Ancestral Roots

2019 ◽  
pp. 27-46
Author(s):  
Russell M. Jeung ◽  
Seanan S. Fong ◽  
Helen Jin Kim
Keyword(s):  
Popular Religion ◽  
Chinese American ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Religious Rituals ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
Confucian Thought ◽  
Symbolic Interpretation ◽  
Chinese State ◽  
State Modernization

Chapter 2 offers a genealogical exploration of how Chinese traditions have shaped Chinese American religious affiliations and familism. Chinese adopt a plurality of beliefs for utilitarian purposes through their religious repertoire based in Chinese Popular Religion. Given their mixture of beliefs and practices that have no names, Chinese tend to identify as “nothing in particular.” Another factor contributing to the high rates of Chinese American religious nones is Confucian thought, which oriented Chinese society toward religious skepticism and an agnostic, symbolic interpretation of religious rituals. These twin approaches toward religion are the roots of modern-day Chinese atheism and agnosticism. Both reinforce the primacy of familial relations. These two traditions have undergone changes through modernization, migration, and the religious context in which they take root. The chapter ends with a survey of how these traditions have been transformed by Chinese state modernization, acculturation to the American context, and racialization.

Transmission

2019 ◽  
pp. 47-71
Author(s):  
Russell M. Jeung ◽  
Seanan S. Fong ◽  
Helen Jin Kim
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Popular Religion ◽  
Chinese American ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Family Responsibility ◽  
Ancestor Veneration ◽  
Good Fortune ◽  
Confucian Thought ◽  
Good Energy

Chapter 3 investigates the educational and class-based differences in how Chinese American households transmit the liyi dimensions of Chinese Popular Religion and Confucianism. Working-class households tend to pass down the practices of Chinese Popular Religion based on fate, luck, and qi, whereas professional households tend to affirm Confucian thought to match their rational, scientific worldviews. Nearly all respondents’ parents practiced elements of Chinese Popular Religion, most notably venerating ancestors, adhering to fengshui principles of qi, and celebrating Lunar New Year. For working-class families, these practices included belief in supernatural realities and the efficacy of practices to bring about well-being and good fortune. Chinese American professional families saw these rituals as secular customs and maintained them for different reasons: to instill family responsibility through ancestor veneration, maintain good energy via fengshui, and celebrate their heritage through Lunar New Year.

scholarly journals Gezond of ongezond geloof: standaard, context, normativiteit

2017 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 318-333
Author(s):  
Hetty Zock
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Life History ◽  
Contextual Approach ◽  
Statistical Manual ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
Or Practice ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Role Of Religion

Summary This contribution considers the functionality of religious beliefs and practices from the angle of the psychology of religion. The role of religion in the main standard for mental health (Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) is discussed and research findings about the relation between religion and mental health are summarized. It is argued that to determine if a specific religious belief or practice is healthy or unhealthy, we need a fundamentally contextual approach, which takes into account not only the cultural and religious context but also the life-history and personal stance (normativity) of religious authorities, care professionals, patients and believers. The case of depression serves as an example.

Traditional Religion, Popular Piety, or Base Superstition? The Cause for the Beatification of Teresa Higginson

1998 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Davies
Keyword(s):  
Popular Religion ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Traditional Religion ◽  
Great Flexibility ◽  
Popular Piety ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Shared Beliefs ◽  
Religious System ◽  
The People ◽  
The Relationship

Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars has reinvigorated the debate over the nature of late mediaeval religious practice and belief, examining the ‘richness and complexity of the religious system by which men and women structured their experiences of the world, and their hopes and aspirations within and beyond it.’ Duffy questions the assumption that there was in that period a wide gulf between ‘popular’ and ‘élite’ religion. In so doing he has not only illuminated the religious practices and beliefs of late mediaeval England but he has stimulated discussion about the relationship between ‘popular’ and ‘élite’ religion in other periods. Duffy eschews the use of the term ‘popular religion’, which he argues carries questionable assumptions about the nature of ‘non-popular’ religion and about the gap between the two. He prefers ‘traditional religion’, on the grounds that it does greater justice to ‘the shared and inherited character of the religious beliefs and practices of the people…’ ‘Traditional religion’ while being rooted in inherited and shared beliefs was, nevertheless, capable of great flexibility and variety.

