CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.2 L ITERATURE R EVIEW
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Buddhism & Daoism 19.3 17.1 13.1
Folk Religions 17.4 17.4 22.8
Others 0.1 0.3 0.3
Household Survey Conducted by Victor Zheng and Po-san Wan and Published in 2010.9
Like Taiwan, most of the Macau citizens are immigrants from Guangdong province. Even though over 90% of Macau citizens claimed to be Christians at the end of the 17th century (Compared to Catholicism, Protestantism succeeded in recruiting new members. However, there’s not enough evidence to prove that the growth of Protestantism is due to some former Catholics that converted to Protestantism or that new immigrants choose Protestantism rather than Catholicism), many of the local citizens claim to be non-religious starting from the 20th century, and folk religions become the second largest religious belief. As time changes, Christianity became the minority in these two places.
1.2 Literature Review
This paper aims to discuss whether the innovative changes of FoGuang Shan and I-Kuan Tao are the result of glocal-modernization or Christianization. Thus, the following works focus on the issue of modernization and globalization respectively.
The modernization of religions started at the late Qing dynasty as a reaction to the Western’s encroachment. In Goossaert and Palmer’s book “The Religious Question in Modern China” and Paul R. Katz’s book “Religion in China and Its Modern Fate”, they analysis how Chinese elites and lay Buddhist followers propelled changes
9 Victor Zheng, Po-san Wan, “Religious Beliefs and Life Experiences of Macao’s Residents”, p. 100.
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to adapt to and thrive in the modern context. It was not merely the Western’s encroachment that pressured the Chinese elites, but also Christians were key players in the diffusion of progressive social ideals such as anti-foot-binding movement, opposing opium, and the selling of daughters. Officers and traditional elites were massively influenced by Western Christian culture, for the field of education had been dominated by Christianity.
In Bellah’s “Epilogue: Religion and Progress in Modern Asia”, his viewpoint on modernization is “…modernization is an open-ended, ongoing process ...that Chinese society and religions become ‘less’ Chinese but at the same time without losing the
‘best’ of the indigenous traditions.”10 In Bellah’s description, the reformation of Chinese religions shows their ability to make depth inner-structure rearrangements and their “learning capacity” to cope with modern society. What’s more, as Bellah points out that instead of choosing Christianity, reformation is usually a more attractive and viable alternative for religions. Moreover, in Shi Chue-Ming’s paper
“Master Hsing Yun Model of ‘Humanistic Buddhism’: A Response to the Age of
‘Globalization’ and its Related Problems”, she further discusses how FoGuang Shan (presented as FGS hereafter) responses to the modern society and achieves glocal-modernization under the leadership of Master Hsing Yun.
Regarding the issue of Christianization, Weller, Goossaert and Palmer discuss how Christianity influences and leads to the changes in Chinese religions. In Goossaert and Palmer’s point of view, an essential vehicle for the adoption of the Christian-secular normative model is the national religious association. Religions reform
10 Robert Bellah, “Epilogue: Religion and Progress in Modern Asia”, p. 170.
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themselves in terms of clerical training, community organization, confessional identification and social engagement. The Christian-secular normative, rational model is so successful that some Buddhist temples organize Sunday Buddhist seminars for tonsured Buddhists and seminars for lay Buddhist followers. Thus, modernization took place, and Christianity serves as a normative model of a good religion.11During the process of glocal-modernization and or Christianization, some religions or missionary organizations dream of preaching and converting Europe and America, FGS and I-Kuan Tao are two good examples.12
Robert P. Weller noticed three important changes that occurred in the early 20th century that led Chinese religions tried to fit into the model of “religion”. First, the attempts to secularize – to remove religious aspects from economic, social and political life. The second was the creation of the category of “religion”. The third was
“the development of large institutionalized religious organizations intended to unify diverse religious traditions into structures with which the state could easily interact and which could distance themselves from more embedded and traditional practices –
‘religionization’”. And these eventually developed into China’s five officially recognized religions.13
11 To contrast with “Christian-secular normative model” which brings up by Goossaert and Palmer, Yao and Gombrich support that Buddhism under Taixu and Hsing Yun’s reformation has been
“Christianized”.
