Research On Religion » Confucianism

Christian Novetzke on Kung Fu Fighting and Eastern Religions (Encore Presentation)

tonygill — Sun, 16 Apr 2017 08:00:52 +0000

While we take a break for the Easter holiday, what better way to celebrate than to talk about religion and martial arts. The following is an encore presentation of our discussion with Christian Novetzke from back in 2012.

Get into the octagon with Prof. Christian Novetzke, associate professor at the University of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies, as we spar intellectually about the relationship between the martial arts and Eastern religions. We walk through Prof. Novetzke’s syllabus for the class he recently offered at the UW entitled “Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting: Seminar on World Cultures through the Asian Martial Arts.” We start by discussing Christian’s name and his “accidental” discovery of karate. The first interesting challenge that arises in this interview is to define yoga as a martial art. Prof. Novetzke does this by relying upon the concept of “self-actualization,” which he contends is related to all of the martial arts and moves us into our discussion of how religion and philosophy form a fundamental underpinning of these physical activities. Whilst talking about yoga, we also discuss the recent criticism levelled on this form of martial art by Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church. This sets up an intriguing discussion of what constitutes religion and the relationship between religions such as yoga and Christianity. We then also chat about Driscoll’s commentary regarding the connection between mixed martial arts (MMA) and Christianity, with Prof. Novetzke noting that a surprisingly high number of MMA fighters are also outwardly devout Christians. We then return to Eastern religions and other martial arts covering different aspects of Zen, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Confucianism. Throughout the conversation we also reflect upon educational pedagogy (i.e., how we teach our subjects of expertise) and what students pulled from this rather unique and interesting course. Recorded: March 12, 2012.

Religion and Public Memory: A Cultural History of Saint Namdev in India, by Christian L. Novetzke.

Zen and the Martial Arts, by Joe Hymans.

Tao of Jeet Kune Do, by Bruce Lee.

Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, edited by Paul Reps.

Yoga: Discipline of Freedom, by Barbara Miller.

Blood in the Cage, by L. Jon Wertheim.

RELATED PODCASTS

Andrea Molle on Spirituality and the Martial Arts.

Matthew Moore on Buddhism and Political Theory.

Darren Slade on Missionizing North Korea

tonygill — Sun, 31 Aug 2014 08:00:20 +0000

Missionizing North Korea? Is that even possible? Darren Slade, a Ph.D. student of Christian theology and apologetics at Liberty University, covers some of the strategies that have been used and might be used when evangelizing one of the world’s most repressive and atheistic regimes.

After letting Darren plug a few of his other projects, we ask him how he ever became interested in the topic of missionizing North Korea. He shares a rather personal story about hearing of religious persecution in that country and how that led him to connect with the Voice of the Martyrs’ Safe Houses Project. We then cover some historical ground, reviewing the religious landscape of North Korea, how Christianity came to the Korean peninsula in the 18th and 19th centuries, and then how the Japanese occupation, communist revolution, and Korean War played a role in shaping the region. We also review the rise of the personality cult surrounding Kim Il-Sung and, to a lesser extent, Kim Jong-Il. This cult of personality plays a large role in determining missionary strategy, a topic we cover later.

Tony then asks Darren why any Christian would want to put North Korea on the evangelization map. Given the closed and tightly-closed nature of the society, not to mention the high level of persecution for Christians, one would imagine that this would be one place to avoid. Darren notes that Christians are not called to avoid difficult populations and also recognizes that even small gains in such a desolate nation represent major achievements.

Our conversation then turns to different missionary strategies. Darren divides up the efforts into two categories: humanitarian effort and covert evangelization. The former includes Christian foreign aid groups (e.g., World Vision) that enter the country to provide food, medicine, and clothing, as well as building and operating things such as soy milk and noodle factories. Building trust of foreigners is a significant part of this type of missionizing, given that years of propaganda has made the population leery of outsiders, most notably Americans and Japanese. Tony asks how overt proselytism is in these factories. We also discuss the bleak socio-economic situation of the vast majority of the population, which presents an interesting tension within the governing regime — while the juche philosophy of self-reliance would tend to downplay the role of foreign aid missions, the government fully realizes that it needs such aid to prevent a catastrophic collapse of their population.

