Religion In Taiwan

This paper seeks to explore how the religious movement Yiguandao (“Way of Pervading Unity”) is building a transnational and transcultural network through its global missionary work. Building on ethnographic data from fieldwork conducted in Taiwan, Austria, South Africa, the US, and Japan in 2016–2018 as well as on published Yiguandao materials and online resources, this contribution seeks to explore the global spread of Yiguandao from three different angles: first, by exploring the overall development of Yiguandao’s global proselytization from the mid-1940s to the present; second, by taking a micro look at the history and activities of a particular congregation belonging to Andong division and located in Vienna, Austria; and third, by analyzing six patterns of transnational development and transculturation.

Traditionally in Taiwan death is not considered the terminal moment of a person life, but throughout specific rituals of passage, it is a way to get a different status, the status of ancestors. Ancestors still live with their descendants, very often they influence descends life in order to satisfy their needs, on the other hand they need to be worshiped by their descendants. The rich rituals performed during funerals,
the ancestors’ worship ceremonies, as well as the festivity of the tomb sweeping day can be considerate as a demonstration of these relationships between those who are already dead and those who are still alive.

Nowadays the constant and rapid modernization/westernization of Taiwanese society gets in contrast with these traditional concepts linked with death. Ancestors are directly linked with a family, which ancestor should be venerated by the children of those who are divorced? How can those who work all day long, and even during the night, take daily care of their ancestors’ tablets as prescribed by the tradition? How it is possible to combine the popular belief
that one of the souls will follow the body inside the grave with the new law made by Taipei City government that, due to the lack of space, requires the cremation of the corpse? What is the answer of the society and of the traditional cultural system to these questions?

This article will argue that these problems are not felt and resolved as social problems, but uniquely as personal problems that need personal solutions.
In this way this more and more modern society still preserves its old cultural environment. In this way this article will try to challenge the functionalist interpretation that many scholars did talking about Chinese Folk Religion.

An account of religion in Taiwan from the Qing (1644-1895) to the Japanese colonial (1895-1945) periods as they dealt with political changes and modernity.
Citation: Religion in Modern Taiwan: Tradition and Innovation in a Changing Society. ed. Charles B. Jones and Philip Clart. University of Hawai’i Press, 2003. p. 10-35.

Bodhisattva Kshitigarbha in the cultural space of a traditional Chinese temple: on the example of the Titsang-an Temple in Hsinchuang 新莊地藏庵. [In Russian].
Original title in Russian: Бодхисаттва Кшитигарбха в культурном пространстве традиционного китайского храма: на примере храма Дицзанъань в Синьчжуане

It's my report at the International Conference "Chinese language and culture in a globalized world" (Elista, Republic of Kalmykia, Russia; Kalmyk State University, October 15-18, 2019).
Мой доклад «Бодхисаттва Кшитигарбха в культурном пространстве традиционного китайского храма: на примере храма Дицзанъань в Синьчжуане», представленный на международную научную конференцию в Элисте, Республика Калмыкия (Калмыцкий государственный университет, 15-18 октября 2019 г.).

Для цитирования:
Филонов, С.В. Бодхисаттва Кшитигарбха в культурном пространстве традиционного китайского храма: на примере храма Дицзанъань в Синьчжуане // Один пояс – один путь: Образование, наука, культура. Материалы II Международного форума (15-18 октября 2019 г., Калмыцкий государственный университет). — Элиста: Изд. Калмыцкого университета, 2019. — С. 76-81.

Based on almost a decade of fieldwork and a cross-disciplinary approach (anthropology, sociology, history), this book explores the popular China revival of Confucianism that has taken place in China since the beginning of the twenty-first century. It does not primarily focus on intellectual or normative discourses but on the reappropriation and reinvention of popular practices in society. Analyzing empirically cases and narratives of activists involved in this “revival,” it attempts to understand their motivations, aspirations, difficulties, and achievements, as well as their ambiguous relation to Chinese politics. The Confucian revival is studied within the broader context of emerging challenges to Western categories (religion, philosophy, science etc) and great modernization narratives that prevailed throughout the twentieth century. Finally, by means of a comparison between state cults carried out in both Mainland China and Taiwan the book discusses the articulation of the political and the religious and, beyond that, the contemporary fate of the Chinese cosmological tradition.

