Faith and Politics: (New) Confucianism as Civil Religion
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2014.2.1.39-64Keywords:
Confucianism, New Confucianism, civil religion, political rhetoricAbstract
This paper discusses how, in contemporary China, politico-religious narratives that reiterate the country’s Confucian tradition serve to create a sense of belonging and sharedness in a community, and provide a way to interpret this community and the contemporary Chinese nation as having a divine mission. As these Chinese foundational myths combine elements of Confucianism with patriotism and nationalism, they can be interpreted as a constitutive element of a “civil religion with Chinese characteristics”, and as providing arguments for a “religious” legitimation of the CCP as organization that has to lead the nation on this mission.
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References
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–––. 2011. “Cultural and Political Nationalism, and the Creation of a ‘Harmonious Society’.” Zhongguo Yanjiu 7: 37–67.
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Fei, Xiaotong. 1992. From the Soil. The foundations of Chinese Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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Gonzalez, Michelle A. 2012. “Religion and the US Presidency: Politics, the Media, and Religious Identity.” Political Theology 13(5): 568–85.
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Mittag, Achim. 2009 (2008). “Forging Legacy: The Pact between Empire and Historiography in Ancient China.” In Conceiving the Empire. China and Rome Compared, edited by Fritz-Heiner Mutschler and Achim Mittag, 143–65. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mittag, Achim, and Fritz-Heiner Mutschler. 2009 (2008). “Epilogue.” In Conceiving the Empire. China and Rome Compared, edited by Fritz-Heiner Mutschler and Achim Mittag, 421–47. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Moloughney, Brian, and Peter Zarrow. 2012. Making History Modern: Constructing the Discipline in China. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press.
Needham, Joseph. 1958. Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 2 of History of Scientific Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nelson, Harvey. 2000. “The future of the Chinese state.” In The Modern Chinese State, edited by David Shanbaugh, 216–36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nimni, Ephraim. 1995. “Marx, Engels, and the National Question.” In The Rights of Minority Cultures, edited by Will Kymlicka, 57–75. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nylan, Michael. 2009 (2008). “The Rhetoric of ‘Empire’ in the Classical Era in China.” In Conceiving the Empire. China and Rome Compared, edited by Fritz-Heiner Mutschler and Achim Mittag, 39–64. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pines, Yuri. 2009 (2008). “Imagining the Empire? Concepts of ‘Primeval Unity’ in Pre-imperial Historiographic Tradition.” In Conceiving the Empire. China and Rome Compared, edited by Fritz-Heiner Mutschler and Achim Mittag, 67–89. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pirazzoli-t’Serstevens, Michèle. 2009 (2008). “Imperial Aura and the Image of the Other in Han Art.” In Conceiving the Empire. China and Rome Compared, edited by Fritz-Heiner Mutschler and Achim Mittag, 299–317. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rainey, Lee D. 2010. Confucius & Confucianism. The Essentials. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Schmidt-Glintzer, Helwig. 2009 (2008). “Diagram (tu) and Text (wen): Mapping the Chinese World.” In Conceiving the Empire. China and Rome Compared, edited by Fritz-Heiner Mutschler and Achim Mittag, 169–93. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schneider, Julia. 2012. “Ethnicity and Sinicization. The Theory of Assimilative Power in the Making of the Chinese Nation-State (1900s–1920s).” Unpublished PhD dissertation. Gent/Göttingen.
Schwartz, Benjamin I. 1968. Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao. New York: Evanston, and London: Harper & Row.
–––. 1985. The World of Thought in Ancient China. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press.
Shryock, John K. 1966. The Origin and Development of the State Cult of Confucius. An Introductory Study. New York: Paragon Book.
Shun, Kwong-Loi. 2004. “Conception of the Person in Early Confucian Thought.” In Confucian Ethics: a Comparative Study of Self, Autonomy, and Community, edited by Kwong-Loi Shun and David B. Wong, 183–99. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sun, Zhongshan. 1974. Minzu Zhuyi (Principle of Nationalism), Guofu quanshu (The Complete Writings of Sun Zhongshan). Taipei: China Publishing.
Tamney, Joseph B., and Linda Hsueh-Ling Chiang. 2002. Modernization, Globalization, and Confucianism in Chinese Societies. London: Praeger.
