The Evolution of Church and State Relationship of The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Zhao-lin Chang, 張兆林
• Other Authors: Chi-Rong Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2005
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/83642038268423209809

碩士 === 真理大學 === 宗教學系碩士班 === 93 === The relationship between religion and politics is one of the most complicated relationships in human history that there is much entanglement and interactions. The delicacy and complication of the relationship were proved in the interactions between Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and past rulers in Taiwan. From the skeleton of special historical and political experiences of Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, the paper is trying to explore contents and development of previous political-religious relationship of Presbyterian Church and analyze affecting factors behind and its proposals for political and social topics. The thesis was divided into seven chapters. The first chapter is to introduce motivation of research, define conscience of issues of research, explain methodology of research and analyze structure of thesis and arrangement of chapters and sections. In the second chapter, the related theories and related previous researches adopted by the research were reorganized and expounded and analyzed. Moreover, the collected related literature were described and reviewed systematically. The title of third chapter is “The beliefs and spirit of The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan”. It focused on the exploration of theological contents from reforms of religious traditions, emerging theological trend to the structure and establishment of local theology in Taiwan. The fourth chapter is “The History of Mission and System of Organization”. The main contents of third and fourth chapters were to explore beliefs, tradition, history of mission in Taiwan and system of organization of Presbyterian Church in Taiwan. The fifth chapter is “The Political-Religious Relationship During Colonial and Authoritarian Times”. The sixth chapter is “The Political-Religious Relationship During Democratic Transition”. The contents of both chapters were to describe and analyze the process of history of The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and social development in Taiwan. From literature and interviews, the thesis described and analyzed political and social events that The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan had encountered in different stages of history and conducted in-depth exploration of interactions and their factors of effects between The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and previous ruling regimes in Taiwan. The seventh chapter, the last chapter, is the conclusion of the thesis that summarized and inducted the results of exploration in previous chapters and presented what the author learned and what the author thought in the process of research and writing the thesis and the introspection of the thesis and prospects for future related researches. The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan began its mission in 1865. In its history of 140 years in Taiwan, it has experienced four ruling regimes. The results of research found that its relationship of interactions with the regimes can be divided into four models: 1. Seemingly harmony relationship: the period of ending years of Ching Dynasty (1865-1895) 2. Relationship of non-volunteer obedience: Japanese colonial period (1895-1945) 3. Relationship of conflicts: the period of authoritarian rule by KMT government (1945-1987) 4. Relationship of confronts: the period of construction of democracy – from the scrap of martial law to the change of ruling party (1987-2000). 5. Relationship of critical supports: the period of consolidation of democracy – DPP in power times (2000-2003) The interactions of The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan have been shown in the special historical and social skeletons in Taiwan. The form of above-mentioned models were mainly affected by internal factors of church including belief and spirit, experiences in history and system of organization and external environmental factors such as social condition, government’s policies and specific events. The factors of belief and spirit, experiences in history and system of organization have formed the religious and organizational personalities of The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and indirectly affect the interactions between the Church and governments. The three aspects of social condition, government’s policies and specific events were factors that directly affected political-religious interactions of The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan. All factors not existed independently but were the results of mutual effects.