Abstract
Ancestor-related practices enact a symbolism in a given context. Moreover, key concepts used in the hermeneutic process are derived from various humanities disciplines and have retained their ambiguities. A typical question is: are ancestor-related practices rites, rituals, worship, veneration or remembrance? Finally, those practices are part of a tradition; that is, they are received from elders and handed down through generations to produce an efficient effect. Efficiency lies in orthopraxis rather than orthodoxy. Orthopraxis implies the ability to do the right thing, at the right time and place, so as to secure the expected result.
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Notes
- 1.
In Asia alone, the practice of ancestor worship is found “in India, and is particularly strong in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan.” See Reginald E. Reimer, Beverly J. Butcher, Thomas C.P. Yu, and Th. Kobong, “Ancestor Worship,” in A Dictionary of Asian Christianity , ed. Scott W. Sunquist (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 2001), p. 18.
- 2.
See Nicolas Standaert, Methodology in View of Contact between Cultures: The China Case in the 17th Century (Hong Kong: CSRCS Hong Kong University, 2002), pp. 1–49; Nicolas Standaert, L’ “autre” dans la mission: Leçons à partir de la Chine (Bruxelles: Editions Lessius, 2003), pp. 5–132. And Nicolas Standaert, The Interweaving of Rituals: Funerals in the Cultural Exchange between China and Europe (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008).
- 3.
See Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy, s.v. “Hermeneutics” by Thomas Mautner. (London: Penguin Books, 1993), p. 248.
- 4.
Johan Gustav Droysen quoted in Kurt Mueller-Vollmer, ed. The Hermeneutics Reader (Oxford (GB): Basil Blackwell, 1985), 17.
- 5.
Ibid., p. 23.
- 6.
See Garrett Green, “Hermeneutics,” in The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion, ed. John R. Hinnells (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 392.
- 7.
Ibid., p. 392.
- 8.
Garrett Green refers to them this way, explaining that they are “hermeneutics of religious communities” which, without developing explicit theories, respect the unique features of the religious traditions studied while seeking “to interpret them both sympathetically and critically.” See Garrett Green, “Hermeneutics,” in The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion, ed. John R. Hinnells (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 406.
- 9.
A special reference can be made to his co-edited Handbook of Christianity in China, vol. 1 (635–1800) (Leiden: Brill, 2001).
- 10.
See the illuminating analysis offered with regard to the four different methodological frameworks of the interpretation of the expansion of Christianity . See N Nicolas Standaert, Methodology in View of Contact between Cultures: The China Case in the 17th Century (Hong Kong: CSRCS Hong Kong University, 2002), pp. 4–47.
- 11.
“We need to take a look both at Chinese and Western attitudes with regard to Christianity in China, because – as is always the case – the encounter of two great cultures inescapably produces conflicts between the self-images either side brings into this encounter, between modes of self-understanding. Our image of China and our image of Christianity is part of a culturally conditioned heritage, which needs a new and more objective evaluation.” See Roman Malek, “Cultural Exchange Europe-China,” in European Ecumenical China Communication, ed. China-Zentrum (St. Augustin: China-Zentrum, 1992), p. 65.
- 12.
Standaert, Methodology, abstract.
- 13.
Zhang Xiangqing 張省卿 “A Reply to Prof. Nicolas Standaert’s ‘The Methods of Cultural Contact,’” in The Fourth Fu Jen University International Sinological Symposium; Research on Religions in China: Status quo and Perspectives symposium papers, ed. Zbigniew Wesolowski, (Taipei: Fu Jen University Press, 2007), p. 393.
- 14.
See Meng-Lan Huang 黃孟蘭 “Aperçu de la sinologie française,” in Actes du Colloque:Deuxieme Colloque International de Sinologie de l’Université Fu Jen… ed. Zbigniew Wesolowski (Taipei: Fu Jen University Press, 2005), pp. 190–91.
- 15.
Standaert, L’ “autre” dans la mission: Leçons à partir de la Chine, pp. 70–77; Zhang “A Reply to Prof. Nicolas Standaert’s ‘The Methods of Cultural Contact,’” p. 393.
- 16.
