Presbyterian Church In Taiwan Research Articles

The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and Its Changing Narrative on Human Rights

Abstract The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (pct) is the Protestant denomination with the longest tradition in the country. The central theological position of the church began to change in the late 1960s, and over the following decade the church became increasingly politically active and vocal in its support for human rights, minority rights, and democratization. This paper addresses the issue of human rights as narrated within the pct, which explained its involvement in human rights with reference to its Christian beliefs. One outcome of the church’s endeavors was that the people of Taiwan accepted the struggle initiated by the church and began to ask for free elections. Using the pct as an example, the paper shows that religious bodies have the potential to be a positive force for change in society and that a Christian perspective on human rights can contribute to secular discourse on the topic.

Religion, Gender, and Bodies: Women’s Polyvalent Roles and Experiences in the Biopolitics of Taiwan’s Presbyterian Missions

The Presbyterian missions and medical missions in 19th-century Taiwan were successful enterprises that over time developed into the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, which stands today as the largest Christian minority church in this country. Through a Foucauldian biopolitical perspective, this paper analyzes the roles of female missionaries in the management of bodies and the subjective experiences of both foreign and Native women in the missions. Going beyond descriptive narratives and control-versus-agency reductionist frames, the paper points the polyvalent semantics of such roles and experiences. It also explores the complex relations between the women’s biopolitical functions, the PCT’s industrial type of biopolitical apparatus, and the biopolitical regimes of the late Qing dynasty and the Japanese colonial government in the early 20th century. The conclusions remark on the analytical relevance of biopolitical perspectives in the study of gender and body-related phenomena in Christian missions and Christian religions beyond Western societies.

Thirty Years of Mission in Taiwan: The Case of Presbyterian Missionary George Leslie Mackay

The aims of this paper are to analyze the missionary endeavors of the first Canadian Presbyterian missionary in Taiwan, George Leslie Mackay (1844–1901), as described in From Far Formosa: The Islands, Its People and Missions, and to explore how Christian theology was established among and adapted to the Taiwanese people: the approaches that Mackay used and the missionary strategies that he implemented, as well as the difficulties that he faced. Given that Mackay’s missionary strategy was clearly highly successful—within 30 years, he had built 60 churches and made approximately 2000 converts—the question of how he achieved these results is certainly worth considering. Furthermore, from the outset, Mackay was perceived and received very positively in Taiwan and is considered something of a folk hero in the country even today. In the present-day narrative of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, Mackay is seen as someone whose efforts to establish an independent church with native local leadership helped to introduce democracy to Taiwan. However, in some of the scholarship, missionaries such as Mackay are portrayed as profit seekers. This paper seeks to give a voice to Mackay himself and thereby to provide a more symmetrical approach to mission history.

A Newfound Friend or a Good Old Companion?

Abstract Recent studies suggest that a significant number of Taiwanese Protestant churches have been heavily influenced by the charismatic movement since the 1980s. A strong case can be made, however, that the “charismatic” character has been inherent in Taiwanese Protestantism since long before 1980, not least because the charismatic character has much in common with the spiritual instincts of people in Taiwan. By studying the works of two prominent preachers (Kou Shih-yuan and Wu Yung) and certain issues of the Taiwan Church News (Presbyterian Church in Taiwan), I will show that a sizeable number of Protestants in Taiwan before 1980 embraced the realm of spiritual and demonic beings, although they showed different degrees of friendliness towards charisms. I will conclude that, rather than speaking of the “charismaticization” of churches in Taiwan, perhaps we ought to speak of the rediscovery of the charismatic character that is inherent in churches in Taiwan.

Silent Crusade? Indigenous Women in Taiwanese Indigenous Movements

Among the various indigenous rights movements across different times in Taiwan, the presence of indigenous women often goes obscure. Although in recent years there has been a great deal of publications on Taiwanese indigenous movements, some of the literature —constructed under the structure of the indigenous knowledge system—, while insisting on the status and value of indigenous autonomy, tend to overlook the historical context in Taiwanese society of indigenous women who participated in social movements. What are the issues of concern? This paper primarily serves to reveal the “silent crusades” and to bring forward the directions of interests of the indigenous women’s movements by analyzing related reports, autobiographies, interview transcripts, texts, etc. spanning over two decades and published in the weekly newspaper of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT), Taiwan Church News, in addition to in-depth interviews with the leaders of indigenous women’s social movements.

