As befits a constitutional democracy, the Republic of China guarantees and enjoys freedom of religion along with political liberty. It was appropriate, therefore, that while the nation was celebrating the 53rd anniversary of the Republic last October 10, seven organized religions were marking their own unrestricted status with a unique joint exposition that attracted 420,000 visitors in seven days. Ninety thousand people filed through the halls of the Taipei Provincial Museum on the October 14 closing day.
Displaying books, sacred utensils, images, and pictures were Buddhists, Taoists, Catholics, Protestants, Moslems, and the faithful of two small sects, Hsien-yuan Chiao, an offshoot of Taoism, and Li Chiao, which worships a Buddhist divinity. The exhibition set forth history of the seven religions as well as their present situation on Taiwan. Especially impressive were the contrasts drawn between their condition of absolute freedom under the government of the Republic of China, and the atheistic suppression and persecution that the Chinese Communists of the mainland visit upon every religious belief.
China is not usually classified among the deeply religious countries of the world. The Chinese people have tended to find their deeper spiritual values in ethical systems—such as that of Confucius—which regulate man's conduct without metaphysical overtones or promise of punishment or reward after death. Yet China has not usually looked down upon those with other ideas. For many centuries various organized religions have proselyted among the Chinese, usually without interference. This tradition applies on Taiwan today.
On the mainland, however, the faith is Communism and only Communism. Tens of thousands have paid with their lives for refusal to renounce God. Others are still imprisoned. Peiping demands that any surviving church bow down to the state and accept its dictates. .
Of all the religions known to China, Buddhism has won the largest number of adherents. Its introduction is lost in antiquity. Pilgrims are known to have returned to China from India in 65 A.D. They had been sent by Emperor Ming of the late Han Dynasty (23-221 A.D.) four years before. They brought back a horse laden with sacred books and relics. Accompanying them were two Indian monks.
Since then, the exchange of Chinese and Indian scholars has included such giants as Kumarajiva (4th century), Fa Hsien (5th century), Bodhidharma (6th century), and Hsuan Chuang (7th century).
Massive Persecution
In the 1940s, before the Communist usurpation, nearly half of the Chinese population was counted as Buddhist. Individual members of the Buddhist Association totaled 4,260,000. Monks and nuns exceeded 500,000.
The Chinese Communists, believing in materialism and the class struggle, refuse to tolerate Buddhism. Teachings of love for one's fellow man do not accord with Red preachments of hate for all who dare to disagree with Marxist views. Monkhood is regarded as a "superstitious profession which employs deceitful means to cheat the people."
The Communists have persecuted Buddhists by confiscating monastery properties, brainwashing members, and sending monks and nuns to work at forced labor. Many Buddhists were compelled to recant.
In Huaiyin county, northern Kiangsu, the Reds recently drove some 3,000 Buddhist believers into the "People's Square" and profaned their faith. The Communists collected more than 100 Buddha statues and set them on a long table. Buddhists were ordered to kneel and pray that rain and food would be provided within four hours. When nothing happened, the Reds ordered the 3,000 Buddhists to spit on the images and then burned them. Faithful who refused to comply were savagely beaten. Finally the Reds compelled the Buddhists to sign a pledge renouncing their faith.
On Taiwan, Buddhism has taken advantage of the free atmosphere to win new adherents. About 6 million of the island's population of twice that many are nominal Buddhists. Membership in the Buddhist Association exceeds 35,000.
There are 1,850 temples and shrines, some 870 Buddhist monks, and 1,360 nuns. Monasteries are located in scenic spots or places contributing to serenity. The Goddess of Mercy has 350 temples. Some 90 are dedicated to Sakyamuni Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. There is a 72-foot Buddha statue in Changhua county of central Taiwan.
Nothing, Yet Everything
Next to Buddhism in influence is Taoism. Most Chinese people are Buddhists or Taoists or both. As far as the people are concerned, there is no strict line of demarcation between the two. Faithful pray in each other's temples; the deities of both are venerated. Buddhists and Taoists chant their prayers side by side at the same funeral service.
