The Review of Faith & International Affairs
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rfia20
Taiwan’s Covenantal Pluralism
André Laliberté
To cite this article: André Laliberté (2021) Taiwan’s Covenantal Pluralism, The Review of Faith &
International Affairs, 19:1, 42-55, DOI: 10.1080/15570274.2021.1874144
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15570274.2021.1874144
Published online: 08 Mar 2021.
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TAIWAN’S COVENANTAL
PLURALISM
By André Laliberté
T
he concept of covenantal pluralism
presented in the pages of this journal is
simultaneously “top-down” (legal)
and “bottom-up” (cultural):
Covenantal pluralism offers a holistic
vision of citizenship that emphasizes both
legal equality and neighborly solidarity.
That is, it calls both for a constitutional
order characterized by equal rights and
responsibilities and a culture of
engagement characterized by relationships
of mutual respect and protection. (Stewart,
Seiple, and Hoover 2020, 2)
This philosophy of robust pluralism finds strong
resonance in Taiwan. Taiwan’s ability to achieve
covenantal pluralism represents a remarkable
achievement, considering the shadow of China,
where in recent years policies implemented by
the Communist Party have been antithetical to
what constitutes covenantal pluralism. China
negates religious diversity by its bureaucracy of
religious affairs, persecutes minorities, promotes
atheist education, and dissuades religious
literacy. What makes the case of Taiwan even
more remarkable is that it has moved past its own
history as an authoritarian regime that bore
similarities with the current one in China. Even
more important, the religious practices of
Taiwanese have a lot in common with those of
the Chinese. In other words, Taiwan exemplifies
the possibility and the robustness of meaningful
covenantal pluralism in a society with a Chinese
cultural heritage.
© 2021 Institute for Global Engagement
This essay first presents the two key features
of Taiwanese society and history that have made
it possible to develop a robust covenantal
pluralism. It then presents the key constitutive
elements of Taiwan’s covenantal pluralism. It
concludes with a discussion of three main
challenges that will test its consolidation ahead.
The Two Building Blocks of Taiwan’s
Covenantal Pluralism
Once Taiwanese have become able to shape
their own destiny, they have chosen governments
that reflect the pluralism of Taiwanese society in
terms of religious beliefs and secular values. A
facilitating factor in the development of
covenantal pluralism that is often overlooked, the
polytropic nature of religious practice common
to East Asia, has made the social acceptance of
Abstract: Despite its diplomatic isolation, Taiwan shines in East
Asia as a beacon for pluralism. This is a rare example of a
progressive and liberal society where both deep religious diversity
and a tolerant secular state co-exist. Taiwan’s liminality between
world empires, and its unique position in the global economy partly
explain its openness to a diversity of worldviews, but also exposes it
to greater challenges to achieve covenantal pluralism. Taiwan’s
hard-won democracy has entrenched positive trends, but three
issues threaten to undermine it: the political pressure of a
domineering China that limits its own religious diversity and that
wants to annex Taiwan; the rise in influence of a rather intransigent
and divisive religious minority that demonizes its opponents; and
the increasing labor immigration addressing the challenges of an
aging society.
Keywords: Taiwan, religious diversity, Confucianism, Buddhism,
Christianity, democratization, religious freedom, self-determination
the review of faith & international affairs | 42
taiwan’s covenantal pluralism
different religions and worldviews possible in a
more meaningful way than mere tolerance. To
this bottom-up origin in the development of
covenantal pluralism, one can add a powerful
top-down imperative, as political and religious
leaders have promoted respect for deep religious
diversity and a neutral secular state to cement
national identity and to project soft power in a
quest for survival in the context of international
isolation.
From the Bottom Up: The Deep
Religious Diversity of Taiwanese
Society
Taiwan’s deep diversity of religions and
worldviews, and the constructive attitudes and
policies that have arisen in dealing with this
diversity, have made it a relative success story for
covenantal pluralism. One key factor has been
the polytropic nature of religious practice
common to East Asia, which has made the social
acceptance of religious diversity a widespread
disposition. Polytropy is the embrace of different
paths to salvation and the acceptance of social
practices associated with different religious
leaders and scriptures (Carruthers 2000). This
characteristic is shared with other East Asian
countries nearby, such as Japan, Vietnam, Korea,
and of course China, from which the ancestors of
most Taiwanese come. These societies have seen
a layering of successive religious and ethical
traditions influencing them over their long
history: superposed on original religious
traditions that included beliefs in gods, ghosts,
and ancestors, along with communal gods, the
worldviews of Confucianism, Taoism, and
Buddhism, and later Christianity and new
religious movements, have developed.
In addition to these fundamental aspects of
religiosity, a few additional features distinguish
Taiwan from its immediate neighbors in China
and Japan. Taiwan’s indigenous people,
linguistically related to the Malayo-Polynesian
speakers from the Philippines to Madagascar in the
West to Micronesia in the East, lived on the island
for millennia before the arrival of migrants from
South China, and their religious practices have
little in common with those of China and Japan.
