Comments on: 15 Books, Pramas Variant http://www.chrispramas.com/2009/06/25/15-books-pramas-variant/ The Furious Scribblings of Chris Pramas Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:12:33 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.10 By: Jonathan Walton http://www.chrispramas.com/2009/06/25/15-books-pramas-variant/#comment-135 Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:12:33 +0000 http://chrispramas.com/?p=40#comment-135 Totally. Part of what's fascinating to me is the Taiping Rebellion isn't only time that happened. In fact, there are a lot of hybrid Christian/indigenous religions spawning out of intercultural contact.

Handsome Lake, the Seneca prophet, was very similar, inventing the "longhouse religion."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longhouse_religion

Simon Kimbangu founded a syncretic Christian African church around 1920 in the Congo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimbanguism

There's even several contemporary pseudo-Christian cults in China, many of whom contain echos of Taiping concepts. The most dangerous is probably the Eastern Lightning, which has been known to kidnap other Chinese Christians and force them to convert.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Lightning

]]> By: Chris http://www.chrispramas.com/2009/06/25/15-books-pramas-variant/#comment-134 Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:04:01 +0000 http://chrispramas.com/?p=40#comment-134 I found the whole story of the Taiping Rebellion fascinating. That one man's weird interpretation of Christianity led to a conflict of that size and scope is amazing.

]]> By: Jonathan Walton http://www.chrispramas.com/2009/06/25/15-books-pramas-variant/#comment-133 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:25:46 +0000 http://chrispramas.com/?p=40#comment-133 Yeah, yeah, yeah… SPENCE?!

Your interest in Taiping history surprises me. I spent a Fulbright year in Nanjing studying the Taiping Rebellion. What made Spence's account unforgettable for you?

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