{"title":"Buddhist Meditation and Generosity to Chinese Buddhists during the COVID-19 Pandemic","authors":"Ampere A. Tseng (曾安培)","doi":"10.1163/22143955-12340006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22143955-12340006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article studies the practices of meditation and generosity among Chinese Buddhists in 2020 during the COVID-19 outbreak to provide insight into the interplay of religion, faith, well-being, and the pandemic more broadly, as well as to understand the specific ways in which Chinese Buddhists may draw on their faith to combat the ill effects of the pandemic. In particular, we trace the experience of Chinese Buddhists in mainland China, Taiwan, the United States, and other countries, identifying two popular Buddhist practices: meditation and generosity. We study their motivation for those practices, and the different ways Buddhist sites have sought to remain active in offering services to followers. We explore the role of faith in nurturing resiliency in the Chinese Buddhist community and conclude with specific recommendations for the prosperity of Chinese Buddhism during a pandemic and for leveraging specific tenets of the faith to reduce pandemic risks.","PeriodicalId":29882,"journal":{"name":"Review of Religion and Chinese Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45658687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mapping Religious Sites in China: A Research Note","authors":"Jackie Henke, Fenggang Yang (楊鳳崗)","doi":"10.1163/22143955-12340008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22143955-12340008","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Drawing from visual studies scholarship, we highlight current and persistent critiques of sociological visualization, note recent developments in visualization tools for sociologists, and propose how sociologists can be reflective about their visualization choices. As a case study, we outline the visualization development and selection process in our project of mapping Chinese religious venues. We explain the visualization challenges we faced, the visual biases we hoped to manage, the strengths and limitations of various visualization methods we identified, and how we selected visualizations for varying research queries. In addition, we provide a list of considerations for fellow sociologists working to visualize geospatial point data.","PeriodicalId":29882,"journal":{"name":"Review of Religion and Chinese Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44215263","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hymns and the Singing Community: The Formation of the Canaan Hymns in Contemporary Chinese Churches","authors":"Songzan Xu, Xiaoli Yang","doi":"10.1163/22143955-12340004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22143955-12340004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article studies the formation of the Canaan Hymns (Jianan shige\u0000 迦南诗歌) in relation to the history of the contemporary Chinese indigenous church. Over the last thirty years, Lü Xiaomin (吕小敏, 1970–) has composed more than two thousand hymns. They reflect not only her own personal life and evangelism, but also the growth of the Fangcheng Fellowship (方城团契) in Henan Province from a local home gathering to a national mission movement. Through textual studies, interviews, and archival research, this article examines how local congregants adopted Lü’s hymns, which are distinct from both western traditional hymns and Chinese rural spiritual songs (lingge\u0000 灵歌). These hymns represent a unique form of theological meaning-making within the indigenous church movement and serve as a pointer to the Chinese understanding of missio Dei as a whole.","PeriodicalId":29882,"journal":{"name":"Review of Religion and Chinese Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45346279","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Seekers and Seers: Lay Buddhists and Buddhist Revival in Rural China","authors":"Shin-yi Chao (趙昕毅)","doi":"10.1163/22143955-12340007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22143955-12340007","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper explores lay Buddhism in contemporary rural North China through investigating the practice and practitioners of “Buddha-chanting” (nianfo\u0000 念佛) in relation to local religion, monastic Buddhism, and spirit mediums. The nianfo groups are led by and consist of ordinary villagers, overwhelmingly female. They meet in private houses or village temples of local deities. The groups are not subject to the authority of clergy, but individual group members, especially the leaders, may maintain a close relationship with a Buddhist monastery. These individuals are a link from monastic Buddhism to the Buddhist masses in villages, and the nianfo groups are the nexus of the networks. Members of the nianfo groups have a clear sense of being Buddhist while they also participate in activities of local religion. In addition, village spirit mediums, with whom the villagers often consult during crises, command some influence. They have also played a consequential role in the process of restoring Buddhism in the area.","PeriodicalId":29882,"journal":{"name":"Review of Religion and Chinese Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48832977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Toward a Chinese Buddhist Modernism: Khenpo Sodargye and the Han Inundation of Larung Gar","authors":"Andrew S. Taylor (唐安竺)","doi":"10.1163/22143955-12340005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22143955-12340005","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Larung Gar is often hailed by scholars and practitioners alike as a last bastion of authentic Buddhist practice by ethnic Tibetans within the PRC. And yet, Larung is visited every year by tens of thousands of Han pilgrims and houses hundreds of Han monastics who have taken vows in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The author draws on a variety of oral and written sources to show that the Han inundation of Larung was not a byproduct of happenstance, but was actively facilitated by the Larung leadership, especially Khenpo Sodargye (མཁན་པོ་བསོད་དར་རྒྱས་\u0000 索达吉堪布), through the targeted recruitment of Han practitioners. A comparative analysis of Tibetan- and