Christianity, Confucianism, Chinese Family and Modernization: A Reflection from Max Weber's Religious Sociology

Christianity, Confucianism, Chinese Family and Modernization:
A Reflection from Max Weber's Religious Sociology

HUNG Tsz Wan Andrew

This paper explores Max Weber's three criticisms of Confucianism: lack of tension between this world and the transcendent world, overemphasizing the harmony of kin relationship and lack of the spirit of professionalism. Although Weber's viewpoints have been criticized by many scholars, such as Thomas A. Metzger, Tu Wei-ming and Yu Ying-shih, I would argue that Weber's criticisms are not completely unreasonable. Compared with the “external transcendence” of Christianity, Confucian “inner transcendence” has more difficulty forming the tension with the transcendent world. And the prevalence of vulgar Confucianism with its emphasis on familial relational ethics also makes Chinese people give priority to human relationship and face-saving over professional norms and transcendent truth. This causes a kind of nepotism which in fact violates the ideal of pre-Qin Confucianism. However, the emergence of the East Asian economic miracle in recent years also reveals that Weber has ignored that Confucian familial relational ethics can become a cultural driving force for cultivating diligence and national economic development, which is similar to Weber's thesis of Protestant ethics. Examining the Japanese family system of Iemoto shows that Confucianism is able to transcend the bound of consanguinity. Furthermore, I would argue that Christian belief helps the modernization of Chinese culture. Christianity emphasizes the family value of the present world which is sustained by the redemption and love of Christ. It also believes that the Heavenly Family is the model of the human family in which obedience to the Heavenly Father's will as the Ultimate Truth overrides all other relationships. Such belief is not only compatible with Confucian family values, but may also help Chinese to break through barriers caused by nepotism.