A History for Falun Gong: Popular Religion and the Chinese State Since the Ming Dynasty

2003 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Ownby
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Ming Dynasty ◽  
Popular Religion ◽  
Falun Gong ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chinese State ◽  
Ultimate Objective ◽  
Historical Antecedents

This article seeks to place Falun Gong - and the larger qigong movement from which it emerged - into the long-term context of the history of Chinese popular religion from the midMing (1368-1644) to the present. The argument developed is that Falun Gong and qigong are twentieth-century elaborations of a set of historical popular religious traditions generally labeled by scholars as "White Lotus Sectarianism." This article attempts both to look forward at the Falun Gong from a perspective informed by an understanding of its historical antecedents, and to look backward at the historical traditions on the basis of what we know about Falun Gong and qigong. The ultimate objective is to arrive at a recharacterization of a popular religious phenomenon which has been incompletely understood.

scholarly journals What Is “Tolerance” and “Tolerance Education”? Philosophical Perspectives

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (89) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomas Saulius
Keyword(s):  
Research Methodology ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Objective Assessment ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Main Condition ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Philosophical Reflection ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
Tolerance Education

Research background. The notion of tolerance is used in various contexts, but nevertheless it remains ambiguous. The very fact that educators, politicians, and philosophers again and again face questions about the meaning of value term “tolerance”, stresses the vivid necessity of continuous attempts to elucidate the notion of tolerance at the theoretical level.Research aim was to provide relevant arguments for the thesis that tolerance is a context dependent notion and therefore the claims about tolerance “in general” are ambiguous, uninformative, and non-instructive.Research method. Our research methodology was philosophical reflection involving conceptual analysis and the application of the outcomes to education sciences.Research results. If we are to understand and define the concept of tolerance, we need a broader understanding of  what  is  good  and  what  is  bad,  understanding  of  what  behaviour  is  expected  from  us  under  certain  cultural circumstances.Discussion and conclusions. 1. In religious context, tolerance is a respectful attitude towards beliefs and practices of others – attitude which, in fact, can be grounded either by dogmatism or by scepticism. 2. In political context, emphasis is laid not on what others believe or think, but on what people do. 3. There is one common feature of tolerance conceptions which take shape in inter-religious discourse and in politics: it is believed that it is quite easy to understand the motives of actions performed by “others”; such understanding (“empathy”) is the main condition for tolerance. 4. In ethics and education, tolerance is the measurement (or objective assessment) of our beliefs keeping in mind possibilities of their alternatives. In this respect, tolerance is the realization of human rational nature.Keywords: tolerance, tolerance education, autonomy, ethics, rationality.

scholarly journals Fortune Telling Rituals Using Incense in Modern Chinese Religious Practices

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 25-50
Author(s):  
Elena E. Voytishek ◽  
Song Yao ◽  
Alexandra V. Gorshkova
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Folk Beliefs ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Religious Rituals ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Written Sources ◽  
Fortune Telling

Based on Chinese written sources and the authors' research field materials, the paper analyzes features of Taoist Buddhist practices using incense, as well as the purport of the 24 combinations that arise during fortune telling using three incense sticks – a practice used in rituals dating back to the early Middle Ages which still occupies a prominent place among China's religious practices today. The techniques that are concurrently characteristic of Buddhist practices, Taoist services as well as traditional folk beliefs hold a prominent place during the ritual. General terminology is primarily used in the comments supplementing the rituals in the original sources. These religious rituals involve ancient representations of Heaven as a “source of moral definitions” which reacts to human deeds through various signs, the teachings of the all-encompassing Qi as the energy of the universe and its numerological embodiment, worldview ideas including ancient Taoist beliefs and practices related to the cult of ancestors as well as worship of Heaven and various spirits, and basic Buddhist postulates of rebirth, karma and retribution for committed acts. Conducting fortune telling rituals using incense naturally embodied folk beliefs, which was instrumental in the ongoing teachings of morality to many generations across almost two millennia. Tables and comments on the 24 fortune telling combinations are published in Russian for the first time.

Popular Religion

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Briggs
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Popular Religion ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Historical Investigation ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
Short Time

Popular religion, along with the wider field of popular culture, has only been a recognized subject for historical investigation for a relatively short time; the bibliography is virtually non-existent before 1970. Even so, a term that was at first accepted as comprehensible and useful has rapidly come to be seen as highly problematic. Among the multiple reasons for concern, two in particular stand out. Historians now recoil from any suggestion that there was a single or coherent phenomenon that could be labelled in this way, while detailed research has largely destroyed the notion of a clear frontier between “official” and “popular” beliefs and practices. These discussions have been particularly lively in the case of France, where the nature of religious change under the Ancien Régime raises important issues with wide relevance, and the documentation is unusually rich.

