The Fifty Years That Changed Chinese Religion, 1898–1948

Abstract

discharged from striving for salvation. Beekers convincingly shows how doubt, like imperfection, functions as a trope that can vitalize and invigorate an individual’s commitment and lead to the search for reaffirmation in pedagogical contexts. One would be remiss in overlooking the in-depth remarks on interview and focus-group evaluation methods. The book proceeds by illustrating, differentiating, and opposing the findings to present research positions with citations from the interviews, a focus group meeting, and field notes of sceneries and performances. The decision to take this approach and the comparison between the two devotee groups that runs through every chapter not only make a very readable book, but also a book that gives a solid insight of emic discourses as well as an excellent overview of connecting discourses within the field of religion and youth research. At the same time, this methodological decision to embed the research into a prefigured research discourse of late modernity theories instead of a more grounded approach potentially obscures developments within that generation. Acceleration processes, search for authenticity, expressive individualism, and so on are presupposed as anchors of interpretation. There are remarkable passages where more ambiguous or ambivalent conclusions are drawn from the empirical material. For example, Beekers opposes the ‘heretical imperative’ of religious choice, as put forth by both Peter Berger and Charles Taylor—who are leading references—because his informants are brought up in religious families. Thus, he concludes, other ‘spiritualities’ are not a real choice for his informants. More than religiously plural options, it is the distractions of media, consumer culture, the workplace, and the routine of everyday life that challenge their religious commitment. A traditional lifestyle is the outcome of that struggle yet, this time, not in a prior form, but rather the result of a ‘free’ submission to God’s will. It in those passages where Beekers delves into these religious discourses of his informants that this work is at its most revealing and instructive.