Religion in Taiwan

Many statistical analyses try to distinguish between Buddhism and Taoism in Taiwan, which, along with Confucianism, are rather aspects within broader "ancient Chinese religion". It is hard to make such distinction because various Taoist deities are worshipped alongside deities which originated in Buddhism, for instance Guanyin, in many temples across the country.

As of 2024, there were 15,206 temples and churches in Taiwan, including 9,794 Taoist and 2,273 Buddhist temples as well as 2,374 Protestant and 418 Catholic churches. In Taiwan's 36,000 square kilometers of land, there are more than 33,000 places for religious (believers) to worship and gather. Averaging almost one religious building (temple, church, etc.) for every square kilometer, Taiwan is considered to have the highest density of religious buildings, making it the "most religious" region in the area where Chinese is the majority language.

History

Before the 17th century, the island of Taiwan was inhabited by indigenous peoples of Austronesian origin, as well as small settlements of Chinese and Japanese maritime traders and pirates. Taiwanese indigenous peoples traditionally practised animism. When the Dutch occupied parts of southern Taiwan in 1624, Dutch missionaries soon followed, introducing Protestantism to the indigenous communities. Following the arrival of the Spaniards in northern Taiwan two years later, Catholic missionaries from Spain also came to share their faith.

When the Han Chinese began to settle on the island and form the Taiwanese Chinese ethnic group, interfaith exchanges occurred, leading to two-way religious assimilation between the indigenous and Han communities. An example was the incorporation of Ali-zu, the Siraya god of fertility, into the Han pantheon of folk deities in some places around Taiwan.

17th and 18th centuries

A large influx of Han Chinese began in the 1660s with the transition of imperial power from the Ming dynasty to the Manchurian Qing dynasty. Many Ming loyalists fled to the south, including Zheng Chenggong alias Koxinga, a military warlord who fought against the Manchu dynasty. He sailed to Taiwan in 1661 with thousands of troops, and in a war with the Dutch, he defeated and drove out the Dutch military forces and established the Kingdom of Tungning, the first Chinese state on the island. Chinese settlers, mostly from Fujian and Guangdong, began to migrate to the island. The policy of migration to Taiwan was restrictive until 1788, even after the island came under the political control of the Qing in 1683.

Chinese migrants brought with them the Chinese traditional religions from their hometown, which served to integrate communities around the worship of Chinese Deities. As the settlers were mostly males, came from different areas, and at first not many people shared the same surnames and belonged to the same kins, ancestral shrines of kinship gods did not develop until the 1790s, when sufficient generations of families had established on the island.

The first settlers in Koxinga and Qing periods brought with them images or incense ashes from mainland temples, installed them in homes or temporary thatched huts, and later in proper temples, as economic circumstances permitted to build them. Prominent temples became the foci of religious, political and social life, often eclipsing Qing officials and state-sponsored temples in their influence.

There is little evidence that the doctrinal and initiatory religions of Buddhism and Taoism were active during this period. Taiwan, as a frontier land, was not attractive for Buddhist and Taoist religious leaders.

19th century

During the mid-Qing dynasty, sects of popular Buddhism which the Japanese authorities would have later lumped together with the religions of fasting (zhāijiāo) because of their vegetarian precepts, began to send missionaries from the mainland to Taiwan. They were more successful in attracting converts than either pure Buddhism or Taoism. Japanese researches of the early colonial period identified zhaijiao sects as a line of the Linji school of Chan Buddhism, although contemporary scholars know that they were centered on a female creator deity, Wusheng Laomu, and identify them as branches of Luoism disguising as a form of Buddhism free of ordained clergy. Zhaijiao sects identify the sangha as the community of believers, not as a separate clergy.

Apart from zhaijiao Buddhist sects, other folk religious sects, that were mistakenly classified as Buddhist by the Japanese government, were active in Taiwan. The most prominent were the three religions of fasting: the Jinchuang, the Longhua, and Xiantiandao traditions (the latter was introduced to Taiwan in the mid-19th century).

20th century—Japanese rule

In 1895, the Manchu government ceded Taiwan to Japan as part of the terms of surrender following the First Sino-Japanese War. During the fifty-one years of Japanese rule, governors enacted regulations to control the activities of "native religions". During a first period from 1895 to 1915, the Japanese adopted a laissez-faire policy towards native religions. During a second phase from 1915 to 1937, the government tried to vigorously regulate local religions. A third period, coinciding with the outbreak of hostilities between Japan and China, saw the Japanese government start a "Japanisation movement" (Japanese: 皇民化運動, Hepburn: kōminka undō) that included a "temple-restructuring movement" (寺廟整理運動, jibyō seiri undō).

During the Japanese period many indigenous groups were forced to practice Shintō, only a few (such as the Saisiyat people) were able to resist and maintain their traditions. Often this was done by convincing Japanese anthropologists to come to Taiwan and document religious traditions as legitimate cultural heritage however even the indigenous people allowed to keep some traditional ceremonies were still forced to pray at Shintō shrines.

