinese culture and Christianity, but a theology of existentialism, “the forming of the divine Word in Chinese.” The key is theology itself, not China, a grammar of individual faith, not an ethno-centric or nationalist grammar.68 The historic links of indigenization with both imperialism and nationalism in China are, of course, something many Sino-Christian theologians have reacted against in their work. Both Liu Xiaofeng and He Guanghu oppose the mode of indigenization of the 1920s and 30s, a rethinking of Christianity into Confucian, Buddhist and Daoist-inspired frames, in part because, as Chin argues, this reduces Christianity to an instrument of governance. ‘Save the nation’ was certainly a key feature of much intellectual Christianity of the Republican era. What is less clear from the outside, however, is whether Sino-Christian theology itself does not also have a (reasonable) pro-China agenda that parallels this ‘save the nation’ movement. This is not a jingoistic, flag waving model, but one which promotes Chinese Christianity as a field of study, a distinct, valid, and co-equal partner in the ‘faculty club’ of international academic theology,69 even as it is deeply Chinese and intended for the good of the Chinese people, whether construed as a nation group, a language-based group, or a collective of individuals. Chin would disagree, and claim that Liu Xiaofeng disagrees. Working with an extended corpus of Liu’s work, Chin argues that, unlike other attempts to tame and naturalize Christianity, Liu’s Sino-Christian theology defends the foolishness of the cross, and defends it precisely as foreign. The ‘over-compromising’ attitude of Christian apologists in the past, from Jingjiao (‘Nestorians’) onwards, has proved a burden to Chinese Christianity. Sino-Christian theology is, in Liu’s words, the negation of this: “[A]lthough it is a kind of ‘impossibility,’ SinoChristian theology is the deconstruction of Chinese thought in response to the Word of God.” Chin argues that a paradigm shift has occurred, to the point where studying the relationship of Christianity and Chinese culture becomes an outdated question. Sino-Christian theology is not ‘theology’ in the sense of other contextual theologies; it does not identify itself with Chinese culture as such, but transforms the Chinese language.70 Where previous expressions of Christianity had to contend with a strong current of Sino-centrism, a conditional acceptance of things Western under the well-worn framework of ‘Chinese substance, Western application,’ here, Christianity can be set free not 68 69 70

Chin Ken-pa (2010), pp. 152–54. Peter Berger’s term points to the internationalization of Western intelligentsia and values, which is both resisted and desired here. Chin Ken-pa (2010), p. 141.

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to be brought into China for its use factor. We might still contend, of course, that the project to deconstruct and transform Chinese thought is patriotic, or at least, committed in motivation, and that the ulterior aim is the same: but the relationship with the foreign religion has changed dramatically. In Liu and He we see different ways of approaching the foreignness of Christianity against an innate existence, and experience, of God. Both are part of a long philosophical tradition of relating theology to culture; Liu considering the abstract relation of revelation to, and through, human culture, and He exploring the relation of language and culture to the expression of the divine. Liu’s Sino-Christian theology exposes the foreignness of Christianity and leverages this to help China rethink its nationalist biases, while He Guanghu construes Christianity in dialogue with contemporary Chinese cultural sources. What is most notable, is that at present only Chinese speakers have been able to respond effectively to Sino-Christian currents of thought; and of those, it is often only Hong Kong academics who have the theological wherewithal to mount substantial challenges. The robust criticisms of the theological underpinnings and assumptions of these pioneering voices highlight the irony that far-reaching debates on such themes as the universal nature of Christianity are currently almost exclusively intra-Chinese. At the same time, Sino-Christian theology, in the narrow sense of the movement, is fulfilling its own aims of provoking debate, deepening theological thinking in the Chinese language and beginning to impact beyond the immediate confines of academia. Conclusion Li Qiuling has commented that the significance of Hanyu shexue lies primarily in the consequence of its existence, in its “hoisting the ensign of Sino-Christian theology alongside homeland theology, indigenous theology and contextual theologies,” and highlighting the relationship of language with theology.71 Although its significance goes far beyond this, Sino-Christian theology as a project may indeed be read as a way of Chinese academic theologians stating their existence to the world, carving out a position within global academia, and contemplating the relations between China and other nations through the lens of theology. Debates on the standing of local-language theologies, and on whether relations among language groups worldwide are hierarchical or stratiform, or whether Chinese can access the Christ event directly have mattered 71

Li Qiuling (2010a), p. 230.

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to mainland scholars over the last two decades. That they matter is indicative, perhaps, of insecurity; certainly of the recalibration of China’s understanding of its international coordinates. The contours of Sino-Christian Theology have been moulded by its academic nature and by its insistence on the Chinese language as its coherence.72 A two-way exchange is in progress, as religion is integrated into the humanities, and as students and scholars travel beyond China to access materials and training. The development of academic theology in China has occurred in tandem with China’s integration into regional and world markets, and economic models and metaphors give some insights into globalizing patterns of Chinese Christianity. A new theological space parallel to the economic sphere of greater China emerges in the discourse: a space defined by thinking in Chinese, a Chinese language cultural zone that stretches from Singapore to San Francisco and back. The zone is powered by academic networks and, on the surface, derives little from church spheres of influence. Like the Chinese economic resurgence, its early stages went unnoticed in the wider world, but the speed of growth has surprised. Sino-Christian theology presents, in part, an attempt to come to terms theologically with the transnational dispersal of Chinese people and the new global reach of Chinese language and thought. More centrally, Sino-Christian Theology can be seen as a particular contextualization of theology for the Chinese academic world, for the global, postMarxist world of the humanities: a means of making acceptable, and making the greatest social use of, the gospel. The Chinese academic world, its theorists propose, needs Chinese Christian theology as a critique of its own context, and of the insistent binaries (including theist-atheist) of its modernist constructions, as it moves towards a post-atheist theoretical world. Just as the government is open to the benefits of Protestantism for its effects on the workforce and in combating a perceived spiritual vacuum, so the academic world needs a check on its unquestioning belief in scientific method and rationality. The gospel, in an appropriate (academic) form provides a legitimate means of criticising value standpoints and determining meaning in other disciplines—in other words, of providing that prophetic voice that has always been regarded as a sign of truthful witness. Sino-Christian thinking has used ideas derived from cultural theory and contemporary Western theology to critique, on behalf of society, notions of modernity and culture widely held in society. Its thought may legitimately be 72

Cf., e.g., Lam (2006), pp. 90–91. As Lam points out, Sino-Christian theology might not ultimately be a theological project, but may play a significant function in making Christianity more mainstream, and less ‘foreign,’ in Chinese society through its academic status.

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considered ‘theology’ if the basic view of culture espoused—and the relation to theology it creates—is accepted. For those who do not accept this, there are difficulties in seeing Sino-Christian Theology as an authentic incarnation of the gospel in China, difficulties which relate to its aim and process, as the debates with Hong Kong theologians have shown.73 The territory for reconciling these perspectives has traditionally been discourse on inculturation, but in pushing further the debates on what the Christian gospel is for, and in adopting a much more society-wide view of this, Chinese academic theologians have opened up the boundaries of discussion. The use of a language-frame for Sino-Christian theology has been presented as a means of getting away from both the old models of indigenous theology and from national, state-based boundaries and ideologies. Li Qiuling neatly encapsulates the shift from a cultural to linguistic basis of theology by suggesting that “even if we don’t speak of a ‘Sinicization’ of Christian theology, it’s not impossible to speak of its ‘Han-ization.’ ” No longer indigenization, but Han-ization: the tri-partite relationship between language, culture and state demands a new type of analysis. Although Sino-Christian theology acts as a critique of modern notions of culture, the way language affiliations are used and assumed has both broken through barriers between Chinese and other academic theologians, and reinforced divisions stemming from state-building ideologies. Coincidentally, the insistence on Chinese language as the determining factor in Sino-Christian theology chimes with the construction of Chinese culture-as-language that the CCP is promoting in its soft power tactics of Confucius Institutes and arts exports. Global, regional and local factors are all brought into play in the recent growth of the Sino-Christian Theology movement. The church has long been a global entity, and for most of its existence church has been coterminous with theology, with academic theology as pervasive as the reach of the church. Since China’s re-emergence from isolation, however, there has no longer been an assumption that global church and global academia need operate in the same plane. Although there may be intersecting links with church or seminary academic networks, the international focus of Sino-Christian Theology so far has overwhelmingly been secular academia. The situation resembles, in a curious way, that of Europe on the eve of the Reformation, where the separation of the spiritual and the intellectual enjoyed an institutional frame, and where the 73

Within the church, the aim of incarnating the gospel is the process of contextualization, whereas the end point in most Sino-Christian theological studies to date is, in keeping with their religiously-neutral but nationalistically-committed stance, to benefit society through the gospel (Chin Ken-pa’s analysis of Liu Xiaofeng notwithstanding).

