Author: d24

Charismatic sainthood was a tool used by redemptive societies in the twentieth century to construct magnetic leadership for emerging salvationist organisations.

‘Redemptive societies’ is a western term for the wave of religious activity that emerged particularly in Republican China seeking to save China and the wider world from social decline and apocalypse. China had undergone a destabilising series of transformations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that challenged its conceptions of the world order and traditional cosmology. The nation-state became the normative model of authority and legitimacy, restructuring Chinese value systems away from the domination of the religious to include those of secular modernity, such as science and human rights.¹ For redemptive societies, sainthood provided a middle ground where modern science and technology could be used to legitimate a religious leader’s practices and authority in a new system, while simultaneously referencing an established familiar cultural heritage of sainthood practices, such as establishing a lineage, constructing a hagiography or the practice of spirit writing. In this way, redemptive societies reframed traditional conceptions of religious leadership to survive in the modern context.

David Ownby isolates the systematic construction of charisma in religious leadership, defined as ‘the embodiment of the qualities of leadership, the attraction of followers, the representation of their interests and dreams in real or utopian projects’.² The two charismatic leaders discussed in this blog post, Zhang Tianran and Li Yujie, used their charismatic power and practices to influence the actions of the divine and the humans around them. Under Zhang Tianran’s leadership, the redemptive society Yiguandao became the largest religious organisation in China, while Li Yujie successfully guided and established Tiandijiao as a redemptive society organised around spiritual healing and science. Nonetheless, both leaders offer very different forms of charismatic authority, providing a fascinating comparison in terms of their relationship with the divine, their interactions with the political system and their long-term legacy.

Both Li and Zhang were highly skilled at establishing relationships with the secular power structures around them, utilising their charisma to foster support and legitimation from the state, academia and business. However, while Zhang Tianran consciously assimilated into the traditional religious hierarchy, Li Yujie maintained a more mediatory role as an interlocutor between the divine and the earthly realm. Zhang claimed to be the reincarnation of the Living Buddha Jigong, a twelfth century Buddhist monk associated in popular religion with eccentricity and spirit possession cults. Jigong’s image has been used extensively as symbolic representation of Zhang, who has thus become deified as a transcendent omnipresent, omniscient figure. This was strengthened after his death when Zhang maintained his charismatic authority through appearing in spirit writing sessions, directly interacting with his disciples and impacting the present organisation of the movement. Billioud describes anthropological accounts of followers describing greater connection to his physical presence compared to the more abstract entity of the Eternal Mother, Yiguandao’s conception of the power of the universe.³ While there is an abundance of documentary evidence of Li, Zhang remains ‘elusive’⁴, with sources about his life restricted to hagiographical accounts or propaganda pieces against him. This, combined with mystery around the location of his burial site, results in a further intangibleness attributed to his self that elevates him beyond the earthly realm.

On the other hand, Li Yujie’s time as leader of the Tiandejiao movement was grounded in his political principles and institutional ties. While Li would also appeal to traditional perceptions of holy men by preaching about the intimate relationship between god and man, retreating for a few days every year to ascend to heaven and wearing dark glasses so as to protect others from his blinding healing gaze, he was also engaged in earthly matters to a very high degree, as listed in President Li Denhui’s eulogy in 1994.⁵ He served as a member of the Finance Ministry under the GMD, owned and edited a newspaper that extensively advocated for freedom of the press, and used scientific language to frame his religious treatises. As Ownby argues, this did not appear to be a contradiction for Li, and in fact, his secular contacts served to strengthen his religious goals as in the case of gaining approval from the Taiwanese government to operate as a public religious institution despite their martial law.⁶

This differing use of charisma, the relationship between the leader and their followers, from these two saints, demonstrates the abundance of approaches to sainthood amongst redemptive societies at the time, all seeking to aid China and rescue the world from apocalyptic decline.

1. David Ownby, ‘Introduction’, in Making Saints in Modern China, eds. David Ownby, Vincent Goossaert, and Ji Zhe (New York, 2017), p.7 [↩]
2. ibid. p.17 [↩]
3. Sébastien Billioud, ‘Yiguandao’s Patriarch Zhang Tianran: Hagiography, Deification, and Production of Charisma in a Modern Religious Organization’, in David Ownby, Vincent Goossaert, and Ji Zhe (eds), Making Saints in Modern China (New York, 2017) p.235 [↩]
4. ibid. p.229 [↩]
5. David Ownby, ‘Sainthood, Science, and Politics: The Life of Li Yujie, Founder of the Tiandijiao’, in David Ownby, Vincent Goossaert, and Ji Zhe (eds), Making Saints in Modern China (New York, 2017) p.252 [↩]
6. ibid. p.249 [↩]

Taiping ideology utilised elements of both Chinese and Western religious tradition in a bid to establish a Heavenly Kingdom on earth. This was inevitable in a society with heavily ingrained values of mandated authority being exposed to new systems of communal identity and conduct. Applying Protestant Christianity to this context led to the Taiping movement becoming a fusion of revolutionary innovation and the traditional dynastic cycle, though the practical success of this would be limited.

