《定劫宝卷》管窥

《定劫宝卷》是《家谱宝卷》的姊妹篇,亦为中国民间秘密宗教经卷中的稀世珍本。本文对该部宝卷的所属教派、问世年代以及滥觞于《家谱宝卷》、定型于该部宝卷的民间秘密宗教谶纬思想体系,作了较为缜密的考证与论述,并昭示了该部宝卷对清代民间秘密宗教及其反清斗争巨大而深远的影响     

赣南闽西罗祖教抄本宝卷探析

本文以新发现的赣南闽西罗祖教抄本宝卷为中心,指出抄本宝卷对研究民间宗教的教派历史、仪式活动有着重要的价值。在活态的仪式活动中,刊本宝卷衍生出了新的抄本宝卷。从宗教本质来看,正统宗教与民间宗教没有不可逾越的鸿沟。以烧香、拜佛、吃斋、念经为表现形式的民间宗教活动是宗教多元化的一种必然趋势,也是维持宗教生态平衡的关键。     

太上老君信仰与明清民间宝卷

道教与民间宝卷关系密切。道教的神明信仰、哲学思想、内丹炼养、斋醮仪式都深深渗透到众多宝卷之中,其中道教的内丹术及斋醮仪范对宝卷的影响最大。明清时期,有多种宝卷与太上老君信仰相关联,且流传地域广泛。民间宝卷亦流传太上老君"化身"诸神之说。历史上,道教与闽、赣两省的民间宗教亲密无间,共生共长,诸多道教宫观转化成为民间宗教经堂。     

财神信仰与中国民间宝卷

宝卷是唐、五代变文、讲经文演变而成的一种传播宗教的艺术形式,是独立于佛经、道藏外的另一中国传统宗教的经典。财神信仰与中国民间信仰联系紧密。在中国民间的信仰体系中,不仅有《财神宝卷》的流传,财神信仰也与其他民间神明关系密切。民间流传着太上老君化身财神的传说,江西地区亦将水神萧公视为财神。神明之间的相互转化,是中国民间信仰的有趣现象。     

河西民间宗教宝卷的叙事体制

河西宝卷是流传在甘肃河西地区的一种说唱艺术形式。河西民间宗教宝卷是河西宝卷中的一类,这类宝卷在河西宝卷中产生时期较早,并且有着自己独特的叙事体制。本文从袭古式的命名、写实式的序言和韵散相间的文体形式三个方面对河西民间宗教宝卷的叙事体制进行阐述。通过对其叙事体制的分析,为探究河西宝卷的来源提供新的佐证和研究途径。     

河西宝卷方俗口语词的文化蕴涵——以民间宗教类宝卷为例

河西宝卷是流传在甘肃河西地区的一种说唱艺术形式。民间宗教类宝卷既具有明清之际教派宝卷的特征,也是近代汉语后期重要的白话语料。宝卷中使用了大量的方言词、俗语词和口语词,这些词汇均包含着多重的文化信息。本文从"展现河西地区历史风貌的俗语词"、"揭示过去文化遗迹的方言词"和"体现多元宗教思想的宗教口语词"三个方面,阐释民间宗教类河西宝卷方俗口语词的文化蕴涵。     

论宝卷的劝善功能

明清以来,宝卷盛行于民间。在满足民众宗教、娱乐需求的同时,宝卷也对民众有着突出的劝化作用。宝卷主要依靠渊源于佛教的果报理论、地狱观念,止恶扬善,对民间的伦理道德、日常行为作出了明确而细致的规范,在很大程度上俨然成为民间的道德教科书。     

有关东大乘教的重要发现

本文介绍了九部孤本宝卷的发现经过，对其中有关东大乘教创教立宗的三部孤本宝卷做了简介，并据此回答了东大乘教这一明清时期我国最大的民间秘密宗教在目前研究中尚未弄清的一些问题，诸如：弓长祖究竟叫什么名字？三宗五派宗主派主是谁？是何时正式分的宗派？东大乘教是否还有创教立宗时的其他宝卷等     

何仙姑宝卷的宗教内涵

何仙姑宝卷是明清时期民间宗教的宣传品,系统地宣扬了民间宗教关于收元、敦伦、魔考、炼丹的理论知识.     

