Philanthropy and the religious life of goodness in China
Files
Accepted manuscript
Date
2020
Authors
Weller, Robert
Huang, C. Julia
Wu, Keping
Version
Accepted manuscript
Embargo Date
2021-08-06
OA Version
Citation
Weller, R. P., Huang, C. J., & Wu, K. (2020). Philanthropy and the religious life of goodness in China. In Handbook on Religion in China. Edward Elgar Publishing. p.34-53. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781786437969.00008.
Abstract
A history of religious philanthropic associations, given in this chapter, shows how different they are from their past equivalents under the imperial Chinese dynasties. While they are still dedicated to betterment of the world, ideas of goodness and of the civic self have changed radically. Examples of mainly Buddhist but also Christian and other associations are given to show that in Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), they accommodate themselves to secular charity and welfare, to models of political goodness and to modernizing conceptions of a civic self. And the scale of their activities is far larger and more organised, in what this chapter calls industrialized religious philanthropy.
Description
License
This is a draft chapter. The final version is available in "Handbook on Religion in China" edited by Stephan Feuchtwang, published in 2020, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd https://doi.org/10.4337/9781786437969. The material cannot be used for any other purpose without further permission of the publisher, and is for private use only.