Using Prayer and Scripture in a Christian-Based Stress-Coping Support Group for Church Attendances: Implications for Professionals

This study explored the participants' perceptions of using prayer and scripture in a Christian-based stress-coping support group (CSCSG). Twenty-eight church attendances were recruited from a Presbyterian Church in Taiwan. Based on the finding from qualitative analyses using a modified grounded theory approach, four themes related to the participants' learning experiences emerged. The four themes identified were stressful life events, stress-coping experiences, integration of Christian faith with life, and spiritual connection. A follow-up survey indicated that the participants perceived the experiences gained from the CSCSG as appropriate, important, functional, and constructive in coping with stress. Research questions and implications for church professionals are discussed.

Calvinism and Taiwan

How has Calvinism been at work in the island state of Taiwan over the last four centuries? Does the extension of “international Calvinism” to a remote corner of Asia yield new forms of expression? This article aims to describe and analyze four paradigms of the Calvinist presence and manifestation, embodied in the work of the Dutch Reformed Church, the British and Canadian missions, and the indigenous Presbyterian Church in Taiwan during the successive rules of the Dutch, the late Ching Dynasty of China, the Japanese, and the Nationalist regimes. Over time, the Calvinist tradition has displayed enduring witness as well as nuanced adaptation in the various yet challenging contexts of early modern colonialism, paternal modernization, wartime trials, and indigenous democratization in Taiwan.

Optic Neuritis and Multiple Sclerosis

171 Received July 26, 2013; revised and accepted October 7, 2013. Published online October 29, 2013; doi: 10.1620/tjem.231.171. *Lin-Chung Woung and Pai-Huei Peng contributed to this article equally. Correspondence: Tsang-Shan Chen, Department of Neurology, Sin-Lau Hospital, the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, Eastgate Rd. Sec 1, Tainan 70142, Taiwan. e-mail: tschern@gmail.com A Nine-Year Population-Based Cohort Study on the Risk of Multiple Sclerosis in Patients with Optic Neuritis

The Cold War and post-Cold War dynamics of Taiwan and East Asia in people's security perspective

This paper was originally written as a keynote speech for a specific occasion, an international forum that was held by the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT) in Taipei in February 2001, to discuss Taiwan's international status in the post-Cold War era. The PCT is known as a strong advocate of Taiwan independence and democratization, and I had this specific audience in mind in organizing this paper. My concern was that the independence advocacy that had aptly expressed people's aspirations in the democratization movement under the iron-fist rule of KMT was being subsumed, as Taiwan polity was Taiwanized and democratized, into a banal statist discourse. This discourse, I am afraid, has distanced itself from its original popular source and become the elite politicians' discourse, indifferent to the everyday life and security of the people in Taiwan. I approached this problematic from the perspective of 'people's security', which I discussed in my previous essay on the topic in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies , vol. 2, no. 1. As the mutual relationships between East Asian countries had to be shaped overwhelming by the US Cold War rhetoric and material influences, discussing Taiwan with regard to the transition to the post-Cold War era required me to go, albeit in outline, into the basics of these relationships as well as the modes of US hegemony in this region both in the Cold War and post-Cold War settings. I felt that characterization of these diverse elements, if sketchy, was indispensable to discussing the topic, Taiwan today. At my friends' suggestion, I tried to revise the original paper to fit into the concerns of the general readership, with the different aspects mentioned more fully explained. However, I have found this difficult as it would require me to write a completely new article, or maybe a whole book. So I present this paper almost as it was written for the original PCT audience.

Public Statement on Our National Faith

The Executive Committee of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan which speaks for 200,000 Christians in Taiwan, wishes to express its extreme concern over developments in the world which could seriously affect the lives of all who live on this island. Based on belief that Jesus Christ is the Lord of all men, the righteous Judge and Savior of the world, we voice our concern and our request, and in doing so we are convinced that we speak not only for the church but for all our compatriots.