Religion/Philosophy

UC Irvine Buddhist Studies position

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RECRUITMENT PERIOD

Open September 6th, 2017 through October 31st, 2017

DESCRIPTION

East Asian Buddhist Studies Position 2018-19: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE, Irvine, CA 92697-6000. The Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures invites applications for an assistant professor tenure track position in East Asian Buddhist Studies, to begin teaching in Fall 2018. Teaching responsibilities will include lectures and seminars at the undergraduate and graduate level, as well as courses offered through the Program in Religious Studies. Candidates should also expect to advise graduate students in their area of expertise. The department values interdisciplinary approaches to research and teaching: we prefer a scholar whose research intersects with departmental research interests in gender, environmental studies, visual studies, theater and ritual performance, colonial studies, or translation; and who can teach materials from the Buddhist traditions of at least two regions in East Asia (i.e., China and Japan, Japan and Korea, or China and Korea). Qualifications: Ph.D. in Religion or East Asian Studies or related field with a specialization in Buddhism. Continue reading →

Eastern Lightning cult back in the news (1)

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Apropos of this topic, List members who translate should be warned that EL church in the US, which goes by several names but is usually based in New York, frequently solicits translation services from our community. They offer very high fees, but the material is anti-science, anti-intellectual, and very much a product of the ideology the group is known for. Cooperating with them would, in my opinion, endanger one’s ethical integrity as well as one’s relationship with China.

Canaan Morse <canaan.morse@gmail.com>

Eastern Lightning cult back in news

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Source: Sup China (7/28/17)
Eastern Lightning cult back in the news
By Jeremy Goldkorn

On May 28, 2014, five people attacked and killed a woman in a McDonald’s restaurant in a small city in Shandong Province. A bystander filmed the murder on a mobile phone and the footage spread rapidly on the internet.

  • The killers turned out to be members of the Church of Almighty God (全能神 quánnéng shén), also known as Eastern Lightning (东方闪电 dōngfāng shǎndiàn). The organisation is a doomsday cult founded in 1990 by a physics teacher named Zhao Weishan 赵维山 who claimed to have found the female Christ in the form of young woman from northwestern Shaanxi province.
  • The Chinese government banned the church as a cult in 1995; Zhao and his female Chinese Jesus are apparently in exile in the U.S.
  • During the trial of the five McDonald’s murderers, one of the accused said that his group had wanted to convert the victim but they killed her after she refused to tell them her phone number.

Eastern Lightning are in the news again: Chinanews.com reports (in Chinese) on the detention of 18 members of the group in eastern Zhejiang Province, the shutdown of two of their “lairs” (窝点 wōdiǎn), and confiscation of computers and propaganda pamphlets. Sixth Tone has a good summary of the news in English. The cult’s own website is here.

Religious revival fuels environmental activism

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Source: NYT (7/12/17)
China’s Religious Revival Fuels Environmental Activism
By JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ

A statue of Lao-tzu, the founder of Taoism, at the new Mao Mountain temple complex near Nanjing, China. CreditAdam Dean for The New York Times

MAO MOUNTAIN, China — Far from the smog-belching power plants of nearby cities, on a hillside covered in solar panels and blossoming magnolias, Yang Shihua speaks of the need for a revolution.

Mr. Yang, the abbot of Mao Mountain, a sacred Taoist site in eastern China, has grown frustrated by indifference to a crippling pollution crisis that has left the land barren and the sky a haunting gray. So he has set out to spur action through religion, building a $17.7 million eco-friendly temple and citing 2,000-year-old texts to rail against waste and pollution.

“China doesn’t lack money — it lacks a reverence for the environment,” Abbot Yang said. “Our morals are in decline and our beliefs have been lost.”

Hundreds of millions of people in China have in recent years turned to religions like Taoism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, seeking a sense of purpose and an escape from China’s consumerist culture.

Continue reading →

Dams threaten homes and sacred mountains

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Source: SCMP (6/26/17)
China’s drive to build dams for green power threatens homes and sacred mountains
A huge dam in southwestern Sichuan province will force people from their homes and monasteries to be relocated, and has stirred anxiety among locals over the impact on their traditions and beliefs
By Agence France-Presse

A woman stands next to the debris of demolished houses and her makeshift hut near Lianghekou in Sichuan province, the site of the latest huge dam to be built in China’s drive for greener sources of power. Photo: AFP

Towering walls of concrete entomb lush forests on mountainsides in southwest China as workers toil on the dry riverbed below to build the country’s latest massive dam.

The colossal construction site in Sichuan province swallows three rivers, providing another display of China’s engineering prowess but also of the trauma it inflicts on people and nature along the way.