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technical language of the scholastics might be borrowed by the likes of Julian, Rolle or à Kempis, without the latter considering themselves theologians, where “contradictory as it sounds . . . theology is conducted as a discipline of analyzing the relations between concepts, while the essence of religious commitment is understood as an act of individual submission . . .”74 The re-integration into international academic (if not church) networks is very recent and consonant with the time period of China’s economic growth. As FDI into China continues to soar (crossing the $100 billion mark in 2010), there is still a heavy foreign input into Chinese theology, although this has often not been acknowledged by those working within mainland educational confines.75 Although in many ways an oppositional movement, and explicitly turned into towards China rather than facing the West, Sino-Christian theology is in dialogue with Western thought. Scholars of Christianity in mainland China, including those of indeterminate or unexpressed faith backgrounds, have drawn on those debates in the West which chime with their own situations. A close reading of the writings of Liu, He and others shows the lasting influence of German thinkers, from the early Tillich on Christianity and culture through to Bonhoeffer, and Cassirer in the present, as well as their debt to Western cultural theorists. A further example of this is the recent focus on Western thinkers interested in secular explorations of links between discipline studies and confessional aspects of theology, such as in the so-called ‘turn to the spiritual’ trend in Continental philosophy.76 Many Chinese academics have built up extensive networks of exchange with Western academics in

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Williams (1991), p. 151. As Zha Changping (2008), p. 81, notes, where not so long ago mainland theologians working with Chinese language sources were limited to internal publications, a slew of new academic journals in Chinese outside of China has forced a re-think of academic horizons. Of the current generation of mainland academic (philosopher) theologians, a high proportion received training in Europe. Daniel Yeung claimed that Sino-Christian Theology was born in Basel/Hong Kong/Norway; see Yang Xi’nan (2000), pp. vii–viii. The influence of such continental public intellectuals as Levinas, Derrida, Deleuze, Ricoeur, Badiou or Bataille, can be seen in the writings of Chinese theologians with a background in literary studies. Derrida and the other postmodernists’ ideas of ‘religion without religion,’ and Karl Rahner’s ‘anonymous Christian’ provide scholars with entry points into theological discussion. The argument works less well for thinkers such as Liu Xiaofeng, but, as one of the very few trained theologians among all of the mainland SinoChristian scholars, the influence of Western thought on Liu is beyond doubt, his thinking heavily dependent on Barth, Bonhoeffer, and Moltmann, and more latterly Leo Strauss. I am grateful to Wang Hai 汪海 at Renmin University for insight here.

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philosophy/ theology/ politics who study the same topics.77 These intellectual and personal connections are evidence of the freer, soluble links of contemporary global academia. It is little surprise that Hong Kong should have emerged as a powerhouse of Sino-Christian theology. Hong Kong has long been a conduit for extra-regional engagement with China, predicated on its own position in the wider international economy.78 Until very recently, Hong Kong had the only truly international universities in the immediate greater China sphere. Investment in Sino-Christian theology from Hong Kong has included intellectual capital transfer in academic training, participation in international academic networks, teaching, library book provision, and translation projects. Throughout China growth in academic theology has followed a bottom-up, regionalization process, rather than an imposed regionalism model. Guangdong, the province of China with most autonomy during the 1990s and most direct economic engagement with the outside world, was a natural home base for theologians such as Liu Xiaofeng or Richard X.Y. Zhang.79 Expansion in mainland in academic theology has come about via a series of local, small scale projects, including individual MA courses with Christian theology components (now numbering more than 40), proliferating modules at undergraduate level, and the development of new institutions and research centres for studying Christianity in humanity faculties. Sino-Christian Theology may be out of kilter with prevailing global trends in Christianity, where growth is concentrated in evangelical and charismatic wings, and with global trends in academia, where a religious voice is being edged out of the humanities, but if “the net effect of China’s insertion into the global economy is to intensify competition, and with it the need for mutual adjustment and adaptation,”80 then the impact of this well-connected academic movement in the humanities should be followed closely. 77

78

79

80

For example, Yang Huilin and Geng Youzhuang at Renmin University, who teach and research Deleuze, Bataille et al., are personally acquainted with e.g. Paul Fiddes, David Jasper and Graham Ward. The possibility for exchanges and invitations into and out of China has increased greatly in the last decade of course, particularly for scholars with prominent university positions. In the late 1990s, as Sino-Christian theology gathered pace, trade between China and Hong Kong was the world’s third biggest bilateral trading relationship; Breslin (1999), pp. 26 and 23. The decentralization of power in the post-Mao era meant that local state actors within China could forge relationships directly with non-state actors outside China, and it is these which drove regional growth. Cf. Breslin (1999). Sally (2006), p. 187.

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Index Academia Sinica  158, 318 n. 73, 324 Africa  288 Ajima Takeshi 安島健  321 Aleni, Giulio  348 Allen, Young J.  361 American Baptist Mission  95, 98–102, 105, 111 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions  125, 361 Amithaba  236 n. 5 Anagārika Dhammapāla  275 Analects of Confucius  184, 192, 193, 197, 198, 200, 206, 237 n. 7 See also Lunyu Ānanda  221 An Epistle to All Buddhists (Zhi shijie Shijia shu 致世界釋家書)  278 Anesaki Masaharu 姉崎正治  308 Anglo-Chinese College (Huaying Zhongxue 華英中學)  96, 102, 103 Anhui 安徽  45, 185 Anti-Christian/Anti-religious Movement (1922–1927)  94, 104, 279, 280, 312, 319, 323, 324, 328, 346, 349, 353, 356, 365 See also recovery of sovereignty over education Anti-Christian Student Alliance (Fei Jidujiao Xuesheng Tongmeng 非基督教學生同盟) 316 Anxi 安溪  43 Appadurai, Arjun  6, 16 Aśoka  221, 223 n. 34 Auburn University  321 Aurora University  304 n. 29 Austria  386 Badiou, Alain  404 n. 76 baojuan 寶卷  116, 118–19, 123 Bapa Phuntsog Wangyal  210 Barrett, Tim  221 Barrow, Dr.  306 n. 36 Barth, Karl  398 n. 62, 404 n. 76 Basel  404 n. 75 Bataille, Georges  404 n. 76, 405 n. 77 Bates, M. Searle  362 Bavaria  186

Bays, Daniel  95, 116 n. 2, 124, 127 Beatles, The  70 Beijing 北京  39, 59, 72, 107, 118–21, 123, 183 n. 5, 187, 198, 202, 223, 256, 257 n. 67, 304 n. 29, 314, 316, 318 n. 74, 319, 324, 354, 391 Beiyang 北洋 government  319, 324 Belgrade  79 Bendix, Reinhard  11, 55 Berger, Peter  174, 400 n. 69 Beyer, Peter  304, 331 genealogy of religion  2, 19, 297, 298, 300–02, 304, 331 historicity of the category religion  2, 19 on Chinese/East Asian religions   299–301, 326 religious function system  1, 3 Bhutan  224 n. 37 Billioud, Sébastien  204 Bingdian 冰點 (Freezing Point)  365 Blodget, Henry  306 n. 36 Blumhardt, Christoph  256 Boji Yixueyuan 博濟醫學院 (Boji Medical College)  354 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich  404 Book of Change  197 Book of Odes  197 See also Shijing Book of Rites  197 See also Liji Book of the Great Unity  235 n. 2, 237 n. 8, 260 n. 76, 265 See also Datong shu Boston, MA  321 Bourdieu, Pierre  6 Boxer Uprising  96, 127, 357 See also Yihetuan Movement Bo Xilai 薄熙來  81 Britain  70, 111, 119, 125, 143, 275, 276, 308 n. 44 See also England British Library  229 Buddha  199, 215, 221, 222, 224 Buddha Light Mountain (Foguang Shan 佛光山)  14, 138, 167, 287 Buddhism  4, 5, 13, 16, 30, 32, 93, 123, 128, 130, 137, 138, 140, 143, 144, 151, 153, 154, 156, 157, 172, 174, 175, 177, 178, 182, 236 n. 4, 237, 241 n. 24, 244, 245, 250, 251,