A clear example of this convergence is the structure of authority imposed by the leader of the movement, Hong Xiquan. The Taiping organisational system with the Heavenly Father (God), Jesus (the Heavenly Elder Brother) and Hong (the Heavenly Younger Brother) demonstrates a continuation of Confucian familial hierarchy ideals as a source of power. Hong sought to derive personal legitimation by presenting himself as both a messianic figure and a senior part of the holy family. While it could be said that this inverted the Confucian emphasis on filial obedience by prioritising loyalty to God and rulers above that of the family, ultimately it is more convincing to interpret this as an intentional coalescence of political and religious moral authority within familial structures that people could identify with and devote themselves to. What Western and Qing observers both saw in Taiping religion at the time therefore was a ‘form of Christianity influenced in part by Chinese native sectarian traditions’._¹

 Furthermore, the Taipings used the traditional vocabulary of the ‘Mandate of Heaven’ and the dynastic cycle to frame their argument that the current imperial system needed to be destroyed and replaced with the new Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Famine and economic depression in the 1840s, harsh taxation, and weakness in the face of foreign incursions had undermined the authority of the imperial government and opened discussions about the loss of the Mandate of Heaven. The Taipings could therefore justify their revolution as being part of a longer cyclical tradition of uprising and new governance. Their very name, translating to ‘Great Peace’ evoked a time of perfect harmony and order similarly championed by earlier reformers and millenarian movements._² Also, the Tiantiao Shu, the official declaration of Taiping creed widely circulated in 1852, claims that ancient monarchs and people in China long ago had also worshiped the Christian God in accordance with the ‘great Way’ before ‘erroneously follow[ing] the devil’s path’._³ This further demonstrates the perceived need to construct a wider legitimising narrative around the Taiping righteously returning China to its original holy state.

Many of the commandments in the Tiantiao Shu were in line with Protestant fundamentalist advocation of a simple faith, such as prohibitions against opium smoking and gambling, that would have appealed to the inherent puritanism of Chinese peasantry. This can also be seen in the Youxue Shi, which provided simple formulations of the basic religious and moral principles followers of the Taiping were expected to follow. The very phrasing and structure of this document is evocative of the San Zi Jing, a Confucian teaching device for children that was designed for easy memorisation and recitation. In a similar way to how Confucian tenets were often learnt by rote, the Ten Heavenly Commandments, the core of the Taiping ethical code, were often memorised by Taiping followers for the purpose of self-cultivation, even if they were relatively ill-informed on other scripture or practice._⁴ Therefore, although the Taipings were often critical of Confucianism’s associations with the established elite, there were many references in their core texts, not only in terms of social and political values but in the very organisation and phrasing, that was in direct reference and emulation of Confucian and traditional Chinese convention.

This argument must, however, not be overstated, as I do acknowledge that Taiping ideology did take some clear divergences from established tradition. For instance, the Taiping’s ideas about monotheism drastically diverged from the old cult of Heaven that was traditionally under the remit of the rulers; instead, the religion they offered was one that was more accessible for all, one where the pious individual could have their own direct relationship with God. Furthermore, conservative Confucians like Zeng Guofan would not have approved of the level of economic regulation the Taiping advocated for, including an economic egalitarianism that would predate the later Chinese Communist movement. Though these ideas were largely disseminated in texts such as Tianchao tianmu zhidu which set out plans for the strict militaristic organisation of society, they were never put into effect in Taiping-controlled areas despite their popularity amongst the peasantry._⁵ This, along with the fact that the structure of the system they posit is reminiscent of traditional order and balance earlier Chinese thinkers advocated for, indicates that there was a fundamental incompatibility, or at least an inconsistency, in the Taiping’s attempt to be innovative while adhering to an earlier traditional value system.

In this way, the Taiping’s fusion of traditional established values and new conceptions of social organisation was ultimately unsuccessful in creating the utopia they sought. While the movement was very appealing to those struggling economically, opposed to the Manchu government, or seeking security amidst shifts that were occurring with foreign incursions (rallying points for prior dynastic movements), in the end a failure to enlist external support, such as from the West, or maintain a stable political leadership would see the Taiping Rebellion collapse. Instead, the defenders of tradition would prevail, at least for the short term.

1. O’Reilly, Thomas, The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Rebellion and the Blasphemy of Empire, (Seattle, 2014), p. 117 [↩]
2. De Bary, W. T., Lufrano, Richard John, Wing-tsit Chan and John Berthrong, Sources of Chinese Tradition: From 1600 Through the Twentieth Century, (New York, 2000), p.214. [↩]
3. Tiantiao Shu, quoted in Sources of Chinese Tradition, p.219. [↩]
4. Kilcourse, C. S. Taiping Theology: the Localisation of Christianity in China, 1843-64, (New York, 2016), p.120 [↩]
5. De Bary, p.224 [↩]