Once completed in 2023, the 295-metre construction will be the world’s third-tallest dam, producing 3,000 megawatts of energy. Continue reading →

Fo Guang Shan in China

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Source: NYT (6/24/17)
Is a Buddhist Group Changing China? Or Is China Changing It?
点击查看本文中文版
By IAN JOHNSON

A statue of the Venerable Master Hsing Yun, the leader of the Buddhist organization Fo Guang Shan, in Yixing. CreditGilles Sabrie for The New York Times

YIXING, China — For most of her life, Shen Ying was disappointed by the world she saw around her. She watched China’s economic rise in this small city in the Yangtze River Valley, and she found a foothold in the new middle class, running a convenience store in a strip mall. Yet prosperity felt hollow.

She worried about losing her shop if she didn’t wine and dine and pay off the right officials. Recurring scandals about unsafe food or tainted infant formula made by once-reputable companies upset her. She recalled the values her father had tried to instill in her — honesty, thrift, righteousness — but she said there seemed no way to live by them in China today. Continue reading →

Drug addicts call for divine intervention

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Source: Sixth Tone (5/22/17)
China’s Drug Addicts Call for Divine Intervention
As illegal drugs continue to infiltrate the villages of Yunnan province, users are turning to a Christian rehab center to overcome addiction.
By Denise Hruby

Residents close their eyes while praying at the Gospel Rehabilitation Center in Baoshan, Yunnan province, March 18, 2017. Thomas Cristofoletti for Sixth Tone.

YUNNAN, Southwest China — Minus a handful of Bibles and a poster of Jesus, the dark, stuffy room where a group of men hold mass every Sunday looks nothing like a church.

“A long night covers the road ahead. This is the road I must walk, but you are my lamp, my light on the road,” they sing piously, most of their tenors and deep baritones off-key. The lyrics resonate with the group, who have voluntarily come to this Christian-run rehabilitation center with hopes of leaving behind drug addiction, with God as their guide. Continue reading →

Monument to Jesus in Changsha

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Source: NYT (5/7/17)
A Monument to Jesus in the City of Mao
By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW

The church at Xingsha Ecological Park in Changsha, China. About 260 feet tall, it is bigger than the largest statue of Mao Zedong in China, which is nearby. CreditLam Yik Fei for The New York Times

CHANGSHA, China — Sweeping heavenward like an enormous glass-and-metal ski jump, a new Protestant church dominates the crumbled earth, freshly planted trees and unfinished water features of a suburban park under construction in Changsha.

About 260 feet tall and topped by a cross, the Xingsha Church is bigger even than the biggest statue of Mao Zedong in China, less than 10 miles west of here. Continue reading →

My Beijing: The Sacred City

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Source: NYT (5/1/17)
My Beijing: The Sacred City
This metropolis was once a total work of art, epitomizing the religious and political system that ran China for millennia. The remnants of that time are being restored anew.
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By IAN JOHNSON

A view of Ritan Park in Beijing, which houses the Temple of the Sun. It was built in 1530, one of four shrines where the emperor worshiped key heavenly bodies. Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times

When I first came to Beijing in 1984, the city felt dusty and forgotten, a onetime capital of temples and palaces that Mao had vowed — successfully, it seemed — to transform into a landscape of factories and chimneys. Soot penetrated every windowsill and every layer of clothing, while people rode simple steel bicycles or diesel-belching buses through the windy old streets.

Then, as now, it was hard to imagine this sprawling city as the sacred center of China’s spiritual universe. But for most of its history, it was exactly that. Continue reading →

Unregistered churches are driving religious revolution

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Source: The Atlantic (4/23/17)
In China, Unregistered Churches Are Driving a Religious Revolution
“The government won’t approve it, but the question is if they’ll shut it down.”
By IAN JOHNSON

A Chinese Christian woman sings during a prayer service at an underground Protestant church in Beijing.

A Chinese Christian woman sings during a prayer service at an underground Protestant church in Beijing.Kevin Frayer / Getty

China, the world’s rising superpower, is experiencing an explosion of faith. The decades of anti-religious campaigns that followed the 1949 communist takeover are giving way to a spiritual transformation—and among the fastest-growing drivers of that transformation are unregistered churches.

Once called “house” or “underground” churches because they were small clandestine affairs, these groups have become surprisingly well-organized, meeting very openly and often counting hundreds of congregants. They’ve helped the number of Protestants soar from about 1 million when the communists took power to at least 60 million today. Of these believers, about two-thirds are not affiliated with government churches. In other words, Protestants in non-government churches outnumber worshippers in government churches two to one. Continue reading →

Ian Johnson on The Souls of China

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Source: China Real Time, WSJ (3/31/17)
Writing China: The Return of Chinese Soul-Searching
Ian Johnson on his new book, ‘The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao’
By Te-Ping Chen

Ian Johnson, author of 'The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao.'

Ian Johnson, author of ‘The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao.’ PHOTO:SIM CHI YIN/VII

In parks scattered across Chinese cities are millions of brightly colored exercise machines, popular among the elderly. Ian Johnson’s new book, “The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao,” tells their unlikely backstory: They were installed after a wave of qigong fever swept China in the 1980s and 1990s, when people took to parks and engaged in a bizarre spectrum of meditations and exercises, from hugging trees to twitching to speaking in tongues.