《中国民间秘密宗教辞典》简评

由天津社会科学院宗教文化研究所濮文起先生主编、四川辞书出版社出版的《中国民间秘密宗教辞典》（１９９６．１０）是一部很有特色、很有价值的辞书。该书汲取、融汇了国内外学术界大量研究成果,是世界上第一部有关中国民间秘密宗教的专科辞典。中国民间秘密宗教作为一...     

A NEW LOOK AT THE SCIENCE‐AND‐RELIGION DIALOGUE

Abstract. Cognitive science is beginning to make a contribution to the science‐and‐religion dialogue by its claims about the nature of both scientific and religious knowledge and the practices such knowledge informs. Of particular importance is the distinction between folk knowledge and abstract theoretical knowledge leading to a distinction between folk science and folk religion on the one hand and the reflective, theoretical, abstract form of thought that characterizes both advanced scientific thought and sophisticated theological reasoning on the other. Both folk science and folk religion emerge from commonsense reasoning about the world, a form of reasoning bequeathed to us by the processes of natural selection. Suggestions are made about what scientists and theologians can do if they accept these claims.     

Mapping Chinese Folk Religion in Mainland China and Taiwan

The revival of folk (popular) religion in China in the last three decades has been noted in many publications and documented in ethnographic studies. However, until now there has been no quantitative study that provides an overall picture of Chinese folk‐religion practices. This article is a first attempt to draw the contours of Chinese folk religion based on three recent surveys conducted in mainland China and Taiwan. Three types of folk religion are conceptualized: communal, sectarian, and individual. Different types of folk religion may have different social functions and divergent trajectories of change in the modernization process. At present, in spite of the dramatic social, political, and cultural changes in modern times, the adherents of folk religion still substantially outnumber the believers of institutional religions in Chinese societies.     

James Huchingson's Constructive Theology

James Huchingson's book, Pandemonium Tremendum: Chaos and Mystery in the Life of God , is an artistic improvisation on recurrent themes in the dialogue between religion and science. Around the cantus firmus of the Pandemonium Tremendum Huchingson composes a grand metaphysical composition that is glorious in its detail, magnificent in its overarching themes, and careful in its attention to context. Much like a suspended chord between two different harmonies, Huchingson's theological composition dangles the reader in the tensions of religion and science, modernity and postmodernity, particulars and universals, God and the world. Although this book is surely a cutting-edge development in the ongoing corpus of religion and science, I am most excited about its constructive theological provocations. This is a work in progress, a composition in the making.     

Religion and Esotericism among Students: A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study

Analysing the results of a study on religious and esoteric beliefs and practice among university students from five European and five American countries, we found that the level of religiousness of students depends very much on their cultural environment: the level of religiosity and esoteric beliefs is significantly higher among North- and South-American students than among European students. On the other hand, Asian spiritual techniques and esoteric methods of healing are practised more frequently by students in North-Western European countries. In the second part of the paper, we examine the relationship between academic discipline and religious worldviews. According to our data, students in the social sciences and the arts are more distanced from religion than students of other areas of science, but they, like students of medicine and languages, are closer to esotericism than students of the 'exact sciences'. Several hypotheses are proposed to explain these results.     

Religion and the Human Rights Idea

Three recent books focus, in different ways, on the idea of human rights and its relation to religion and religious ethics. All three books discussed here address criticisms of the human rights idea and seek to establish the relationship of religion and human rights with regard to the field of policy. The present discussion begins with an overview that places these three books in the larger context of the development of the human rights idea and its historical relationship with religion. It then turns to Little's book, next to the collection of essays edited by Twiss, Simion, and Petersen, which is described internally as a Festschrift for Little, and then to Hogan's book, and in the final section it explores comparisons among the books.     

