Anyone who knows the Catholic Church would scoff at the idea of it being a safe haven for practitioners of a syncretic religion that borrowed heavily from Taoism and Buddhism and worshiped a female deity. And yet, somehow, it seemed like a reasonable conclusion to the sectarians who flocked to the Church in droves. But why did the sectarians think this? What made Catholicism seem like such an appealing option to them? There have been many theories. As we... Read more
The return of the Catholic Church to China began with the Jesuits. In the last decades of the sixteenth century, these enterprising missionaries began preparations for a big push into the country, setting up a mission in Portuguese-ruled Macau in 1563. They would make the jump across the water in 1583, under the leadership of Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci. Landing in the far south, in the town of Zhaoqing in Guangdong, the Jesuits established their first mission on the... Read more
The Chinese religious scene is nothing if not adaptable. This is nowhere truer than in the field of eschatology. As I have discussed at length previously, China’s basic apocalyptic narrative is an old one and many of its core elements have remained recognizable for two thousand years. Every so often, however, the sphere of Chinese religion undergoes a seismic shift. A new element comes into play. It does not displace the old system—no idea ever seems to be wholly displaced... Read more
The greatest indicator of the Longhua jing’s success was the new group consciousness that developed among the heterodox sects. Gongchang’s organization did not last long enough to bask in what the scripture had achieved or to see this collective self-image develop. But both Wang Sen’s and Elder Sister Zhang’s did. They were both still extant in 1816 and were, remarkably, still governed by descendants of their founders. Even more remarkable, they were affiliated as two constituent members of a... Read more
As the Ming era wound down, the Three Ages sects continued to evolve. There was never stagnation; the doctrines and theological vision common to most sects continued to develop and change. But there was also always continuity; the same distinctive complex of ideas—the Three Ages, the Venerable Mother who is also the Primordial Buddha, the return to the Native Place—held sway even as the concepts evolved and the details sometimes changed. The last decades of the Ming also saw... Read more
The Huangtian dao (黄天道—Way of the Yellow Heaven) or Huangtian jiao (黄天教—Teaching of the Yellow Heaven) is probably the best-known and most studied of the Ming-era Three Ages sects, if only because it survived into the twentieth century, long enough to be discovered and studied in situ by curious sociologists. The sect was, like the Hongyang jiao, one of the most prolific producers of the baojuans that have come down to us and it too exerted a tremendous influence... Read more
It did not take long for the synthesis of Three-Ages, Luoist, and divine Mother beliefs represented by the Jiulian baojuan to take hold throughout the sectarian milieu. By the middle of the sixteenth century, it had become the dominant belief system among sectarian groups. Most subscribed to it outright and the few that did not still could not help being influenced by it to some degree. The curious thing is that, as these groups adopted and further expanded upon the... Read more
The transformative effect of the recent developments in sectarianism—Patriarch Luo’s teachings and the adoption of the Mother as supreme deity—is already apparent in second oldest millennialist baojuan that has come down to us, but so too is a new sophistication and complexity with regards to the Three Ages system. This text is the exhaustively-named Huangji jindan jiulian zhengxin guizhen huanxiang baojuan (Precious Scroll of the Golden Elixir and the Nine-Petalled Lotus Rectifying the Faith and Restoring the Pristine Teaching... Read more
The decades following the publication of the Huangji jieguo baojuan would see two key events fundamentally reshape the landscape of Chinese sectarianism. The first of these was the emergence of one of the most extraordinary figures in the history of Chinese religion, a radical reformer who came to be known as Patriarch Luo. The second was the displacement of the Primordial Buddha in sectarian thought by a new supreme deity. How much these two occurrences were linked is difficult to... Read more
The Ming period was the golden age of sectarian thought in imperial China. Religious associations and forms of worship that fell beyond state approval and control had always existed and had very often flourished. As we have seen, unapproved sects and the rebellions they launched have been one of the great motive forces of Chinese history. But the Ming period saw a proliferation of these groups far beyond anything that had come before. Throughout China, sects arose, operated semi-openly,... Read more
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