Darren also talks about covert missionizing and here we have a number of creative methods of getting Christian missions in. Darren’s favorite tactic is “balloon drops,” wherein hydrogen-filled “mini blimps” are floated across the border from South Korea with Gospel tracts, Bibles, radios, and food/medicine. Low-frequency radio broadcasts are also used. Later, Darren suggests that writing Bible tracts on pictures of the Great Leaders, or hiding Bibles inside of books that have images of Kim Il-Sung on them might also be a useful strategy. Darren also offers up some cautionary notes on evangelization, warning that these efforts need to proceed with great patience and that it is important to respect the extant culture of the population. Building trust is of primary concern, and any efforts to attack the regime or otherwise engage in politics may be counterproductive.

We finish with Darren’s thoughts about the future of North Korea. While it is a bleak situation, he remains cautiously optimistic about changes that may be occurring. Recorded: August 25, 2014.

RELATED LINKS

Daren M. Slade on Academia.edu (where you can find links to his writings).

Voice of the Martyrs.

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Karrie Koesel on House Churches in China.

Karrie Koesel on Religion & Politics in China.

Kevin Cooney on Religion and the Rule of Law in China.

Kevin Cooney on Christianity in Japan.

Lan Chu on Catholicism in Vietnam.

Roger Finke on Religious Persecution.

Joel Fetzer on Confucianism and Democracy.

Religious Freedom and Political Flourishing: A Panel Discussion.

Religious Freedom and Economic Prosperity: A Panel Discussion.

Ani Sarkissian on Religious Liberty in the Post-Soviet World.

Catherine Wanner on Religion in Russia.

Joel Fetzer on Confucianism and Democracy

tonygill — Sun, 13 Oct 2013 08:00:20 +0000

Max Weber, the famed sociologist who shaped a great deal of the social scientific study of religion, once wrote that a certain ideational version of Protestantism, namely Calvinism, was responsible for giving rise to industrial capitalism and, by extension, liberal democracy in Western Europe. In contrast, Weber also argued that Confucianism acted as an ideological roadblock to economic and political development. With the recent democratization of several countries that were historically influenced by Confucian thought, Joel Fetzer — a professor of political science at Pepperdine University — examines whether or not the claim that Confucianism is incompatible with democracy still rings true. Our primary focus is on Taiwan, a country that he studied extensively with his frequent collaborator Chris Soper, though we also extend an eye to the democratization process in South Korea, as well as the still-authoritarian countries of China and Singapore.

Joel begins the conversation by detailing the political history of Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore to set the table for latter discussion. He then discusses some of the more prominent political explanations for the political liberalization of the former two nations, which includes an emphasis on economic variables such as the rise of a middle class as well as the political manuevering of interest groups. Often overlooked in the study of democratization, though, is the role ideas play in reshaping the political landscape. We briefly talk about how ideas or culture may affect the shape of a political regime, with a tip of the hat to scholars such as Robert Putnam who have argued that cultural traditions can play an important role in the political organization of society.

With the potential influence of ideas on the table, we then examine Confucianism. Prof. Fetzer provides a basic introduction to this religion/philosophy. He notes that key elements of Confucian thought do seem to coincide with more authoritarian notions of leadership. We discuss the “five right relationships” that emphasize a deference to elders and to authority, the importance of filial piety, and the desire to promote social harmony over conflict. All of these virtues can be seen as working against the conflict and social fluidity that tend to characterize modern democratic thought. We then discuss how Confucianism, like many other religions, is rather malleable and how interpretations or emphases can change over time. This leads to an interesting discussion of how the educational system in Taiwan was used to emphasize different facets of Confucian thought at different times in its history, most specifically in the authoritarian and post-authoritarian eras. This is compared with how it is taught in Singapore currently.

Prof. Fetzer than shares some of the empirical observations from his study conducted with Chris Soper. In conjunction with what Weber and others have argued, they find that adherence to Confucian values do correspond to holding authoritarian values under autocratic regimes. Interestingly, this relationship doesn’t necessarily hold under democratic regimes. Indeed, people identifying with Confucianism may be more favorable to values such as minority rights under democratic regimes. This leads to one of the main assertions of their research, that while Confucianism may not be a cause of political liberalization in these societies, the philosophy itself is not necessarily inimical to democratic values under more liberalized regimes. We finish our discussion by examining the role that Christianity may have played in the democratic process both in South Korea and Taiwan. Recorded: October 4, 2013.

