Text and Context in the Modern History of Chinese Religions

Text and Context in the Modern History of Chinese Religions PDF Author: Philip Clart
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004424164
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Text and Context in the Modern History of Chinese Religions is an edited volume (Philip Clart, David Ownby, and Wang Chien-ch’uan) offering essays on the modern history of redemptive societies in China and Vietnam, with a particular focus on their textual production.

Text and Context in the Modern History of Chinese Religions

Text and Context in the Modern History of Chinese Religions PDF Author: Philip Clart
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004424164
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Text and Context in the Modern History of Chinese Religions is an edited volume (Philip Clart, David Ownby, and Wang Chien-ch’uan) offering essays on the modern history of redemptive societies in China and Vietnam, with a particular focus on their textual production.

Chinese Theology

Chinese Theology PDF Author: Chloë Starr
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300224931
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
This major new study examines the history of Chinese theologies as they have navigated dynastic change, anti-imperialism, and the heights of Maoist propaganda In this groundbreaking and authoritative study, Chloë Starr explores key writings of Chinese Christian intellectuals, from philosophical dialogues of the late imperial era to sermons and micro blogs of theological educators and pastors in the twenty-first century. Through a series of close textual readings, she sheds new light on the fraught issues of Chinese Christian identity and the evolving question of how Christianity should relate to Chinese society.

The Cambridge Companion to Religion and War

The Cambridge Companion to Religion and War PDF Author: Margo Kitts
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108858325
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 487

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Book Description
This Companion offers a global, comparative history of the interplay between religion and war from ancient times to the present. Moving beyond sensationalist theories that seek to explain why 'religion causes war,' the volume takes a thoughtful look at the connection between religion and war through a variety of lenses - historical, literary, and sociological-as well as the particular features of religious war. The twenty-three carefully nuanced and historically grounded chapters comprehensively examine the religious foundations for war, classical just war doctrines, sociological accounts of religious nationalism, and featured conflicts that illustrate interdisciplinary expressions of the intertwining of religion and war. Written by a distinguished, international team of scholars, whose essays were specially commissioned for this volume, The Cambridge Companion to Religion and War will be an indispensable resource for students and scholars of the history and sociology of religion and war, as well as other disciplines.

Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face

Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face PDF Author: Christine Mollier
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824861698
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Christine Mollier reveals in this volume previously unexplored dimensions of the interaction between Buddhism and Taoism in medieval China. While scholars of Chinese religions have long recognized the mutual influences linking the two traditions, Mollier here brings to light their intense contest for hegemony in the domains of scripture and ritual. Drawing on a far-reaching investigation of canonical texts, together with manuscript sources from Dunhuang and the monastic libraries of Japan—many of them studied here for the first time—she demonstrates the competition and complementarity of the two great Chinese religions in their quest to address personal and collective fears of diverse ills, including sorcery, famine, and untimely death. In this context, Buddhist apocrypha and Taoist scriptures were composed through a process of mutual borrowing, yielding parallel texts, Mollier argues, that closely mirrored one another. Life-extending techniques, astrological observances, talismans, spells, and the use of effigies and icons to resolve the fundamental preoccupations of medieval society were similarly incorporated in both religions. In many cases, as a result, one and the same body of material can be found in both Buddhist and Taoist guises. Among the exorcistic, prophylactic, and therapeutic ritual methods explored here in detail are the "Heavenly Kitchens" that grant divine nutrition to their adepts, incantations that were promoted to counteract bewitchment, as well as talismans for attaining longevity and the protection of stellar deities. The destiny of the Jiuku Tianzun, the Taoist bodhisattva whose salvific mission and iconography were modeled on Guanyin (Avalokitesvara), is examined at length. Through the case-studies set forth here, the patterns whereby medieval Buddhists and Taoists each appropriated and transformed for their own use the rites and scriptures oftheir rivals are revealed with unprecedented precision. Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face is abundantly illustrated with drawings and diagrams from canonical and manuscript sources, together with art and artifacts photographed by the author in the course of her field research in China. Sophisticated in its analysis, broad in its synthesis of a variety of difficult material, and original in its interpretations, it will be required reading for those interested in East Asian religions and in the history of the medieval Chinese sciences, including astrology, medicine and divination.

Communicating with the Gods

Communicating with the Gods PDF Author: Matthias Schumann
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004677909
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 672

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Book Description
Few religious innovations have shaped Chinese history like the emergence of spirit-writing during the Song dynasty. From a divinatory technique it evolved into a complex ritual practice used to transmit messages and revelations from the Gods. This resulted in the production of countless religious scriptures that now form an essential corpus, widely venerated and recited to this day, that is still largely untapped by research. Using historical and ethnographic approaches, this volume for the first time offers a comprehensive overview of the history of spirit-writing, examining its evolution over a millennium, the practices and technologies used, and the communities involved.

