CREEDS, RITES AND VIDEOTAPES: Narrating religious experience in East Asia Edited by Elise Anne DeVido & Benoit Vermander Variétés Sinologiques no.93 © Taipei Ricci Institute, 2004 265 pages / 16 x 21.5 cm / hard cover Language : English ISBN 957-9390-3 USD 21/ Euro 17 / NT 400

CREEDS, RITES AND VIDEOTAPES Narrating religious experience in East Asia Edited by -- Elise Anne DeVido & Benoit Vermander – “Religions in East Asia today have undergone transformations similar to the ones happening in other parts of the world. No longer are religious creeds, affiliations and practices taken for intangible realities, be it in metropolis or in rural settlements. At the same time, stressing one’s religious identity can be a way to assert a person’s or a community’s set of cultural, ethnic or social features that once were going unchallenged. The diversity of creeds and rituals is more and more striking, as new religious movements appear every day. Such diversity also affects traditional faiths and practices as they experience revival and changes induced by external influences. Looked at from a distance, the East Asian religious psyche experiments the tensions that can be noted in East Asian societies as a whole: a strong affinity with contemporary values and technologies mixes with a nostalgia for things past; individual fulfillment meets with a stress on community values and support; the quest for harmony and inner peace goes along a unceasing curiosity for the hybrid, colorful and ever evolving post-modern culture.” Contributions by Elise A. DeVido, Benoit Vermander, Chien Hong-mo, Chow Wai-yin, Jose Mario C. Francisco, Hans-Rudolf Kantor, Robert Kisala, Okuyama Michiaki, Vincent Shen, Yan Jinfen.