Meaning and Controversy within Chinese Ancestor Religion [Hardcover]

Chinese practices related to ancestors have long been the subject of conflicting interpretations. These practices are rooted in the lived experience of practitioners, and therefore need to be considered as embodied expressions of the quest for existential meaning. For practitioners, the achievement of existential meaning requires the inclusion, implication, and mediation of the ancestors. When gestures in ancestor rites are analyzed from this perspective it is possible to appreciate their essence as constitutive of ancestor religion. This book uses an inquisitive method that investigates the discrepancies between foreign and local explanations, and proposes another hermeneutic framework for ancestor related praxes.   

CH 1 Introduction: Are Ancestors a Problem?         

CH 2 The Hermeneutic Problem within Ancestor Related Practices

CH 3 The Conflict of Interpretation of Chinese Ancestor Rites       

CH 4 Our  Perspective: Indigenous Explanation of Ancestor Rites          

CH 5 Existential Practical Hermeneutic of Ancestor Religion          

CH 6 Conclusion        

This book is well written and edited. Part of Palgraves Asian Christianity in the Disapora series, it indeed demonstrates the significance of the ancestors in Chinese Christianity and has relevance for many communities. By developing the study of Chinese ancestor religion, Batairwa Kubuya provides focus and punch, proposing a new way of interpreting the ancestors for Christians anlӤ