Reclaiming the Wilderness

Contemporary Dynamics of the Yiguandao

Sébastien Billioud (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

312 Seiten

2020
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-752913-3 (ISBN)

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A syncretistic and millenarian religious movement, the Yiguandao (Way of Pervading Unity) was one of the major redemptive societies of Republican China. It developed extremely rapidly in the 1930s and the 1940s, attracting millions of members. Severely repressed after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, it managed to endure and redeploy elsewhere, especially in Taiwan. Today, it has become one of the largest and most influential religious movements in Asia and at the same time one of the least known and understood. From its powerful base in Taiwan, it has expanded worldwide, including in mainland China where it remains officially forbidden. Based on ethnographic work carried out over nearly a decade, Reclaiming the Wilderness offers an in-depth study of a Yiguandao community in Hong Kong that serves as a node of circulation between Taiwan, Macao, China and elsewhere. Sébastien Billioud explores the factors contributing to the expansionary dynamics of the group: the way adepts live and confirm their faith; the importance of charismatic leadership; the role of Confucianism, which makes it possible to defuse tensions with Chinese authorities and sometimes even to cooperate with them; and, finally, the well-structured expansionary strategies of the Yiguandao and its quasi-diplomatic efforts to navigate the troubled waters of cross-straits politics.

Sébastien Billioud is Professor of Chinese Studies at Université de Paris and a member of the French Research Institute on East Asia (IFRAE). His cross-disciplinary research explores the modern and contemporary fates of Confucianism. He is the author of Thinking Through Confucian Modernity, A Study of Mou Zongsan's Moral Metaphysics, The Sage and the People, The Confucian Revival in China, and other works.

Acknowledgments
Introduction

PART I - The Relationship of Missionary-Adepts to their Faith and the Issue of Faith Confirmation
1. The Production of Missionary-Adepts
2. Confirming One's Faith

PART II - Charisma and Routinization
3. Production of Charisma Within the Yiguandao
4. Charisma and "Routinization of the Extraordinary": Structuring Leadership to Open the Wilderness

PART III - Defusing Tension
5. The Role of Confucianism to Defuse Tension With the Social and Political Environment.
6. Yiguandao's Promotion of Confucianism-Related Activities in Hong Kong and Mainland China.

PART IV - Organization and Strategy
7. Structuring and Organizing the Missionary Effort
8. A Well-Orchestrated Strategy Taking Politics and Cross-Straits Relations Into Account

Epilogue
Bibliography
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	05.08.2020
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	236 x 155 mm
Gewicht	576 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Weitere Religionen
ISBN-10	0-19-752913-5 / 0197529135
ISBN-13	978-0-19-752913-3 / 9780197529133
Zustand	Neuware