The Practice and Implication of Contemporary Christian Utopian Communities: The Case of Mount Zion of New Testament Church in Taiwan
Date Issued
2016
Date
2016
Author(s)
Shao, Huei-Jhe
Abstract
This research focuses on the study of the autonomous community “Mount Zion” (Mt. Zion), established by the New Testament Church (NTC) in Taiwan. The aim of the research is to examine the contemporary features, present its development and practice of social life, and connect with some previous studies on Utopia. In my study, it is believed that the “thought” of Utopia may exit in various cultures, if Utopia is to be generalized as an idealism of living in a wonderful society in the mortal world. Throughout the world history, it seems that most of the few communities successfully turning the thoughts of Utopia into experiment or practice have been founded by the Christian Utopian ones. On the other hand, in Chinese societies, the case of the “Utopian community” founded by the ideology of religion is scarce. Currently, the best example of this kind of community would be Mt. Zion founded by NTC in Taiwan, which preserves the Utopian way of living in the most complete and sustained fashion. In my study, I consider that the “Holy-Land” (promised land) owned and developed by NTC in Taiwan is a community that sustains and practices the idea of Utopia by implementing Christian religion as its culture base and blueprint of concept. NTC has many Holy-Lands in different places throughout Taiwan, even overseas. Among all, the most representative and most divine one is Mt. Zion located in Kaohsiung City. As for the other Holy-Lands following the example of Mt. Zion are called “branches of Mt. Zion”. Inside the Holy-Land, which deliberately isolates itself from the outside world, the NTC believers consciously recreates the living style similar to “Eden” and “Commune” in the beginning of the Christian Church recorded in the Bible. They live in the God-based life style, and combine “work, live, serve” as a whole. Moreover, they gained the power of self-educating the disciples’ children from Taiwan government in 1997, hence the religion-practicing living area become more mature, and is therefore called “Eden Homestead”. The content of my thesis firstly through the diachronic view point presents the development of NTC/Mt. Zion from 1960s to the present time, indicating how the “internal and external motivation” of the Utopia was efficiently combined by “people”, and how they further actively realized the concrete Utopia community. At the same time, the close-relationship between Christianity and Utopia was examined and revised through the study of the case of Mt. Zion. Secondly, the current study presents the social life of NTC believers in Mt. Zion through the synchronic view point, including the aspects of God-based life and God-based education, environment preservation and eco-village, production and consumption, the idea of Utopia-construction. It also recorded the NTC’ homeschooling (God-based education), daily congregation (prophecy and witness), and pilgrimage (Feast of Tabernacles in 2014). These aspects above hence depicted the profile of Mt. Zion as a Christian Utopia in contemporary Taiwan. Furthermore, the diachronic and synchronic results show that NTC has vividly interpreted various “in-the-name-of-God” actions, inside and outside the community through its unique religious doctrines and mobilization system, and has actively created meanings and given value to it, making it a “practice of faith”. On one hand, it has internally created cohesion within the members in the group. On the other hand, it has externally produced a motion of resistance to form and sustain the boarder of the Utopia. Therefore, Mt. Zion, the Christian Utopian community, is able to continuously “transform” and “adapt” the challenges arising from inside and outside the community under the specific social, cultural and historical context in Taiwan, and further more continues functioning till present time for over thirty years. Finally, this research takes the example of Mt. Zion experience to examine the qualities and conditions for a successfully established and functioning Utopian community. Moreover, the research indicates that the phenomenon of NTC/Mt. Zion is not only a religious utopian movement, but also a “special way of expression” of social movement. Last, the comparison between of Christian Utopia and secular Utopia is made, in order to enter into a dialogue with the Utopia theories in the field of anthropology.
Subjects
Christianity
utopian community
New Testament Church
Mount Zion
Holy land
Eden Homestead
Type
thesis
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