Some of these religions remain important in the
social life of some of Taiwan’s indigenous people
(Simon 2015). However, many have abandoned
their ancestral practices and have converted to
Christianity, as the communal religions practiced
by the descendants of Chinese settlers are less likely
to seek converts. As the example of conversion
among the Bunyun demonstrated, indigenous
people have transformed Christianity from a
foreign religion into something that is familiar and
part of their own culture (Yang 2008).
For most Taiwanese, whose ancestors came
from Southern China, polytropy is the norm:
most reckon the value of diffused religions in
their lives and many among them also claim
affiliation to an institutionalized religion. This
dichotomy refers to the definition used by the
sociologist Yang Ching-Kun to analyze Chinese
religions (Yang 1961, 295). Diffused religions
may appear invisible to those who adhere to
more conventional and Western-centric views of
religion. This includes ancestor worship,
devotion to exceptional individuals’ spirits, as
well as worship for the saint patron of
professional associations, guilds, and a variety of
social and economic groups. Diffused religions
include the communal religions in which a
common ancestor defines the heritage of a
community, and popular religions, which bring
together people from all over the country in
religious festivals and countrywide pilgrimages
for the worship of deities such as Matsu, the
protector of sailors, and as such contribute to
social integration (Yang 2004). The practices of
diffused religions permeate other spheres of
society such as health care, family ethics and
relations, and even law (Katz 2008).
Institutionalized religions, for Yang ChinKun (1961), are self-consciously differentiated
from other spheres of society. A plurality of
Taiwanese self-identify as Buddhist or as Taoist,
and smaller minorities identify with one of the
more than 20 other registered religions known to
the government. The official report produced by
the Ministry of Interior used to present in detail
the following five important religious traditions
of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Folk
Religions (a catch-all category that refers to the
diffused religions discussed above), and I-kuantao. It also distinguished four kinds of religions
the review of faith & international affairs | 43
andré laliberté
alongside them: Religions coming from China
after 1949; religions from foreign countries; new
religions from existing ones; and new religions
created in Taiwan. Within some of these
religions, there exist important differences.
Hence, while most Buddhists in Taiwan practice
according to the Mahayana tradition rituals,
many prefer to follow the Tibetan tradition
(Jones 1999; Jagou 2018). Likewise, Protestant
Christianity counts many denominations with
very different theologies and orientations on
important aspects of national politics, and
disagreements often ran deep among them
during the period of martial law (Lin 2020).
The numbers of believers in Taiwan have
varied little in the last three decades. Christian
churches of all denominations have increased in
size dramatically in the immediate aftermath of the
KMT defeat in 1949, as many Catholic and
Protestant missionaries expelled from China
sought refuge in Taiwan, increasing the number of
denominations (Wong 2016, 292). Fearing
persecution, leaders of other religions relocated to
Taiwan as well, increasing the number of followers
of new religions. After an initial growth, however,
Christian churches have seen the size of their flock
diminish relative to the whole population, while
the number of people who self-identify as
Buddhists and Taoists has increased. After 1992,
when the government allowed for temporary labor
migration, the numbers for religious followers
relative to each other changed again. The
migration of Filipina increased the proportion of
Catholics, the faith of most of that population. As
of 2020, many migrant workers in industrial
sectors and in the sector of caregiving come from
Indonesia, most of whom are Muslims. Although
their stay is meant to be temporary—from three to
14 years—their presence changes the religious
landscape of Taiwan. The estimated 300,000
Indonesian workers in Taiwan exceed by far the
smaller number of Muslims that emigrated after
1949 from China (DoS 2019).
From the Top Down: The Changing
Response of State and Religious
Authorities
Religion was an integral component of the life
of the Taiwanese indigenous people, as well as for
44 | volume 19, number 1 (spring 2021)
the Chinese settlers who gradually moved in. The
beliefs of Taiwan’s indigenous people had to
contend with the attempts by settlers and rulers
from abroad to impose their own belief systems.
The first among these outsiders, settlers from
China during the Ming dynasty, brought with
them their communal cults and ancestor worship
maintaining connections with their land of
origin (Vermeer 1999, 62–63). Some of them
imported as well universal religions such as
Buddhism and Taoism, and a variety of other
ones that have received over decades various
levels of acceptance in China. When Taiwan fell
under nominal Qing dynasty rule, revolts broke
out among Chinese settlers. However, very few
of them had a connection with religion. This
connection was tenuous at best, as in the case of
rebellion whose leaders belonged to secret
societies, such as the Heaven and Earth Society
(tien-ti-hui), which has been historically
identified as a folk religion sect since the Ming
Dynasty (Weller 1999, 346).