Moralising Ancestors as Socio-moral Capital: A Study of a Transnational Chinese Lineage

2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-263
Author(s):  
Kuah-Pearce Khun Eng
Keyword(s):  
Rural China ◽  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Open Door Policy ◽  
Ancestor Worship ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
Rural Villages ◽  
Cultural Roots ◽  
Guanxi Networks ◽  
Chinese State

AbstractWithin the Chinese Diaspora, ancestor worship is an important cultural element that binds a group of people together and provides them with a sense of comfort, kinship and communal identity as they sink their cultural roots in a new country, luodi shenggen. Thus, ancestor worship is widely reproduced and practised by the Chinese in the Diaspora, as it is central to the Chinese understanding of the continuation of family and lineage. However, in Mainland Chinese villages, the practice of ancestor worship, which is still considered important by the villagers, was not allowed until the Open Door Policy in 1978. With this policy, emigrant villages, (qiaoxiang) embarked on an aggressive campaign to woo the Chinese in overseas communities to return to their native villages to help with economic development through various strategies. One of the strategies is to allow for the revival and practice of ancestor worship in the rural villages. This paper explores how ancestors continued to be regarded as important members of a transnational lineage in the Fujian Province in South China, and also in Singapore. Because of the central focus on ancestors and ancestor worship in the Chinese society, ancestors are moralised as a significant social capital by the Chinese State, local government and rural villagers, in an attempt to establish transnational guanxi linkages between the ancestral villages in rural China and their Diaspora members in Singapore. The Chinese State, with instrumental consideration, sees this transnational guanxi networks and the revival of ancestor worship as a strategy to encourage the Chinese Diaspora to visit their ancestral home and help with village development.

AYAHUASCA: UM SAGRADO SELVAGEM QUE BASTIDE NÃO CONHECEU

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (23) ◽  
pp. 019
Author(s):  
Drance Elias Silva ◽  
João Paulo Reis Braga
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Santo Daime ◽  
Religious Rituals ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
Theatrical Representation ◽  
Afro Brazilian

A Ayahuasca é uma bebida enteógena feita por meio da união de duas plantas: um cipó chamado Mariri (Banisteriopsis caapi) e as folhas de uma árvore chamada Chacrona (Psychotria viridis). O Chá Ayahuasca vem sendo usado há milhares de anos em rituais religiosos indígenas, e há algumas décadas em religiões urbanas como o Santo Daime e a União do Vegetal. A Ayahuasca é considerada uma bebida sagrada por todos que a utilizam regularmente em contexto religioso. Roger Bastide foi um teórico francês, que veio para o Brasil em 1938 e estudou durante muitos anos as religiões afro-brasileiras, dando enfoque a fenômenos como: a administração do sagrado, o sentimento de vergonha, e o processo de “domesticação” e persistência do “sagrado selvagem”. O presente artigo analisou também o conceito bastidiano de transe como “um jogo litúrgico”, que segundo ele, aproxima-se de uma “representação teatral”. As conclusões desse artigo sugerem que o transe provocado pela Ayahuasca transcende algumas das premissas bastidianas. Os resultados demonstraram ainda que as considerações que Bastide faz a respeito do processo de “domesticação do sagrado selvagem” podem ser observadas em religiões ayahuasqueiras como a União do Vegetal, ainda que em alguns pontos, a realidade da instituição não esteja em total consonância com as previsões feitas por Bastide.Palavras-chave: Ayahuasca. Bastide. Sagrado Selvagem. Transe Religioso. Enteógeno AYAHUASCA: A WILD SACRED WHICH BASTIDE DID NOT KNOWAbstractAyahuasca is an entheogenic drink made by the union of two plants: a vine called Mariri (Banisteriopsis caapi) and the leaves of a tree called Chacrona (Psychotria viridis). Ayahuasca tea has been used for thousands of years in indigenous religious rituals, and for decades in urban religions such as Santo Daime and União do Vegetal. Ayahuasca is considered a sacred drink by all who use it regularly in a religious context. Roger Bastide was a French theorist, who came to Brazil in 1938 and studied for many years the Afro-Brazilian religions, focusing on phenomena such as: the administration of the sacred, the feeling of shame, and the process of "domestication" and persistence of the "wild sacred". The present article also analyzed the Bastidian concept of trance as "a liturgical game", which he said, approaches a "theatrical representation". The conclusions of this article suggest that the trance provoked by Ayahuasca transcends some of the bastidian premises. The results also demonstrated that Bastide's considerations regarding the process of "domestication of the wild sacred" can be observed in ayahuasca religions like União do Vegetal, although in some points, the reality of the institution is not in total harmony with the predictions made by Bastide.Keywords: Ayahuasca; Roger Bastide; Wild Sacred; Religious Transe; Entheogen.

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