Cultural Christianity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Chow
Keyword(s):  
No Value ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Faith Community ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Modern China ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Formative Years ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

This chapter focuses on Christian intellectuals born in the 1950s and having spent their formative years experiencing the Cultural Revolution firsthand. The chapter examines the unique development beginning in the late 1980s when a number of Chinese academics looked towards Christian theology as a way to facilitate the search for modern China—many of whom found no value in being part of any local faith community. The chapter draws on the rise of Sino-Christian theology or Sino-Christian studies and focuses on two of the most important ‘cultural Christians’ (wenhua Jidutu), Liu Xiaofeng and He Guanghu.

Urban Intellectual Christianity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Chow
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
First Century ◽  
Tiananmen Square ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Faith Commitment ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Formative Years ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

This chapter focuses on the development in the late 1990s and the early twenty-first century of intellectuals in the study of Christianity with a stronger faith commitment than their predecessors discussed in Chapter 3. Whilst many of these individuals would initially see themselves as being cultural Christians, they would later shift and see themselves as Christian scholars (Jidutu xueren) who serve as elders and pastors of local urban intellectual churches and develop their theological engagements based on the Calvinist tradition. Moreover, in contrast to the cultural Christians who spent most of their more formative years during the Cultural Revolution, this new generation of Christian intellectuals was born towards the end of the Cultural Revolution and was often more shaped by—and may even have been part of—the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

Questioning the Revival

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-33
Author(s):  
Douglas M. Gildow
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
The State ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Ritual Performance ◽  
Republican Period ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Basic Facts ◽  
Year 2000 ◽  
Buddhist Monasticism ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

A common narrative of Buddhist monasticism in modern China is that monastic institutions were virtually eliminated during the Cultural Revolution period (1966–1976) but have undergone continuous revival since that time. This simplistic narrative highlights differences in state-monastic relations between the Maoist and post-Maoist eras, even as it oversimplifies various developments. In this article, I analyze the notion of revival and assess the state of Han Buddhist monasticism in the prc. My focus is on clarifying the “basic facts” of monasticism, including the numbers and types of monastics and monastic institutions. I draw on studies published since Holmes Welch’s works as well as on my own fieldwork conducted in China since 2006. This article questions the revival metaphor and shows that it is misleading. First, as Welch noted for the Republican period, recent developments are characterized by innovations as much as by revivals. Second, evidence for the growth of monasticism from around the year 2000 is weak. Yet in two aspects, monasticism today revives characteristics of Republican-period monasticism: ritual performance is central to the monastic economy, and Buddhist seminaries are important for monastic doctrinal education.

The Grass Society [草草社]

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Belinda Piggott
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Formal Group ◽  
Socialist System ◽  
Socialist Realist ◽  
State Employment ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Arts Administrators ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

The Grass Society, or Caocaoshe, was a formal group of ink painters founded in Shanghai in 1979. Qiu Deshu [仇德樹] (1948--) founded the group and was its youngest member. Chen Jialing [陳家泠] (1937--), once a teacher of Qiu’s, was the group’s co-founder. From the 1950s to 1990s it was possible to practice art outside the Socialist system. The underground art movement included senior artists condemned by the Cultural Revolution and unofficial artists who had given up state employment. After Mao’s death in 1976, local arts administrators began exploring problematic exhibition themes with no political focus in mediums such as watercolors, considered unsuitable for Socialist Realist art. Caocaoshe emerged within this environment.

scholarly journals History Writ Large: Big-character Posters, Red Logorrhoea and the Art of Words

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Geremie R. Barmé
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Chinese Character ◽  
Cultural Authority ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Word Images ◽  
Mao Era ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

The starting point of this paper is the 1986 artwork of the then Xiamen-based artist Wu Shanzhuan, called ‘Red Humor’, which reworked references to big-character posters (dazi bao 大字报) and other Mao-era forms of political discourse, recalling the Cultural Revolution. It explains how Wu’s installation offered a provocative microcosm of the overwhelming mood engendered by a logocentric movement to ‘paint the nation red’ with word-images during the years 1966-1967. This discussion of the hyper-real use of the dazi bao during China’s Cultural Revolution era (c.1964-1978) allows us to probe into ‘the legacies of the word made image’ in modern China. The paper argues that, since the 1980s, Wu Shanzhuan has had many emulators and ‘avant-garde successors’, since we have seen multiple examples of parodic deconstructions of the cultural authority of the Chinese character (zi) in recent decades.

Cultural revolution

The Athenaeum ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 270-295
Author(s):  
Michael Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Financial Difficulties ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

This chapter examines the Athenæum during the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s. While enjoying affectionate teasing by cartoonists, the club tended to stand upon its dignity in the 1950s. Although some aspects of the 'cultural revolution' that so disturbed Richard Cowell at the time created divisions among the membership, others suited the club in the long term, allowing it not only to survive but also to position itself for the process of reinvention that was to take place in later decades. During the 1960s and 1970s, life at the club carried on much as before, in spite of recurrent financial difficulties. The decorous tradition of 'lunch at the Athenæum' had become proverbial in public discourse, as published novels, memoirs, and diaries recorded conversations there in which bonds of friendship were strengthened, or matters of state and church quietly arranged in private.

A Private Ceremony to Mourn Deng Tuo, Wu Han, Liao Mosha and Liu Ren

1997 ◽  
Vol 151 ◽  
pp. 654-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary G. Mazur
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
40Th Anniversary ◽  
Party Committee ◽  
Suicide Death ◽  
30Th Anniversary ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

Abstract:On 17 May 1996, in a crypt at Babaoshan cemetery in Beijing, a private memorial was held by Ding Yilan to commemorate the deaths in the Cultural Revolution of her husband Deng Tuo, Liu Ren, Wu Han, and later of Liao Mosha. The date was the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Cultural Revolution and the suicide death of Deng Tuo. Mourning for Deng Tuo had been forbidden at his death when Ding Yilan was ordered to have the body cremated under a false name in a distant crematorium. Mourning ceremonies at the tenth and 20th anniversaries were impossible. In 1996 when it seemed that she might not live until the 40th anniversary, she decided time was running out. With no possibility of public commemoration because of the known disapproval of the Central Party authorities, Ding Yilan, in failing health, had arranged a private memorial for Deng Tuo and the other two members of the Three Family Village, with 40 invited guests. She included Liu Ren, the second secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Students and Class Warfare: The Social Roots of the Red Guard Conflict in Guangzhou (Canton)

1980 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 397-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Chan ◽  
Stanley Rosen ◽  
Jonathan Unger
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modern China ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Red Guard ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

Until recent years, scholars of modern China had generally assumed that in the Cultural Revolution violence of 1966–68 young people were almost arbitrarily joining one or the other of the opposing Red Guard groups. Only within the past few years have researchers begun to unveil the antagonism among students early in the Cultural Revolution over “class” issues and the resulting differences in the composition, tactics and goals of the Red Guard factions.

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