412 253–55, 260, 272, 273, 275–77, 299–301, 302 n. 23, 303, 312, 315, 319, 322, 329, 331, 333, 355, 393, 400 and Asian self-confidence  165 and capitalism  164, 165, 176 and charity/philanthropy  139, 150 and Christianity  273, 278, 281–89, 348, 350, 396 and Communism  210 and Confucianism  198 and identity  162, 164, 167, 168, 172, 174–77, 289 and international outlook  165–67, 172–75, 177, 178 and Japanese colonial rule on Taiwan   143 and modernity  161, 283 and science  161, 272–74, 276, 277, 284, 286, 288 as an urban phenomenon  156, 159, 161, 178 basic concepts  247, 248 Chan  130 Humanistic  287–89 Japanese  274, 276, 283, 284, 286 Kadampa school   225 n. 38 lay Buddhists  14, 161, 163, 168 Mahāyāna  18, 116 n. 4, 277, 285 mission  168 Pure Land  236 n. 5 reform movements  18, 273, 274, 282 rituals 43 social engagement  164, 168, 177, 284, 285, 286 texts  16, 17, 172, 175, 208, 214–24, 226, 228, 229, 274, 276, 277 Theravada  286 Tibetan  208–15, 217, 223, 227, 229 True Pure Land  283 Buddhist Association of the Republic of China (BAROC)  163 Buddhist Educational Foundation (Zhongtai Shan 中台山)  167 Buddhist Research Institute (Fojiao Yanjiushe 佛教研究社)  274 Burke, Peter  289 Buton  226 Buxiu—wo de zongjiao 不朽—我的宗教 (Immortality—my religion)  313

index Cai Kaizhen 蔡愷真  12, 103–04, 106 Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培  313, 316, 323, 324 Cambodia  69 Candlin, G.T.  306 n. 36 Canton  59, 102, 307 n. 41, 317 n. 73 See also Guangzhou Canton Christian College  307, 317 n. 73 See also Lingnan University Cassirer, Ernst  404 Castro, Fidel  68 Catholicism  77, 93, 104, 107, 151, 327, 342, 343, 346, 349, 352, 354, 357, 358, 361, 367, 389 See also Christianity, missionaries, Vatican Rites Controversy  389 Center for Christian Studies  359 n. 55 Central China Normal University (Huazhong Shifan Daxue 華中師範大學)  359 n. 55, 362, 363 Chandler, Stuart  22 Chang, Carsun (Zhang Junmai 張君勱)   242 Changhua (Zhanghua) 彰化  147 Chan, Stephen (Chen Zuoren 陳佐人)   398 Chaoyang 潮陽  107 Chaozhou 潮州  12, 93–95, 97, 100, 106–11 Cheeloo University  323 See also Shantung Union College Chen Chu 陳礎  321 Chen Chunsheng 陳春聲  99 Chen Cunfu 陳村富  365 n. 72 Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀  57, 241 n. 19, 352 n. 33 Cheng Chung-ying 成中英  241 Chenghai 澄海  99 Cheng Jingyi (Ch’eng Ching-Yi) 誠靜怡   328 n. 101 Chen Huanzhang 陳煥章  182 Chen Jiongming 陳炯明  97, 98 Chen Xujing 陳序經  350 n. 27 Chen Yuting 陳雨亭  96, 97, 103 Chen Yuan 陳垣  330, 333, 345, 354, 361, 370 on Christianity  354–56, 368 Chi, Wei-Hsian  175 Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) 蔣介石   64, 103, 104, 105

index Chiang Ching-kuo (Jiang Jingguo) 蔣經國 152 Chicago  167, 177, 306, 321, 322, 325 China Continuation Committee  328 China Inland Mission  363, 364, 367 China Inner Learning Institute (Zhina Neixueyuan 支那內學院)  280 China Institute  257 n. 67, 259 China Tibetology Centre  209 n. 1 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)  359 Chinese Communist Party (CCP)  11, 16, 54, 59, 65, 69, 71–74, 77, 79–81, 94, 100, 104–11, 116, 189, 195, 209, 219, 227 n. 41, 242, 243, 300, 318, 346, 352 n. 33, 356–58, 362, 365, 379, 380, 403 atheism  210, 211 local cadres  201 mass campaigns  108 United Front policy  209, 227 n. 41 Chinese-Tibetan Buddhist College (Han-Zang Jiaoliyuan 漢藏教理院)   284 Chin Ken-pa (Zeng Qingbao曾慶豹)   380, 399, 400, 403 n. 73 Chongqing 重慶  81 Christianity  11, 15, 18, 21, 60, 115, 116, 118, 126–28, 130–33, 136, 140, 144, 145, 150, 237, 250, 272, 277, 309 n. 51, 315, 319, 321, 328–30, 333, 343, 344, 347, 359, 404 See also Catholicism, Christian missions, indigenization, missionaries, Protestantism, theology and Buddhism  3, 273, 277, 281–85, 287–89, 348, 396 and Confucianism  198, 396 anti-Christian activities and violence   94, 96, 97, 104, 127, 128 as a Chinese sect  125, 131 as a foreign religion  20–22, 29, 30, 48, 60, 102, 105, 106, 326, 331, 351, 380, 381, 401 as a global family  124 as model  5, 13, 18, 22, 63, 80, 119, 138, 276, 278, 282–85 banned by Qing government  93 Chinese Christians  12, 93, 95, 99, 100, 104, 106–10, 304, 305, 333, 358, 391, 392, 395

413 Cultural Christians  365 n. 72, 369, 384, 396 ecclesia  53 evangelists  93, 111 identity  12, 18, 20, 95, 124, 289, 304, 312, 319, 320, 326, 327, 330–33 intellectuals  255, 281, 282, 304, 312, 327 soteriology  10, 53 unorthodox versions  259 Christian missions  3, 9, 10, 19, 20, 22, 77, 93, 287, 322, 327, 333, 344, 345, 347–49, 355, 366, 367, 370, 390 Chinese historiography on  345, 351, 356–59, 361, 366, 368, 370 Cihui Shan 慈惠山  139 City God (Chenghuang 城隍)  10, 29, 31–48, 186 Cixi 慈禧  244, 347 Clarke, Morgan  228 Clart, Philip  130 Cold War  68, 71 Columbia University  323 Commercial Press (Shangwu Yinshuguan 商務印書館)  321, 323 Communism  53, 54 n. 12, 59, 64, 65, 71, 73, 75, 80, 196, 210, 313, 333 Communist International (Comintern)  59, 60, 365 Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)  69 Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)  70 Communist Party of the Soviet Union   59 Communist Youth League  365 Confucianism  4, 5, 74, 128, 130, 131, 138, 182–84, 198, 199, 204, 242, 259, 299, 300, 305, 309 n. 46 and 51, 310–12, 322, 326, 329, 333, 355, 393, 400 See also Ruism and Christianity  396 as movement  200 as religion  17, 182, 204, 236, 237, 250, 251, 254, 255, 260, 262, 263, 309 n. 51, 313, 331, 347 Cheng-Zhu 程朱 school  245, 258 Chinese Communist Party and  77, 79 culture  201, 202 demands for official recognition  15 ethics  241

