>Except in the case of the professional religious living apart in monasteries, religion in China was so woven into the broad fabric of family and social life that there was not even a special word for it until modern times, when one was coined to match the Western term. >Most significantly of all, in the West the development of religion was closely bound up with the lively history of ideas. Because of the central place of doctrine in religion, it necessarily shared in the questionings, the changing insights, the disputations, and the actual warfare of the Western world of ideas. Philosophers, theologians, and scientists endlessly pondered and argued and revised the hypotheses upon which sectarian tenets were based. But in China not only did doctrinally founded churches not exist, but the world view and the ethic did not undergo such restless revisions. Even the impact of Buddhism, which began at about the time of the common era, failed to change materially the fundamental Chinese outlook. Instead, after a thousand years Buddhism itself was largely accommodated to these ingrained views. >Because of these facts, we have thought that the most meaningful introduction to Chinese religion is one which stresses, first the world view that finds expression in religion and, second, the functioning of religious expression in Chinese society. The world view and the society here pictured are those generally characteristic of China during the past two thousand years. In a final chapter we have given a brief description of the changes being wrought in this great tradition by the circumstances of the most recent century. Such changes are certainly far reaching, but we are as yet too close to the processes to be able to predict the outcome. In any case, the developments of the contemporary period can only be understood in their relationship to the traditional religion; and that traditional religion, far from having passed from the scene, is still very lively. (Thompson, 1979, p. 2)
Posted on: Tue, 09 Jul 2013 01:48:55 +0000
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