The five implied factors or elements in communication are: (1) transmitter, (2) receiver, (3) the message, (4) the observer, and (5) the means. Standaert defines the historians and historiographers as observers, active observers capable of creating new meaning . See Standaert, Methodology in View of Contact between Cultures: The China Case in the 17th Century, pp. 4–5.
- 17.
With the transmitter as the primary protagonist, the observer (historian or historiographer) cannot account for the changes and adaptations missionaries needed to make in order to be accepted. In thinking of the transmitter as inventor, the observer recognizes the creativity and freedom of the missionary in shaping and choosing the format of the transmitted message. However, that perception is still trapped in a reductionism that streamlines communication to what happens between the messenger/transmitter and the message. When it comes to the receiver as the focal center, terms such as “misunderstood message” versus “authentic” or “orthodox reception” of the message deny the possibility that the receiver can choose to interpret the message in a different way. See Standaert, Methodology in View of Contact between Cultures: The China Case in the 17th Century, pp. 21–21.
- 18.
Reference needs to be made to the results of the enculturation process of Christian concepts and rites which in the seventeenth century generated a christianitas in China. This process included, for instance, absorption of concepts such as shangdi, a selective usage that adds different meanings, as in the case with 仁, or the funeral rites, which, besides being part of Confucian filial piety, were also an articulation of one the seven acts of mercy taught in Christianity . In another case, the effect was obtained through juxtaposition or substitution. Standaert, L’ “autre” dans la mission: Leçons à partir de la Chine, pp. 74–86.
- 19.
Standaert, Methodology in View of Contact between Cultures: The China Case in the 17th Century, pp. 27–39.
- 20.
Ibid., pp. 42–44.
- 21.
Ibid., pp. 45–46.
- 22.
Standaert, The Interweaving of Rituals: Funerals in the Cultural Exchange between China and Europe, p. 3.
- 23.
Ibid., pp. 99–106.
- 24.
Ibid., pp. 82–85.
- 25.
Ibid., pp. 133–35.
- 26.
Ibid., pp. 135–36.
- 27.
Ibid., pp. 110–11.
- 28.
Ibid., p. 113.
- 29.
Ibid., p. 211.
- 30.
Maurice Bloch, “Ancestors,” in Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology, ed. Alan Barnard and Jonathan Spencer (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 43; Arthur P. Wolf, ed. Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society (California: Stanford University Press, 1974), p. 146.
- 31.
Ex 20:5 “I punish the sin of the fathers [parents] to the third generation.” Jer 2:5 “what wrong did your fathers find in me?” Jer 31:29, “the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” Etc.
- 32.
See 1King 19:4 and Romans 9:5, 1Pe 1:18 (NJB). It is interesting to note that in several translations, ancestors and fathers are considered synonymous. This is the case in 1King 19:4 “I am not better than my fathers” (RSV, NRSV). The Jerusalem and New Jerusalem Bible translate the same as “I am not better than my ancestors.” A similar case is observed with the word “forefathers.” For example: He 1:1, in the Jerusalem and New Jerusalem version is translated as “God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets.” The same concept in RSV and NRSV is rendered by “forefathers.”
- 33.
The term patriarch is used in reference to the ancestors of Israel whose stories run through several chapters of Genesis (Gn 12–50), then through 2 Kgs 23–24. The stories of the patriarchs depict the origin and development of the history of the Jewish people. The genealogy of Jesus presented at the beginning of Matthew (Mt 1:1–17) and its parallel in Luke (Lk 3:23–38) are still carriers of the same concern. The genealogy of patriarchs helps them retell their history as a nation by recalling key peoples and events which have particularized them as such.
- 34.
He 1:1 “God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets” (NRSV); 1Pe 1:18 “futile way of life handed down to you by your forefathers…” NRSV.
- 35.
See Siracides or Ecclesiasticus 44–50; Heb 11.
- 36.
Siracides 44.
- 37.
Bloch, “Ancestors,” p. 43.
- 38.
Birago Diop, Leurres et Lueurs (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1960).
- 39.
See Helen Hardacre, “Ancestors,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 1, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan, 1987), p. 265.
- 40.
« Ceux qui sont morts ne sont jamais partis – Ils sont dans l’ombre qui s’éclaire Et dans l’ombre qui s’épaissit, − Les morts ne sont pas sous la terre – Ils sont dans l’arbre qui frémit, − Ils sont dans le bois qui gémit, − Ils sont dans l’eau qui coule, − Ils sont dans la case, ils sont dans la foule – Les morts ne sont pas morts. … » See Diop, Leurres et Lueurs.