414 Heart-Mind (xinxue 新學) school  245 n. 35 hostility to Christianity  95 identified with orthodoxy  32, 330 Neo-Confucianism  351 See also Cheng-Zhu school, Zhu Xi New Text tradition  235, 243, 245 n. 34, 249 n. 47, 258 spirituality  17, 239, 240, 252, 253, 258–63, 265 Confucius (Master Kong, Kongzi 孔子)   10, 14, 15, 56, 130, 182, 183, 186, 187–91, 194, 196, 201, 203, 204, 206, 244, 250, 254, 262 as cultural hero  199 birthday celebrations in Republican China  193 sacrifices to  191–94, 200, 205 “thought of Confucius”  197, 198, 204 Confucius Institutes (Kongzi Xueyuan 孔子學院)  183, 387, 403 Conrad, Sebastian  6 Cook, Stanley Arthur  321 Co Su Kong (Zushigong) 祖師公  137 ‘cultural fever’ (wenhua re 文化熱)  360 Cultural Revolution  66, 69, 70, 77, 189, 208–12, 215, 217, 218, 219, 224, 357 Dadu 大都  187, 223 See also Beijing Dagu 大沽 Forts  125 Dalai Lama  216 Daoism  4, 5, 8, 30, 32, 34 n. 13, 36–39, 44, 46–48, 123, 128, 130, 140, 236 n. 4, 242 n. 24, 245, 251, 253, 260, 276, 299, 300, 303, 312, 326, 329, 331, 333, 400 rituals  43 Daoyuan 道院   (Sanctuary of the Dao)  115, 128 Da Qing huidian shili 大清會典事例  34 Darwinism  56, 347 n. 15 Dasheng qixinlun 大乘起信論 (Treatise on the awakening of faith in Mahāyāna)  275, 277 Datong shu 大同書 (Book of the Great Unity)  11, 17, 75, 237 n. 7, 238, 240 n. 17, 244, 246, 250, 251, 254, 255, 257, 263, 265, 266 DeGlopper, Donald R.  144 Deleuze, Gilles  404 n. 76, 405 n. 77

index Deng Liguang 鄧立光  191 Deng Xiaoping 鄧小平  73, 75, 109, 182, 208, 212 Deng Xiaoping theory  73, 74 Deqing 德慶  193 n. 25 Derrida, Jacques  404 n. 76 Dewey, John  239 Dharma Drum Mountain (Fagu Shan 法鼓山)  14, 138, 167 Dianshizhai huabao 點石齋畫報  42 Ding Zhenxiang 丁禎祥   148 Dīpamkara  121 Dixian 諦閑  281 Dominicans, Dominican mission  93, 344 n. 7 Dorje Phagmo  216 Drepung  225 Driesch, Hans  17 Dunch, Ryan  110 Durkheim, Émile  314 n. 63, 315 n. 69, 316, 318 Dutian 都天  39 Dutschke, Rudi  71 East Asia Buddhist Conference (Dongya Fojiao Dahui 東亞佛教大會)  284 See also World Buddhist Conference Eastern Peak  38, 44 Edinburgh  328 Edkins, Joseph  125 Eight Honors and Eight Shames (Ba rong ba chi 八榮八恥)  75 Ellul, Jacques  264 England  123, 274, 286 English Presbyterian Mission  95, 98–103, 105, 111 Eternal Venerable Mother (Wusheng Laomu 無生老母)  119, 127, 133 Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau   211 n. 10 Eucken, Rudolf  17 Europe  2, 8, 11, 16, 18, 21, 55, 59, 68, 71, 72, 77, 80, 93, 109, 143, 203, 224 n. 37, 235, 244, 259, 266, 274, 275, 284, 285, 328 n. 101, 343, 389, 397, 403 Faber, Ernst  306 n. 36 faith  10, 54, 57, 60, 70, 73, 79, 80, 110, 285, 353, 358, 366, 394, 396

index Falun Gong 法論功  8, 116, 214 n. 18 Fan Bihui 范皕誨 (Fan Zimei 范子美)   317 n. 72, 318 Fan Wenlan 範文瀾   357, 367 Fazun 法尊  214 n. 17 Fascism  53, 54 n. 12, 64 Fällman, Fredrik  369 Feng Youlan (Fung Yu-lan) 馮友蘭  182, 240, 241 n. 19, 331 n. 109 Feuchtwang, Stephan  4 feudalism  310, 357, 358, 360, 361, 367 Fiddes, Paul  405 n. 77 First World War  6, 256, 260 Fitzgerald, John  97 Five Teachings (wujiao 五教)  326 Foucault, Michel  264 France  119, 125, 143, 166, 286, 322 Franciscans  93 Frankfurt University  257 Fryer, John  361 Fu Jen Catholic University  304, 354 Fujian 福建  97, 140, 156, 185, 344 n. 7 Fukien Christian University  307 Fu Shangrong 傅尚榮  101 Fuzhou 福州  98 Gadamer, Hans-Georg  399 Galpin, F.  125 Gan Haoze 甘浩澤  321 Gansu 甘肅  193 n. 24 Gao Xin  368–69, 383 n. 11 Gemingdang 革命黨  317 n. 73 Geng Youzhuang  405 n. 77 gentry  37 Germany  64, 71, 143, 166, 186, 195, 256, 259, 286, 397, 403 Gewurtz, Margo  124 Gibson, John Campbell  96 Godard, Jean-Luc  69 god associations  141–43, 146 ‘Goddess of Democracy’  73, 74 Goossaert, Vincent  4–6, 52, 299, 301, 313 Great Anti-Religious Alliance (Fei Zongjiao Datongmeng 非宗教大同盟)  316 Granet, Marcel  314 n. 63 Grant, George Monro  320 n. 81 Gray, John  42 Greater China  21, 402 Green, Theodore M.  261  

415 Guandi 關帝  33 See also Guan Gong Guangdong 廣東  93, 105, 107, 193 n. 24, 405 Guan Gong 關公  147 See also Guandi Guangxu 光緒 Emperor  235, 244, 347 n. 14 Guangxuehui 廣學會  321, 322 Guangyi 廣益 Academy  103 Guangzhou 廣州  42, 184, 185, 354 See also Canton Gu Changsheng 顧長生  362 Guevara, Ernesto ‘Che’  68 Gu jiao si kao 古教四考 (Four studies on the ancient teachings)  330 Gu Jiegang 顧頡崗  236 n. 4 Guo Qitao  45 Guomindang (GMD) 國民黨  13, 54, 58–60, 61, 63, 64, 79, 80, 193 n. 25, 319, 324, 346 See also Kuomintang, Nationalists Guyau, Jean-Marie  315, 316 Gu Yue 古月  72 Guzmán Reynoso, Abimael (Presidente Gonzalez)  71 Haifeng 海豐  104 Hakka  94, 103, 104, 156 Hangchow Christian College  307, 311 n. 56 Hangzhou 杭州  39, 184, 186 Harrison, Henrietta  104 Harvard University  322, 325 Harvard-Yenching Institute  354 Heaven (tian 天) 182, 254, 261, 306, 310, 329 n. 105 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich  210, 347 n. 15 He Guanghu 何光滬  382, 384, 386 n. 25, 392–95, 399 n. 67, 400, 401, 404 He Jianming 何建明  363, 364 Henan  122, 124 Hengdian 橫店  185 Heshang 河殤 (River Elegy)  360 heterodoxy  32, 44, 46, 115, 124, 242 See also orthodoxy He Yingqin 何應欽  63 Hinduism  250, 299, 331 Hitler, Adolf  263 Ho Chi Minh  68 Holland  143