The other outsiders were merchants from the
far-away European trading empires, with French,
Spanish, and especially Dutch, leaving their
imprint on the island. The colonial authorities of
the first two empires, both Catholic, did not seek to
impose theirbelief on the locals,and neither didthe
Dutch. Their presence in Taiwan was limited in
space and time (Wills 1999). Protestant
Christianity, and in particular the Presbyterian
Church, proved successful much later, after the
Canadian Presbyterian missionary George Leslie
MacKay arrived in Taiwan and lived there until his
death, among indigenous people. Reinforcing that
perception is the ease with which Mackay found
acceptance in Taiwan, before and during Japanese
rule, as he practiced itinerant dentistry among
indigenous people during his stay, from 1872 to
1901. Today, when the Taiwanese government
refers to the historical experience of religious
freedom, it celebrates the legacy of Mackay, as well
as cultural diversity and resilience of the
indigenous people (Johnston 2012).
The following stage of Taiwan’s history
proved far less auspicious for religious freedom,
as Japan imposed direct colonial rule on the
island from 1895 to 1945 and enforced its
authority more profoundly. Taiwan went
taiwan’s covenantal pluralism
through three periods. The first one saw an
alternance between uprising and violent
repression, culminating with the Tapani
rebellion in 1915 (Katz 2005). During that time,
colonial rulers did not have the ambition to affect
Taiwanese religious life and adopted a laissezfaire approach. This changed during the period
of integration (1915–1937), when Japan sought
to assimilate Taiwan as just another Japanese
province. That policy meant greater oversight
and control of native Taiwanese religions, and a
preferential treatment for Buddhism, which was
also widely practiced in Japan (Jones 2003, 21–
24). The third period of Japanese rule, which saw
efforts to make Taiwanese “subjects of the
emperor,” meant a policy of “Japanization” that
included weaning away Taiwanese from Chinese
traditional religions and restructuring the local
temples, some of which were destroyed, others
turned into Shinto shrines (Jones 2003, 24–25).
The ceding of Taiwan by allied powers to the
troops of the Chinese nationalist party (hereafter
Kuomintang—KMT) changed the equation
dramatically. When the KMT clamped down on
a nationwide uprising in 1947, none of the
protagonists to that tragedy appealed to religion.
The issue was national identity and concern over
a communist take-over of the island (Kerr 1965).
The Chinese rulers sought to turn Taiwanese
into Chinese. To that end, Chiang Kai-shek, and
his son Chiang Ching-kuo, imposed the learning
of Mandarin on all residents of the island and
pushed through the teaching of Confucian values
in the civic education manuals at all levels of
education (Fairbrother 2004). The KMT
recognized the legitimacy of some religions
because they were Chinese (Buddhism, Taoism,
and a handful of small new religious
movements), modern (Protestant and Catholic
Christianity), or could serve Chinese diplomacy
(Islam). This limited recognition had adverse
consequences for a few new religions, such as Ikuan-tao (Jordan and Overmyer 1986, 240–
246). Although followers of these religions could
be subjected to police surveillance and suffered
from the suspicion of other Taiwanese about
their religious practices, they did not experience
the kind of persecution their co-religionists in
China had to endure.
Even though some of the KMT leaders had a
bias against popular religions when they tried to
rule Mainland China, the religious diversity
within this party, including the Methodist
affiliation of its leader Chiang Kai-shek after his
conversion, made respect for religious diversity
the default position of its policy on religious
affairs. At the time, in a context when the KMT
restricted media and political liberties and civil
rights, the tolerance of religious diversity
appeared as a convenient showcase that the
Republic of China was “Free China,” in contrast
to the People’s Republic. While the exiled church
from China sought to maintain harmonious
relations between them and the KMT, leaders of
the native Presbyterian Church during the 1960s
and 1970s followed their conscience and worked
actively to support the movement for selfdetermination and the defense of human rights
(Rubinstein 2003).
The transition to democracy under the
government of President Lee Teng-hui, a
Presbyterian Church member, saw a major
change in the supervision of religious affairs. His
government resisted demands by some religious
associations to pass a law on religion, and he
diminished the importance of the bureaucracy
for religious affairs and government’s oversight.
His government also endorsed, by its inaction,
the dismantling of the corporatist system that
had overseen religious associations during the
period of Martial Law. New Buddhist
associations or monasteries that registered to
obtain permits to build a new site, for example,
did not have to fall under the authority of the
Buddhist Association of the Republic of China
(BAROC), which used to have exclusive
authority over the training of monastics and the
accreditation of temples (Jones 1999, 178–179).
A key aspect of Lee’s approach to religion is that
although there were controversies generated by
the actions of new religious movements or selfproclaimed spiritual leaders, he never yielded to
pressure from public opinion to forbid such
movements but rather let the judicial process
runs its course in case of fraud (Laliberté 2009;
Chen 2019).
Under Lee’s successor Chen Shui-bian
(2000–2008), the Taiwanese government came
the review of faith & international affairs | 45
andré laliberté
to officially recognize 29 different religions. In
2006, the Ministry of Education promulgated a
law that allowed the accreditation of universitylevel degrees by religious schools and theological
institutions. With the return of the KMT to
power, under President Ma Ying-jeou (2008–
2016), the bureaucracy for religious affairs had
become a small unit within the Ministry of
Interior, signaling then that the government had
relinquished any role in the management of
religious affairs. In the second transition to a
DPP government headed by Tsai Ying-wen
(2016–), the Taiwanese government has
maintained its attitude of religious neutrality,
which did not exclude the promotion of interreligious dialogue. Many of the key factors likely
to foster covenantal pluralism have flourished
during Taiwan’s democratic consolidation.
