Dr. Ching presents and comments on China's religious traditions, and Dr. Kungoffers a Christian theological response to her views. Together, they show thesignificance of traditions in China's long and varied history and address therole of Christianity in China today.
"This book by Gregg Ten Elshof explores ways of using resources from the Confucian wisdom tradition to inform Christian living. Neither highlighting nor diminishing the differences between Confucianism and Christianity, Ten Elshof reflects on perennial human questions with the teachings of both Jesus and Confucius in mind. In examining such subjects as family, learning, and ethics, Ten Elshof sets the typical Western worldview against the Confucian worldview and considers how each of them lines up with the teachings of Jesus. Ten Elshof points to much that is deep and helpful in the Confucian tradition, and he shows how reflection on the teachings of Confucius can inspire a deeper and richer understanding of what it really means to live the Jesus way."--Publisher's description.
What is the state of Christianity in China? Some scholars say that China is invulnerable to religion. In contrast, others say that past efforts of missionaries have failed, writing off those converted as nothing more than “rice Christians” or cynical souls who had frequented the missions for the benefits they provided. Some wonder if the Cultural Revolution extinguished any chances of Christianity in China. Rodney Stark and Xiuhua Wang offer a different perspective, arguing that Christianity is alive, well, and on the rise. Stark approaches the topic from an extensive research background in Christianity and Chinese history, and Wang provides an inside look at Christianity and its place in her home country of China. Both authors cover the history of religion in China, disproving older theories concerning the number of Christians and the kinds of Christians that have emerged in the past 155 years. Stark and Wang claim that when just considering the visible Christians—those not part of underground churches—thousands of Chinese are still converted to Christianity daily, and forty new churches are opening each week. A Star in the East draws on two major national surveys to sketch a close-up of religion in China. A reliable estimate is that by 2007 there were approximately 60 million Christians in China. If the current growth rate were to hold until 2030, there would be more Christians in China—about 295 million—than in any other nation. This trend has significant implications, not just for China but for the greater world order. It is probable that Chinese Christianity will splinter into denominations, likely leading to the same political, social, and economic ramifications seen in the West today. Whether you’re new to studying Christianity in China or whether this has been your area of interest for years, A Star in the East provides a reliable, thought-provoking, and engaging account of the resilience of the Christian faith in China and the implications it has for the future.
Recent events—from strife in Tibet and the rapid growth of Christianity in China to the spectacular expansion of Chinese Buddhist organizations around the globe—vividly demonstrate that one cannot understand the modern Chinese world without attending closely to the question of religion. The Religious Question in Modern China highlights parallels and contrasts between historical events, political regimes, and cultural movements to explore how religion has challenged and responded to secular Chinese modernity, from 1898 to the present. Vincent Goossaert and David A. Palmer piece together the puzzle of religion in China not by looking separately at different religions in different contexts, but by writing a unified story of how religion has shaped, and in turn been shaped by, modern Chinese society. From Chinese medicine and the martial arts to communal temple cults and revivalist redemptive societies, the authors demonstrate that from the nineteenth century onward, as the Chinese state shifted, the religious landscape consistently resurfaced in a bewildering variety of old and new forms. The Religious Question in Modern China integrates historical, anthropological, and sociological perspectives in a comprehensive overview of China’s religious history that is certain to become an indispensible reference for specialists and students alike.
Offering an introduction to religion in contemporary China, the essays in this volume consider many diverse themes including religion in urban, rural and ethnic minority settings and the historical, sociological, economic and political aspects of religion on the country as a whole.
Religion and Nationalism in Chinese Societies explores the interaction between religion and nationalism in the Chinese societies of mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. On the one hand, state policies toward religions in these societies are deciphered and their implications for religious freedom and regional stability are evaluated. On the other hand, Chinese Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Daoism, Christianity, Islam and folk religions are respectively analyzed in terms of their theological, organizational and political responses to the nationalist modernity projects of these states. What is new in this book on Religion and Nationalism in Chinese Societies is that the Chinese state has strengthened its control over religion to an unprecedented level. In particular, the Chinese state has almost completed its construction of a state religion called Chinese Patriotism. But at the same time, what is also new is the emergence of democratic civil religions in these Chinese societies.