416 Hong Kong  99, 108, 109, 116, 191, 235 n. 2, 318 n. 73, 381, 382, 387, 388, 392, 394, 398, 401, 403, 404 n. 75 and Sino-Christian Theology  21, 405 Hongwu 洪武 Emperor  61 See also Zhu Yuanzhang Hong Xirong 洪錫榮  106 Hong Xiuquan 洪秀全  123, 124 Hsiao Kung-chuan (Xiao Gongquan 蕭公權)  238, 263 Hsiao, Michael  174 Huang, Julia  169, 170, 173 Huang Zhongren 黃仲仁  108 Hu Jintao 胡錦濤  11, 17 n. 41, 75, 368 n. 79, 379, 390 humanism, humanistic religion (rendaojiao 人道教)  4, 18, 206, 236 n. 4, 237–39, 246, 248, 249, 250–54, 259, 260–62, 264 Humanist Manifesto  239, 240 n. 17 Hundred Days Reform  235, 244, 256 n. 65 See also Wuxu Reforms Hu Sheng 胡繩  357, 367 Hu Shi 胡適  241 n. 19, 242, 243 n. 29, 313, 345, 349, 354, 355, 360, 361, 370 and Buddhism  350 on Christianity  350–53, 356, 367 Hu Weiqing 胡卫清  363, 368 Hu Yaobang 胡耀邦  73 Inaba Enjō 稻葉圓成  283 India  70, 216, 218, 220, 224 n. 37, 266, 288, 299, 331 indigenization  279, 306, 311, 325, 327, 333, 352–55, 357, 358, 361, 364–66, 368, 386, 392, 393, 399, 400, 403 Institute for Social Research (Shehui Yanjiusuo 社會研究所)  323 Institute for World Religions (Shijie Zongjiao Yanjiusuo 世界宗教研究所)   359 n. 55 International Confucian Association (Guoji Rulian 國際儒聯)  183 Ishikawa Shundai 石川舜台  308 n. 44 Islam  5, 7, 29, 30, 93, 115, 126, 128, 130, 198, 299, 303, 309 n. 51, 326, 331, 333 Italy  64 Jade Emperor  44 James, Douglas  98

index James, William  314 n. 65 Japan  5, 54 n. 12, 79, 157, 176, 274, 288, 302, 320, 322 and war with China  145, 189, 286 colonial government on Taiwan  13, 142–44 Japanese translations of ‘Western’ texts   56, 308 kōminka policy  144 Jasper, David  405 n. 77 Jenks, Edward  310 Jesuits  93, 348, 354, 355 Jetavana Hermitage (袛洹精舍)  274 Jevons, Frank Byron  320, 321 Jiading 嘉定  193 n. 24 Jiangnan 江南  39 Jiang Shaoyuan 江紹原  321 Jiang Shoufeng 江壽峰  243 Jiangsu 江蘇  39 Jiangxi 江西  104, 185 Jiang Xizhang 江希張  243 Jiang Zemin 江澤民  75, 182, 368 n. 79 Jianshui 建水  193 n. 24 Jian Yinchu 簡寅初  317 n. 73 Jian Youwen 簡又文 (Timothy Jen Yu-wen)  317, 318, 321 Jiaozhou (Kiaochow) 膠州  58, 342 n. 2 See also Qingdao Jigong 濟公  129 Jin 金 dynasty  187 Ji’nan 濟南  128 Jindaishi yanjiu 近代史研究  359–62, 364 n. 68, 367 Jingjiao 景教  400 See also Nestorians Jinhua 金華  185 Jinling Buddhist Press (Jinling Kejingchu 金陵刻經處)  274 Jinling University 金陵大學  362 John Paul II  77, 399 Judaism  330, 333 Julian of Norwich  404 Jung, Carl Gustav  17 Kang Youwei 康有為  11, 17, 18, 75, 182, 235, 236, 238–40, 242–45, 247–63, 265, 266, 280, 300, 301, 302, 308, 347, 349 n. 21 Kapstein, Matthew  217 Karakhoto  223 Kasahara Kenju 笠原研寿  308 n. 44

index Katz, Paul  46 Kemalism  64 Khmer Rouge  69, 72 Kiaochow  58 See also Jiaozhou Kirby, William  8 Kishimoto Nobuta 岸本武能太  308 Koenen, Gerd  71 Kong 孔 clan  183, 188, 197 Northern lineage  187, 188, 198, 202 Southern lineage  183, 187–89, 194, 198, 200, 202, 204 Kong Decheng 孔德成, Duke Yansheng 衍聖  187, 197 Kong Duanyou 孔端友, 48th Duke Yansheng 衍聖  187, 189 Kong Fan 孔璠, 49th Duke Yansheng 衍聖 (North)  187 Kong Jie 孔玠, 49th Duke Yansheng 衍聖 (South)  187 Kong Xiangkai 孔祥楷  189, 191–94, 196, 199, 201, 202, 204 Kong Zhu 孔朱, 53rd Duke Yansheng 衍聖 (South)  187, 188 Kongzi gaizhi kao 孔子改制考 (Investigations into Master Kong’s Institutional Reforms)  236 n. 3 Korea  5, 74, 116 Korean War  105, 358 Kropotkin, Piotr  315 n. 69 Kuala Lumpur  151 Kuomintang 國民黨  13, 138, 144, 145 See also Guomindang (GMD) Kwan Shui-man  398, 399 Kwok, Benedict Hung-biu  393–95 Laaman, Lars  124 La Chinoise  69 Lagercrantz, Olof  72 Lai Pan-chiu 賴品超  385, 398 Lama Urgyen Kusum Lingpa  228 Lam, Jason  383, 385, 399, 402 n. 72 Lang, Andrew  329 Langdarma  212, 213 Lao Naixuan 勞乃宣  256 Laozi 老子  130 Latin America  165, 327 Lato  222 Lebanon  228

417 Lee Kuan Yew (Li Guangyao) 李光耀  183 Legge, James  306 Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich  59, 61, 65, 73, 210, 384 Lennon, John  70 Leung, Angela Ki Che  369 Levinas, Emmanuel  404 n. 76 Lhasa  214, 218, 219, 225, 226 Liang Qichao 梁啟超  250 n. 50, 259, 266, 280, 302, 308, 342 n. 2, 345, 350, 355, 356, 361, 369, 370 on Christianity  347, 348, 349, 356, 366 Liang Shuming 梁漱溟  241 n. 19, 315, 350 Li Dazhao 李大釗  241 n. 19, 314, 347 n. 47 Li Huacheng  125 Li Huang 李璜  314 Liji 禮記  191, 249, 257, 258 See also Book of Rites Liling 醴陵  35 n. 17, 44 Lin Buji 林步基  321 Ling Chunsheng 凌純聲  324 n. 90 Lingnan Middle School  317 n. 73 Lingnan University  317 n. 73, 323, 324 See also Canton Christian College Li Qiuling 李秋零  382 n. 9, 385, 394, 401, 403 Li Shicen 李石岑  315 Lishi yanjiu 歷史研究  359–62, 364 n. 68, 367, 369 Li Shiyue 李時岳  357 n. 49, 360 Liu Boming 劉伯明  315 Liu Shipei 劉師培  309, 309 n. 51, 310 n. 52, 329 n. 105 Liu Shuxian (Liu Shu-hsien) 劉述先  182 Liu Xiaofeng 劉小楓  382, 384–86, 395–401, 403 n. 73, 404, 405 Little Red Book  69, 70, 77, 80, 192, 210 See also Quotations from Chairman Mao Livezey, Lowell  177, 178 London  99, 275 Longhua baojuan 龍華寶卷  130 Los Angeles  151 Lufeng 陸豐  104 Lukang (Lugang) 鹿港  13, 136, 137, 139–43, 145–50 Nanjing Gong 南靖宮  148 Lu Longqi 陸隴其  40