The Relationship between Religion and Deviance in a Largely Irreligious Country: Findings from the 2010 China General Social Survey

We examined the religion–deviance relationship in China, analyzing the 2010 China General Social Survey data to estimate ordinary least squares, logistic, and negative binomial regression models. First, we found respondents who followed some form of religion to be no different from those without religion in law or rule violation. Second, respondents of folk religion were more favorable to unconventional sex than those without religion, and those of organized religion were less so. Finally, respondents of organized religion were less likely to report daily drinking and smoking than their irreligious counterparts, whereas those of folk religion were not different from the religious nones.     

‘Be careful,or you'll act corruptly and make a carved image for yourselves,in the form of a figure,the likeness male or female’ (Deut. 4:16): A commentary on Norenzayan's Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict (2013)

Norenzayan's book is an ambitious attempt to integrate recent research from behavioral economics and social psychology, particularly priming studies, into a book about religion. If the account is meant as an explanation of religion or big religion, it does not succeed. If it has more modest aims, namely to describe how surveillance institutions, of which big religion is one important class, can sometimes lead to cooperation and conflict, then it is quite successful in doing so.     

Chinese Folk Christianity and Its Possibly Missional Nature

During the last four decades, Christianity in China has grown quickly. There are about 50 million Protestant Christians in today's China. The majority of them, however, are in rural areas. This rural Christianity, or folk Christianity, is influenced by Chinese folk religion. This article explores the features and the missional nature of Chinese folk Christianity. It exposes several main features of folk Christianity, including its charismatic orientation, pragmatic concern, moral emphasis, and superstitious factors. Its main argument is that Chinese folk Christianity is missional in a situation where the absolute majority of the population is non‐Christian. Through describing and analyzing Chinese folk Christianity as biblical, historical, contextual, eschatological, and practicable, which are fundamental affirmations about the missional church, this article reaches the following conclusion: Although it is somewhat syncretic, Chinese folk Christianity, as God's people called in a particular context, has its missional nature. It is a contextualized form of Christianity. Given the particular Chinese context in participating in God's mission, it might be inevitable for Chinese folk Christianity to be syncretic to some degree. In the contexualization of Christianity, however, Chinese folk Christianity has raised some theological questions: How deeply and thoroughly contextualized can folk Christianity become? Are there limits to its contextualization? If yes, what are the limits?     

Gifts of Money and Gifts of Time: Folk Religion and Civic Involvement in a Chinese Society

Drawing on representative survey data collected in Taiwan, this study examines the effects on volunteering of Chinese folk religion. We find (1) practicing ancestor worship lowers people’s likelihood of donating to secular groups while local deity worshippers are more likely to donate money to religious organizations. (2) Sectarian group membership can significantly promote members’ odds of volunteering in religious groups. (3) Individual folk religion is positively associated with the odds of religious giving and volunteering. (4) Individual folk religion adherents mainly donate to Buddhism, Taoism, and Folk Religion, but on an occasional basis.     

COGNITIVE SCIENCE OF RELIGION AND FOLK THEISTIC BELIEF

Cognitive scientists of religion promise to lay bare the cognitive mechanisms that generate religious beliefs in human beings. Defenders of the debunking argument believe that the cognitive mechanisms studied in this field pose a threat to folk theism. A number of influential responses to the debunking argument rely on making two sets of distinctions: (1) proximate/ultimate explanations and (2) specific/general religious beliefs. I argue, however, that such responses have drawbacks and do not make room for folk theism. I suggest that a detour through the literature in the philosophy of mind regarding the problem of mental causation regarding nonreductive physicalism can provide a way for preserving folk theism without doing violence to the way cognitive science of religion is being practiced today. More specifically, I believe there is a way of responding to the debunking argument that does not require a rejection of the causal premise.