This book examines the language studies of Western missionaries in China and beyond. The goal of this study is to examine the purpose, methods, context, and influence of missionary language studies. The book reveals new insights into the hitherto less well-known and unstudied origins of language thinking. These publically unknown sources virtually form our «hidden history of language». Some key 17thcentury and pre-17thcentury descriptions of language not only pass on our Greco-Latin «grammatical» heritage internationally for about two millennia. They also reveal grammar, speaking, and language as an esoteric knowledge. Our modern life has been formed and influenced through both esoteric and common connotations in language. It is precisely the techniques, allusions, and intentions of language making revealed in rare, coded texts which have influenced our modern identities. These extraordinary and highly controversial interpretations of both language and Christianity reveal that our modern identities have been largely shaped in the absence of public knowledge and discussion.

The papers in this volume go back to a conference held September 14-15, 2002, at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C., in honour of Prof. Daniel L. Overmyer on his retirement. The contributions pay tribute to this renowned scholar of Chinese religious traditions, whose work is a constant reminder to look beyond text to context, beyond idea to practice, to study religion as it was and is lived by real people rather than as an abstract system of ideas and doctrines. Contents PHILIP CLART: Introduction RANDALL L. NADEAU: A Critical Review of Daniel L. Overmyer’s Contribution to the Study of Chinese Religions. I. Popular Sects and Religious Movements HUBERT SEIWERT: The Transformation of Popular Religious Movements of the Ming and Qing Dynasties: A Rational Choice Interpretation SHIN-YI CHAO: The Precious Volume of Bodhisattva Zhenwu Attaining the Way. A Case Study of the Worship of Zhenwu (Perfected Warrior) in Ming-Qing Sectarian Groups CHRISTIAN JOCHIM: Popular Lay Sects and Confucianism: A Study Based on the Way of Unity in Postwar Taiwan SOO KHIN WAH: The Recent Development of the Yiguan Dao Fayi Chongde Sub-Branch in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand PHILIP CLART: Merit beyond Measure. Notes on the Moral (and Real) Economy of Religious Publishing in Taiwan JEAN DEBERNARDI: "Ascend to Heaven and Stand on a Cloud." Daoist Teaching and Practice at Penang’s Taishang Laojun Temple. II. Historical and Ethnographic Studies of Chinese Popular Religion JOHN LAGERWEY: The History and Sociology of Religion in Changting County, Fujian KENNETH DEAN: The Growth of Local Control over Cultural and Environmental Resources in Ming and Qing Coastal Fujian PAUL R. KATZ: Religion, Recruiting and Resistance in Colonial Taiwan: A Case Study of the Xilai An Incident, 1915 WANG CHIEN-CH’UAN. Transl. PHILIP CLART: The White Dragon Hermitage and the Spread of the Eight Generals Procession Troupe in Taiwan TUEN WAI MARY YEUNG: Rituals and Beliefs of Female Performers in Cantonese Opera JORDAN PAPER: The Role of Possession Trance in Chinese Culture and Religion: A Comparative Overview from the Neolithic to the Present. III. The Religious Life of Clerics, Literati, and Emperors JUDITH BOLTZ: On the Legacy of Zigu and a Manual on Spirit-writing in Her Name STEPHEN ESKILDSEN: Death, Immortality, and Spirit Liberation in Northern Song Daoism. The Hagiographical Accounts of Zhao Daoyi ROBERTO K. ONG: Chen Shiyuan and Chinese Dream Theory BAREND J. TER HAAR: Yongzheng and His Buddhist Abbots. Glossary – Index

This collection of essays explores the impact of Jesus within and beyond Christianity, including his many afterlives in literature and the arts, social justice, and world religion during the past two thousand years and especially in the present global context. This second volume focuses on the diverse interfaith afterlives of Jesus. Moving beyond the explicitly Christian afterlives traced in volume one, this set of essays explores how Jesus has significant afterlives in Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Ruism and Mormonism, as well as selected secular afterlives in progressive Christianity. The contributors include religion scholars from the respective traditions, as well as faith practitioners reflecting on Jesus within their own religious context. While the essays are all grounded in critical scholarship, reflective practice, or both, they are expressed in nontechnical language that is accessible to interested nonspecialists.

Confession in early modern Europe has been the subject of several studies. But what happened to the confessional practice when it moved to other cultures? This is the major research question of the present book as applied to late Ming and early Qing China. The origin of this research can be traced back to the Handbook of Christianity in China: Volume One (635-1800) (Leiden 2000) compiled by researchers of the K.U. Leuven, in collaboration with an international team of circa twenty scholars. As a reference work, the Handbook comprehensively presents many different aspects of Christianity in China, including sciences, arts and crafts. But there was one major absentee: ritual, which is often considered essential for understanding China. A first step in filling this gap was the organisation of an international workshop on "Chinese and Christian Rituality in Late Imperial China" (Leuven, June 2004). The present volume includes the revised contributions by Eugenio Menegon and Erik Zürcher and a reworked version of an article by Liam Brockey as well as the edition of the primary source he used for his article, a confessional manual composed by Jose Monteiro S.J. (1646-1720). These articles portray from different angles one of the sacramental rituals, viz. that of confession.

The contributions in this volume were mostly first presented at the conference "Research on Nestorianism in China. Zhongguo jingjiao yanjiu 中國景教研究" held in Salzburg, 20– 26 May 2003. Like the conference, the volume explores the subject of "Nestorianism" (jingjiao, "Luminous Religion") in a variety of aspects. The material of the present collection is organized in five parts. The first part presents different aspects of the past and current research on jingjiao. The second part discusses jingjiao in the Tang dynasty, especially the question of the "Nestorian" texts and documents, their authenticity and theology. The third part deals with the "Nestorian" inscriptions and remains from the Yuan dynasty, especially from Quanzhou. Part four is dedicated to questions of the Church of the East in Central Asia and other historically relevant countries. The last part of the book presents a "Preliminary Bibliography on the Church of the East in China and Central Asia" prepared especially for this volume.

The collection presents the proceedings of the international colloquium held in Sankt Augustin in 1997 and additional materials. The articles are written in English, German or Chinese (with English abstracts). The volume includes a general index with glossary.