See Yu-Shuang Yao and Richard Gombrich, “Christianity as Model and Analogue in the Formation of the
‘Humanistic’ Buddhism of Taixu and Hsing Yun”, pp. 205 – 237.
12 Vincent Goossaert, David A. Palmer, The Religious Question in Modern China, pp.70, 72, 74.
康豹，《中國宗教及其現代命運》，頁101 – 138。
Joseph B. Tamney, Linda Hsueh-ling Chiang, Modernization, Globalization, and Confucianism in Chinese Societies, 2002.
Don A.Pittman, Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism: Taixu’s Refomrs, 2001.
13 Robert P. Weller, “Global Religious Changes and Civil Life in Two Chinese Societies: A Comparison of Jiangsu and Taiwan”, p. 15.
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Christianization, I rely on scholars and master students’ research. Many scholars (Stuart Chandler, Richard Madsen and Jia Jinghua) and graduate students (Yu Xue and Lin mei-ling) research on FGS’s expansion since FGS is one of the five largest leading Buddhist organizations in Taiwan14. Some of them focus on FGS’ actualization of the idea “Buddhism for the human realm” which eyes on the sentient beings living in this world here and now, how FGS innovates and re-creates elements and rituals in Buddhism to make this ancient wisdom and teaching re-vitalized and to achieve modernization and globalization. And some of them (Shuai Jia-Jane, Chen Hsin-Chih and Chang Chia-Hao) compare FGS with other leading Buddhist organizations. By living almost two years (1996 to 1998) at the FoGuang headquarter in Kaohsiung, Dr Stuart Chandler gathers lots of first-hand fieldwork materials and published his book“Establishing a pure land on Earth the Foguang Buddhist Perspective on modernization and globalization”15 in 2004. As the book’s name puts it, Dr Stuart’s work focuses on analyzing FGS’ modernization and globalization in terms of how FGS puts “Humanistic Buddhism” into practice through education. FGS has been devoting many resources on establishing educational institutions and spreading their true dharma. Now FGS’ educational institutions cover all levels which range from kindergarten to graduate school. Dr Stuart’s work does not purely discuss the good sides of FGS but also provides a critique from his observation, for he was permitted to attend meeting and planning sessions to which normally only monastics are invited.
14 The other four influential Buddhist organizations in Taiwan are: Tzu Chi, Chung Tai Chan Monastery, Dharma Drum Mountain and Ling Jiou Mountain Buddhist Society.
15 Stuart Chandler, Establishing a Pure Land on Earth the Foguang Buddhist Perspective on Modernization and Globalization, 2004.
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In these meetings, he got to know some internal discussions such as whether it is necessary to develop a highly educated sangha for elevating Buddhism’s status, and how FGS can find new ways to fund its ambitious projects under such tightening fiscal conditions while Taiwan’s economy has slowed.16 Furthermore, the innovation of FGS also entails the elements of democracy, religious followers’ democratic experience within a religious organization will transform their society.17
Seeing that there is much research on “Humanistic Buddhism” and Buddhism’s growth in Taiwan, a few studies, however, focus on the changes of rituals of Chinese Buddhism in Taiwan and some leading Buddhist organizations’ current preaching strategies. Yu Xue18 and Shuai Jia-Jane, Chen Hsin-Chih and Chang Chia-Hao’s19work focus respectively on FGS’ re-creation of rituals and how Buddhism in Taiwan makes use of the internet as “religion online” or “online religion” to get contact with the mass.
Although offering rituals for the dead can generate high income for the sangha and providing the material foundation for the development of Buddhism in Chinese society. However, this may lead to the corruption of those monks and the sangha and make them lack in spirituality at the same time. In Yu Xue’s case study, Master Hsing Yun (星雲 1927 – ) does not attempt to do away the rituals for the dead but to
16 Ibid, pp. 123, 139.
17 One can refer to Richard Madsen and Cheng-tian Kuo’s publications on religions in Taiwan and democracy. Under the governance of Master Hsing Yun, he makes a variety of changes and tries to democratize a Buddhist organization’s ruling style. For example, the abbot is elected through an open election, there are guidelines that give instructions of how a monk or nun can be promoted and how much proportion of monthly wage and donation monks and nuns can get.
