So, Is Confucianism a Religion? Can It Be?

     A little late in posting today: the network at my work was slow, too slow to work through my usual survey of papers and blogs.  I must say, however, that it was good to be back at work, surrounded by the comfort of a known routine and familiar faces.  Dwell in the ordinary.

    A piece in yesterday's Book Review in the NYT seemed to resonate with some of may last post.  Mark Lilla discusses a new book by Michael Burleigh, Earthly Power: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe from the French Revolution to the Great War.  Lilla says that Burleigh argues that the standard account of the gradual secularization of Europe is a bit more complicated that is sometimes presented.  The 19th century was not a linear, steady movement away from religious belief and toward modern rationality; rather, the two grand historical forces coexisted and co-mingled in various ways into the 20th century.  In considering some early socialist utopians, Lilla writes:

 For the utopians, the [French] revolution's defeat of the Catholic Church represented an enormous step forward for the human race, but also posed an unprecedented challenge. Once men thought themselves free from God they might think themselves free from one another, like elementary particles floating in the void. What modern, postrevolutionary society needed was a new religion, or a surrogate one, a system of symbols and ceremonies bringing individuals together without reference to a revealing, transcendent God.

 When I read this I thought immediately of Confucius.  That is precisely what he does; he creates "a system of symbols and ceremonies bringing individuals together without reference to a revealing, transcendent God." So, maybe I was wrong in the previous post when I suggested that Confucianism is not a religion (this obviously hinges on one's definition of "religion").  I had been thinking that a religion requires some personification of the transcendent, some God-like figure.  But Lilla's (and I presume Burleigh's) broader notion of religion would certainly encompass Confucian thought.

    And, further, it would seem that some version of Confucianism would well provide the religious-like ideology that the modernist utopians were looking for.  Perhaps Confucianism is not only a religion, but one very well suited to the needs of modern and postmodern societies....

Comments

[Bro. Bartleby]

In Confucianism, how do you differentiate between 'spirits' and 'gods'?

I think Confucianism can certainly be 'practiced' as a religion, a structure for life living, a tradition to build upon, and an understanding to seek upon.

Perhaps, when we all wash away all that we have clothed ourselves with, we all stand naked before the same God/spirit/god/Way.

Shalom,
Bro. Bartleby

[cheese]

???

[cheese]

???