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→Note on Taiwan's Religious Environment
==Note on Taiwan's Religious Environment==
Most of Taiwan's population follows the Chinese folk religion (which is known by various names, including both "Buddhism" and "Daoism"). Unlike Western religions, participation in the Chinese folk religion does not usually involve required beliefs or behaviors, or a formal group identity, and is difficult to separate from such borderline religious phenomena as fortune-telling, qigong practice, holiday observances, or ancestor veneration. A minority (perhaps 5 or 10 percent) are "Buddhists" in the more international sense of having taken refuge with a Buddhist monk or nun. Christians apparently comprise 4 or 5 percent of the population, roughly half of them Protestant (and chiefly with Presbyterianismby far the largest denomination) and half Catholic.
Dutch Calvinist and Spanish Dominican missionaries arrived on "Formosa" (as Taiwan was then called) within a few years of each other in the 17th century, but failed to establish permanent congregations before the expulsion of the Spanish (by the Dutch) and Dutch (by the Ming loyalist Koxinga). During the 1860's, Dominicans (from the Philippines) and Presbyterians (from England and Canada) established relatively successful missions, with immense consequences to the island's culture and development, including Taiwan's first university and hospital, as well as a script for the Taiwanese language (a Minnan dialect). New missions were forbidden entry during the Japanese era, indirectly benefitting the Catholics and Presbyterians (who were already present). After 1949, a wave of missionaries from various denominations (including the Baptists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Adventists, among many others) arrived in Taiwan from China, and established churches representing those denominations. The Presbyterians enjoyed further growth during the 1950's and 1960's, when the church took an outspoken stance in favor of human rights and Taiwan independence. The end of martial law in 1987 has also liberalized the religious environment, with Pentecostalism and the House Church movement being important new trends.