English translation by R.H. Mitsch: “They [the Dead] are in the Shadow that brightens – And in the Shadow that deepens. – The Dead are not under the Earth: –They are in the Tree that trembles – They are in the Wood that groans – They are in the Water that flows – They are in the Water that lies still, − They are in the Hut, They are in the Crowd: – The Dead are not dead.” See Sana Camara, “Birago Diop’s Poetic Contribution to the Ideology of Negritude,” Research in African Literature 33, no. 4 (Winter, 2002), pp. 101–23.
- 41.
See Li Ji Book of Rites (Bk XXII, 3): “filial child’s responsibilities towards his/her parents are evidenced by supporting them while they are alive, by performing the rites of mourning when they are dead, and also by enacting periodic ancestral rites when the period of mourning is over.” See also James Legge’s annotation of “Hsiao” in the index of The Chinese Classics with a Translation, Critical and Exegetical Notes, Prolegomena, and Copious Indexes, Reprinted. (Taipei: SMC, 2001).
- 42.
See Hardacre, “Ancestors,” pp. 265–67; Reimer et al., “Ancestor Worship,” pp. 21–22.
- 43.
See John A. Hardon, Modern Catholic Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1980), p. 470.
- 44.
Peter M.J. Strawiskas, ed., Our Sunday Visitor’s Catholic Encyclopedia (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 1991), p. 833.
- 45.
Richard P. McBrien, ed., The Harper and Collins Encyclopedia of Catholicism (San Francisco: Harper Collins Publications, 1995), 1118.
- 46.
William E. Addis and Thomas Arnold. A Catholic Dictionary: Containing Some Account of The Doctrine, Discipline, Rites, Ceremonies, Councils, and Religious Orders of The Catholic Church, 17th ed. (St. Louis: B. Herder Book, 1960), p. 714.
- 47.
See Donalt Attwater, A Catholic Dictionary (New York: Macmillan, 1943), p. 458.
- 48.
Strawiskas, ed., p. 834.
- 49.
Addis and Arnold, A Catholic Dictionary, p. 714.
- 50.
Further precision can be found in the detailed presentation of the Catholic Dictionary, which specifies at least seven meanings related to the term rite. See Attwater, A Catholic Dictionary, pp. 458–59; Addis and Arnold, A Catholic Dictionary, pp. 714–15.
- 51.
This is still the case, for instance, with the definition offered by Patricia De Ferrari in which she specifies that “rite” has three principal meanings: (1) the order of service for a particular sacrament or other liturgical event; (2) a ritual process that includes several such rites; and (3) the patterns of worship in a particular Church, e.g. the Roman Rite. See Patricia De Ferrari, “Rites,” in The Modern Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. Michael Glazier and Monica K. Hellwig (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1994), p. 753.
- 52.
See Attwater, A Catholic Dictionary, pp. 458–59; Addis and Arnold, A Catholic Dictionary, pp. 714–15.
- 53.
Barbara G. Myerhoff, Linda A. Camino and Edith Turner, “Rites of Passage,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 12, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan, 1987), pp. 380–86.
- 54.
Victor Turner, “A Few Definitions”, in The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 12, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan, 1987), p. 386.
- 55.
“The concept of ritual, just like the Chinese term li that is often taken as its equivalent, is a topic of research in itself.” Standaert, The Interweaving of Rituals: Funerals in the Cultural Exchange between China and Europe, p. 5.
- 56.
Susan J. White, “Ritual and Worship,” in Christianity : The Complete Guide, ed. John Bowden (London: Continuum, 2005), p. 1038.
- 57.
Margaret Mary Kelleher, “Ritual,” in The New Dictionary of Theology, ed. Joseph A. Komonchak, Mary Collins and Dermot A. Lane (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1987), p. 906.
- 58.
White, “Ritual and Worship,” p. 1040.
- 59.
See Ann Ball, Encyclopedia of Catholic Devotions and Practices (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 2003), pp. 483–84.
- 60.
Hardon, Modern Catholic Dictionary, p. 471.
- 61.
Ibid., p. 471.
- 62.