418 Lunyu 論語  184 See also Analects Lushan 廬山  283 Dalin Temple (Dalin Si 大林寺)  283 Lu Zhiwei 陸志韋  315 Lü Mingcai 呂明才  108 MacKay, George  136, 142 MacKay Hospital  142, 150 Madras  328 Maitreya  121, 122, 127 Malaya  99 Malaysia  386, 387 Ma Min 馬敏  363 Manichaeism  330, 333 Manchu  120, 241, 244 Manela, Erez  58 Mao Zedong 毛澤東  11, 54, 55, 79, 81, 109, 187, 209, 210, 238, 245 n. 32, 356, 357 See also Little Red Book, Quotations from Chairman Mao, Selected Works of Mao Zedong and Nixon visit  72 as god of popular religion  66 Chairman Mao Memorial Hall  72 guerrilla tactics  70 Mao badges  69 Maoism  11, 68, 71, 72, 80 Mao Zedong Thought  66, 68–70, 74, 108 personality cult of  65, 66, 73, 81 Marie du Rosaire, Sister  98 Marshal Wen 溫元帥  39 Martin, W.A.P.  361 Marx, Karl  210, 384 Marxism  29, 74, 333, 345, 357, 359, 361, 380, 402 Mateer, Calvin  361 Matthews, Shailer  318 Mauss, Marcel  314 n. 63 May Fourth Movement   20, 58, 65, 97, 240 n. 18, 241, 281, 300, 350, 353 See also New Culture Movement May Thirtieth Movement  97, 100, 102, 317 n. 73 Ma Ziyue 馬子躍  192 Mazu 媽祖  140, 141 Mazumdar, Charu  70 Mehnert, Klaus  71 Meixian 梅縣  103

index Meizhou 湄洲  140 Menzies, Allan  322 Mexico  143 Mianhu 棉湖  108 Milarepa  210 Milbank, John  391 Ming 明 dynasty  32–34, 55 n. 19, 115, 140, 188, 205, 245, 354, 382 n. 9 Minguo zhuan 民國傳 (The Story of the Republic of China)  122 Minnan Buddhist College (Minnan Foxueyuan 閩南佛學院)  284 missionaries  9, 10, 12, 13, 21, 30, 60, 77, 78, 95–97, 102, 111, 117, 126, 127, 132, 133, 138, 140, 142, 150, 256, 276, 305, 307, 333, 342, 346, 357, 369 See also Catholicism, Christianity, Christian missions, missionary cases, Protestantism and individual mission societies and orders and education  100–03, 104, 279, 305, 310, 320, 324, 325, 346, 353, 354, 362, 363 Bible societies  117 missionary cases (jiao’an 教案)  342 n. 2, 349, 357, 361–62, 364, 367 n. 77 Missions Étrangères de Paris  98 Moltmann, Jürgen  404 n. 76 Mongolia, Mongols  7, 214, 229 Mongolian Empire  221, 223 Moore, George Foot  321 Morrison, Robert  354 Moscow  61 Mou Zongsan 牟宗三   182 Munich  186, 257 n. 67 Murdock, Michael G.  105, 319 n. 79 Mussolini, Benito  64 Müller, Max  306, 308 n. 44, 309, 316 Nan’ao 南澳 Island  107 Nanjing 南京  61, 205, 307, 314 Nanjing University 南京大學  307 n. 38, 362 Nanjō Bunyū 南條文雄  274, 308 n. 44 Naquin, Susan  115 National Christian Council of China (NCC, Zhonghua Quanguo Jidujiao Xiejinhui 中華全國基督教協進會)  328 National Committee of the YMCA 1921–22 (Zhonghua Jidujiao Qingnianhui Quanguo

index Xiehui 中華基督敎靑年會全國協)   317 n. 73 ‘national humiliation’ (guochi 國恥)  56, 74, 77 Nationalists  100, 102, 104 See also Guomindang, Kuomintang National Revolution  58, 60, 64 National Socialism  64 National Studies (guoxue 國學)  320 Naxalites  70 Nee, Watchman  391 Nenghai 能海  214 n. 17 Nepal  11, 224 n. 37 Nestorians  330, 333, 354 See also Jingjiao New Confucian Manifesto  17, 240 New Culture Movement   241 n. 19, 300, 312–14, 353 See also May Fourth Movement, New Thought Movement New Thought Movement (Xin sichao 新思 潮)  313, 349, 350 New York  73, 167, 229, 323 Ngabo Ngawang Jigme  227 n. 41 Ngak Mang Institute  228 Ng, Peter Tze Ming  365 n. 72, 387 Ningbo 寧波  39 Nixon, Richard  72 North America  235 n. 2, 239, 244, 328 n. 101, 386, 387, 388 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)  79 Norway  404 n. 75 Nyingmapa  215 Oberlin College  317 n. 73 orthodoxy  32, 46, 55 n. 19, 133, 163, 245, 258, 300, 329 See also Confucianism, heterodoxy Kang Youwei’s non-orthodox approach  246, 248, 252, 253 Ouyang Jingwu 歐陽竟無  280 Palace of the Goddess of the Sea (Tianfei Gong 天妃宮)  186 palingenesis  53, 57 Palmer, David  5, 6, 52 Paltseg Research Institute  225, 226 Panchen Lama  227 n. 41 Pan Gu 盤古  123 Paper, Jordan  55

419 Paris  275, 314, 322–24 n. 90 Paris Peace Conference  58 Parsism  330, 333 Peking University  313 Peng Pai 彭湃  104 People’s Liberation Army  68, 69, 192 People’s Republic of China (PRC)  7, 15, 72, 73, 182, 209, 240, 333, 345 n. 10, 356, 359, 360, 367, 391 Peru  11, 71 Peyrefitte, Alain  71 Pfister, Lauren  128 Porter, Henry D.  125 Philippines  74 Pingxiang 萍鄉  43 popular religion  4, 30 n. 1, 32, 40, 44, 46, 47, 66, 96, 116–18, 120, 127, 131, 132, 139, 140, 144, 149, 174, 204, 319, 326, 329 Pott, F.L. Hawks  305, 328 Presbyterian Union Theological Seminary  307 Protestant Educational Association of China (EAC)  346 n. 11 Protestantism  93, 104, 107, 108, 138, 140, 142, 153, 250, 279, 307, 311, 322, 327, 333, 342, 343, 346, 349, 352–54, 357, 358, 360, 361, 367, 402 See also Christianity, missionaries Lutheran  256 Presbyterian Church of Taiwan  136, 137, 139, 145, 151, 152 Pudong 浦東  34 n. 13 Purple Mountain (Zijinshan 紫金山)   61 Qian Mu 錢穆  243 n. 29 Qingdao 青島  256 See also Jiaozhou Qing 清 dynasty  7, 10, 33, 35, 38, 40, 47, 55, 56, 97, 115, 119, 123, 138, 140, 148, 205, 235, 236, 241–45, 354 Qinghai 青海  226, 228 Qingming 清明  33 Qin Shihuangdi 秦始皇帝  123 Qin Yubo 秦裕伯  34 n. 13 Quanzhou 泉州  43, 141 Quanzhou (Merchants) Association (Quanjiao 泉郊)  141, 145, 146, 151 Qufu 曲阜  15, 183, 188, 191, 196, 197, 204 Confucian Family Temple  189, 202

420 protests against erection of a Christian church  15 Quotations from Chairman Mao (Mao zhuxi yulu 毛主席語錄)  69, 70, 81, 192 Qu Qiubai 瞿秋白  356 n. 47 Quzhou 衢州  6, 14, 183–85, 189, 192–94, 201–06 Confucian Family Temple  186, 188–90, 193, 194, 200, 201 International Confucius Cultural Festival (Quzhou Guoji Kongzi Wenhuajie 衢州國際孔子文化節)  190, 195, 202–04 International Forum of Confucianism (Guoji Ruxue Luntan 國際儒學論壇) 190, 195, 196 local government  183 Nishan Elementary School (Nishan Xiaoxue 尼山小學)  200, 201 Political Consultative Conference  189 Society for Confucian Studies (Quzhou Kongzi Yanjiuhui 衢州孔子研究會) 198 Rahner, Karl  404 n. 76 Rawlinson, Frank  329 n. 103 Reagan, Ronald  153 Rebkong  228 recovery of sovereignty over education (shouhui jiaoyuquan 收回教育 權)  279, 316, 319–20, 346 Rectification Movement  65 Red Cross  13, 138, 142, 151, 153 Red Guards  66, 69 redemptive societies  242, 319, 326 n. 98 Reform Society (Qiangxuehui 強學會)   349 n. 21 Reichelt, Karl Ludvig  281, 329 n. 103 Reid, Gilbert  255, 347 religion as faith-based  79 See also faith Chinese terminology  20, 143, 158, 237 n. 7, 251, 302, 307, 308, 310, 313 concept  4, 20, 55, 56, 297, 300, 304, 307, 308, 331 freedom of  208, 280, 281, 313, 314 n. 65 relationship with society  143, 144, 149, 152