Winner of the 2015 Bernheim Prize for the History of Religion (Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Institut de France)

This article examines the rise and fall of a Daoist master in southern Taiwan. It is divided into three sections: 1) an account of a day and a night spent with the Daoist Master, 2) follow-up interviews with one of his patrons in which she becomes disillusioned with the master, and 3) an analysis of ritual as moral fantasy and individual agency. In the third section I address the factors that made the religious master successful and the events that eventually led to his downfall. I also argue that the performative nature of religious ritual adds to the worshipper's sense of individual agency, thus placing her or him in a moral fantasy in which that person becomes the hero of a created drama. This, I suggest, emphasizes some of the more individualistic elements of Chinese religious belief and practice that have not fully been explored.

一貫道最早向國外傳播的地方是韓國與日本．到現在為止，兩國一貫道已經通過七十多年的本地化，這樣的過程中跨文化發展已經很明顯．本文探討一貫道或是說屬於所謂「先天大道系統」的宗教團體在日本的發展與現況．本文以本地的「天道」與「道德會館」為例，介紹一貫道日本化的一些方面，包括語言、人員、組織、儀式、宗教實踐（religious practice）等．天道是1949年被台灣天道（師兄派）天浩總壇領導人員在神戶成立的，1983年以後分裂出來的當地日式宗教團體．道德會館原來是1940年代從天津道德壇傳播出來的，1972年第一代前人王建東歸空、當地日本人當前人以後也歸屬日式宗教團體．通過兩個月的田野調查（2018年4月～6月）與歷史研究方式，本文介紹關於一貫道在日本跨文化過程的一些思考．

My chapter presents the existing research among Western and Taiwanese scholars writing in English on the relations between religion and politics in Taiwan. Its structure reflects existing debates in two distinct but interrelated phenomena: the emergence of a Taiwanese identity; and the transition to democracy. I preface the presentation of the above topics with a brief expose of the present situation as it pertains to the participation of religious actors in the politics of Taiwan, and notes the challenge of establishing a scholarship about religion and political change in Taiwanese society that is distinct from the scholarship on the relation between state and religion in China. In the section on religions and the politics of Taiwanese identity, I pay attention to the research on popular religions, highlight the scholarship about the role of the Presbyterian Church, and mention the contribution about the influence of Buddhist institutions. In the second section on the politics of democratization, I note the works on the decline of the state regulation of religion, discuss the findings on the limited influence of Confucianism, and the literature about the inconsistent attitude displayed by Christian denominations and Buddhist organizations, before concluding with the future area of research, in regards to the role of religions in philanthropy, gender issues, and alternate futures.

This paper takes up a vegetarian sect (zhaijiao) in Taiwan from the nineteenth century to the present, arguing that its adoption of Buddhist rituals led to a complete transformation and eventual dissolution of the sect. Founded in 1837 by members of the vegetarian Dragon Flower Sect (Longhuapai), the Dehua hall in Tainan began to incorporate Buddhist rituals in order to expand membership in the early to mid twentieth century. In this process, sect initiation, recitation, and funeral rituals were rejected in favor of more open and ordinary Buddhist ones, which led to a drastic expansion of non-initiated members. These new members have had little interest in sect doctrine or ritual, however, and regard themselves as Buddhists and part of the larger Buddhist community. In this way, although the sect still exists in name under the organization of the Dehua hall, most members no longer consider it a sect community, but rather part of the larger Buddhist community. The only difference from Buddhism, then, is merely the presence of older members who joined the hall as Longhua, and who maintain a lay organization rather than monastic. This case shows how the abandoning of sect rituals in favor of Buddhist ones has led to a loss of communal identity and will ultimately lead to the complete dissolution of the sect.