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Sects, Rituals, and Property Problems

Sects, Rituals, and Property Problems Is Chinese religion so unique that the terms and theories used in the study of religion in the West are not applicable? How appropriate is it to construct new terms to describe Chinese religious phenomena in modern times? How useful are the terms adopted from Western scholarship? How useful are terms that are not used by the religious believers and practitioners themselves? Terms are conceptual tools. To deal with complex and changing religious phenomena, it is always necessary to sharpen our tools, invent new tools, or revamp old tools. In this issue, Nikolas Broy examines the conceptual tools of “sect,” “sectarian religion,” and “redemptive society.” He argues that the concept of redemptive societies that has been recently constructed to describe the religious effervescence in early twentieth-century China has significant shortcomings. Instead, he suggests adopting a revised concept of sectarian religion grounded in a sociological framework. How new are the new sectarian religions in terms of their theology, rituals, organization, and so on? Continuity and discontinuity are perennial issues in examining new religious movements. Junliang Pan studies one of the new sects active in China today—the Church of Almighty God. He argues that even though this sectarian religion is http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Review of Religion and Chinese Society Brill

Sects, Rituals, and Property Problems

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 2015 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
Subject
Editorial
ISSN
2214-3947
eISSN
2214-3955
DOI
10.1163/22143955-00202001
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Is Chinese religion so unique that the terms and theories used in the study of religion in the West are not applicable? How appropriate is it to construct new terms to describe Chinese religious phenomena in modern times? How useful are the terms adopted from Western scholarship? How useful are terms that are not used by the religious believers and practitioners themselves? Terms are conceptual tools. To deal with complex and changing religious phenomena, it is always necessary to sharpen our tools, invent new tools, or revamp old tools. In this issue, Nikolas Broy examines the conceptual tools of “sect,” “sectarian religion,” and “redemptive society.” He argues that the concept of redemptive societies that has been recently constructed to describe the religious effervescence in early twentieth-century China has significant shortcomings. Instead, he suggests adopting a revised concept of sectarian religion grounded in a sociological framework. How new are the new sectarian religions in terms of their theology, rituals, organization, and so on? Continuity and discontinuity are perennial issues in examining new religious movements. Junliang Pan studies one of the new sects active in China today—the Church of Almighty God. He argues that even though this sectarian religion is

Journal

Review of Religion and Chinese SocietyBrill

Published: Nov 13, 2015

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