See Kathleen O’Grady, “Ritual,” in Encyclopedia of Women and World Religion, vol. 2, ed. Serinity Young (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1999), p. 846.
- 63.
Turner, “A Few Definitions” p. 386.
- 64.
Lewis L. Rambo, “Ritual,” in A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden (London: SCM Press, 1983), p. 509.
- 65.
Ibid., pp. 509–10.
- 66.
White, “Ritual and Worship,” p. 1035.
- 67.
Ibid., p. 1035
- 68.
Ibid., p. 1038.
- 69.
Ibid., pp. 1035–36.
- 70.
Ibid., p. 1036.
- 71.
Ibid., p. 1036
- 72.
Ibid., p. 1038.
- 73.
Kelleher, “Ritual,” pp. 906–07.
- 74.
The predominant trend consists in providing a list of elements or characteristics whose ensemble echoes what is meant by ritual. The reiterated characteristics are that ritual is public or private, religious or civic, individual or collective, involves physical performance, and is endowed with heavy symbolic content expressing abstract ideas and worldviews. It is oriented towards a power beyond the participants (towards Others), has spatial directionality (is movement or passage in space), and has intended effects on the world (is directed towards a result). It is patterned activity constrained by certain frameworks of cultural ideas (values, meanings, motivations) and systems of social relations that produce and reproduce those meanings and relations while transforming themselves and their world.
- 75.
Quoted in Myerhoff et al., “Rites of Passage” p. 385.
- 76.
Kelleher, “Ritual,” p. 906.
- 77.
De Ferrari, “Rites,” p. 753.
- 78.
“… according to the classical Chinese classification of li, they (ancestral rites) are considered to be a kind of sacrifice (ji) and not a funeral (sang). Sacrifices for the ancestors are certainly part of the funerary rituals , but they continue to be conducted after the burial (zang) …” Standaert, The Interweaving of Rituals: Funerals in the Cultural Exchange between China and Europe, pp. 5–6.
- 79.
Reimer et al., “Ancestor Worship” p. 18.
- 80.
Hardacre, “Ancestor Worship” p. 263.
- 81.
See “bai 拜” In Shen Xu 許慎, 《圖解《說文解字》畫說漢字 : 1000 個漢字的故事》(新北市 : 樂友文化, 2015), 22 頁。
- 82.
Beverly J. Butcher, “Ancestor Veneration within the Catholic Church,” Tripod 92 (March–April, 1996), p. 15.
- 83.
Ghazala Anwar, “Worship,” in Encyclopedia of Women and World Religion, vol. 2, ed. Serinity Young (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1999), p. 1070.
- 84.
Reimer et al., “Ancestor Worship,” p. 18.
- 85.
Butcher, “Ancestor Veneration within the Catholic Church,” p. 15.
- 86.
Ibid., p. 15.
- 87.
See John Tong, “Ancestor Worship,” Tripod 92 (March–April, 1996), p. 3.
- 88.
Hardacre, “Ancestor Worship,” p. 263.
- 89.
Ibid., pp. 263–68.
- 90.
Hardacre, “Ancestor Worship,” p. 263.
- 91.
Ibid., p. 263.
- 92.
Ibid., p. 263.
- 93.
See Reimer et al., “Ancestor Worship,” p. 18.
- 94.
Georges Minamiki, The Chinese Rites Controversy: From its Beginnings to Modern Times (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1985), pp. 217–19.
- 95.
Jonathan Z. Smith, speaking about the difficulty of defining religions, makes the following comments: “It was once a tactic of students of religion to cite the appendix of James H. Leuba’s Psychological Study (1912), which lists more than fifty definitions of religion, to demonstrate that ‘the efforts clearly to define religion in short compass is a hopeless task’ (King 1954). Not at all! The moral of Leuba is not that religion cannot be defined, but that it can be defined, with greater or lesser success, more than fifty ways.” See Jonathan Z. Smith, “Religion, Religions, Religious.” In Critical Terms for Religious Studies, edited by Mark C. Taylor, Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1998, p. 281.
- 96.
“Instructors and researchers fail to identify for their students the complex and contested theoretical, definition al and methodological issues that have shaped the field over the past 100 years.” Russell T. McCutcheon, ed., Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion (London: Cassel, 1999), p. vii.
- 97.
