新神佛降臨救世：一個本土新興宗教團體的研究

A New Born God is Coming: The Study of a New Religious Group

1980年「關天師」神佛降臨救世被附身的人也稱為「關天師」。本文即在介紹此一由「關天師」師父所領導的團體。本文首先描述此團體的教義特色、重要活動內容和組織沿革，接著分析信眾的特質與組成。本研究主要是以實地觀察和訪談的方法來收集資料。訪談對象包括師父、28位拜師弟子、36位一般信眾。主要研究發現如下：這是一個從民間宮壇逐漸改革發展而來的新興宗教團體。早期「關天師」師父針對民間「辦事」活動做了許多改革，頗能引起信眾迴響。在其極盛時期，成立慈善基金會，大量收弟子，朝「制度化」方向推動。但因弟子間很難形成穩定的位階權力關係，以及師父對自身責任的定位，使得後來向「制度化」持續轉型並沒有成功。問事的信眾已逐年減少。此外，本研究也注意到，有為數不少的外省人，尤其是外省第二代，因受到同儕和外在環境的影響能夠接受以「辦事」的方式來解決自身的問題。

This paper introduces the new religious group, 'Kuan Tien Shih'. The leader of this group is the spiritual medium possessed by the new god, 'Kuan Tien Shih', since 1980. First of all, this study describes the group's leader, doctrines, practices and activities, and then the development of this group over the past two decades. This group was originated from a small folk religion temple in Taipep. Gradually this temple has been transformed into a new religious group. The groups charity foundation was set up in 1988, and many believers become the disciples. However, the group has long been organized loosely. Due to lack of institutionalized effort, the group ceased to grow after the late 1990s. Secondly, this study also attempts to understand who join this group and why they join. Hence, this paper analyzes the data collected from the interviews of 36 believers and 28 disciples. The main findings are as follows: (1) Career prosperity and the improvement in health are the two major concerns among the believers coming to see the spiritual medium for help. (2) Most of the believers and disciples were born in the 1950s, and grew up in the family of folk religion background. (3) A large proportion of disciples are 'mainlanders' whose fathers were from main land China after World War II, used to be atheistic or believe in Christianity.