A Look at the Characteristics of Church-State Relations in the Chinese Tradition from the Perspectives of the Three Religions - Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism
Originally published in the humanities and social sciences section of the school newspaper of Southwest University for Nationalities, 11th edition, 2004. http://www.pacitution.com/ShowArticle.asp?ArticlelD=3637
關鍵詞
politics; religion; church-state relations
摘要
Religion has been around for as long as mankind has existed. It has evolved and developed in the wake of the vicissitudes of society and history, and is intimately connected with ethnic relations. In the history of the Han Chinese people, many religions have coexisted; Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism in particular have had close relationships with the state and politics. Confucianism is feudal orthodoxy, Taoism is an indigenously Chinese religion, while Buddhism manifests the form of a Sinicized foreign culture. These three religions played sometimes-positive and sometimes-negative roles in Chinese history. In terms of political function, they played unique and important roles as the ideological superstructure, and were a great influence on the development of society as a whole, forming a political and cultural framework in Chinese feudal society dominated by Confucianism with Buddhism and Taoism in supporting roles. It is worth noting that, in terms of church-state relations, each of these three religions has distinctive features when compared with other religions in the world.
目次
Editor's Note 97 Abstract 97 Keywords 98 I. The supremacy of monarchial power created a distinctive feature of China's church-state relations: the submission of religious power to political power 99 II. The religious-political structure with Confucianism being the dominant ideology and Buddhism and Taoism being supplementary ideologies effectively maintained the stability and longevity of China's patriarchal social structure 101 III. Traditional Confucianism, indigenous Taoism and Sinicized Buddhism all embodied the Chinese religious characteristic of valuing the role of political ethical teaching and enlightenment 105 References 111