Taoism, both as philosophy and religion, was absorbed into the Chinese way of life and social system long ago. Lao Tse (the Old Master, 6th century B.C.) is to Taoism what Jesus is to Christianity. The Old Master's Tao Teh Ching (Book of Tao and Virtue), from which Taoism gets its name, has had a tremendous influence on the thinking of the Chinese people.
Taoist philosophy may be summed up in two words, wu wei (inaction). Tao is quiet and motionless and without feeling, yet holding absolute sway (like mathematics in the realm of numbers and quantities). Lao Tse held that "Tao does nothing, yet all things are done (of their own accord) in conformity with it. He who endeavors, fails; he who seizes, lets slip. Weakness conquers strength; the soft overcomes the hard."
The supreme doctrine of Taoism may be found in the phrase "Let nature take its course."
Taoism also advocates the removal of avarice and aggression by eliminating desire. "There is no sin greater than desire.... There is no fault greater than greed for gain," Tao says. For the last 20 centuries, no master-piece of Chinese literature is free of Taoist thinking.
Southern China, including Taiwan, has been strongly influenced by Taoism. Many popular deities, such as Matsu (the goddess of the seafaring people) and Kuan Kung (the God of War) are Taoistic.
Mutual Respect
Growth of Taoism on Taiwan dates to the end of the Ming Dynasty in the 17th century. Before the Sino-Japanese war in 1937, there were more than 2,800 Taoist temples on the island. Fearing Taoism would arouse patriotism, the Japanese disbanded the Taoist organizations and closed down the temples. The harder the Japanese tried to suppress Taoism, the stronger it became.
After the restoration of Taiwan to China in 1945, Taoists reopened their temples. On the eve of the fall of the Chinese mainland to the Communists in 1949, Taoist priests and devotees fled to Taiwan in large numbers. In 1950, the National Taoist Association was founded.
The Hsien-yuan Chiao movement regards the ancient Chinese Emperor Huang Ti (Yellow Emperor, circa 2700 B.C.) as divine. It advocates peace and filial piety, and seeks to preserve Chinese culture and traditions. Lao Tse is regarded as divine and there are other resemblances to Taoism, of which Hsien-yuan Chiao can be considered a branch.
Li Chiao founder dreams of Goddess of Mercy (File photo)
Li (Reason) Chiao, established in the 17th century at the end of the Ming Dynasty, stands for peace, honesty and similar virtues. The Goddess of Mercy (Buddhist) is the divinity. Li Chiao thus is regarded as an off-shoot of Buddhism.
It is virtually impossible to estimate the number of followers of Hsien-yuan Chiao and Li Chiao. Many temples contain the deities of Taoism, Buddhism, Hsien-yuan Chiao, and Li Chiao. Worshippers bow to all.
The exact date of Islam's introduction into China is unknown. Some sources assert it was as early as 610. However, the first official contacts between Moslems from Arabia and the Chinese Imperial Court, as recorded in the history of the Tang Dynasty, took place in 651.
Before the fall of the mainland to the Communists, there were around 50,000,000 Moslems in China, mostly in the northwestern provinces of Ninghsia, Kansu, and Tsinghai.
Moslems came to Taiwan with Cheng Cheng-kung (Koxinga) at the close of the Ming Dynasty. Some now residing at Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Tainan, Keelung, and Taipei are descendants of 25,000 who came to the island in 1661.
The present Moslem population of Taiwan is about 40,000. Of the six mosques, that in Taipei is one of the most imposing in East Asia. It was built in 1960.
Islam is a way of life as well as a religion. This is yet another reason why the Communists have outlawed the teachings of the Prophet. A large number of Moslems escaped from the mainland as the Reds seized power. After suffering great hardships, they made their way to Taiwan.
Attack on Faith
In a statement issued at the religious exhibition, the Chinese Moslem Association of Taiwan denounced the Peiping regime for a so-called "Four Conformity" campaign that seeks to exterminate all traces of Mohammedanism. The four points enforced on Moslems are:
Faith—none except Communism.
Food—all must go to the same communal dining halls, and Moslems must eat pork.
Marriage—no religious barriers.
Funerals—cremation instead of Moslem burial. Those following the custom of burial are "anti-revolutionaries" because of the "waste of arable land."
