Ritual and Religious Taste: Bodily Technique As the Key to Belief

Sociologically speaking, religion is primarily understood in three-fold: belief, ritual and religious organization. In the sociology of religion, the ritual is easily downplayed, whereas the belief is often overemphasized due to the influences of Western Christianity on this discipline. This paper, therefore, examines the role of ritual by analyzing the development of Taiwanese folk religion, paying particular attention to how traditional belief competes with, if not replaced by, religions in modern Taiwan. In response to the crisis of the religious legitimation, Taiwanese temples produce cultural capital by emphasizing the cultural value of their rituals. The “culturalized” ritualistic activities further create for the people a modern connection with folk religion. It is through ritualistic participation that the religious taste of folk religion is reproduced and maintained in the popular. This study will analyze why bodily technique is essential to the construction of religious taste, and how its practices contribute to the participants’ traditional belief.