Pluralism and Its Harmonious Interplay

Harmonious pluralism manifested as a synthesis of many sources, an interpenetration of many forms: peaceful co-existence, conservative reform, tolerant inclusion. Such a course of development saw this diversity continually incorporated into an aggregate whole, which was itself receptive to these diverse cultural elements, absorbing and assimilating them. Ancient Chinese polytheism and its humanistic ethics were mutually abiding. The former was esteemed for its moral proficiency, and generally fortified by the ethos of the latter, and so progressed at a robust pace along a moderate path.

1. Causes

Firstly, geography and natural environment. Religion in China arose within a historical context informed by a half-accessible, half-secluded geography, a self-sustaining agricultural economy, and an ethnic majority possessed of an advanced culture and sound practical means, circumstances which shaped the magnanimous constitution of the races of China, with their inward cohesiveness and outward receptivity. During the process by which these races consolidated into a Chinese people, they expressed an abounding dynamism in peaceably communing with neighboring cultures, welcoming reciprocity and propitious intercourse. The genesis of this culturally Chinese quintessence, inclusive of its religious aspect, took place in the region of China’s Central Plain, whence the aboriginal culture of China emanated, and upon which it repeatedly converged after spreading among and marrying adjacent cultures, thereby amassing a sophisticated melange of superlative refinement, dubbed the “United Nations of Religion” by international religious scholars.

Secondly, China’s ethnic pluralism as a unitary conglomerate. A country’s religious and cultural organization must adapt to its ethnic composition. The pluralistic harmony of Chinese culture is necessitated by the multifarious nature of its people, who like their predecessors the Huaxia people, are an integral composite of diverse groups. Modern anthropological, ethnological and archaeological evidence has demonstrated that the Huaxia people are descended from the mixed stock of the Yanhuang ethnic group, who lived in the Northwest of China, and the various groups of the Eastern regions. Historically, regardless of whether the Chinese government was controlled by the Han or by a minority race, those in power have always enforced a policy which took into consideration local customs in imposing rule, which has allowed the inhabitants of frontier territories to preserve their distinctive heritage, while also maintaining political unity. Because the Chinese people are a cultural community who share a bloodline, a homeland, and a common destiny, the races that constitute this people recognize themselves both as singular ethnic groups and as integrally Chinese. This two-tiered, multifarious unity is what it means to be a Chinese in its fullest connotation.

Thirdly, the primeval and continuous nature of Chinese religious culture. The national religion of the ancient people of China is an aboriginal religion which has persisted since prehistoric times, such that spirit worship was tightly linked to the realistic needs at various levels of Chinese society. The worship of Shangdi as the Sky God, whose nature it is to reign supreme, corresponded to the needs of the ruling class in a real sense. The objects of nature worship, with its simple, direct observation of the world, satisfied the modest beliefs of the masses. The adoration of spirits and ancestor had direct significance for all, who, in paying homage to deceased forebears, fulfilled their filial obligations and sought favor from the afterlife. Sorcery, and its attempts to transcend the winds of fate and manipulate the destinies of men, appealed to the population’s need for a practical utility. So, various deities were able to cohabit in the minds of the Chinese and share their actual worship. One form of worship would not be expelled or eliminated as others rose in popularity, nor would newer religions be devoured by traditional ones. This worship of a multiplicity of deities constitutes a major characteristic of Chinese religion.

Fourthly, Confucianism’s progressive outlook: harmonious diversity. The concept of harmonious diversity was explicitly put forth in the ebullient contention among the multitude of philosophies that marked the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. The noted ancient Chinese thinker, educator and founder of the philosophy that bears his name, Confucius said, “The noble man is in harmony but does not follow the crowd, the inferior man follows the crowd but is not in harmony.”(5) It is by tolerating differences that a culture perpetuates its vitality. The Confucian philosophers of the Warring States Period summarized the great march of all cultures as “taking divergent paths but all bound for the same destination”(6) – the path of all the world’s cultures is ultimately that of managing the affairs of their nation and doing away with all strife. This philosophy of harmonizing differences became the mediating factor among China’s multiple religious factions, not only did it facilitate the blending of Confucian, Taoist, Logician and Legalist ideas during the Qin and Han dynasties, but also of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism during the Wei and Jin periods, and of China’s intrinsic culture with Islam and Christianity during the Tang and Song dynasties.

