Chinese salvationist religions
[1] They are distinguished by egalitarianism, a founding charismatic person often informed by a divine revelation, a specific theology written in holy texts, a millenarian eschatology and a voluntary path of salvation, an embodied experience of the numinous through healing and self-cultivation, and an expansive orientation through evangelism and philanthropy.
[2] Some scholars consider these religions a single phenomenon, and others consider them the fourth great Chinese religious category alongside the well-established Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism.
[13] Many of these religions are traced to the White Lotus tradition[14] ("Chinese Maternism", as mentioned by Philip Clart[15]) that was already active in the Song dynasty;[16] others claim a Taoist legacy and are based on the recovery of ancient scriptures attributed to important immortals such as Lü Dongbin and Zhang Sanfeng, and have contributed to the popularisation of neidan;[17] other ones are distinctively Confucian and advocate the realisation of a "great commonwealth" (datong 大同) on a world scale, as dreamt of in the Book of Rites.
[21] With the collapse of the Qing state in 1911 the sects enjoyed an unprecedented period of freedom and thrived, and many of them were officially recognised as religious groups by the early republican government.
[27] The Chinese folk religious movements of salvation are mostly concentrated in northern and northeastern China, although with a significant influence reaching the Yangtze River Delta since the 16th century.
