https://place.asburyseminary.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2451&context=syllabi

Religion in Chinese Society

ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange

The chapter explores the fate of religious practices and ideas in the realms of dialogical transcendence in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Asia when these traditions sought to adapt to the new models of religion emanating from the powerful West. They responded in two ways – sometimes combining both. The first was the confessionalization of religion built around the self–Other distinction, which was sensed as critical to survival and advancement of nations in the new world.The second was the development of the modern realm of spirituality as a source of self- and collective formation that often accompanied the demarcation of the secular from the religious spheres. In the last chapter we saw that the binary of religion and secularism developed from modern Western histories cannot quite capture the distinctiveness of Chinese religious and political experiences. Here by developing the idea of ‘traffic’ between the religious and secular spheres, I hope to grasp the impact of secularization more meaningfully. Accordingly, I will discuss the recent debates about secularism and then proceed to analyze several episodes, practices and figures in modern Asian history to illustrate how the transcendent and other religious ideas often do not disappear but, rather, migrate into different spaces and institutions with sometimes remarkably generative and equally constraining effects in the moral, social, political and even, environmental spheres (explored in the last chapter). The static binary upon which much social theory of the modern has been constructed has to be rendered mobile in order to grasp new possibilities for a sustainable world.

The Crisis of Global Modernity: The traffic between secularism and transcendence

It was in the 1920s that Venerable Taixu introduced his notions on Humanistic Buddhism and called for a reform movement in Chinese Buddhism. The present paper traces briefly the historical background for his eloquent call for such a transformation. The first section touches on how Chinese Buddhists were involved in social well-being in the past. The second section traces how and why Buddhism declined in the last six hundred years due to the restraint imposed on Buddhism by emperors. The third section deals with views of Venerables Taixu, Cihang, and Yinshun on the restoration of Buddhist tradition to make contributions to social well-being. The last section examines the trend that Chinese Buddhists follow in regard to social well-being, with an in-depth analysis of the role and impact of Venerable Grand Master Hsing Yun.

Buddhist Initiatives for Social Well-Being in Chinese History, With Special Reference to Modern Exponents of Humanistic Buddhism

Messianism is an immense living force in the world today. Almost everywhere in the developing countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, there are many messianic movements still in the process of vigorous growth, continuing disintegration or frequent renaissances of older structures. Though some are unquestionably religious, others are nontheistic systems of belief replacing theistic or supernatural doctrinal core with

Nontheistic Systems of Beliefs: An Urgently Needed Conceptual Tool

I realize the term "White" is not entirely satisfactory, but what terms would have been entirely satisfactory for all purposes and to all people? Surely Dr. Dunn is aware of the fact that pairs of terms such as "Anglos" and "Spanish," "Spanish" and "Chicano" or even "Northern European Extraction" and "Mediterranean Extraction" all have their place in some contexts, but not in all contexts. My use of the terms "White" and "non-White" is defensible for at least two reasons: (a) After criticizing me, Dunn comes up with no better solution. He suggests "European" and "non-European," but in the same breath he himself says they are also "problematical," and (b) Of the fifty-seven letters I have received so far concerning this article from anthropologists (fifty-four) and sociologists (three), none seems to show any confusion as to my referents.

Religion in Chinese Society

Citations

ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange

The Crisis of Global Modernity: The traffic between secularism and transcendence

Buddhist Initiatives for Social Well-Being in Chinese History, With Special Reference to Modern Exponents of Humanistic Buddhism

Nontheistic Systems of Beliefs: An Urgently Needed Conceptual Tool

Rejoinder to Dunn, Johnson, and Firth

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