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Confucianism will never be religion
Huang QingChina Daily  Updated: 2006-01-06 06:17

A man named Jiang Qing recently made himself a target of criticism by advocating reviving Confucianism as a religion.

Known as a conservative Confucian, Jiang retired from his teaching post in Shenzhen four years ago, and now focuses on Confucianism in mountainous Guizhou Province.

Jiang has astonished many of his opponents, and supporters as well, with his recent actions.

His idea of reviving Chinese "Rujiao" (literally translated as Confucian religion) has been rubbished by many as going against the trends of the times.

In his recently published article on Confucian religion, he did not hesitate to state Confucian religion is the core of Chinese civilization, including political, cultural and religious aspects.

As a State religion, he stresses, it should be the cultural consensus and spiritual belief of the whole nation.

It is his hypothesis that, challenged by Western civilization in its broadest sense, China's current political and social problems should be, and could be, solved by Confucian religion.

Along American scholar Samuel Huntington's line that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic, but civilizations (although Huntington defines his use of civilization as a cultural entity), Jiang believes remaking the Confucian religion will enable Chinese people to launch a "dialogue between Chinese civilization and Western civilization." To be specific, it is a dialogue between the so-called Confucian religion and Christian religion.

By choosing the word "dialogue" he distances himself somewhat from Huntington as the latter believes in clashes of civilizations. According to Huntington, differences do not necessarily mean conflict and conflict does not necessarily mean violence. But over the centuries, differences between civilizations have generated the most prolonged and violent conflicts.

Jiang is true to his title of "daru" (big shot Confucian) since he has followed Confucius' teaching by being non-confrontational and pursuing the peaceful approach of dialogue in international interactions between different civilizations.

Westerners can easily label Jiang a nationalist as his outlook has been shaped largely by cultural fault lines separating Chinese and Christian civilizations.

But his idea of shaping China and the Chinese in a Confucian mould will never happen in reality. There are far too many opponents not willing to see Confucian religion in this land.

An apologist for autocratic monarchy, Confucius and his doctrine has always been explored by the elites and the ruling class to defend the established system of rule by man in feudal China.

Historically China has been strongly influenced by Confucianism. But to claim there was a Confucian religion is nonsense.

In feudal China, there were times when efforts were made by elites to shape Confucianism into a state religion, unfortunately, to no avail.

Chinese history, long as it is, has shown there has never been a Confucian religious set-up, or clergy, or rite none at all.

Above all, Confucius himself did not aspire to be a god.

Jiang advocates the integration of Confucian religion and politics, and the empowerment of such a religion.

Almost without exception, modern countries have separated the church from the state. This has been the case in China.

But we are dealing with a man standing on his head looking at our secular present as irrelevant.

He is deeply bound up in his fallacy and churns out programmes to realize his dream.

His desire and design for the future China is but an attempt to restore the feudal order and the relationship between the ruler and the subjects of the ruler.

But among all his ideas there is one exception that he has not received from his master but borrowed from the mundane world.

He has called for taxing anything relating to Confucius such as temples, teachings, relics and so on. This, of course, runs counter to Confucian teachings.

The more I read his writing, the more I become shocked. I cannot but agree with the saying that this indeed is the climax of the two debates that took place in 2004 and 2005 respectively.

The 2004 debate centred on "dujing" (the study of Confucian classics). The 2005 episode started when Renmin University of China set up a school especially for "guoxue" (the study of classics by Chinese masters in its history), sparking controversy.

The debates revolved around conservative Confucians, such as Jiang, that have gone to the extreme.

We are facing a trend far transcending academic studies, it seems. Religious fervour is heating up.

Religion as a personal belief is a constitutional human right no more than that.

Religion as a state power, as Jiang advocates, should never be allowed, not in this country.

To call Jiang and his theory fundamentalist disgraces the name of Confucius.

After all, Confucius has left the Chinese a set of values, one of the traits that make us Chinese and distinguishes us from the rest of the world.

Confucius has also enriched us with his wisdom, which has helped our people withstand many ups and downs.

His ethical principles in particular are what mainstream society wants to be reintroduced.

We never know whether Jiang's intention is to raise alarm about foreign influence or to raise his image as a staunch defender of Confucianism.

But we know Confucius' teachings have contributed a great deal to Chinese civilization. His wisdom and ethics offer some help, but do not meet all of our needs.

Confucianism has survived different schools of thought for centuries and the legacy should be passed on. But the only way to carry on his legacy is to make his teachings relevant to modern China.

(China Daily 01/06/2006 page4)


 
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