CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 R ESEARCH M OTIVATION AND B ACKGROUND
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Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Research Motivation and Background
Macau's sovereignty is at the edge. People usually put Macau together with Hong Kong and or Taiwan when they discuss it. As a city, its culture and voice seem invisible, and is in a weak position, it’s commonly known that Macau was a Portuguese colony, but it might not know by many people how the development of religions and people’s religious life is in Macau. A two and a half hour flight that is the time people need to travel from Macau to Taiwan. A strait away, many scholars are researching on the religious development within and outside Taiwan; they are not only continually tracking and preserving their social culture but also interacting with other nations. As a Macau citizen, I choose to research religions in Macau and Taiwan, hoping that my work will contribute to the field of religious studies as well as Taiwan and Macau’s religious development.
Many Catholic missionaries came and settled in Macau starting from 1563.
Therefore, at the end of the 17th century, the total population in Macau was 20500 and 90% of them were immigrants from China. At that time, 95% of the total population in Macau were Catholics.1 Since a massive population fled from China to Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan or other East Asian countries after 1949, Taiwan gained extra manpower and this manpower which led to an instantaneous growth of church members in the Catholic and Protestant church from around ten thousand to thirty
1徐牧民神父，《耶穌會士於澳門開教四百週年》，頁8。
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thousand. As a result, the baptizedpopulation grew from 1.9% in 1956 to 4.5% in 1959.
The growth rate of Christians was over 200% during this period.2
Even though Christianity in both Taiwan and Macau had experienced its heyday, today Christians only constitute approximately 8 percent (6.53% Protestants and 1.5%
Catholics)3 and 4 to 7 percent of Taiwan and Macau’s population respectively.4 Why Taiwanese and Macau citizens converted to Christianity and changed their religious identity is an interesting question (In a later chapter, Iannaccone’s rational choice theory and the REST survey will help to explain this question). For the process of modernization in China has been an impact of the Western powers and Christianity has been taken as a Christian-secular normative model for religions. Religions had to take inner-structure rearrangements and take up a more active role in the public spheres to remove the label of superstition and conform to Western expectations regarding Chinese religious practice and their social engagement.5Hence, it is necessary that Chinese religions in Taiwan and Macau innovate their organizational structure and ways of propagation to recruit members and face the challenge of Christianity. Before I discuss the concept of glocal-modernization and Christianization of Chinese religions in Taiwan and Macau, let’s have an overview of Taiwan and Macau citizens’ religious belief:
2 Taiwan Missionary Fellowship (Protestant), The Taiwan Christian Yearbook 1960, p. v.
3 In the Taiwan government’s report, Catholics and Protestants compose 1.5% and 4.5% of the total population respectively, the Christians’ population that I write here combines 朱三才牧師 and the Taiwan government’s research data.
朱三才牧師，《2015 年台灣基督教會教勢報告》，頁 1。
台灣社會變遷基本調查計畫第七期第一次調查計畫執行報告，頁169。
4 Presbytrians has about 227,000 members and Catholics has about 300,000 members.
Cheng-tian Kuo, Religion and Democracy in Taiwan, p. 7.
5 Vincent Goossaert, David A. Palmer, The Religious Question in Modern China, p. 74.
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Chart 1- 1 Overview of Taiwanese’ Religious Belief6 (unit: %)
Religions Numbers of believers
2005 (n=2146) 2010 (n=1895) 2015 (n=2034)
Daoism 13.5 15.7 16.6
Buddhism 20.9 21.7 19.9
I-Kuan Tao 1.9 2.0 1.5
Xuanyuan 0 0.1 0
Folk religion 41.4 34.2 35.5
Catholicism 0.6 1.0 1.5
Protestantism 4.1 3.9 4.5
Islam 0 0 0.1
Cih Huei Temple 0 0 0.1
Others 0.7 0.5 0.3
No religion 16.8 20.8 19.9
Don’t know 0 0 0.1
Data extracted from Taiwan Social Change Survey 2015.
From the data above, it tells that folk religion has been dominant in Taiwan’s society. The majority of the Taiwanese are believers of Chinese religions. Although numbers of Christians had grown significantly before the lifting of martial law and Christianity seems to be a strong competitor in the religious market, and it serves as the prototype of “religion”, its development in Taiwan goes downwards and has been slow. A similar situation is identifiable in Macau.
6 傳仰止，《台灣社會變遷基本調查計畫第七期第一次調查計畫執行報告》，頁 168。
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Chart 1- 2 Overview of Macau Citizens’ Religious Belief in 1981 and 19917 (unit: %)
Religions Total 1981 (n=222525) 1991 (n=355693)
Catholicism 7.8 (16455) 6.71 (23985)
Protestant 1.27 (2820) 1.74 (6205)
Other Christian Denominations 0.06 (123)
Buddhism 45 (100350) 16.8 (59669)
Other religions 0.4 (768) 13.9 (49529)
Non-religious 45.8 (102009) 60.8 (216305)
The Resource comes from the population Census conducted by Macau DSEC in 1981 and 1991.8
Ten years after 1981, Catholicism slightly decreased while Protestantism had a small growth. Even Buddhism that is supposed to be the most familiar religion to Macau citizens is reporting a significant drop of followers compared with other religions. Most religions keep losing their followers, which is indicated by the sharp growth of a non-religious population. The percentage of non-religious population increased from 45.8 percent to 60.8 percent over these ten years. In 1991, over half of the residents claim to be non-religious.
Chart 1- 3 Overview of Macau Citizens’ Religious Belief in 2005, 2007 and 2009 (unit: %)
Religions Household surveys
2005 (n=2060) 2007 (n=2058) 2009 (n=2019)
Non-religious 55.1 57.0 55.3
Catholicism 4.9 5.2 4.2
Protestant 3.2 3.1 4.3
7 It’s a pity this is the last investigation about Macau citizens’ religious belief which was done by the Governemnt. The other two books 《澳門宗教報告》（2015）and《澳門宗教》（1994）do not provide statistic of different religions’ number of followers in Macau. More search about religious development in Macau should be done.
8 澳門統計暨普查局，〈人口普查〉，adopted 14 February 2018.
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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.