The association said Moslems in northwestern China and in Yunnan province of the southwest have not ceased in their armed resistance to Communist tyranny. They constitute some of the strongest guerrilla forces on the mainland, the association said.
Life-size image of Red-imprisoned Catholic priest (File photo)
The number of Catholics on Taiwan has increased from 8,000 in 1945 to 244,000 in 1964. There are 697 priests of 17 orders or congregations and 662 sisters belonging to 41 congregations. In the last decade, the number of churches with resident priests has grown from 15 to 309. Also under Catholic auspices are 12 hospitals, 28 dispensaries, 15 high schools, two technical schools, and a college. Thomas Cardinal Tien, S.V.D., the only Chinese cardinal, assumed office in 1960 as apostolic administrator of the archdiocese of Taipei.
In 1948, the year before the Communists came to power, there were on the mainland some 3,500,000 Catholics ministered by 25 bishops, 2,698 priests, and 5,112 nuns. There were some 3,000 foreign missionary priests and more than 2,000 missionary sisters.
Schismatic Church
The first move in the persecution of the church by the Chinese Reds was the expulsion, often after imprisonment, of foreign missionary personnel. Church property was expropriated. Today there are on the mainland only one American bishop (still under arrest in Shanghai) and nine foreign nuns in Peiping, permitted to remain as teachers in a school for the children of foreign diplomats.
The Communists seized or closed three Catholic universities, 189 middle schools, 1,500 primary schools, 2,243 rural schools, 216 hospitals, five leprosaria, 254 orphanages, and one ethnological institute. In 1957, the Reds established the so-called "Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association" and the following year sponsored the illicit consecration of "elected" bishops without the approval of the Holy See, thus bringing into being a schismatic church.
Father Beda Tsang, S. J., was imprisoned and tortured in an attempt to compel him to head that schismatic church. Be refused and died in prison. Fathers Aidan McGrath and Joseph Sheng were imprisoned; the former was expelled after much suffering and the latter died in prison.
Another heroic priest, was Father John Tung, who turned a whole assembly of Catholics in Chungking away from the Communists in a famous sermon in which he said: "Today, I am required to attack the representative of the Holy Father (the Internuncio, Msgr. Riberi). Tomorrow, I shall perhaps be forced to attack the representative of Jesus Christ, the Holy Father. The following day why should I not be constrained to attack God, Himself?"
Protestantism on the mainland also suffered terrible persecution. There were more than 4,000 Protestant missionaries in 1948. Today not one remains.
According to a brochure of the Christian Association, the Chinese Communists massacred 13,528 Christians, imprisoned 41,830 others, and expropriated US$21 million worth of church property up to 1960. The association said the Reds made changes in the Bible and banned Sunday services.
Since 1945, the number of Protestants on Taiwan has increased more than eightfold. The 1,830 churches have 293,570 members and 2,112 Chinese preachers.
Protestant History
Among the largest missions are those of the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Seventh Day Adventists, the Orient Crusade, the Church World Service, the YMCA, and the YWCA.
Protestantism on Taiwan has a long history. The Dutch introduced Christianity as early as 1924. However, after Cheng Cheng-kung expelled the Dutch in 1661, it waned. In the 1800s, medical evangelists brought Protestantism back into favor.
Dr. James Laidlaw Maxwell, a graduate of Edinburgh University and resident physician at the Birmingham General Hospital, was working in Tainan in 1865. Dr. George L. Mackay was sent to northern Taiwan in 1872 by the Canadian Presbyterian Church. Within 10 years, he had established 20 chapels and made a number of converts in the area near Tamsui.
The island now has 4 Protestant universities, 15 theological colleges, 9 middle schools, 261 kindergartens, 9 hospitals, and 37 clinics. Service to the 12 million people comes before conversions. Many missionaries work among the mountain people.
The seven faiths that joined in the Taipei exhibition provided eloquent testimony that the persecution of religion in the Orient is Communist, not Chinese. When the sovereignty of the Republic of China is returned to the mainland, freedom of religion once more will be guaranteed in both constitution and practice.