客家族群皈信天主教之探討----以新竹縣關西為例

• Main Authors: WEN, FU-HUANG, 溫復煌
• Other Authors: 鄭弘岳
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/24612879976685725814

碩士 === 玄奘大學 === 宗教學系碩士班 === 100 === This study uses an interview-based approach to explore the conversion of the ethnic Hakka people in Taiwan’s Guanxi area to the Catholic faith, and, more specifically, what made them give up their traditional religious beliefs of ancestral worship and polytheism, to embrace Catholicism. The findings from this study indicate that, instead of stress or drastic changes in lifestyle, social networks, particularly family members, have had the greatest influence on Hakka people’s exposure and conversion to Catholicism. However, most of the Hakka people who receive baptism in early childhood due to family influence leave the Catholic church when they gain independence at junior-high school age. They tend to stay away from Catholicism until adulthood, when financial problems emerge or other circumstances change, leading them back to their childhood faith. On the other hand, the discrepancy between Catholic teachings and traditional Hakka religions, or customs, is the main reason why the Hakka people find Catholicism hard to accept. When the Catholics established their first mission in Taiwan’s Hakka communities, they humbled themselves to learn the Hakka dialect and customs in a respectful manner. In the second stage of its mission, the Catholic church further impressed the public with social welfare and education efforts, and combined these with social networks and financial aid to encourage baptism. The changes in Taiwan’s economic structure and massive migration out of Hakka communities, nevertheless, dealt such a severe blow to the Catholic Church, and it has suffered a dramatic decline ever since. Following in the steps of Matteo Ricci, the Catholic missions in Taiwan strategically combined the idea of “God” with a “personified heaven” in Confucianism, in the hope that the local Catholics would associate God with “Heaven”, or “Tian-gong”. The Lofland, John Conversion Model and Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. Theory of Commitment provide a basis for comparison in this study, although the Hakka ethnic group may not fit perfectly with these theories in terms of cultural background or the specific subject of this research.