index religious field  19, 52, 53 definition  5 religious pluralism  10, 29, 30, 45, 48 Religious Studies (zongjiaoxue 宗教學), Comparative Religion, History of Religion(s), Science of Religion, (Academic) Study of Religion  3, 9, 19, 20, 303–12, 316–28, 330, 332–33, 345 n. 10 Renmin University (Renmin Daxue 人民大 學)  392, 395, 404 n. 76, 405 n. 77 Republic of China  7, 12, 48, 57, 62, 64, 94, 97, 104, 111, 188, 193, 280, 313, 333 See also Taiwan Research Society for Comparative Religion (Hikaku Shūkyō Gakkai 比較宗教學會) 308 Réville, Albert  316 Revolution of 1911  7, 55, 61, 74, 97, 143, 188, 240, 250, 311, 357 See also Xinhai Revolution Ricci, Matteo  348, 355 Richard, Timothy  18, 250 n. 50, 273, 275–78, 287, 289, 347, 349 n. 21, 361 Ricœur, Paul  404 n. 76 Robertson, Roland  19, 297–99, 301, 302, 327 historicity of category religion  2 on national identity  327 Rolle, Richard  404 Ross, Douglas  98 Roudière, Fr.  98 Royce, Josiah  315 n. 69 Ruism  236, 237, 239–41, 243, 245–47, 258, 260, 262, 263 See also Confucianism spirituality  239, 240, 252, 253, 265 Russell, Bertrand  315 Russia   7, 59, 397 See also Soviet Union Sacred Edicts  36 Saint Thérèse of Lisieux  77 Śākyamuni  121 Sanderson, Abbie G.  100 San Francisco  21, 402 Sanhsia (Sanxia) 三峽  137 Schall von Bell, Johann Adam  348, 354 n. 43 Schipper, Kristofer  303 Schleiermacher, Friedrich Daniel Ernst  398 n. 62

index Schmidt, Wilhelm  329 science  1, 75, 96, 97, 143, 161, 252, 272–74, 276, 277, 279, 282, 284, 286–88, 314 n. 65, 318, 345 n. 10, 347 n. 15, 348, 350, 361, 365, 367–69, 382, 385, 391, 397 scientism  18, 243, 259, 263–65, 279, 313, 320 Second World War  122, 123, 243, 257 n. 67, 264 sectarian religions  12, 13, 30, 115, 120, 124, 126, 128, 131, 132, 133, 144 unity sects  128 secularism  2, 13, 19, 20, 48, 52, 53, 57, 73, 97, 138–40, 145, 149, 153, 206, 208, 211, 213, 219, 228, 229, 238, 275, 276, 300, 304, 311–13, 320, 321, 323, 327, 351, 353, 367, 391, 403, 404 secularization   6, 9, 10, 19, 52, 53, 97, 138, 142, 144, 145, 153, 209, 210, 212, 214 n. 18, 224, 228, 229, 246, 275, 311, 363, 381 as disembedding religion from society   13, 143 post-secular age  260, 265 Selected Works of Mao Zedong  69 Shahar, Meir  129 Shandong 山東  15, 115, 125, 183, 189, 342 n. 2 Shangdi 上帝  123, 254, 260, 310, 328, 329, 333 Shanghai 上海  34 n. 13, 40, 42, 100–02, 184–86, 193 n. 24, 256, 304 n. 29, 305, 324, 346 n. 11 Shantou 汕頭  12, 94, 95, 97, 99–107 Baptist Academy (Leshi Zhongxue 礐石中 學)  100, 101 Baptist Girls’ School (Zhengguang Nüxue 正光女學)  101 Qilu 崎碌 Church  102 Shantung Union College  307 See also Cheeloo University Shanxi 山西  276 Shen’ao 深奧  107 Shenbao 申報  36, 40 Shenyang 沈陽  189 Shigatse  218 Shiji 史紀  121 Shijing 詩經  254 n. 61 See also Book of Odes

421 Shi Jinghuan 史静寰  363, 368 Shi Lang 施琅   140 Shils, Edward  109 Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso)  71 Shintō  143 n. 17, 144 Shishi xinlun 時世新論 (New Tracts for the Times)  349 n. 21 Shūkyōgaku gairon 宗教學概論 (Outline of the Science of Religion)  308 Shūkyō kenkyu 宗教研究  308 Siam  94, 95 Sichuan 四川  226 Sima Qian 司馬遷  121 Singapore  21, 99, 284, 317, 386, 387, 395, 402 Sino-Christian Theology (Hanyu shenxue 漢語神學), Sino-Christian Studies  19, 21, 380, 381–85, 387, 388, 390, 392–96, 398–403, 405 Sizijing 四字經  125, 126 Smedley, Agnes  72 Smick, David  264 Smith, Arthur H.  122, 123 Smith, Jonathan Z.  261 Snow, Edgar  72 Socialist Youth League  356 Society for Popularizing the Analects (Lunyu Pujihui 論語普及會)  198 Sōka Gakkai  288 Sommer, Deborah  190, 205, 206 Song 宋 dynasty  205 Northern Song  186 n. 15 Southern Song  187, 188 Song Gaozong 宋高宗 (Zhao Gou 趙构)   187 Soochow University  307 South Asia  286 Southeast Asia  8, 93, 99, 108, 109, 111, 116, 183, 213, 286 Soviet Union  11, 54, 58–60, 64, 68, 74, 80, 104 Söderblom, Nathan  329 Spencer, Herbert  310, 316 Sri Lanka  275, 276, 286, 288 Stalin, Iosif Vissarionovich  65 State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA)  211 state religion  10, 17, 55, 56, 143, 313

422 Steinkellner, Ernst  220 St. John’s University  304 n. 29, 305, 307, 324, 346 n. 11 Strauss, Leo  404 n. 76 Strong, Anna Louise  72 Stuart, John Leighton  307 Sun Yatsen 孫逸仙 (Zhongshan 中山）   11, 54, 58–64, 104 as god of popular religion  66 cult of  64, 65, 80 honorific titles  61, 63 Weekly Remembrance for  62–64 Zhongshan suit (Zhongshanzhuang 中山裝)  192 Sun Yatsen University  61 superstition (mixin 迷信)  6, 143, 279, 313, 318, 326, 329, 348, 350–52 Sutton, Donald  46 Suzhou 蘇州  39, 42 Switzerland  386 Szonyi, Michael  46 Taiwan 台灣  7, 13, 62, 116, 136–40, 142– 44, 150–54, 156–59, 161–64, 166–69, 173–78, 193, 197, 212, 235 n. 2, 318 n. 73, 382 n. 7, 387, 394, 395 See also Republic of China Taipei (Taibei) 臺北  191 Taiping 太平  34, 38, 39 n. 28, 119, 123, 131, 318 n. 73, 357, 360 n. 57 Taixu 太虛  18, 273, 280, 283, 285, 286, 287 Tambaram  328 Tang 唐 dynasty  5, 130, 189, 221, 354, 382 Tang Peng 湯鵬  326 n. 98 Tan Junpei 譚鈞培   39 Tan Sitong 譚嗣同  236 n. 4, 280 Tao Feiya 陶飛亞  356 n. 47, 364, 365 Ten Kings  44 ter Haar, Barend  128 Thailand  94 See also Siam Thatcher, Margaret  153 Theology  9, 94, 111, 351, 355, 363, 388 See also indigenization, Sino-Christian Theology (Hanyu shenxue 漢語神學), Sino-Christian Studies black  389 feminist  389