Chinese-language materials shows that the neo-scientific and therapeutic teachings used to recruit Han practitioners superficially resemble similar “Buddhist modernist” discourses in the west and Tibet, but that their content is decidedly more soteriological than this moniker suggests. The article considers whether the encounter between Han practitioners and Tibetan Buddhism might eventually represent a nascent form of inter-ethnic Chinese Buddhist modernism.","PeriodicalId":29882,"journal":{"name":"Review of Religion and Chinese Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45199040","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and Its Changing Narrative on Human Rights","authors":"Magdaléna Rychetská","doi":"10.1163/22143955-08020014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22143955-08020014","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (pct) is the Protestant denomination with the longest tradition in the country. The central theological position of the church began to change in the late 1960s, and over the following decade the church became increasingly politically active and vocal in its support for human rights, minority rights, and democratization. This paper addresses the issue of human rights as narrated within the pct, which explained its involvement in human rights with reference to its Christian beliefs. One outcome of the church’s endeavors was that the people of Taiwan accepted the struggle initiated by the church and began to ask for free elections. Using the pct as an example, the paper shows that religious bodies have the potential to be a positive force for change in society and that a Christian perspective on human rights can contribute to secular discourse on the topic.","PeriodicalId":29882,"journal":{"name":"Review of Religion and Chinese Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44989196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Religious Commodities or Cultural Elements?","authors":"Kai Shmushko","doi":"10.1163/22143955-08020015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22143955-08020015","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article is a case study of a lay Buddhist community that employs a business model called “living hall” (Shenghuo guan 生活馆) to facilitate the practice of Tibetan Buddhism among its members. The living hall model is explored in the context of the politics of religion in the People’s Republic of China (prc) and the dynamics of Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese in the past decades. The author investigates the model’s origin, its implementation in a contemporary Buddhist community, and its interaction with the discourse on Buddhism in the prc. The article joins a recent academic endeavor to illuminate the different modalities in which lay practitioners carry out Buddhist practice outside the sphere of institutionalized Buddhism. The article sheds light on the delicate dynamics between religion and state control in the prc and the role of entrepreneurs and materiality within lay Tibetan Buddhism.","PeriodicalId":29882,"journal":{"name":"Review of Religion and Chinese Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45483576","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Buddhist Revitalization and Chinese Religions in Malaysia. By Tan Lee Ooi","authors":"Jeffrey D. Samuels","doi":"10.1163/22143955-08020012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22143955-08020012","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29882,"journal":{"name":"Review of Religion and Chinese Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41820080","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Envisioning an Ideal Christian Family in Republican China","authors":"Yun Zhou","doi":"10.1163/22143955-08020006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22143955-08020006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Amid debates and discussions on the institution of the family in Republican China, foreign missionaries and Chinese Christians played an active role in promoting an ideal Christian family. This article investigates the three waves of prominent theological thinking that underpinned changing ideals of the Christian family throughout the Republican period: Chinese society’s encounter with the gendered ethics of the Christian community in the early Republican period, discussions of domesticity by Chinese Christians amid the social gospel movements of the 1920s, and discussions of domesticity during the National Christianizing the Home Movement. An exploration of Christian publications on domesticity points to a gendered perspective on women’s domestic roles as well as a male-dominated theological construct that attempted to reconfigure the notion of the Chinese Christian family. The discourse on the ideal Chinese Christian family had both secular and spiritual dimensions, shaped by the dynamic transnational flow of ideas and the development of local theological thinking.","PeriodicalId":29882,"journal":{"name":"Review of Religion and Chinese Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46023330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Christianizing the Home Movement","authors":"Amy R. M. O'Keefe","doi":"10.1163/22143955-08020007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22143955-08020007","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The ecumenical National Christian Council of China (ncc) was the institutional home to an important religious and social campaign: the Christianizing the Home Movement. This article traces the development of this movement from the ncc’s founding in 1922 until the Second World War disrupted its activity. This home- and family-centered movement was a site of female empowerment, and the expansive topics it addressed show women’s desires to serve and lead in a broad set of arenas. This article shows how the Chinese women who led the Christianizing the Home Movement built and shaped a movement and describes the nationwide network of leaders that carried it out, promoting an ideal of Christian family that was culturally informed and progressive.","PeriodicalId":29882,"journal":{"name":"Review of Religion and Chinese Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48697327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}