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Modalities of doing religion and ritual polytropy: evaluating the religious market model from the perspective of Chinese religious history

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 41; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/0048721x.2011.624691

1096-1151

Adam Yuet Chau,

Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices

Abstract This article examines the Chinese religious landscape through the lenses of 'modalities of doing religion' and 'ritual polytropy' and explores the implications such different conceptualisations might bring to the religious-market model. It argues that in Chinese religious culture one can identify five modalities of doing religion (the scriptural/discursive, the self-cultivational, the liturgical, the immediate-practical and the relational), each cutting across broader, conceptually aggregated religious traditions such as Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism. Instead of competition between membership-based churches, there is more typically competition within each modality, especially the liturgical modality. Religious pluralism in China is not manifested as the co-existence of, and competition between, confession- and membership-based denominations and churches, but rather as the co-existence of, and competition between, various ritual-service providers with different (though sometimes convergent) liturgical programmes. Keywords: religious marketreligious economymodalities of doing religionritual polytropyritual marketreligious pluralismChinafunerals Acknowledgements I would like to thank the organisers and participants of the international workshop 'Beyond the Market: Exploring Religious Fields in Modern China' (held at the University of Wales, Lampeter in November 2009) for having stimulated my thinking on the issue of religious and ritual markets in the Chinese context (especially Thomas Jansen as conference host, Philip Clart as my discussant and Thoralf Klein, Peter van de Veer, Hubert Seiwert, David Palmer, Lu Yunfeng and others for their comments). Some sections of this article have been taken from my book Miraculous Response: Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China (2006a), an article I wrote for a volume edited by Glenn Bowman on the sharing of sacred space entitled 'Efficacy, not Confessionality: On Ritual Polytropy at Chinese Funerals' (CitationChau forthcoming) and another article for a volume co-edited by David Palmer et al. on Chinese religious culture entitled 'Modalities of Doing Religion' (Chau Citation2011b). I thank in particular Vincent Goossaert, Christian Meyer and the reviewer for Religion for their helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft. Notes 1The religious situation in China is very complex given the history of severe modernist interventions from the late Qing, Republican and Communist regimes as well as the vastly different trajectories in the various 'Chinas' (the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Chinese diasporic communities). Most of the processes involving religious change or specific historical events discussed in this article happened in the past and are thus described in the past tense, but since some of these dynamics have continued into the present or have been revived in the post-Mao era, I have often reverted to the present tense to emphasise the continuity. The reader is advised to consult the following recent works on the issue of Chinese religion and modernity: Ashiwa and Wank Citation2009; Chau [Citation2011a]; Goossaert and Palmer Citation2011; Yang Citation2008. 2By 'sectarian' I am referring to the mostly Buddhist-inspired millenarian cults that developed around charismatic leaders that demanded exclusivistic membership adherence. Their occurrence was sporadic in Chinese history and they were often targets of state crackdowns. 3The form of competition may include Buddhist temples against Daoist temples, Daoist temples against spirit mediums, Buddhist temples against other Buddhist temples, Daoist temples against other Daoist temples, householder Daoist priests against other householder Daoist priests, spirit mediums against magical healers, and so on (see Hymes [Citation2002] on how different religious specialists might work with different 'models of divinity'). 4It goes without saying that different strands of socio-religious practices only gradually cohered into these distinct traditions through the efforts of a large number of people (usually elite religious practitioners who were far more interested in systematising and differentiating than the common people). Confucius did not found Confucianism, nor did Laozi Daoism, and Buddhism did not arrive in China in one flat-pack. By invoking the notion of 'Great Traditions' I do not intend (nor did Robert Redfield in his original conception of the great and little traditions) to portray them as existing independently of less elite forms of religious practices. 5In Japan, the two major religious traditions Shinto and Buddhism have worked out an admirable division of labour (and, one may add, share of income), in which the Shinto priests are in charge of matters relating to life-stage rites of passage and marriage while the Buddhist monks take care of the funeral and after-death matters. (See Suzuki Citation2000: chapters 2 and 6). 6While drawing a contrast that is real, I am aware that there are a wide variety of 'modalities of doing religion' in these other religious cultures as well. 7For a historical study of the 'interweaving' of Chinese and Catholic funeral rituals, see Standaert (Citation2008). 8See my article on householder religious service providers (Chau Citation2006b) for an explanation of why most ritual specialists adopted the household idiom. The most important reason was to keep a low profile in order to dodge the attention of the state, which was not always friendly towards these ritual-service providers. 9Hungry ghosts are spirits of dead people who are without descendants to give them offerings on a regular basis. They roam around and try to snatch offerings from others. Hungry-ghost feeding rituals were invented to take care of them so that they will not cause trouble. The so-called 'ghost month', i.e., the seventh month in the Chinese lunar calendar, is a period dedicated to feeding hungry ghosts. But most Daoist and Buddhist funeral rituals have incorporated hungry-ghost feeding liturgies so that the hungry ghosts will not fight over the offerings meant for the spirit of the deceased. 10Special sutras dedicated to merit-generation are chanted at funerals.