From Trustworthiness to Secular Beliefs: Changing Concepts of xin ? from Traditional to Modern Chinese(19 Religion in Chinese Societies)

What does the Chinese term xin 信 mean? How does it relate to the concept of faith in a Western sense? How far does it still denote “being trustworthy” in its ancient Confucian sense? When did major shifts occur in its long history of semantics that allowed later Christian missionaries to use the term regularly as a translation for the concept of believing in gods or God? This volume offers a broad picture of the semantic history of this Chinese term, throwing light on its semantic multi-layeredness shaped by changing discursive contexts, interactions between various ideological milieus, and transcultural encounters.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Contributors Introductory Part: Western, Chinese, and Global Genealogies of Faith and xin 1 Introduction  Christian Meyer and Philip Clart 2 An Overview: a Short Genealogy of Faith in the Western History of Philosophy and Theology and a Chinese Perspective  Jiang Manke Part 1: Setting the Stage: Traditional Uses in Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist Contexts 3 A Trustworthy Companion: xin 信 as Component Term in Early Chinese Texts  Joachim Gentz 4 A Linguistic Analysis of the Different Functions of xin and Their Historical Development from Late Archaic to Middle Chinese  Barbara Meisterernst 5 An Inquiry into Conceptions of xin 信 in Early Medieval Daoism  Friederike Assandri 6 The Concept of Faith in Chinese Buddhist Scriptures  Tam Wai Lun 7 Japanese Buddhist Concepts of Faith (shin 信): the Postmodern Narrative of the Conceptual Hegemony of Western Modernity Reconsidered  Christoph Kleine 8 Convinced by Amazement—Creating Buddhist xin 信 (Belief/Trust) in the Biographies of Thaumaturge Monks (T. 2064)  Esther-Maria Guggenmos 9 Xin in Morality Books: An Overview  Vincent Goossaert Part 2: Early Channels of Transfer: Monotheistic Uses of the Term xin from the Seventh to the Seventeenth Century 10 From Trust in the Buddha to the Belief in the One God—xin as a Buddhist, Manichaean and Christian Concept in Early Medieval China  Max Deeg 11 Xin 信 in the Early Seventeenth-Century Chinese Christian Community  Nicolas Standaert 12 Theology, Ethics and Textual Sensitivity: the Multiple Notions of xin 信 in Chinese-Islamic Texts  Dror Weil Part 3: From the Christian Milieu to the Entry into the General Lexicon of Modern Chinese: Late-Qing to Republican Uses and the Role of Japan 13 Negotiating between Chinese Religious Beliefs and Christian Faith: Timothy Richard’s (1845–1919) Understanding of “Faith”/xin 信 and Approach to Comparative Religion  Thomas Jansen 14 From Missionary Doctrine to Chinese Theology: Developing xin 信 in the Protestant Church and the Creeds of Zhao Zichen  Chloë Starr 15 Shin 信 as a Marker of Identity in Modern Japanese Buddhism  Hans Martin Krämer 16 The (New) Buddhist Semantics of xin 信 in the First Half of the Twentieth Century: Arguments from China and Taiwan  Stefania Travagnin 17 Religious Concepts and Evolutionary Theory in the Early Thought of Liang Qichao: from “Religion” via “Faith” to the “View of Death and Life”  Thomas Fröhlich 18 From Universal Faith to Religious Experience: Usages of xin in Early Chinese Religious Studies (zongjiaoxue)  Christian Meyer 19 “Our Believing in the Three People’s Principles Requires a Religious Spirit”: xin (yang) and the Political Religion of the Guomindang, 1925–1949  Thoralf Klein 20 Belief in the Dao, or Knowledge of the Truth? Contested Interpretations of “Xin/Xinyang” in Yiguandao Discourses  Nikolas Broy Part 4: Contemporary Usages in Special and Everyday Language Discourses in Mainland China and Taiwan 21 Xin in the Discourse on Conversion among Tzuchians in Shanghai  Huang Weishan 22 The Role of “Confidence” in the Gender Discourse of Buddhist Nuns* in Contemporary Mainland China: Learning xinxin 信心 to Become a Masculine Hero  Johanna Lüdde 23 Giving Credit Where Its Due: Thanksgiving as Performance of Belief in Chinese Popular Religion  Adam Yuet Chau 24 What China Is Missing—Faith in Political Discourse  Gerda Wielander 25 Epilogue: Reflections and Theses on the Semantic History of xin and Faith  Christian Meyer

About the Author :
Philip Clart, Ph.D. (1997), University of British Columbia, is Professor of Chinese Culture and History at Leipzig University, Germany, and editor of the Journal of Chinese Religions. Christian Meyer, Dr. phil. (2003), Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, is Professor of Chinese Culture and History with a focus on religions at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. He has published on modern debates on religion and the history of religious studies in China.