The Buddhist Revival in China

The Buddhist Revival in China PDF Author: Holmes Welch
Publisher: Cambridge : Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674085701
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description
Of all the world's major religions, Chinese Buddhism has probably experienced the most traumatic modernization. Less than forty years have separated the self-contained Manchu Empire from the establishment of a Communist state. The consequences are described in this book. Holmes Welch offers the first detailed account of the careers of recent Buddhist leaders and of the diverse organization they started. Eighteen Chinese Buddhist associations are identified as the author traces the struggle for national leadership. The role of T'ai-hsii, the leader best known to Western readers but not, it is shown, among Buddhists, is given a controversial reassessment. After examining the main features of the revival, Welch puts them into a larger political framework. In the process, he offers copious evidence that our picture of Chinese Buddhism has been distorted. What has been termed a "revival" was actually a secular reorientation. The author's conclusion is that this secularization, vigorous as it was, in reality foreshadowed the decline of Chinese Buddhism as a living religion.

The Buddhist Revival in China

The Buddhist Revival in China PDF Author: Holmes Welch
Publisher: Cambridge : Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674085701
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 426

Get Book Here

Book Description
Of all the world's major religions, Chinese Buddhism has probably experienced the most traumatic modernization. Less than forty years have separated the self-contained Manchu Empire from the establishment of a Communist state. The consequences are described in this book. Holmes Welch offers the first detailed account of the careers of recent Buddhist leaders and of the diverse organization they started. Eighteen Chinese Buddhist associations are identified as the author traces the struggle for national leadership. The role of T'ai-hsii, the leader best known to Western readers but not, it is shown, among Buddhists, is given a controversial reassessment. After examining the main features of the revival, Welch puts them into a larger political framework. In the process, he offers copious evidence that our picture of Chinese Buddhism has been distorted. What has been termed a "revival" was actually a secular reorientation. The author's conclusion is that this secularization, vigorous as it was, in reality foreshadowed the decline of Chinese Buddhism as a living religion.

End of an Era

End of an Era PDF Author: Carl Minzner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190672099
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
China's reform era is ending. Core factors that characterized it-political stability, ideological openness, and rapid economic growth-are unraveling. Since the 1990s, Beijing's leaders have firmly rejected any fundamental reform of their authoritarian one-party political system, and on the surface, their efforts have been a success. But as Carl Minzner shows, a closer look at China's reform era reveals a different truth. Over the past three decades, a frozen political system has fueled both the rise of entrenched interests within the Communist Party itself, and the systematic underdevelopment of institutions of governance among state and society at large. Economic cleavages have widened. Social unrest has worsened. Ideological polarization has deepened. Now, to address these looming problems, China's leaders are progressively cannibalizing institutional norms and practices that have formed the bedrock of the regime's stability in the reform era. End of an Era explains how China arrived at this dangerous turning point, and outlines the potential outcomes that could result.

The Souls of China

The Souls of China PDF Author: Ian Johnson
Publisher: Pantheon
ISBN: 1101870052
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
From the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist: a revelatory portrait of religion in China today, its history, the spiritual traditions of its Eastern and Western faiths, and the ways in which it is influencing China's future. Following a century of violent antireligious campaigns, China is now awash with new temples, churches, and mosques as well as cults, sects, and politicians trying to harness religion for their own ends. Driving this explosion of faith is uncertainty over what it means to be Chinese, and how to live an ethical life in a country that discarded traditional morality a century ago and is still searching for new guideposts. Ian Johnson lived for extended periods with underground church members, rural Daoists, and Buddhist pilgrims. He has distilled these experiences into a cycle of festivals, births, deaths, detentions, and struggle a great awakening of faith that is shaping the soul of the world s newest superpower. (With black-and-white illustrations throughout).

China's New Red Guards

China's New Red Guards PDF Author: Jude Blanchette
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190605847
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
In China's New Red Guards, Jude Blanchette illuminates two trends in contemporary China that point to its revival of Mao Zedong's legacy-a development that he argues will result in a more authoritarian and more militaristic China. This book not only will reshape our understanding of the political forces driving contemporary China, it will also demonstrates how ideologies can survive and prosper despite pervasive rumors of their demise.

