In April, The Record ran an exclusive column by Sydney Auxiliary Bishop Julian Porteous, saying that aspects of Reiki, Tai Chi and Yoga are adverse to Christian principles. Perth Catholic Jing-Ping Wong, a Tai Chi and Chinese martial arts teacher and trained civil engineer, is a graduate of the John Paul II Institute in Melbourne, debates some of Bishop Porteous’ points in this edited response.
I remember sitting in one of Bishop Porteous’ classes at the JPII Institute in Melbourne and was quickly impressed with his wisdom, his method of teaching and warm personality. I hold him in great respect.
I commend the Bishop for his efforts to caution Catholics against potential spiritual and philosophical dangers with certain practices, given the growth of the New Age movement around the world.
However, I disagree with some of his conclusions regarding Tai Chi. His admonitions would have been valid if certain distinctions and qualifications were made, but they were not and his article did not do justice to the truth of the discipline of Tai Chi, to the goodness of its culture of origin and to those who have benefited from it.
His description of Tai Chi teachers as crafty tainted the practice and those who teach it, obscuring any of its possible goodness.
Tai Chi has much in common with Christianity
An Australian-born Chinese, I grew up in a family with a strong adherence to a Chinese intellectual and moral tradition and was raised with a strong affiliation to Tai Chi and its philosophy.
As a young adult, I had a profound conversion experience that led me to re-discover the Church and embrace it. Re-considering Tai Chi through the eyes of faith, I have concluded that it and Taoism intrinsically support and prefigure Christianity.
The lived tradition of Taoism that became inherent to the Chinese mind is an outlook of life, ethics and human relationships that has much in common with the Christian ethos.
Tai Chi pre-supposes Christian Revelation, and I believe it awaits its fulfilment in the Catholic faith.
What is Tai Chi?
In China, the traditional and predominant use of Tai Chi has been for self-defence, health and self-cultivation. It is a physical and intellectual discipline with a lofty goal of personal moral reformation.
It is about the practice of virtues, especially humility and sensitivity toward others. I have noticed that most who take up Tai Chi seriously are usually intelligent, gentle and mature people who value the important things in life. Some are devout and committed to the Christian Faith.
In the West, spiritual usages of Tai Chi exist, but usually these are associated with the New Age movement. In China, sects have adapted Tai Chi to their own beliefs and practices, including Gnosticism. But this is not the conventional or pure form of Tai Chi.
I believe it is these New Age ‘versions’ of Tai Chi that have been caught in the radar of Bishop Porteous. In this case, his and others’ warnings against this re-marketed version of Tai Chi would be well justified. However, to do so without proper nuances and clarifications risks throwing Tai Chi and Taoism (the philosophy on which Tai Chi is based) out with the bath water.
What about Tai Chi, divinisation and psychic powers?
Tai Chi is not about divinisation and psychic powers. This highly spiritualised lingo comes more from associations with Gnosticism or the New Age movement in the West. Such an approach is foreign to the conventional Chinese mind. The majority of those in oriental countries who practise Tai Chi in parks and hospitals are doing it for much the same reasons as you would see people going for a jog along the river. They want peace and to clear their minds of stress after a hard day’s work.
Is Taoism at odds with Christianity?
The short answer is no. To say that Taoism denies the existence of good and evil is a misunderstanding of its basic tenets. To say that practising Tai Chi requires people to abandon their faculties of reason and moral thinking is not correct. Bishop Porteous correctly noted that Tai Chi is based on a philosophy called Taoism, which is a philosophy of natural law. It is grounded in the natural order (thus, worldly) and hardly exceeds it. However, when Bishop Porteous talks about Taoism as having a spiritual origin and religious worldview that is at odds with the Christian worldview, I ascribe this interpretation to the more recent influence of the New Age.
The most accurate readings of Taoism emerge from the great classics, Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Jing (~500BC) and the Analects of Confucius (~500BC), which are both about striving for human perfection through the virtue, morality and learning.