Tu, Wei-ming. 1989. Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Confucian Religiousness. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Waley, Arthur. 1954 (1937). The Book of Songs. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Wechsler, Howard J. 1985. Offerings of Jade and Silk: Ritual and Symbol in the Legitimation of the T’ang Dynasty. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Xu, Shen 許慎. 1988 (1981). Shuo wen jie zi 說 文 解字 Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe.
Yu, Anthony C. 2005. State and Religion in China. Historical and Textual Perspectives. Chicago and La Salle: Open Court.
Bauer, Wolfgang. 2006. Geschichte der chinesischen Philosophie. München: Verlag C. H. Beck.
Bellah, Robert N. 2006. “Civil Religion in America.” In The Robert Bellah Reader, edited by Robert N. Bellah and Steven M. Tipton, pp. 225–45. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Bluntschli, Johann Kaspar. 1874. Deutsche Staatslehre für Gebildete. Nördlingen: C. H. Beck.
–––. 1965 (1886). Lehre vom modernen Staat. 2 vols. Aalen: Scientia Verlag.
Bresciani, Umberto. 2001. Reinventing Confucianism. The New Confucian Movement. Taipei: Taipei Ricci Institute for Chinese Studies.
Chan, Wing-tsit. 1963. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
Chang, Marie H. 2001. Return of the Dragon. China’s Wounded Nationalism. Boulder: Westview Press.
Chen, Zhimin. 2005. “Nationalism, Internationalism and Chinese Foreign Policy.” Journal of Contemporary China 14(42): 35–53.
Deng, Xiaoping. 1987. Fundamental Issues in Present-day China. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.
Dessein, Bart. 2008. “‘Since Heaven Has Not Yet Destroyed This Culture, What Can the Men of Kuang Do to Me?’: Cosmological Confucianism and the Development of Science.” Philosophica 83: 27–49.
–––. 2011. “Cultural and Political Nationalism, and the Creation of a ‘Harmonious Society’.” Zhongguo Yanjiu 7: 37–67.
Dull, Jack L. 1994. “Determining Orthodoxy: Imperial Roles.” In Imperial Rulership and Cultural Change in Traditional China, edited by Frederick P. Brandauer and Chün-chieh Huang, 3–27. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Fairbank, John K. 1942. “Tributary Trade and China’s Relations with the West.” The Far Eastern Quarterly 1(2): 129–49.
Fairbank, John K., and Teng Ssu-yü. 1941. “On the Ch’ing Tributary System.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 6(1): 135–246.
Fei, Xiaotong. 1992. From the Soil. The foundations of Chinese Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Fitzgerald, John. 1996. Awakening China. Politics, Culture, and Class in the Nationalist Revolution. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Gonzalez, Michelle A. 2012. “Religion and the US Presidency: Politics, the Media, and Religious Identity.” Political Theology 13(5): 568–85.
Harrison, Henrietta. 2001. China. Inventing the Nation. London: Arnold.
“President Obama’s Speech on the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington.” Washington Post August 28, 2013, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-28/politics/41527866_1_50th-anniversary-emancipation-let-freedom-ring.
“Huangdi guli jingqu jianjie”. Accessed December 4 2013, http://www.hdgl.cc/ Article/Jqgk/2009020921.html.
Huntington, Samuel P. 1971. “Strategies of Institutional Development.” In Political Development and Social Change, edited by Jason L. Finkle and Richard W. Gable, 478–85. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Jansen, Thomas. 2009 (2008). “New Tendencies, Religious and Philosophical, in the Chinese World of the Thrid through Sixth Centuries.” In Conceiving the Empire. China and Rome Compared, edited by Fritz-Heiner Mutschler and Achim Mittag, 397–419. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kahn, Paul W. 2011. Political Theology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kern, Martin. 2009 (2008). “Announcements from the Mountains: The Stele Inscriptions of the Qin First Emperor.” In Conceiving the Empire. China and Rome Compared, edited by Fritz-Heiner Mutschler and Achim Mittag, 217–240. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kruithof, Jaap. 2000. Het neoliberalisme. Berchem: EPO.
Legge, James. 1970 (1960). The She King or The Book of Poetry. The Chinese Classics. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Liang, Qichao 梁启超. 1983a (1902). “Lun minzu jingzheng zhi dashi” 論民族競爭之大事 (Discussion on the Great Cause of the Struggle between Nations).” Yinbingshi heji 飲冰室合集 (Collection of the Storehouse for Drinks), Wenji 文集10: 10–35.