Taiwan’s Resources for Covenantal
Pluralism
Taiwan can sustain and enrich covenantal
pluralism because of the convergence of popular
mobilization for greater social pluralism and
responsive political and religious leadership for
more than three decades. The smoothness of
Taiwan’s transition has benefited from the fact
that religious diversity predates its
democratization. Even during the dark hours of
Martial Law, many religious organizations have
helped address shared problems, depending on
their capacity. With Taiwan’s democratic
consolidation religious minorities, hitherto
marginalized, integrated into the social fabric.
Reinforcing these positive trends, successive
governments, regardless of the party in power,
have taken seriously the issue of religious literacy
and cross-cultural engagement. In that context,
the political and legal system did not attempt to
restrict religious activities of minorities, no
matter how small and marginal, thereby
deepening religious diversity. A facilitating factor
behind this smooth transition is the absence of
inter-religious conflict or religiously inspired
violence since the end of Japanese colonial rule.
Relations between religions and state have
reached an equilibrium of avoiding too close
intermingling or too much distance. One
consequence of this type of relationship is the
46 | volume 19, number 1 (spring 2021)
positive role religions have played in nurturing
social cohesion and promoting Taiwan’s
integration in the global economy. The best
expression of this secularism is the involvement
of religious institutions in a wide array of social
services. I expand below on these points.
The Institutionalization of Religious
Diversity
Taiwan does not have a state religion, and this
was the case even during the period of Martial
Law (1949–1987), so some basis for religious
pluralism already existed. None of the two
important political parties, the DPP and the
KMT, represent a religion, even less promotes
the interest of one religion at the expense of
others. In both cases, successive leaders have held
a variety of religious beliefs, albeit the KMT
supreme leader has often been a Christian:
Chiang Kai-shek was Methodist, Lee Teng-hui
was Presbyterian, and Ma Ying-jeou was
Catholic. Religious associations are likewise split
in their political allegiances: during the
presidential campaign of 1996, the main
opponent to Lee, Peng Ming-min, was a fellow
Presbyterian. Politicians from both parties court
the support of all religions at election time:
During electoral campaigns at all levels,
politicians make sure to pay a visit to local
temples, to elicit the support of community
leaders. Only rarely did a religious institution
promote a politician openly, or even sponsored a
political party. Hence, in 1996, the Foguangshan
monastic order endorsed the ticket of Chen luhan and Wang Ching-wen for the Presidential
elections, who gained close to 10 percent of the
vote (Laliberté 2004, 74). In 2015, a Christian
group launched a political party, the Faith and
Hope League, to pre-empt legislation that would
allow for same-sex marriage (Ho 2020, 149).
Multi-faith Practical Collaboration to
Address Shared Problems
For seven decades, religious leaders have
looked past their differences and recognized that
Taiwanese face the shared problems of existential
threats to national survival on top of the risks
inherent to the region because of its location in a
zone prone to natural disasters. The first of these
taiwan’s covenantal pluralism
existential threats is the pressure of a rising
China, which has political, economic, as well as
strategic dimensions, which has become
especially strident under Xi Jinping (Thompson
2020). The exclusion of Taiwan from the United
Nations since 1971, following the admission of
China, has left its population isolated
diplomatically, and vulnerable to the economic,
political, and military pressure of its giant
neighbor. The other kind of threat Taiwanese
face is the same that other countries in the region
confront: vulnerability to natural disasters such
as quakes and typhoons, the latter amplified by
climate change. For decades, Taiwanese religious
associations have risen to the challenge in helping
the government provide disaster relief,
depending on their resources (Lee and Han
2015). They proved that in 2020 with the
COVID-pandemic. Taiwan has gained an
increasing visibility considering its achievements
in combatting the global scourge which
originated so close from its shores. A good part of
this success results from the population’s trust in
public authorities and science, and in the
government’s ability to gain support from
religious leaders in preventing pilgrimages and
religious festivals, which risked becoming major
super-spreader events though the island and
beyond (Shan 2020).
Integration of Religious Minorities
Taiwan has a good record at the integration of
religious minorities. The concept of assimilation
does not resonate with the reality of Taiwan
because, as mentioned above, there exists no
religion embraced by most of the population.
Despite the absence of a hegemonic religious
community under the sway of a single spiritual
authority, however, most identify with a
community of shared meaning that practice the
rituals of communal religions, such as ancestor
worship, and occasionally attend religious
services at temples of popular religions or
participate at related events such as festivals,
processions, and pilgrimages (Gries, Su, and
Schak 2012). Two groups, however, do not see
themselves as members of this community: the
adherents of Abrahamic religions, as well
indigenous people. The first group represents a
total of 8 percent of the population, the second
group over 2.5 percent. The first group
comprises two very different populations, of
equal number, but with very contrasting
demographic dynamics: a declining community
of Taiwanese Christians, and Indonesian
migrants, who are mostly Muslims, and most of
whom reside temporarily for a few years. The
practice of inter-religious dialogue initiated since
1994 has contributed to their integration into
the nation.