The hallmark of Confucius’ teaching is “self-cultivation through education to arrive at virtue”. This has become the lived tradition of Taoism in China for over 2,500 years and has become intrinsic to the Chinese ethos. I believe this is congruent with fundamental elements of Christianity.
Grace Builds on Nature
Examples from early Church history show how elements of other ancient pre-Christian philosophies like those of Aristotle and Plato were incorporated into Christianity. Subsequently, these philosophies played an integral role in the development of the understanding of Christian doctrine and in the inculturation of Europe.
The same can be said of Taoism for the Orient. Taoism is a natural philosophy which predates Christian Revelation. It is essentially a question and a resolution. It is a sublime expression of the heart of a civilisation that has quietly contemplated the deepest yearnings of the human heart over several millennia.
It asks, “What are the laws of Heaven?” and exclaims, “That I may fulfil my humanity, I wish to align myself to Heaven’s Decrees!” It patiently awaits its answer. Heaven revealed the answer 500 years later: Christ. And so for the hundreds of millions of people who are predisposed to the Taoist and Confucian philosophy in our world today (whether consciously or unconsciously), we have many who are ripe and ready to hear the Gospel. Grace builds on nature. And Taoism is a platform proffered for the work of grace.
Renowned western Catholic and Christian scholars in our own era have already begun to do the work. CS Lewis in The Abolition of Man uses the term “the Tao” as shorthand for Natural Law. Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft frequently refers to the “Tao” and Taoist concepts in his own writings.
What does the Church say about the Tao?
The Second Vatican Council calls for inculturation of all cultures by the Faith. It calls Christians to “recognise, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men” (Nostrae Aetate n.2). How fertile the ground is for evangelisation of China if we are prepared to do this. I believe the lived tradition of Taoism effectively disposes a person’s mind, reason and sentiment to receiving the knowledge of Christianity.
Knowing this can enable us to evangelise in ways that dynamically appeal to the intellect and sentiments of people from this cultural background.
The Church teaches that there are elements of truth, goodness and beauty outside the physical bounds of the Church.
The Second Vatican Council says that it is the Church’s mission to recognise, purify and sanctify these so that they may be brought to fulfilment in Christ and offered as a gift to Him (Apostolicam Actuositatem, n 5). Through Taoism the Church can bring the rich and complex culture of China to its perfection by permeating it with God’s life and grace.
Thus, in its newness it has potential of bearing numerous and wonderful life-giving fruits for the Church and for the world. China was once called a sleeping giant.
Today it looks as if the giant is awakening. There are millions waiting to benefit from Christian dialogue and inculturation. There are also many of oriental cultural backgrounds living in Australian cities. Their spirits yearn to know the revelation of Grace from Heaven that the West has been privileged with for so long. Is it not our honour and duty as Christians to help see it brought about?
The Pope, The Wise Man of the West and noble China
Last year Pope Benedict XVI paid tribute to the renowned 16th century Catholic missionary Fr Matteo Ricci for his genius in evangelising China. When Ricci arrived in the Orient, he was astounded at the sophistication of its culture.
He exclaimed that while Europe had the greater scientific and mathematical methods, China had a high culture at least as noble, if not more, than his own.
In order to engage in cultural dialogue and evangelisation, Ricci studied and became an exemplary Taoist and literary scholar and won the hearts and minds of many of his Chinese contemporaries.
He converted thousands of Chinese to Catholicism and almost reached the Emperor before he died in Beijing.
Pope Benedict praised Ricci, whose cause for beatification opened in 1983, for his “peculiar capacity in approaching, with full respect, Chinese cultural and spiritual traditions in their totality”.
Taoism lays the foundation for the Christian faith in China, and Ricci testifies to this in his use of Taoism for Christian evangelisation of the Orient.
We stand at the brink of a new epoch of the Church’s mission of evangelisation, in continuation of its great and Sacred Tradition.
I believe Taoism is of crucial relevance to Australian Catholics today.
Jing Ping can be contacted on adihs7@gmail.com.