–––.1983b (1903). “Zhengzhixue dajia Bolunzhili zhi xueshuo” 政治學大家伯倫知理之學說 (The Theory of Bluntschli’s Understanding of Politics).” Yinbingshi heji 飲冰室合集 (Collection of the Storehouse for Drinks), Wenji 文集 13: 67–89.
Lloyd, Geoffrey, and Nathan Sivin. 2002. The Way and the Word. Science and Medicine in Early China and Greece. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Mittag, Achim. 2009 (2008). “Forging Legacy: The Pact between Empire and Historiography in Ancient China.” In Conceiving the Empire. China and Rome Compared, edited by Fritz-Heiner Mutschler and Achim Mittag, 143–65. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mittag, Achim, and Fritz-Heiner Mutschler. 2009 (2008). “Epilogue.” In Conceiving the Empire. China and Rome Compared, edited by Fritz-Heiner Mutschler and Achim Mittag, 421–47. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Moloughney, Brian, and Peter Zarrow. 2012. Making History Modern: Constructing the Discipline in China. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press.
Needham, Joseph. 1958. Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 2 of History of Scientific Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nelson, Harvey. 2000. “The future of the Chinese state.” In The Modern Chinese State, edited by David Shanbaugh, 216–36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nimni, Ephraim. 1995. “Marx, Engels, and the National Question.” In The Rights of Minority Cultures, edited by Will Kymlicka, 57–75. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nylan, Michael. 2009 (2008). “The Rhetoric of ‘Empire’ in the Classical Era in China.” In Conceiving the Empire. China and Rome Compared, edited by Fritz-Heiner Mutschler and Achim Mittag, 39–64. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pines, Yuri. 2009 (2008). “Imagining the Empire? Concepts of ‘Primeval Unity’ in Pre-imperial Historiographic Tradition.” In Conceiving the Empire. China and Rome Compared, edited by Fritz-Heiner Mutschler and Achim Mittag, 67–89. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pirazzoli-t’Serstevens, Michèle. 2009 (2008). “Imperial Aura and the Image of the Other in Han Art.” In Conceiving the Empire. China and Rome Compared, edited by Fritz-Heiner Mutschler and Achim Mittag, 299–317. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rainey, Lee D. 2010. Confucius & Confucianism. The Essentials. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Schmidt-Glintzer, Helwig. 2009 (2008). “Diagram (tu) and Text (wen): Mapping the Chinese World.” In Conceiving the Empire. China and Rome Compared, edited by Fritz-Heiner Mutschler and Achim Mittag, 169–93. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schneider, Julia. 2012. “Ethnicity and Sinicization. The Theory of Assimilative Power in the Making of the Chinese Nation-State (1900s–1920s).” Unpublished PhD dissertation. Gent/Göttingen.
Schwartz, Benjamin I. 1968. Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao. New York: Evanston, and London: Harper & Row.
–––. 1985. The World of Thought in Ancient China. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press.
Shryock, John K. 1966. The Origin and Development of the State Cult of Confucius. An Introductory Study. New York: Paragon Book.
Shun, Kwong-Loi. 2004. “Conception of the Person in Early Confucian Thought.” In Confucian Ethics: a Comparative Study of Self, Autonomy, and Community, edited by Kwong-Loi Shun and David B. Wong, 183–99. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sun, Zhongshan. 1974. Minzu Zhuyi (Principle of Nationalism), Guofu quanshu (The Complete Writings of Sun Zhongshan). Taipei: China Publishing.
Tamney, Joseph B., and Linda Hsueh-Ling Chiang. 2002. Modernization, Globalization, and Confucianism in Chinese Societies. London: Praeger.
Tu, Wei-ming. 1989. Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Confucian Religiousness. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Waley, Arthur. 1954 (1937). The Book of Songs. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Wechsler, Howard J. 1985. Offerings of Jade and Silk: Ritual and Symbol in the Legitimation of the T’ang Dynasty. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Xu, Shen 許慎. 1988 (1981). Shuo wen jie zi 說 文 解字 Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe.
Yu, Anthony C. 2005. State and Religion in China. Historical and Textual Perspectives. Chicago and La Salle: Open Court.
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Published
30. 05. 2014
Issue
Section
Modern Confucianism as a New Chinese Ideology
How to Cite
DESSEIN, Bart. 2014. “Faith and Politics: (New) Confucianism As Civil Religion”. Asian Studies 2 (1): 39-64. https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2014.2.1.39-64.