2. Themes

The development of harmonious pluralism spans many topics, chief among them are the following.

Firstly, a main body with many forms. China’s religions have undergone intense synthesis since their primeval beginning, and they have a capacity for mainstreaming a conglomerate of belief systems representing many territories and ancestral clans. This cultural genome is not capable of begetting monotheism, but rather is more likely to assimilate foreign religions and deities, creating multiple denominations out of Chinese polytheism, which gradually became a multi-various amalgamation of native and foreign faiths. All three of the world’s major religions and their branches have a historical presence in China. Buddhism’s three major branches (Chinese, Tibetan and Theraveda), Christianity’s three major sects (Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodox), and Islam’s three major divisions (Sunni, Shia and Sufism) all have devotees and organizations in China. Superimposed on these three global religions are the religious traditions of ancestor veneration and Taoism, ethnic and folk religions, and other devotional customs and primitive rituals.

Secondly, a common thread with certain dissimilarities. The religions of China are no random assortment, but all rest on the same foundation of respect for the order of heaven and ancestral decree, which is both the primary root and ultimate end of Chinese faith and the doctrine that addresses the question of the origin of the people and the culture. To disaffirm it is to disaffirm the Chinese people. So, each religion has more or less accepted the traditional patriarchal concepts of respect for the order of heaven and ancestral decree. For example, when Buddhism was first transmitted to China, the most severe attack against it was the claim that it ignored the prescripts of filial piety, preaching disloyalty and disobedience. In response, Buddhist followers repeatedly emphasized that Buddhism had forgone the minor prescripts but upheld the major ones. They also added writings on the subject to the classical canon such as the “Sutra on Parental Benevolence,” the “Filial Piety Sutra” and the “Ullambana Sutra.” Taoism accepted Confucian ethics into its moral discipline. Chinese translations of Islamic texts included a dual loyalty to Allah and to the emperor, as well as to the head of the family. Matteo Ricci directly translated the name of the Catholic God as Shangdi, thus expressing his respect for the order of heaven. Dissimilarity refers to the retaining of the fundamental faith specific to them by both the native religions of China and those which came from the outside, nicely supplementing the greater culture. Buddhism and Taoism became beloved in China because they nicely filled in the vacuum left by Confucianism’s lack of curiosity about foreign lands. Tending toward harmony does not mean tending toward similarity. Each religion, in the process of studying and adjoining the others, not only retained its respective distinct elements, but also broadened its horizons. Each was respected as an equal, each found its proper place, each had its unique cultural space and group of devotees, and each benefited the growth of the whole.

Thirdly, the sacred and the mundane. Judaism and Catholicism traditionally stress the polar separation of God and man. God is perfect, omniscient and omnipotent. Man has original sin and cannot redeem himself, but through devotion to God. God and man are separate and irreconcilable. The philosophy of the Confucians treated the spirit worship of China’s ancient dynasties as inseparable from humane ethics and developed the tradition of spirits relying on the living in the afterlife. They further expounded these ancient practices using their ethical philosophy, making it less abstruse and supernatural by highlighting its practical implications for making the living more virtuous. Once Confucian ethics had subsumed these practices, a social philosophy of pondering the mysteries of the spirit world to instruct the mundane developed. The Confucians say anyone can be like Emperor Yao and Emperor Shun, the Buddhists that anyone can become a Buddha, the Taoists that anyone can become a sage. There is no untraversable gulf between the mortal and the divine. It is exactly the application of premises such as man’s union with nature and the ‘indivisibility of the conspicuous and the concealed” to the relationship between the two that engendered among the Chinese people an attitude of affability toward religion, a devotion without fanaticism, a rational civility without indifference. Believers and non-believers all observed the moderation of the doctrine of the mean.