See Pierre Diarra, “Editorial: Vous avez dit… religions?” Mission de l’Eglise 162 HS: La religion , c’est quoi? c’est quand? (Janvier, 2009), p. 1.
- 98.
Ibid., p. 1.
- 99.
“Le mot est d’origine occidentale; adopté dans d’autres continents, il n’en est pas moins de question, comme en témoigne le théologien Sri-lankais Aloysius Pierris: ’les sotériologies d’Asie, y compris celles bibliques, n’ont même pas de mot pour exprimer ce que les Occidentaux appellant religion: cette notion en est absente. Certains mots indigènes ont pris cette signification, il est vrai, sous l’influence de l’Occident. (…) Dans notre contexte asiatique, en effet, la religion est la vie même, et pas seulement une de ses fonctions: elle est l’ethos de l’existence humaine qu’elle pénètre tout entière. C’est encore plus vrai de la religion tribale qui coïncide souvent plus ou moins avec la culture. En Afrique également, la religion traditionnelle (ou la religion des ancêtres) a pu recouvrir toute la vie.’” Geneviève Comeau, “La religion, pour le meilleur et pour le pire,” Mission de l’Eglise 162 HS: La religion, c’est quoi? C’est quand? (Janvier, 2009), p. 13.
- 100.
Julia Ching, Chinese Religions (Maryknoll: Orbis books, 1993), p. 2. See also C.K. Yang, Religion in Chinese Society: A Study of Contemporary Social Functions of Religion and Some of Historical Factors (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961), p. 20.
- 101.
Regarding the existence or not of a Chinese definition of the term religion, C.K. Yang remarked that though there was none, ancient Chinese tradition had several terms related to what other cultures called religion. These are—following his transliteration—chiao 教, tao 道, zong 宗, men 門, tsung chiao 宗教 … He notes that the common denominator in all these is the idea of the guidance offered to the human person in order to fulfill a goal or reach an end. The idea of the supernatural is not etymologically linked to those terms. See Yang, Religion in Chinese Society: A Study of Contemporary Social Functions of Religion and Some of their Historical Factors, p. 2.
- 102.
See Jing Wang 王靜, 《祠堂中的宗亲神主》Chinese Clannish Culture (重庆市 : 重庆出版社, 2008), 4–6 頁 also Wolf’s theory of the distinction of gods , ghosts and ancestors … the place of the sacrifice, inside or outside. Wolf, ed. Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, pp. 168–70.
- 103.
Francis L.K. Hsu, Under the Ancestors’ Shadow: Kinship, Personality, and Social Mobility in China (California: Stanford University Press, 1971) and Yang, Religion in Chinese Society: A Study of Contemporary Social Functions of Religion and Some of their Historical Factors, p. 29; J.J.M. de Groot, The Religious System of China, vols. 1–4 (Leiden: E.J. Bill, 1892–1910); J.J.M. de Groot, The Religion of the Chinese (New York: Macmillan, 1912); Marcel Granet, La Religion des Chinois (Paris: Albin Michel, 1989); Laurence G. Thompson, Chinese Religion: an Introduction, 4th ed. (California: Wadsworth, 1989) and Maurice Freedman, “On the Sociological Study of Chinese Religion,” in Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, ed. Arthur P. Wolf (California: Stanford University Press, 1974), pp. 19–41. The definition of Chinese religion remains the subject of an ongoing debate. Based on the history of the introduction of the concept into the Chinese environment, it is becoming evident that Chinese religion cannot or should not be defined according to the four categories established, for instance, by Leonard Swidler, that is, Creed, Code, Cult and Community. See Leonard Swidler, The Age of Global Dialogue (Beijing: Beijing University Press, 2006), p. 31. Yao Xinzhong and Zhao Yanxia explain the difficulty of defining Chinese religion, noting that “in China the line between the religious and the non-religious is not clearly drawn. The demarcation between one faith and others that is so important in other cultures tends to be blurred and frequently ignored in a Chinese cultural context.” They propose hence to broaden the historical and special horizons for the definition of Chinese religion. Accordingly, “Chinese religion is embedded in the Chinese way of life and draws its characteristics from cultural exchanges and clashes.” See Xinzhong Yao and Yanxia Zhao, Chinese Religion: A Contextual Approach (New York: Continuum, 2010), pp. 1–2, 7.