RELATED LINKS

Joel Fetzer’s bio at Pepperdine University (includes links to available articles).

Confucianism, Democratization, and Human Rights in Taiwan, by Joel Fetzer and J. Christopher Soper.

Muslims and the State in Britain, France, and Germany, by Joel Fetzer and J. Christopher Soper.

Luxembourg as an Immigration Success Story, by Joel Fetzer.

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Robert Delahunty on Alexis de Tocqueville and Religion.

Robert Woodberry on Missionaries and Democracy.

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Christian Novetzke on Kung Fu Fighting & Eastern Religions

tonygill — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 08:00:50 +0000

Get into the octagon with Prof. Christian Novetzke, associate professor at the University of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies, as we spar intellectually about the relationship between the martial arts and Eastern religions. We walk through Prof. Novetzke’s syllabus for the class he recently offered at the UW entitled “Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting: Seminar on World Cultures throug the Asian Martial Arts.” We start by discussing Christian’s name and his “accidental” discovery of karate. The first interesting challenge that arises in this interview is to define yoga as a martial art. Prof. Novetzke does this by relying upon the concept of “self-actualization,” which he contends is related to all of the martial arts and moves us into our discussion of how religion and philosophy form a fundamental underpinning of these physical activities. Whilst talking about yoga, we also discuss the recent criticism levelled on this form of martial art by Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church. This sets up an intriguing discussion of what constitutes religion and the relationship between religions such as yoga and Christianity. We then also chat about Driscoll’s commentary regarding the connection between mixed martial arts (MMA) and Christianity, with Prof. Novetzke noting that a surprisingly high number of MMA fighters are also outwardly devout Christians. We then return to Eastern religions and other martial arts covering different aspects of Zen, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Confucianism. Throughout the conversation we also reflect upon educational pedagogy (i.e., how we teach our subjects of expertise) and what students pulled from this rather unique and interesting course. Recorded: March 12, 2012.

Religion and Public Memory: A Cultural History of Saint Namdev in India, by Christian L. Novetzke.

Mark Driscoll’s post on mixed martial arts.

Zen and the Martial Arts, by Joe Hymans.

Tao of Jeet Kune Do, by Bruce Lee.

Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, edited by Paul Reps.

Yoga: Discipline of Freedom, by Barbara Miller.

Blood in the Cage, by L. Jon Wertheim.

Karrie Koesel on House Churches in China

tonygill — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 08:00:33 +0000

Professor Karrie Koesel — assistant professor of political science at the University of Oregon — returns to Research on Religion with an update on her recent research on “house churches” in China. That research was sponsored by a grant from the Templeton Foundation’s Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Initiative managed by Dr. Don Miller at the University of Southern California. While conducting fieldwork in China during the fall of 2010, Prof. Koesel had the opportunity to interact and learn about various house churches in the country. She discusses what a “house church” is, how they are organized, and the wide variety of theological styles found within that rather large movement. We talk about this in the context of a regime that gives official sanction to five different churches (the “red market”), and what it means to be part of the “gray” or “black market” religious scene in China. Karrie makes the interesting observation that while leaders from house churches were often sent to labor camps for operating illegally, their presence in these camps allowed them, ironically, to recruit new adherents and grow. The Chinese government has since then responded by using “indirect pressure” to force these churches out of business or to associate with officially sanctioned groups such as the Three Self Patriotic Movement. Prof. Koesel then argues that the organizational strategies and tactics employed by clandestine “house churches” were very similar to the same methods employed by the Chinese Communist Party prior to the 1949 revolution. We also talk about the challenges and difficulties associated with doing research on underground movements. Finally, the podcast ends with some speculation as to how these “house churches” (and other religious revival groups) will affect Chinese society and politics in the near future. Recorded: May 25, 2011.

RELATED LINKS

Karrie Koesel’s website.

Templeton Foundation’s Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Initiative.

Religion in American History: A Group Blog on American Religious History and Culture. (A special thanks for directing traffic our way!)

RELATED PODCASTS

Karrie Koesel on Religion & Politics in China.

Roger Finke on Religious Persecution.