Such scenes emerged as part of a post-Cultural Revolution psychological release, but were later cracked down upon, with groups like Falun Gong feeling the brunt. The government went on to install the exercise machines, often with signs reading “scientific exercise,” in their stead. Continue reading →

Proxy tomb-sweeping on WeChat

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Source: Shanghaiist (3/28/17)
Cemetery offers to honor your ancestors for you this Tomb Sweeping Day, while you watch on WeChat
By ALEX LINDER

tomb_sweeping_day_wechat.jpg

Qingming Festival, or Tomb Sweeping Day in English, is an annual holiday in which people around China flock to cemeteries to pay their respects to their ancestors by praying, tidying up graves and perhaps leaving behind some flowers, food or a fake solar panel. But what if you just don’t have the time for all of that?

Well, luckily this year Yuhuatai Cemetery in Nanjing is offering to honor your ancestors for you, and live-stream the whole thing on WeChat so that you can watch from the comfort of your own home. The cemetery says that relatives can register and pay on their official WeChat account. They will then receive a password allowing them to tune in at the appropriate time. Continue reading →

Michael Puett’s The Path

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Source: The Guardian (3/26/17)
Can Harvard’s most popular professor (and Confucius) radically change your life?
Michael Puett’s book The Path draws on the 2,500-year-old insights of Chinese philosophers. He explains how ‘straightening your mat’ can help you break out of the patterns that are holding you back
By Tim Dowling

Professor Michael Puett

Professor Michael Puett: what we really are is ‘a messy and potentially ugly bunch of stuff’. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

The School of Life’s Sunday sermons could be described as lectures for people who don’t believe in God but still like church. They sing secular songs before and after the sermon (when I arrive, the large congregation at Mary Ward House in London is on the second verse of A Spoonful of Sugar), and everybody seems to share an abiding faith in the power of open-mindedness.

On this particular Sunday, the sermon is to be delivered by Michael Puett, professor of Chinese history at Harvard University, and is based on his book The Path, which applies the lessons of ancient Chinese philosophers to modern life. These philosophers may have done their best work 2,500 years ago, but they were trying to answer the same big questions we still ask. How do I live my life? How do I live my life well? Continue reading →

Wang Meng on Mencius

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Source: Global Times (2/20/17)
Well-known Chinese writer and scholar Wang Meng brings ancient philosophy to modern world

Wang Meng Photo: Courtesy of Beijing Xiron Books

Ten years after publishing a book on Taoist philosophy, scholar Wang Meng launched a new book on Sunday, De Minxin De Tianxia (得民心得天下, lit: Acquire the hearts of the people, acquire the world), that seeks to enlighten readers about the Confucian classic Mencius.

The Confucian classic was named after the ancient Chinese philosopher Mencius, who traveled throughout China during the Warring States period (475BC-221BC) to advise kings on the principles of good governance. His conversations with rulers were recorded in the book Mencius, which along with The Analects of Confucius, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean became known as the Four Books – the core classics that illustrate the values of Confucianism.

Published by Beijing Xiron Books, the book focuses on the humanist philosophy and concept of benevolence advocated by Mencius and discusses how this ancient school of thought can fit in the modern world.

“Mencius advocates the theory that human nature is good. Thus he says that a ruler should govern the country based on this concept of ‘good,'” Wang said at the launch ceremony in Beijing.

“That means you [a leader] should love your people, your decisions should benefit your people and you should follow the will of your people.”

A well-known writer and scholar, Wang has been writing for 60 years and has published more than 60 books, to include novels, short stories, prose and critical essays. His works have been translated into 21 languages.

“What amazes me the most about Wang’s interpretation is his critical view of Mencius’ philosophy. We can only properly inherit traditional culture through critical thinking,” Xiron founder Shen Haobo said at the ceremony.

Mega-church ignites firestorm

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Source: Sixth Tone (2/21/17)
Noah’s Ark-Inspired Mega-Church Ignites Firestorm
Giant Christian house of prayer in central China elicits curiosity, disdain, hope.
By Colum Murphy and Lin Qiqing

A view of the new Xingsha mega-church in Changsha County, Hunan province, Feb. 12, 2017. Wu Yue/Sixth Tone.

They came for a glimpse of a new mammoth, multimillion-dollar church and a stroll through its surrounding parkland. But visitors found their path blocked by a tall corrugated-iron barrier on a recent Sunday morning, forcing them to turn around and leave.

Some were casual tourists making the most of the sunny day in central China’s Hunan province. Others, like 56-year-old Huang Zhenlin, had deeper convictions. Through an opening in the barrier, Huang pleaded in vain with a construction worker inside the site: “Let me in,” he said. “I came here to worship.” Continue reading →