Christianity has become the most practiced religion among the Chinese in America, but very little solid research exists on Chinese Christians and their churches. This book is the first to explore the subject from the inside, revealing how Chinese Christians construct and reconstruct their identity--as Christians, Americans, and Chinese--in local congregations amid the radical pluralism of the late twentieth century. Today there are more than one thousand Chinese churches in the United States, most of them Protestant evangelical congregations, bringing together diasporic Chinese from diverse origins--Taiwan, Hong Kong, mainland China, and Southeast Asian countries. Fenggang Yang finds that despite the many tensions and conflicts that exist within these congregations, most individuals find ways to creatively integrate their evangelical Christian beliefs with traditional Chinese (most Confucian) values. The church becomes a place where they can selectively assimilate into American society while simultaneously preserving Chinese values and culture. Yang brings to this study unique experience as both participant and observer. Born in mainland China, he is a sociologist who converted to Christianity after coming to the United States. The heart of this book is an ethnographic study of a representative Chinese church, located in Washington, D. C., where he became a member. Throughout the book, Yang draws upon interviews with members of this congregation while making comparisons with other churches throughout the United States. Chinese Christians in America is an important addition to the literature on the experience of "new" immigrant communities.
This book is part of an initiative in cooperation with renowned Chinese publishers to make fundamental, formative, and influential Chinese thinkers available to a western readership, providing absorbing insights into Chinese reflections of late, and offering a chance to grasp today’s China. In their influential book Handbook of the History of Religions in China, Zhongjian Mou and Jian Zhang present a panorama of the religions existing in China through time. In their fascinating History, they delineate the emergence and development of Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, and Christianity and explore the roles they played in Chinese society and the interrelations between them. In China, also due to the encompassing Confucian idea of “living together harmoniously while maintaining differences,” religions—including newly arrived ones—came closer together than anywhere else in the world and reached a unique level of peaceful societal coexistence. Despite many frictions and conflicts, communication and reconciliation were indisputably predominant in China throughout history. Buddhism was peacefully introduced into China and, later on, a harmonious, symbiotic syncretism of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism developed—an exemplary process of how a diverse set of different religions can complement each other and contribute to a better life.
From the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist: a revelatory portrait of religion in China today, its history, the spiritual traditions of its Eastern and Western faiths, and the ways in which it is influencing China's future. Following a century of violent antireligious campaigns, China is now awash with new temples, churches, and mosques as well as cults, sects, and politicians trying to harness religion for their own ends. Driving this explosion of faith is uncertainty over what it means to be Chinese, and how to live an ethical life in a country that discarded traditional morality a century ago and is still searching for new guideposts. Ian Johnson lived for extended periods with underground church members, rural Daoists, and Buddhist pilgrims. He has distilled these experiences into a cycle of festivals, births, deaths, detentions, and struggle a great awakening of faith that is shaping the soul of the world s newest superpower. (With black-and-white illustrations throughout).
This volume focuses on the intersection of religion and media in China, bringing interdisciplinary approaches to bear on the role of religion in the lives of individuals and greater shifts within Chinese society in an increasingly media-saturated environment. With case studies focusing on Mainland China (including Tibet), Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as diasporic Chinese communities outside Asia, contributors consider topics including the historical and ideological roots of media representations of religion, expressions of religious faith online and in social media, state intervention (through both censorship and propaganda), religious institutions’ and communities’ use of various forms of media, and the role of the media in relations between online/offline and local/diaspora communities. Chapters engage with the major religious traditions practiced in contemporary China, namely Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Christianity, Islam, and new religious movements. Religion and the Media in China serves as a critical survey of case studies and suggests theoretical and methodological tools for a thorough and systematic study of religion in modern China. Contributors to the volume include historians of religion, sinologists, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, and media and communication scholars. The critical theories that contributors develop around key concepts in religion—such as authority, community, church, ethics, pilgrimage, ritual, text, and practice—contribute to advancing the emerging field of religion and media studies.