Cross-cultural Engagement and
Religious Literacy
Regardless of the party in power, successive
Taiwanese governments have expressed an
interest in developing strategies for improving
cross-cultural engagement and religious literacy:
They have succeeded at giving credibility to the
idea that Taiwan is a multicultural society with
different dimensions of diversity: ethnic,
linguistic, and religious. In the last two decades,
the curriculum used in schools teaches about this
diversity at the local level and has shifted away
from a previously nationalistic emphasis that
promoted an idea of Taiwan as a Chinese nation;
so that recent curriculum put more emphasis on
local identities in all their diversities (Jackson
2014). The discussion on multi-culturalism in
Taiwan has included the promotion of interreligious dialogue. This suggests that although
Taiwan is a secular state, its approach to that
constitutional principle is not the same thing as
the assertive or passive forms of separation
between religion and state to which the US and
France are accustomed. The ministry of
education recognizes officially this intermingling
between the spheres of the secular and the
religious though its sponsorship of Confucian
temples, and still shapes the decisions of many
households on the issue of filial piety and elderly
care (Yang 2019).
Freedom of Conscience and Human
Rights
Taiwan now stands out as an example of a
state that respects freedom of religion and
freedom of conscience, and that promotes
human rights—a fact long noted in the annual
the review of faith & international affairs | 47
andré laliberté
international religious freedom reports
produced by the United States Department of
State (AIT 2020). Independent associations for
the promotion of human rights such as
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch,
and Freedom House produce reports that praise
its achievements in respecting political and civic
freedoms and, naturally, religious liberties.
However, most inter-governmental
organizations which have an impact on
international law do not record Taiwan’s
achievements because of its exclusion from the
United Nations’ system that results from the
pressure exercised by the Chinese government
(Huang 2020). Although Taiwanese religious
leaders have proven very savvy until recently in
overcoming that obstacle, playing an influential
role in the international stage, such as the
Buddhist Association of the Republic of China
(BAROC) in the conferences of the World
Buddhist Sangha Council, China has
diminished their participation in recent years
(WBSC 2020).
The Rarity of Violent Religious
Extremism
Except for the uprising mentioned before
during Japanese colonial rule, violent religious
extremism in Taiwan has been rare (Chang
2010). Taiwan has experienced episodes of
violence throughout its history, but they rarely
had a religious origin. Likewise, the religious
traditions that have inspired violence in China
have not found much of a receptive audience in
Taiwan. Even during the worst episodes of stateenforced violence following the island-wide
uprising of February 28th against KMT abuse
and following the different cases of civil society
mobilization against the regime during the 1960s
and 1970s, the government never had reason to
clamp down against religious associations, who
have generally stood aside conflicts. For reasons
of self-preservation, religions have tended to
avoid confrontation with the regime. Moreover,
they often shared the views of the KMT in its
opposition to the PRC. This was the case with
the BAROC, which was a corporate member of
the Asian Anti-Communist League (Jones 1999,
149).
48 | volume 19, number 1 (spring 2021)
Religion-state Relations—
Constitutional, Statutory, and
Regulatory
As mentioned above, during the period of
martial law there was a gap between the claims of
respect for religious freedom spelled out in the
constitutional, statutory, and regulatory
dimensions of relations between the KMT and
religions. Since democratic consolidation became
entrenched, Taiwan saw a subtle change in the
relationship between the government and
religions. The latter have felt emboldened by
their newfound freedom of expression to
reprimand the government on occasion.
Sometimes, they have also expressed views on
politics that have gone against the wish of the
majority on issues such as national identity and
relations with China, or articulated views that
affected minorities, two issues I address in the
third section as possible impediments to
covenantal pluralism. These reservations aside,
the ability of religious leaders and their followers
to make their voice heard in the public sphere
represents a positive development, so long as they
remain within the bounds of peaceful relations
and constructive dialogue with people of other
faith and no faith. The combination of a
government laisse-faire attitude towards religions
and the checks and balances in place preserve
these trends (Kuo 2013).
Economic Development and Integration
It is perhaps in the realm of economic
development and integration that religions in
Taiwan have made the most significant
contribution. Communal religions express local
wealth and as such constitute a good example of
prosperity religions in affluent Taiwanese society
(Hu and Yang 2014). The temples of communal
religions represent the anchor of neighborhoods
and villages, often under the leadership of an
extended family. Popular religions have an even
broader reach that extends nationwide: the cult
for the goddess Matsu, for example, implies a
pilgrimage around the island that brings
together communities. The temples of popular
religions such as those of Long-chuan and
Hsin-tien-kung in Taipei represent major
tourist sites and are part of Taiwan’s historical
taiwan’s covenantal pluralism
and world heritage. In the case of the latter
one, its promotion of filial piety stands as a
good example of how much these sites
contribute to the reproduction of traditional
moral values in a context in which ties within
the family have been tested by rapid social
change. The temples of communal and popular
religions have served Taiwanese for generations
before 1949 and continue to represent an
aspect of heritage that the government
celebrates.