Cheng-tian Kuo, Religion and Democracy in Taiwan, 2008.
Richard Madsen, Democracy’s Dharma Religious Renaissance and Political Development in Taiwan, 2007.
18 Xue Yu, “Re-creation of Rituals in Humanistic Buddhism a Case Study of FGS”.
19 Jia-Jane Shuai 帥嘉珍, Hsin-Chih Chen 陳杏枝, Chia-Hao Chang 張嘉豪, 〈台灣佛教網站之座會網
絡與呈現初探〉，頁79 – 100。
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create these rituals based on the old ones and reinvent specific rituals for the living which are known as The Etiquettes and Rules (yizhi 儀制) that cover all aspects of life at different ages. Apart from the preaching in real life, online religion has become a common phenomenon. In Shuai Jia-Jane, Chen Hsin-Chih and Chang Chia-Hao’s article, the statistic which provided by Netvalue20, an internet polling company shows that Taiwanese have the highest click rate of religion-related websites (including geomancy and fortune telling websites) within South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Their research covers 25 Buddhist websites wherein FGS’ online service consists of praying, blog, Facebook, MP3 download, online videos, web radio, and television programs.
IKT is another religious organization that is discussed in this thesis. Various books and journals discuss IKT from different perspectives. Among all these publications, Song Guang-Yu’s book “The Heavenly Way Transmits the Light” is the first and foremost book-length publication about IKT.21 In this book, Song introduces the history and lineage of IKT, he unveiled the “secret” of IKT – the three treasures, its internal situation and presents a thorough introduction of the IKT branches. As a religion originates in China, IKT was ruthlessly suppressed by the Qing dynasty, the republican government, the Japanese occupation force, the communist regime, and the KMT government in Taiwan before 1987.22 IKT was first banned by the republican government in Nanjing in 1946 and was forbidden in 1949 after the KMT government retreated to Taiwan for two years. As a syncretic religion which combines
20 The latest statistic about Taiwanese online religion survey was released in 2002, since Netvalue this company withdrew from the Asia market at 25th November, 2002.
21 宋光宇，《天道傳燈》。
22 Ibid, p. 39.
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Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, Christianity, and Islam into one, IKT has about 1,200,000 members in Taiwan23. Among many branches in IKT, Fa-Yi Chong De is one of the largest branches. It runs the most successful mess in Taiwan which targets university students, and it’s the only branch that has set a Dao centre in Macau. In Li Hui-Chuan’s master thesis,24 she stresses on the mess that runs by Fa-Yi Chong De and its relationship with the preaching of the Dao 道 . Additionally, Lo Liang- Ping’s25work focuses on the social function of Fa-Yi Chong De’s charity work and its liberal arts education in Taiwan. The previous listed book and journals together with Chen Jinguo’s26 article, which is about IKT’s development in Macau gives an overview of Fa-Yi Chong De’s hard work on promoting the Dao.
All of the above-stated research only focuses on one religion, and no study utilizes a comparative perspective on the expansion strategies, reformation, and innovation of FGS and IKT. Some existing works bring up the idea that Chinese religions Christianized themselves. But these research cannot explain whether Christianity is successful or not as it is a normative model of religion. Therefore, with an assumption that Chinese religions adopt glocal-modernization instead of Christianization, FGS and Fa-Yi Chong De of IKT are chosen as two examples. With a focus on their doctrines, rituals, organizational structure, and proselytizing strategies, I will examine the innovation that they take to achieve glocal-modernization.
23 Cheng-tian Kuo, Religion and Democracy in Taiwan, pp. 7, 66.
24 李慧娟，〈一貫道發一祟德道場學生道團之研究 – 以台北學界伙食團與宣教關係為例〉。
25 羅涼萍，〈一貫道「發一崇德」慈善文教事業之社會功能研究〉。
26 陳進國，〈一貫道在澳門的傳播與發展 – 以發一崇德的活動為例〉，頁 173 – 188。