- 104.
“‘Religion’: avoir la ‘chose’ sans le mot. Il est difficile de traduire le mot ‘religion’ dans toutes les langues. Le terme ou concept n’existe pas explicitement et ce qui pourrait correspondre à l’idée de religion ne sépare pas forcément le ‘sacré’ du ‘profane’. Que des peuples n’aient pas de terme pour désigner la ‘religion’ ne signifie pas qu’ils n’ont pas de religion. La ‘chose’, avec ou sans ‘mot’, est une étiquette regroupant idées et savoir, actions et lois, objets mis à part (sacrés) pour des utilisations précises, rituelles, en d’entretenir des relations avec des êtres surhumains, invisibles tells que les Ancêtres, Dieu ». Diarra, “Dialoguer avec l’autre, un chemin du salut pour tous?,” p. 50.
- 105.
« Religion spontanée, c’est-à-dire ce qui jaillit chez les humains, apparemment hors des orthodoxies, des organisations religieuses, des religions constituées, mais sans les contredire non plus, et au besoin, en s’y coulant. […] S’intéresser au spontané religieux, c’est s’intéresser à l’origine. Non pas à l’origine historique de la religion quand le premier homme a-t-il posé le premier acte religieux? Problème insoluble, car ce fait est inatteignable. Mais chercher l’origine permanente, actuelle, du religieux en nous, en chacun d’entre nous devrait être possible. C’est en somme chercher une source, une graine ou un germe de religion. […] La religion spontanée se trouve liée à une philosophie des religions traditionnelles d’Afrique noire. Cela peut paraître paradoxal. Car ces religions sont aussi des religions organisées, et qui sont toutes différentes les unes des autres, si l’on considère le détail des rites et des croyances. Cependant, il m’a semblé que le spontané religieux y est plus lisible qu’ailleurs et que c’était par là qu’on pouvait parler de ces religions au singulier. Il y a toutefois une raison plus profonde. Les religions africaines sont axées sur la vie au sens le plus humain du terme; quoi de plus spontané que la vie et ses problèmes? » Henri Maurier, La Religion spontanée: philosophie des religions traditionnelles d’Afrique noire (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997), pp. 21–22.
- 106.
Michel Meslin also mentioned a similar dissatisfaction with the term traditional religion, which he said referred to the rudimentary technology used in those societies. He suggested that these be referred to as “religions of traditional societies” (religions des sociètés traditionnelles). This is the case because every religion is rooted in a tradition transmitted through generations. See Michel Meslin, “Connaissance et richesse des sociétés traditionnelles,” Mission de l’Eglise Supplément 132: Les Religions des ancêtres I (Juillet, 2001), p. 5.
- 107.
“L’expression ‘religions des ancêtres’ pose une question de terminologie. En effet, on pourrait parler ‘religions traditionnelles’. En Afrique par exemple, les sciences ethno-anthropologiques n’ont pas encore trouvé une appellation adéquate pour désigner les religions africaines. L’expression ‘religions traditionnelles’ est comprise différemment selon les continents. L’hindouisme et le bouddhisme ne sont-ils pas des ‘religions traditionnelles’ en Asie, où elles existent depuis des millénaires? ‘Religions traditionnelles’ est bien l’expression générique retenue par l’Afrique, dans le sens de ‘Religions Traditionnelles Africaines’. Ici, il ne s’agit pas seulement de l’Afrique. L’expression ‘religions des ancêtres’ a été retenue: elle semble moins limitative. Le débat reste ouvert. Dans tous les continents, des hommes se réfèrent à leurs ‘ancêtres’ pour organiser leur vie socioculturelle, économique et religieuse. Malgré leur diversité, les adeptes des ‘religions des Ancêtres’ cherchent des solutions aux problèmes de l’existence et aux énigmes de la vie. Ces traditions constituent un soubassement culturel, philosophique et religieux, transmis de génération en génération et qui remonte souvent à la nuit des temps. Ces religions ne sont pas plus ‘traditionnelles’ que d’autres, puisque toute religion travaille à devenir une sagesse de vie qui se transmet: une tradition. Celles qui ont une longe histoire comme celles qui n’en ont pas encore, deviennent progressivement traditionnelles, comme si la tradition était un signe permanent. La relation avec les parents défunts, notamment ceux qui ont acquis le statut d’ancêtre, de modèle ou de saint, influe sur la manière d’aborder toutes les grandes questions: la mort, la vie, l’amour, la souffrance, la peur, la sorcellerie, la possession, etc. Ces ‘religions’ – si elles se laissent comprendre par ce mot! – se présentent comme une réponse communautaire qui ritualise un effort de survie. Que désire tout être humain sinon continuer à vivre?” Diarra, “Editorial: Vous avez dit… religions?” p. 1.