The Awakening

The Awakening PDF Author: Marie Monsen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781937428013
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 96

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Book Description
REVIVAL! It was a long time coming. For twenty long years Marie Monsen prayed for revival in China. She had heard reports of how God's Spirit was being poured out in abundance in other countries, particularly in nearby Korea; so she began praying for funds to be able to travel there in order to bring back some of the glowing coals to her own mission field. But that was not God's way. The still, small voice of God seemed to whisper, "What is happening in Korea can happen in China if you will pay the price in prayer." Marie Monsen took up the challenge and gave her solemn promise: "Then I will pray until I receive." The Awakening is Miss Monsen's own vivid account of the revival that came in answer to prayer. Leslie Lyall calls her the "pioneer" of the revival movement-the handmaiden upon whom the Spirit was first poured out. He writes: "Her surgical skill in exposing the sins hidden within the Church and lurking behind the smiling exterior of many a trusted Christian-even many a trusted Christian leader-and her quiet insistence on a clear-cut experience of the new birth set the pattern for others to follow." The emphasis in these pages is on the place given to prayer both before and during the revival, as well as on the necessity of self-emptying, confession, and repentance in order to make way for the infilling of the Spirit. One of the best ways to stir ourselves up to pray for revival in our own generation is to read the accounts of past awakenings, such as those found in the pages of this book. Surely God is looking for those in every generation who will solemnly take up the challenge and say, with Marie Monsen, "I will pray until I receive."

The Battle for China's Spirit

The Battle for China's Spirit PDF Author: Sarah Cook
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538106116
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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Book Description
The Battle for China’s Spirit is the first comprehensive analysis of its kind, focusing on seven major religious groups in China that together account for over 350 million believers: Chinese Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Tibetan Buddhism, and Falun Gong. The study examines the evolution of the Communist Party’s policies of religious control, how they are applied differently to diverse faith communities, and how citizens are responding to these policies. The study—which draws on hundreds of official documents and interviews with religious leaders, lay believers, and scholars—finds that Chinese government controls over religion have intensified since November 2012, seeping into new areas of daily life. Yet millions of religious believers defy official restrictions or engage in some form of direct protest, at times scoring significant victories. The report explores how these dynamics affect China’s overall social, political, and economic environment, while offering recommendations to both the Chinese government and international actors for how to increase the space for peaceful religious practice in a country where spirituality has been deeply embedded in its culture for millennia.

Rising China and Its Postmodern Fate

Rising China and Its Postmodern Fate PDF Author: Charles Horner
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820333344
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
As China debates its past, how will it define its future? In this work, Horner offers a different interpretation of how China's changed view of its modern historical experience has also changed China's understanding of its long intellectual and cultural tradition.

Religious Revival in the Tibetan Borderlands

Religious Revival in the Tibetan Borderlands PDF Author: Koen Wellens
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295801557
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
Revival of religious practices of all sorts in China, after decades of systematic government suppression, is a topic of considerable interest to scholars in disciplines ranging from religious studies to anthropology to political science. This book examines contemporary religious practices among the Premi people of the Sichuan-Yunnan-Tibet area, a group of about 60,000 who speak a language belonging to the Qiang branch of Tibeto-Burman. Koen Wellens's ethnographic research in two Premi communities on opposite sides of the border, and his analysis of available historical documents, find multiple advocates and rationales for the revival of both formal Tibetan Buddhism and the indigenous Premi practices centered on ritual specialists called anji. Wellens argues that the variety in the shape the revitalization process takes--as it affects Premi on the Sichuan side of the border and their counterparts on the Yunnan side--can only be understood in a local cultural context. This full-length study of the Premi, the first in a language other than Chinese, makes a valuable contribution to our ethnographic knowledge of Southwest China, as well as to our understanding of contemporary Chinese religious and cultural politics.

China's Leaders

China's Leaders PDF Author: David Shambaugh
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509546529
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China over 70 years ago, five paramount leaders have shaped the fates and fortunes of the nation and the ruling Chinese Communist Party: Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping. Under their leaderships, China has undergone an extraordinary transformation from an undeveloped and insular country to a comprehensive world power. In this definitive study, renowned Sinologist David Shambaugh offers a refreshing account of China’s dramatic post-revolutionary history through the prism of those who ruled it. Exploring the persona, formative socialization, psychology, and professional experiences of each leader, Shambaugh shows how their differing leadership styles and tactics of rule shaped China domestically and internationally: Mao was a populist tyrant, Deng a pragmatic Leninist, Jiang a bureaucratic politician, Hu a technocratic apparatchik, and Xi a modern emperor. Covering the full scope of these leaders’ personalities and power, this is an illuminating guide to China’s modern history and understanding how China has become the superpower of today.

Song and Silence

Song and Silence PDF Author: Sara Leila Margaret Davis
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231135270
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
In the Sipsongpanna region of China, tourists watch festive displays of Tai Lüe folk song and dance. The Tai Lües are viewed by the Chinese government as a 'model minority'. Sara Davis describes how Tai Lües are reviving and reinventing their culture in ways that contest the official state version.