index Minjung  389 Mujerista  389 Third World  55, 68, 80 Thomas a Kempis  404 Thomas Aquinas  398 n. 62 Thoraval, Joël  204 Three People’s Principles  (Sanmin zhuyi 三民主義)  60, 63, 64 Three Represents (San ge daibiao 三個代表) 75 Three-Self Patriotic Movement (Sanzi aiguo yundong 三自愛國運動)  94, 105, 106, 109–11 See also Christianity, Protestantism calls for Three-Self movement from within mission churches  97 Three Teachings (sanjiao 三教)  5, 326, 330, 331, 333 Unity of the (sanjiao heyi 三教合一)   298, 343 Thri Ralpachen  212 Tian’anmen 天安門 Square  72–74, 77, 183 n. 5, 399 n. 65 Tian Han 田漢  314 n. 65 Tianhou 天后  33 See also Mazu Tianhou Gong 天后宮  139, 140, 146, 147 Tianjin 天津  39, 41, 125, 127 Massacre (1870)  127, 342 n. 2 Treaty of (1858)  119 Tibet, Tibetans  7, 16, 21, 208, 210, 212, 213, 217–29, 391 Tibet Buddhist Resource Centre  229 Tibet Development Fund  227 n. 41 Tiedemann, R.G.  100, 124 Tillich, Paul  239, 261, 399 n. 67, 404 Tōkyō University  308 Tongmenghui 同盟會  317 n. 73 True Jesus Church  116 n. 2 Tsinghua (Qinghua 清華) University  316 Turkey  64, 143, 209 Tuttle, Gray  214 Tu Weiming (Du Weiming) 杜維明  182, 193, 238, 239 n. 12, 241, 261 Tu Xiaoshi 屠孝實  315 Tucker, Mary Evelyn  239 n. 12, 261 Tylor, Edward Burnett  316, 318 Tzu Chi 慈濟 (Ciji)  13, 138, 150–54, 163, 167, 168, 169

index United Front Department  189, 211 n. 211 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 193 United States of America (USA)  60, 79, 109, 111, 143, 153, 157, 166, 177, 266, 284, 285, 289, 317 n. 73, 321, 322, 358, 382 n. 7, 395 Universal Declaration of Human Rights   263 University of Chicago  317 n. 73 University of Nanking  307, 310 n. 55 See also Jinling University Ursulines  98 Vatican  77, 78, 367 See also Catholicism Verbiest, Ferdinand  354 n. 43 Vietnam  72 Vietnam War  68 Voegelin, Eric  10, 53, 71 Voluntary associations  10 Wallace, Hur F.  102, 103 Walravens, Hartmut  257 n. 67 Wanbao baojuan 萬寶寶卷  12, 118, 120, 131, 133 Wangguo pian 亡國篇  57 Wang Hai 汪海  404 n. 76 Wang Jingwei 汪精衛  62 Wang Jueyi 王覺一  128 Wang Lixin 王立新  362, 363, 365 Wang Lu  385 Wang Mingdao 王明道  391 Wanguo Daodehui 萬國道德會 (The Moral Society for all Nations)  243, 254 n. 60, 255, 261 Wanguo gongbao 萬國公報 (Review of the Times)   349 n. 21 Wang Xinggong 王星拱  314 Wang Zhixin 王治心  281, 282, 328, 329, 333 Ward, Graham  405 n. 77 Waters, G.H.  101 Watson, James  46 Way of the Temple of the Heavenly Immortals (Tianxian Miaodaohui 天仙廟道會)   122

423 Weber, Max  229, 238, 263, 301, 360 Weimar Republic  256 Welch, Holmes  274 Weller, Robert  169, 170, 173 Wenzhou 溫州  39 West China University (Huaxi Daxue 華西 大學)  285 White Lotus  115 Wilhelm, Richard  17, 18, 239 n. 11, 246, 255–57, 264, 265 Wilson, Woodrow  58 World Buddhist Conference (Shijie Fojiao Dahui 世界佛教大會)  283 See also East Asia Buddhist Conference World Buddhist Federation (Shijie Fojiao Lianhehui 世界佛教聯合會)  283 World Missionary Conferences  328 World’s Parliament of Religions  306, 307 World Student Christian Federation  316 Wuchang 五猖  45 Wuchang Buddhist College (Wuchang Foxueyuan 武昌佛學院)  280, 284 Wu Daozi 吳道子  189 Wuhan 武漢  359 n. 55, 362 Wu Leichuan 吳雷川  330 n. 108, 345 n. 10 Wu Renshu 巫仁恕   38 Wuwei 武威  193 n. 24 Wu Xize 吳錫澤  63 Wuxu 戊戌 Reform(s)  347, 348, 360 Wu Yaozong 吳耀宗  345 n. 10 Wylie, Alexander  361 Xiamen 廈門  141 Xiangshan 香山  61 See also Zhongshan Xiashan 峽山  107 Xie Fuya 謝扶雅  325, 330 n. 108 Xie Jin 謝晉  185 Xie Songgao 謝頌羔  321, 322, 328 Xie Wenyu 謝文郁  399 n. 67 Xi Jinping 習近平  81, 195 Ximing 西銘 (Western Inscription)  250 Xining 西寧  228 Xin qingnian 新青年 (New Youth)  313 Xin shehui 新社會 (New Society)   356 n. 47 Xinzu Gong 新祖宮  148 Xingyun 星雲  287

424 Xiongnu 匈奴  121 Xiong Shili 熊十力  182, 241 n. 19 Xiong Yuezhi 熊月之  362 Xu Baoqian 徐寶謙  345 n. 10 Xu Dishan 許地山  318 n. 74, 323 Xue Yu  286 Yan’an 延安  65 Yan Fu 嚴復  56, 280, 310 Yang Huilin 楊慧林  380, 382, 383, 394, 396 n. 57, 405 n. 77 Yang Wenhui 楊文會  18, 273–77, 280, 283, 287 Yangwu 洋務 Movement  360 Yangzhou 揚州  39 Yangzi River  127 Yan Jicheng 嚴既澄  320, 321 Yanzao 鹽灶  99 Ye Jianying 葉劍英  73 Yelikewen 也里可溫  330 n. 107, 354 Ye Xiaowen 葉小文  211 Yenching University  304 n. 29, 307, 317 n. 73, 318, 323, 325, 354 Yeung, Daniel (Yang Xi’nan 楊熙楠)   382, 383, 404 n. 75 Yiguandao 一貫道  115, 116, 128–31, 139, 151, 152 Yihetuan 義和團 Movement  358, 360 Yiwu 義烏  185 Yokoi Tokio 横井時雄  308 Young China Study Society (Shaonian Zhongguo Xuehui 少年中國學會)   314–15, 322–23 Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA)  13, 138, 142, 307 n. 41, 351 n. 30, 352 n. 33, 356 Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA)  351, 352 n. 33, 353, 356 Yuan 元 dynasty  354 Yuan Weishi 袁偽時  366 Yuexia 月霞  281 Yu Muren 余牧人  321 Yun Daiying 恽代英   356 Yunnan 雲南  193 n. 24 Yu Ying-shih 余英時  369

index Zeng Qi 曾琦  314 Zhang Hongping 張紅萍  200 Zhang Kaiyuan 章開沅  359 n. 55, 362, 363, 365, 368 Zhang, Richard X.Y.  386, 405 Zhang Taiyan 章太炎   280 Zhang Tianran 張天然  128, 129 Zhang Wuwei 張五緯   41 Zhang Zai 張載  250 Zhang Zhidong 張之洞  274 Zhao Bian 趙抃  186 Zhao Zichen (T.C. Chao) 趙紫宸  328, 345 n. 10 Zhejiang 浙江  183, 185, 186, 188, 194 Zheng Chenggong 鄭成功  140 Zheng Gang 鄭崗  198, 200 Zheng Shaohuai 鄭少懷  106 Zheng Xiaorong 鄭小榮  202, 203 Zhicheng Charitable Society (Zhicheng Cishanhui 至誠慈善會)  148 Zhili 直隸  115 Zhongguo Jidujiao shigang 中國基督教史綱 (Outline of the history of Christianity in China)  330 Zhongguo qingnianbao 中國青年報  365 Zhongguo zongjiao sixiang shi dagang 中國 宗教思想史大綱 (Outline of the history of religious thought in China)  329 Zhongshan 中山  61 See also Xiangshan Zhongyi Charitable Society (Zhongyi Cishanhui 忠義慈善會)  147, 148 Zhongyong 中庸 (The State of Equilibrium and Harmony)  254 n. 60 Zhou Enlai 周恩來  103, 104 Zhou Taixuan 周太玄  314–16 Zhou Xun 周迅  184 Zhou Zuoren 周作人  315 Zhu Xi 朱熹  236 n. 4, 245 n. 33 Zhu Yuanzhang 朱元璋  44, 61 See also Hongwu Emperor Zigong 子貢  189 Zijidian Educational Foundation (Zijidian Wenjiao Jijinhui 紫極殿文教基金會) 147 Zou Zhenhuan 鄒振环  365