- 108.
Mission de l’Eglise Supplément 130: Les Religions des ancêtres I (Juillet, 2001); Mission de l’Eglise Supplément 132: Les Religions des ancêtres II (Juillet, 2001).
- 109.
“There is little disagreement about the frequent observation that ancestor worship was the ‘essential religion ’ in the Chinese culture.” Yang, Religion in Chinese Society: A Study of Contemporary Social Functions of Religion and Some of their Historical Factors, p. 53.
- 110.
Johannes P. Schadé, ed., Encyclopedia of World Religions (New Jersey: Foreign Media Books, 2006), p. 873.
- 111.
Paul Valliere, “Tradition” in Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 15, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan, 1987), p. 1.
- 112.
Ibid., p. 1.
- 113.
Hardacre, “Ancestor Worship,” p. 263.
- 114.
Tradition from this point of view can be set side by side with the epistemic interest of human sciences. Human sciences value the human person as a producer of a network of intelligible relations. In this regard Foucault writes: “… the human sciences are addressed to man in so far as he lives, speaks, and produces. It is as living being that he grows, that he has functions and needs, that he sees opening up a space whose movable coordinates meet in him; in a general fashion, his corporeal existence interlaces him through and through with the rest of the living world; since he produces objects and tools, exchanges the things he needs, organizes a whole network of circulation along which what he is able to consume flows, and in which he has a relation to his past, to things, to other men, and on the basis of which he is able equally to build something like a body of knowledge …” Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (London: Tavistock, 1970), p. 351.
- 115.
For a general overview of Foucault’s thought and prolific writings, see Paul Strathern, Foucault in 90 Minutes (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000), p. 1–81.
- 116.
Michel Foucault, Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and other Writings 1977–1984 (New York: Routledge, 1988), p. 106.
- 117.
Foucault quoted in David Couzens Hoy, “Foucault: Modern or Postmodern?” in After Foucault: Humanistic Knowledge, Postmodern Challenges, ed. Jonathan Arac (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1991), p. 19.
- 118.
Hoy, “Foucault: Modern or Postmodern?” p. 20.
- 119.
Ibid., p. 26.
- 120.
H.D. Harootunian, “Foucault, Genealogy, History,” in After Foucault: Humanistic Knowledge, Postmodern Challenges, ed. Jonathan Arac (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1991), p. 124.
- 121.
Maurice Blanchot makes a similar observation in an explanation that shows that the consequence of the identification of power and reason is that the claim to truth is a claim to power. See Maurice Blanchot, The Thought from Outside by Michel Foucault: Michel Foucault as I Imagine Him (New York: Zone Books, 1987), p. 80.
- 122.
Harootunian, “Foucault, Genealogy, History,” pp. 113–14.
- 123.
Ibid., p. 116.
- 124.
Epistemic acts, says Foucault, “suspend the continuous accumulation of knowledge, interrupt its slow development and force it to enter a new time, cut it off from its empirical origin and its original motivations, cleanse it from its imaginary complicities; they direct historical analysis away from the search for silent beginnings, and the never-ending tracing-back to the original precursors, towards the search for a new type of rationality and its various effects. […] The most radical discontinuities are the breaks effected by a work of theoretical transformation ‘which establishes a science by detaching it from the ideology of its past and by revealing this past as ideological.’” See Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (London: Tavistock, 1972), p. 4.
- 125.
Blanchot, The Thought from Outside by Michel Foucault: Michel Foucault as I Imagine Him, p. 80.
- 126.
Harootunian, “Foucault, Genealogy, History,” pp. 124–25.
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Batairwa Kubuya, P. (2018). The Hermeneutic Challenge of Ancestor-Related Practices. In: Meaning and Controversy within Chinese Ancestor Religion. Asian Christianity in the Diaspora. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70524-8_2
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