Confucianism as an “Organized Religion”: An Ethnographic Study of the Confucian Congregation

This is an ethnographic study of the Confucian Congregation—an emerging religious group in Fujian Province, southeast China—with an account of the Congregation’s origin, belief and rituals, organization, and development strategy. The Congregation started with one person providing supernatural healings, and it developed into an “organized religion” with hundreds of members in seven franchised branches. Furthermore, by taking advantage of the contemporary trend of the revival of Confucianism in China, Congregation leaders were even able to achieve a seemingly impossible feat—a legitimate status for their “superstitious” group.