Multi-concept Of God:the Research Of The Religion And Culture Of The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom

The foundation of Taiping heavenly kingdom is its religion, but how to define it is still a problem. In the past, we tend to regard the movement of Taiping kingdom as a traditional peasant movement with some modern characters, and even consider it as the peak of Chinese traditional peasant movement. Some people define it as a national revolution, aiming to overturn the degenerate domination of Qing dynasty. While some other scholars treat it as a movement of religious revolution, aiming to build a theocracy and destroy the Chinese traditional culture. The last view point is mostly from Jian You wen, which is also closed to the viewpoint of this thesis. The analysis of the movement of Taiping heavenly kingdom in this thesis is based on the theories of psychology of religion, Christian theology, bible hermeneutics, group psychology, social history and so on. By the use of these theories, we try to get a deeper cognition of the god religion and its core concept—the God, so as to make clear of the rise, change and fail of Taiping kingdom and provide an explanation of the traits of its leaders.First of all, the background of Taiping heavenly kingdom and some of its characteristics tell us the hint of its heterogeneity. The heterogeneity is the basic of the study of Taiping heavenly kingdom.Second, under the direction of some theories such as the Bible hermeneutics, Christian theology and the history of Christian Church, we find out that the construction of Taiping kingdom and Hong Xiuquan are influenced by Bible and the doctrines of Evangelical Protestantism. Hong Xiuquan’s revolutionary thoughts, influencing the process of Taiping kingdom, are mostly enlightened by the revolutionary character of Bible, the doctrines of monotheism and the sweet-tempered god in Bible. And the prophecy of the Millennium and the thoughts of the last judgment from Evangelical Protestantism enhance Hong Xiuquan’s understanding of Bible.As time goes by, the Taiping heavenly kingdom alienate itself from the God gradually. Its concept of God changes from Moses’God, to the god religion’ God, to New Testament’God, eventually to the hierarch’s God. In the process, God leaves apart from the followers, which changes the religious mentality of Taiping heavenly kingdom. The weakening of religious belief resulted in the loss of its revolutionary character.In fact, the religious mentality and religious thought of Hong Xiuquan and Hong Rengan experience a complicated change. Hong Xiuquan is a man like Mohammed, who found a new religion to lead the secular movement. On the other hand, Hong Rengan is a man like Martin Luther, who distribute all of his energies to the reforms of religion and politics of the Taiping kingdom. In addition, the properties of saints and some psychological features of Hong Xiuquan make him the leader of the kingdom. The weaknesses of Hong Rengan himself which are related to his spirits and religion, lead to the failure of his reformation of Taiping kingdom.Finally, because of the metamorphic in The God religion, as well as the deterioration of political and military situation, the Taiping kingdom is disorganized. The degenerations of religion finally deprave the Taiping heavenly kingdom. The future of the kingdom is nothing but death.