Religious Pluralization and Economic
Globalization
Religious pluralization has two connections
with economic globalization in the most
unexpected ways. At one end, religions of
prosperity such as I-kuan-tao owe their newfound respectability to the fact that important
businesspeople, such as the founder of the global
air transporter Eva Air, Chang Yung-fa, is
affiliated to that religion. That religion, although
unrecognized in China, has found an ambiguous
status in that country, as the authorities of the
Communist Party seek to lure in Taiwanese
investors. At the other end, the reality of growing
pluralization is becoming increasingly visible, as
over 150,000 Muslim Indonesians are live-in
caregivers who work for months or years in
Taiwan, making their religious tradition, with its
dietary, clothing, and liturgical requirements,
more visible than ever (Sampurna 2019).
Religious Involvement in Social Services
and Education
Religious organizations have gotten involved
in various ways in the institutional landscape of
Taiwan’s welfare state for a long time thanks to
their social services and their role in education
(Weller 2006). When Taiwan was a remote
outpost of the Qing Empire and was about to
become a Japanese colony, it did not have much
of an infrastructure for health care, general
education, and the situation was especially dire
for aboriginal people displaced by Chinese
settlers. Christian missionaries saw this situation
as an opportunity for service and expansion, and
besides the Presbyterian Church, other
denominations got involved in the provision of
social services. The defeat of the KMT in China,
which saw a massive exodus to Taiwan of party
members, along with a few soldiers and civil
servants among the refugees, saw the arrival of
many missionaries from the Catholic Church
and many Protestant denominations either
expelled by the Communist Party or fearing
persecution if they were native Chinese. This
influx provided the government with a sizeable
number of people willing to volunteer and set up
hospitals, schools, and other social institutions,
to assist the government while it devoted its
limited resources to ensure the security of the
country and set the stage for its later policy of
development.
This approach of outsourcing to religious
organizations the provision of social services
would prove increasingly unsustainable in the
long run, as the Christians represented a small
—even if well-connected—minority of the
population. Moreover, this small minority
started to stagnate and even shrank, as elder
Christians’ children would not necessarily get
baptized and join churches. This relative
decline opened the door for the emergence of
philanthropy by other religious institutions,
and in particular Buddhists, to which a
plurality of Taiwanese claimed an affiliation
(Hsiao and Schak 2005). These developments,
taken together, make clear that religious
believers and non-believers have enough
common ground to establish the basis of a
robust covenantal pluralism. They may not
agree on many things, but they have a shared
interest in seeing Taiwan develop as a free
society where people care for each other and
are willing to help the most vulnerable. Below I
underline three trends that could test these
bases of covenantal pluralism.
Three Challenges to Covenantal
Pluralism in Taiwan
The Political Pressure of China
Although most Taiwanese agree on national
identity, there exist differences about how close
the Taiwanese government should remain to that
of China. These differences find expression in the
religious sphere. While most Taiwanese see
the review of faith & international affairs | 49
andré laliberté
themselves as either Taiwanese, or Taiwanese
first and then Chinese, very few see themselves as
Chinese first and then Taiwanese, and even less
see themselves as exclusively Chinese, a trend
ongoing for the last 20 years (Danielsen 2012).
The identification of Taiwanese as exclusively
Taiwanese has steadily grown over decades,
regardless of support to the DDP or the KMT.
On relations with China, the differences go deep,
however. Supporters of both parties reject rule by
the CCP, but they vary in their willingness to
maintain relations with China. The original
charter of the DPP committed the party to the
promotion of self-determination and although
the party has stopped short of proclaiming de jure
independence out of pragmatic consideration, it
still expresses caution vis-à-vis China. The KMT,
on the other hand, has long preferred closer
relations to China and its leaders have met on
occasion with those of the CCP. Only in 2020,
with the hardening of the CCP stance towards
Taiwan, did KMT voters become more reluctant
to move closer to China (Kassam and McGregor
2020).
Reflective of these political divisions between
the pan-green (those who support the DPP) and
the pan-blue (those who support the KMT),
Taiwanese religions have adopted very different
approaches on this issue of relations with China.
As suggested before, the PCT has promoted selfdetermination for Taiwan. Many other Christian
churches, whose leaders have been expelled from
China, have also cautioned the Taiwanese
government against a too tight entanglement
with China. The memory of past persecution
after 1949, as well as the ongoing reports of
harassment against members of the “house
churches,” make them reluctant to push for
embrace of China. For some Christian churches,
and most particularly the Catholic Church, the
matter of relations with China poses dilemmas
within. As the Holy See seeks to improve
relations with China, for the sake of the future of
the Catholic Church in that country, Taiwanese
Catholics watch with some apprehension at the
possibility that the Chinese regional bishop’s
conference based in Taipei is ordered to fall into
the fold of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic
Association in Beijing in case both parties reach
50 | volume 19, number 1 (spring 2021)
an agreement over the management of Catholics’
internal affairs, such as the selection of cardinals
(Leung 2018).
