Cheng-tian Kuo, ed., Religion and Nationalism in Chinese Societies

Scott PACEY
2018
This timely collection addresses two issues that have received much scholarly attention in recent years, although they have not often been considered alongside one another. The first is Chinese nationalism and the second is contemporary Chinese religion and its engagement with different social and political domains. Kuo's edited volume makes a genuine contribution to the literature on these subjects. Approaching the topic of religion and nationalism from a variety of angles, it will do much to
more » ... dd to the ongoing scholarly discussion of religion in the contemporary Chinese world and will certainly inspire more work in years to come. Each of the individual chapters focuses on particular topics while also providing overviews of the situation of different religious groups in the Chinese world. This makes the volume an excellent resource for scholars and students interested in Chinese religion, as well as the background to contemporary issues in the realm of religion and politics in pre-modern China. The chapters themselves are contained within three sections, each focusing on a different geographic area. The range of topics addressed within this framework is appropriate, facilitating comparison and reflection. Kuo's introduction comes first in the volume. This presents an analysis of the "totalitarian state religion of Chinese patriotism" in the PRC, "a civil religion shared by many religions" in Taiwan, and the conflict between these state and civil forms in Hong Kong (13). Following on from this, the volume's first section considers the relationship between religion and nationalism before 1949. The first chapter, by Chi-shen Chang, explores the ethnocentric thought of the seventeenth-century philosopher Wang Fuzhi. This is followed by Julia C. Schneider's chapter comparing Chinese notions of "compelled change" to European "missionizing" (89). Adam Yuet Chau then contributes a chapter on the emergence of the "religion sphere" (zongjiaojie) (129) in the context of the Chinese nation. Robert D. Weatherley and Qiang Zhang consider how the Party employs history in the construction of a
doi:10.15119/00003264 fatcat:mpf32odbk5gwzd3hpimvorvvp4