From Trustworthiness to Secular Beliefs

From Trustworthiness to Secular Beliefs PDF Author: Christian Meyer
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004533001
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 662

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Book Description
This volume excavates the genealogy of xin 信—a term that has become the modern Chinese counterpart for the English word “faith.” More than twenty experts trace its religious and non-religious roots in several traditions, including Confucian, Buddhist, Daoist, Muslim, Christian, Japanese, popular religious, and modern secular contexts.

Gendering Chinese Religion

Gendering Chinese Religion PDF Author: Jinhua Jia
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438453078
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
A gender-critical consideration of women and religion in Chinese traditions from medieval to modern times. Gendering Chinese Religion marks the emergence of a subfield on women, gender, and religion in China studies. Ranging from the medieval period to the present day, this volume departs from the conventional and often male-centered categorization of Chinese religions into Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, and popular religion. It makes two compelling arguments. First, Chinese women have deployed specific religious ideas and rituals to empower themselves in various social contexts. Second, gendered perceptions and representations of Chinese religions have been indispensable to the historical and contemporary construction of social and political power. The contributors use innovative ways of discovering and applying a rich variety of sources, many previously ignored by scholars. While each of the chapters in this interdisciplinary work represents a distinct perspective, together they form a coherent dialogue about the historical importance, intellectual possibilities, and methodological protocols of this new subfield.

Making the Gods Speak

Making the Gods Speak PDF Author: Vincent Goossaert
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684176530
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
For two millennia, Chinese society has been producing divine revelations on an unparalleled scale, in multifarious genres and formats. This book is the first comprehensive attempt at accounting for the processes of such production. It builds a typology of the various ritual techniques used to make gods present and allow them to speak or write, and it follows the historical development of these types and the revealed teachings they made possible. Within the large array of visionary, mediumistic, and mystical techniques, Vincent Goossaert devotes the bulk of his analysis to spirit-writing, a family of rites that appeared around the eleventh century and gradually came to account for the largest numbers of books and tracts ascribed to the gods. In doing so, he shows that the practice of spirit-writing must be placed within the framework of techniques used by ritual specialists to control human communications with gods and spirits for healing, divining, and self-divinization, among other purposes. Making the Gods Speak thus offers a ritual-centered framework to study revelation in Chinese cultural history and comparatively with the revelatory practices of other religious traditions.

The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy

The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy PDF Author: Hugh B. Urban
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000556182
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 621

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Book Description
Secrecy is a central and integral component of all religious traditions. Not limited simply to religious groups that engage in clandestine activities such as hidden rites of initiation or terrorism, secrecy is inherent in the very fabric of religion itself. Its importance has perhaps never been more acutely relevant than in our own historical moment. In the wake of 9/11 and other acts of religious violence, we see the rise of invasive national security states that target religious minorities and pose profound challenges to the ideals of privacy and religious freedom, accompanied by the resistance by many communities to such efforts. As such, questions of secrecy, privacy, surveillance, and security are among the most central and contested issues of twenty-first century religious life. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy is the definitive reference source for the key topics, problems, and debates in this crucial field and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising twenty-nine chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into five parts: Configurations of Religious Secrecy: Conceptual and Comparative Frameworks Secrecy as Religious Practice Secrecy and the Politics of the Present Secrecy and Social Resistance Secrecy, Terrorism, and Surveillance. This cutting-edge volume discusses secrecy in relation to major categories of religious experience and individual religious practices while also examining the transformations of secrecy in the modern period, including the rise of fraternal orders, the ongoing wars on terror, the rise of far-right white supremacist groups, increasing concerns over religious freedom and privacy, the role of the internet in the spread and surveillance of such groups, and the resistance to surveillance by many indigenous and diasporic communities. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, comparative religion, new religious movements, and religion and politics. It will be equally central to debates in the related disciplines of sociology, anthropology, political science, security studies and cultural studies.

Transnational Religious Spaces

Transnational Religious Spaces PDF Author: Philip Clart
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110690101
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
This volume, bringing together work by scholars from Europe, East Asia, North America, and West Africa, investigates transnational religious spaces in a comparative manner by juxtaposing East Asian and African examples. It highlights flows of ideas, actors, and organizations out of, into, or within a given continental space. These flows are patterned mainly by colonialism or migration. The book also examines cases where the transnational space in question encompasses both East Asia and Africa, notably in the development of Japanese new religions in Africa. Most of the studies are located in the present; a few go back to the late nineteenth century. The volume is rounded off by Thomas Tweed’s systematic reflections on categories for the study of transnationalism; his chapter "Flows and Dams" critically weighs the metaphorical language we use to think, speak, and write about transnational religious spaces.