The leaders of Buddhist associations have
also changed their perspective on China over the
years. Many of them came from China after
1949 and sided with the KMT in its opposition
to the CCP. During the period of martial law,
they did not oppose the government, with the
rare exception of controversies over the recovery
of temples confiscated by the Japanese (Jones
1999, 169–175). Lay Buddhists, under the
guidance of their leaders, focused on the
modernization of their religious institutions,
promoting scholarship, philanthropy, and social
work, and studiously worked to dissipate any
impression that they support a political party
(Madsen 2007). However, as Taiwan’s
democratic consolidation deepened, it became
increasingly difficult to avoid taking a stand.
Buddhist leaders such as Hsing Yun, the founder
of the Buddha Light Mountain monastery,
hoped to “spread the Dharma” in China
(Chandler 2004). Cheng Yen, the founder of
Tzu Chi, hoped to see Chinese volunteers join
the ranks of her foundation, and to that end she
supported the opening of a branch in Suzhou
(Huang 2009). Anecdotal evidence points to a
possible rift between lay Buddhists, many of
whom support Taiwanese self-determination,
and their leaders who hope for closer relations
with China to achieve their spiritual goals.
The Peril of Moral Intransigence
If religious leaders and their followers have
failed to agree on the issues of national unity and
relations with China, most religious leaders have
agreed on the issue of same-sex marriage,
although it is not clear how much their respective
flocks have supported them. The religious milieu
appeared to show near-unanimity in their
opposition to values embraced by many people
who profess secular values, suggesting a gap has
opened between people who claim an affiliation
to religion and those who do not. For the
proponents of marriage equality, the tone of the
discourse against the legal change permitting
same-sex marriage represented the opposite of
the openness promoted in inter-religious
taiwan’s covenantal pluralism
dialogue. This has revealed the challenges of
establishing a covenantal pluralism that is
inclusive of all worldviews in that society. A
closer look suggests that the division over this
issue goes deeper than a division between
religious believers and secular-minded people.
Same-sex activity has never been illegal in
Taiwanese society, which suggests acceptance of
sexual diversity, well before the issue became
politically salient. Although religious associations
had not paid much attention to matters of
sexuality in the first two decades of
democratization, this changed as public
discussion on the issue of same-sex marriage and
adoption by same-sex couples became salient. In
2013, a group of religious associations found
common cause around their shared opposition to
same-sex marriage and diversified family draft
bills and created the Taiwan Alliance to Protect
Family. In 2015, the fifth Conference on
National Affairs of the Forum of Taiwanese
Pastors’ held by the Taiwan Christian Union
established a political party, the Faith and Hope
League, with the sole purpose of opposing the
legalization of same-sex marriage and pushing for
a referendum that advocated “family protection.”
This came close to making the Christian
minority an outlier to Taiwanese society:
Although religious leaders of other faiths and
some secular leaders supported this party and
spoke out in its favor, none of the 16 candidates
of the party that ran for the general elections in
January 2016 gained a seat.
Although many religious leaders appeared
united in their opposition to same-sex marriage,
giving the impression that opponents were
religious believers and non-religious believers
supportive, there were well-known religious
personalities that came out in favor of same-sex
marriage, and even performed religious
ceremonies for LGBTs before the issue became
salient. Hence the Buddhist nun Chao Hui,
famous throughout the island for her activism for
different causes, officiated at the first wedding
ceremony for a lesbian couple in Taiwan in
August 2012 (Hsu 2012). In 2006, Lu Wi-ming,
a young Taoist priest, established a shrine, the
Rabbit Temple, dedicated to a deity believed to
take care of gays and lesbian. Although the Rabbit
God was the creation of a poet writing during the
Qing Dynasty in the province of Fujian, scholarly
evidence exists of a cult dedicated to that deity in
the 18th century (Szonyi 1998). Although this
issue may die down with the decision by the
courts to allow for same-sex marriage, other issues
appear likely to grow in importance for years to
come as Taiwan’s demography changes.
The Challenge of the Crisis of Care in
an Aging Society
Taiwan has been a victim of its success:
improvements in living conditions and universal
access to healthcare have contributed to a rise in
life expectancy. Combined with a decline in
birthrate, Taiwan has entered since the 1980s
into a rapid demographic transition as an aging
society. The society has realized the price of
earlier choices in limited social welfare and the
resulting shortages in facilities for long-term care.
Since 1992, when President Lee launched a
program to let in temporary migrant live-in
caregivers to look after the elderly, Taiwan has
seen a rise in labor migration to meet these needs.
This temporary labor migration, originally from
the Philippines, comprised mostly Catholics,
which led to a growth in their church as an
institution. I did witness at mass the expression
of solidarity from the Church towards the plight
of migrant workers. However, research on the
topic has not found much in terms of tangible
expression of support from the Church towards
these vulnerable workers (Kuo 2018). This may
reflect a declining community, as the total
number of Filipino migrants diminishes.