Buddhism, as a shared heritage of China and Japan, received better treatment than Chinese folk religion and Taoism. Some Taiwanese Buddhist groups cooperated with the Japanese government, and Japanese Buddhist sects sent missionaries to Taiwan and even worked with zhaijiao Buddhist groups. The total number of Japanese Buddhist groups that were introduced to Taiwan could be categorized into 14 sects under 8 schools. However, given the profound differences between Chinese and Japanese Buddhist traditions (among others, Japanese priests marry, eat meat and drink wine, all of which Chinese monks abstain from), the "Japanisation" of Chinese Buddhism was resisted by Taiwanese Buddhist communities. During the same period, most Taiwanese Buddhist temples came to affiliate with one of four central temples, called "Four Holy Mountains" (台灣四大名山).

In 1915, Japanese religious policies in Taiwan changed after the "Xilai Hermitage incident". The hermitage was a zhaijiao Buddhist hall where the follower Yu Qingfang (余清芳) started an anti-Japanese rebellion, in which many other folk religious and Taoist sects took part. The Japanese government discovered the plot and Yu Qingfang was executed in a speedy trial together with ninety-four other followers.

After the incident, the Japanese government became suspicious of what it called Taiwan's "old religious customs" (kyūkan shūkyō). The government began to investigate, register and regulate local temples, and it created islandwide Buddhist religious associations—into which even zhaijiao Buddhist groups were enrolled—whose charters recommended loyalty to the government.

In 1937, after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident and the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Tokyo ordered the rapid acculturation of the peoples of Japan's colonies. This included an effort to disaccustom people from Chinese traditional religions and convert them into the nexus of State Shinto. Many Shinto shrines were established in Taiwan. Chinese family altars were replaced with kamidana and butsudan, and a Japanese calendar of religious festivals was introduced.

The subsequent "temples' restructuration movement" caused much consternation among the Han Taiwanese population and had far-reaching effects. Its inception can be traced back to the "Conference for Improving Popular Customs" held in 1936, that far from promoting a razing of temples discussed measures for a reform and standardisation of Taoist and folk temple practices.

The outbreak of open war between China and Japan in 1937 led to a proscription of practices and even stronger measures, as Japanese officials saw the religious culture centered around folk temples as the major obstacle to Japanisation. Consequently, some local officials began to close and to demolish temples, burning their images, confiscating their cash and real estates, a measure that they called "sending the gods to Heaven". In 1940, when a new governor-general took office, the "temples' restructuration movement" was halted.

The Japanese persecution of Taiwanese folk beliefs led to an increase in skepticism and loss of faith among the Taiwanese. As a result of this loss of faith in gods, Japanese police reported a general decline in public morals. The policies also resulted in the disappearance of the small Muslim community, until Islam was reintroduced by the Kuomintang with their retreat from mainland China to Taiwan after the end of Chinese Civil War in 1949.

Another effect of the Japanese colonisation on religious life in Taiwan was due to the modernisation of infrastructures. Before the 20th century the travel infrastructure of Taiwan was not very developed, and it was difficult for people to move from a part of the island to another. The Japanese quickly constructed a network of railroads connecting all regions of the island. In the field of religion, this promoted the rise in importance of some Buddhist, Taoist or folk temples as island-wide pilgrimage sites. During this time, some gods lost their local and sub-ethnic nature and became "pan-Taiwanese".

1945 onwards—Republic of China rule

In 1945, after the Second World War, the administration of Taiwan was handed over to the Republic of China through General Order No. 1. The People's Republic of China was established four years later in mainland China under the Chinese Communist Party.

In 1949, several religious leaders of mainland China including the 63rd Celestial Master of Taoism Zhang Enpu (張恩溥), and the 7th Changkya Khutukhtu, the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism in Inner Mongolia Lobsang Pelden Tenpe Dronme escaped to Taiwan after the Government of the Republic of China retreated to Taiwan after losing the Chinese Civil War. With Zhang Enpu the religious leadership and orthodoxy of Zhengyi Dao was brought to Taiwan. The lineage for the Celestial Master had since passed on to the 64th Celestial Master Zhang Yuanxian (張源先), who passed away in 2008. As the Republic of China government has yet to confer a new Celestial Master, there is no officially recognized 65th Celestial Master as of 2021.

The rapid economic growth of Taiwan since the 1970s and 1980s ("Taiwan Miracle") accompanied by a quick renewal of Chinese folk religion, challenging Max Weber's theories on secularisation and disenchantment, has led many scholars to investigate how folk religious culture, with its emphasis on values like loyalty, its social network of temples and gods' societies, may have contributed to the island's economic development. During the same period, folk religions developed ties with environmental causes. Chinese salvationist religions (such as earlier Xiantiandao) become increasingly popular in Taiwan after 1945, although some of them were illegal until the 1980s.

After the 1950s, and especially since the 1970s, there was a significant growth of Buddhism. Chinese Buddhism developed into distinctively new forms, with the foundation of organizations like the Tzu Chi, the Fo Guang Shan and the Dharma Drum Mountain, which follow the Humanistic Buddhism movement that was founded in mainland China during the early 20th century. Many highly realized Buddhist masters, such as Master Hsing Yun, Master Sheng-yen, Master Yin Shun, and others escaped from mainland China to Taiwan when the Government of the Republic of China retreated to Taiwan after losing the Chinese Civil War. They promoted Humanistic Buddhism reformist movement in Taiwan, which was pioneered by Master Taixu in mainland China. Tibetan Buddhism had also spread into the island. Since the 2000s, there has been an increasing cooperation between religious groups in Taiwan and mainland China which decreased tensions between them. Despite this, there are still tensions from past events, including Taiwan being removed from the United Nations by the People's Republic of China.