Over the years, recruiting and placement
agencies that bring migrant workers to Taiwan
have stopped looking at the Philippines as a
source of labor and turned increasingly to
Indonesia as a source, arguing that Filipino
workers—in all sectors—are too demanding and
therefore less docile (Deng, Wahyuni, and
Yulianto 2020). Most of these migrant workers
toil in the sector of live-in caregiving
(euphemistically classified as “social welfare”),
manufacturing, and fisheries. Although there is
no hard evidence about this, most of them are
not Sino-Indonesian, and therefore unlikely to
share the same religious beliefs as the people they
the review of faith & international affairs | 51
andré laliberté
work for. There is anecdotal evidence of some
the past association of Christian churches with
employers who do not give caregivers a holiday, colonial powers as a handicap. Likewise, they do
so for Filipina, they cannot attend mass on most not express anxiety over Islam, as the religion of a
occasions. One of the abuses reported for
significant proportion of the temporary workers
Muslim caregivers from Indonesia has to do with that serve as live-in caregivers or toil in the
the manipulation of pork, if not its consumption. construction industry. Although Taiwanese
Islamic dietary requirements do not constitute an disagree on many issues, they express these
issue in households that are vegetarian, but this differences through peaceful means, and the
may be an issue for those that consume pork. So attitude of religious leaders has resonated with
far, the growing visibility of a minority whose
those trends. Religious leaders have agreed to
religious practice does not in principle allow for disagree on many issues among themselves, via
polytropy represents a challenge.
the pursuit of inter-religious dialogue. Religious
This obstacle is not unsurmountable, as the
believers and people who do not claim affiliation
adaptation of Islam to the culture of a variety of
to religion may hold even greater divergences of
countries has demonstrated over centuries. The
views, but all agree ultimately on the fact that
issue is not so much about
religions have contributed
whether Muslims can adapt to
significantly to the common
PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT
Taiwanese society, in the end,
good by looking after the
FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE
but rather how likely are
poor and vulnerable people.
Taiwanese to accept these new
Moreover, they all see the
AND SEE THE MERIT OF
aspects of religious diversity if
merits of religious freedom
COVENANTAL PLURALISM
the Indonesian temporary labor
and the secular institutions
HAVE IN TAIWAN A CLEAR
migration turns over time into a
that guarantee them.
REBUTTAL TO THE THEORY
more permanent trend.
Taiwan stands out as
Although Taiwanese have
uniquely
well-placed to
THAT FREEDOM OF
proven accepting of religious
promote
covenantal
CONSCIENCE IS A WESTERN
diversity because of the
pluralism. There are no
CONCEIT INCOMPATIBLE
polytropic nature of their
reasons to see this situation
WITH ASIAN VALUES
religious practices, and although
changing if Taiwan remains
they have been accepting of the
a de facto sovereign country.
Abrahamic religions because they were the faith of This de facto sovereignty, challenged with
fellow persecuted Chinese who were close to them increasing stridency by China, is however
linguistically and culturally, the presence of
precarious. Countries which enforce policies
Muslims who are linguistically and culturally
limiting freedom of conscience are more likely to
different represents uncharted territory. Only time side with China and see the example of Taiwan as
will tell if Taiwan’s covenantal pluralism will
a rebuttal to their legitimacy. On the other hand,
embrace these new sources of differences. The
people who care about freedom of conscience and
evidence of incidents against migrant workers
see the merit of covenantal pluralism have in
from Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam suggests Taiwan a clear rebuttal to the theory that freedom
that this should not be taken for granted (Chuang of conscience is a Western conceit incompatible
2018).
with Asian values. Most importantly, Taiwanese,
as the first ones concerned, are all too aware that
the so-called re-education campaign against
Conclusion
Taiwan represents a rare case of a society
Muslim Uyghurs, and the persecution against the
where covenantal pluralism thrives. No religious followers of “evil cults” and house churches, and
more alarmingly, against Buddhist and Taoist
group experiences repression from the state or
faces rejection or hostility from the population. sites, go against their deeply held values. China’s
Groups like Falungong, persecuted in China, can long-term goal is to fully re-incorporate Taiwan
develop without fear. Taiwanese do not look at into its regime, but one of the most baffling
52 | volume 19, number 1 (spring 2021)
taiwan’s covenantal pluralism
dimensions of the CCP policy on religion, which
is the opposite of nurturing covenantal pluralism,
is that it is not likely to “win the hearts and
minds” of Taiwanese. v
Acknowledgements
This article is part of this journal’s Covenantal Pluralism Series, a project generously supported via a grant to the Institute for Global
Engagement from the Templeton Religion Trust.
About the Author
André Laliberté is Professor at the School of Political Studies and Co-Director of the Research Chair in Taiwan Studies at the University
of Ottawa. His research interests include the role of religions in the shaping of social policies in East Asia and state-religion relations
in Chinese societies. He has written The Politics of Buddhist Organizations in Taiwan, 1989–2003 (Routledge 2004), and many articles
on religion and democratization in Taiwan.
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