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Welcome to the Reform Taoist Congregation! My name is  , and I am the founder of Reform Taoism, as well as the
designer of this website (which is perpetually under construction; I apologize
in advance for any errors). I'd like to tell you about who I am, and explain to
you my vision and hopes for Reform Taoism. I decided, after considering
a number of options, that the clearest way to present this introduction would be
to write it in question-answer format (followed by a traditional FAQ).
If you have any other questions about this website, about me personally, or
about Reform Taoism, please feel free to e-mail
me.What is Reform Taoism? Is it a religion? A cult? It is a religion, but probably not in the sense you're used to. Specifically, we do not believe in a god or deity; we believe in an impersonal force called the Tao. We also have no established concept of an "afterlife". However, we do believe that the Tao demonstrates to us the proper way to live. Through our beliefs, we learn how to act under any conceivable circumstances; how to handle problems; and how to live life properly, without causing harm to others. The fact that we place our lives and our trust in the Tao is what makes Western Reform Taoism a religion, rather than simply a philosophy. As far as the question of whether we are a cult: in the popular sense of the word, absolutely not. We do not worship a person or an event (in fact, we don't worship anything!), and we don't ask our members to change their lives in any way. We are brothers and sisters to each other, and as such, we respect each others' opinions and decisions. The purpose of a spiritual community is to lend support and encouragement. We help each other through rough times, and we offer advice to those who need it. No, we are a community, not a cult. To help visitors understand the religious similarities and differences between Reform Taoism and other widespread religious traditions, I've constructed a table comparing Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Traditional Religious Taoism and Reform Taoism. The table covers the subjects about which I am most often asked (i.e. how does Reform Taoism differ from Christianity in its cosmology?) It is not meant to be definitive, only to provide newcomers to Reform Taoism with a familiar frame of reference for the exploration of our faith. To view the table in a separate window, please click here. Why haven't I heard of Reform Taoism before? Is it new? Yes, actually it's quite new. Let me explain to you how it came to be: I was born, baptized and raised Christian. My family is Methodist, so I grew up in a fairly liberal church atmosphere. I've come to believe, in retrospect, that a liberal religious atmosphere can have mixed effects on a child. On one hand, the child will probably never feel repressed or trapped by his or her religion, as he or she might in a more orthodox church. On the other hand, the more liberal the atmosphere, the more room a child has to ask questions -- about the church's beliefs, its history, even questions about the relevance of the Bible. The latter, as it turns out, was exactly what I did. I was never particularly comfortable with the idea of Christianity, because it simply didn't make sense to me. How could people blindly trust their lives to the writings in a two thousand-year-old book? The answer, I was told, was "faith." But when I asked why Christians had faith, the answer was "The Bible." Is this circular logic, or is it just me? Christianity also seemed to have a serious Achilles' Heel, arising from the undeniable existence of evil in the world. God is generally described by Christianity and the New Testament as omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent. If that description is accurate, though, then God is logically incapable of allowing or causing evil to exist. In other words, the existence of God and the existence of evil are mutually exclusive. Both cannot exist simultaneously. It was this argument, above all else, that convinced me that the existence of God, at least in the form envisioned by the Christianity of my youth, is very unlikely. Meanwhile, in my late adolescence, a friend of mine introduced me to Taoist philosophy. Now, I grew up in Colorado Springs, arguably one of the most vocally conservative cities in the United States. As a product of that environment, I grew up believing not only that so-called "Eastern thought" was strange, but that it was really just a bunch of superstitious nonsense. So, I was understandably reluctant to take my friend's Taoist philosophy seriously. That was, at least, until the first time I opened the Tao Te Ching. I remember describing it to people: reading the Tao Te Ching and other Taoist texts felt like "someone was looking over my shoulder," explaining to me things that really had relevance to my life. The most appealing aspect of Taoism, though, was that it didn't claim to be "divinely-inspired." Laozi never claimed to have been visited by a deity and commanded to write the Tao Te Ching. He wrote it because he observed patterns in the world around him -- patterns that didn't require blind faith and acceptance of logical contradiction to recognize -- and realized that everything must be connected somehow. After I had studied Taoism for a time, I began to feel a growing frustration at the way Western (and specifically American) society has developed, spiritually speaking. I started to notice things I'd never noticed before, like how many bookstores only keep Judeo-Christian materials in the "Religion" section (all other religions and beliefs are generally filed under "Eastern Thought," or worse yet, "Philosophy.") Another example: if this country truly cherishes the separation of Church and State, then why is there a "National Christmas Tree"? Why is Christmas the only religiously-motivated Federal holiday, when almost 11 million people in this country (roughly the number of people in New York City and Los Angeles combined) are not Christian? I started to realize that this country (in fact, the whole Western world), has developed in such a religiously narrow-minded way that any religion, besides Christianity and sometimes Judaism, is automatically invalidated -- or even vilified -- by society at large. A case in point: In America, we almost never hear anything positive or educational about Islam or its followers, despite the fact that there are nearly as many Muslims in the world as there are Christians. Admittedly, ancient Religious Taoism, which never really left China, is the product of a culture which is vastly different from that of the Western world. But what if there were a more updated, revived, modernized version of Religious Taoism? What if those of us who believe that Taoism is more than a philosophy -- that it is truly a pattern for life -- had a community? How many would join us? So, I decided to found Reform Taoism. I believe there are many people who feel as I do, and I would like for us to be able to meet each other. I want us to finally form a community of support, discussion, and spiritual development. If we pull together, we can finally establish Taoism in the West as a modern religion, and we can help each other grow spiritually, something which is very difficult for an individual to do alone, given the religious climate of this country. So you basically invented this religion. Well, the concept of Taoism as a religion has existed for almost two thousand years. I would prefer to say that I have created a new form of religious Taoism; I've tried to take Taoism one step beyond the cold, analytical philosophy it has become in the Western world. I feel that the teachings of Taoism have the potential for great spiritual awakening, but the believers have no community; we have no connection to each other. We're scattered across the globe, each of us believing that he or she is alone. I just want to bring us together, and let Nature take its course. What are you hoping to accomplish with the Reform Taoism movement, in the long run? In the long run? I haven't really considered that. For now, my hope is simply to bring together people who share a spiritual devotion to the Tao. Of course, for the time being, "together" will mean "cyberspace," as facilitated by this website. Eventually though, who knows? If our membership grows to such a size that we begin to have localized concentrations of members, I would hope we could form local congregations. But that's a long way off, and we'll handle it one step at a time. So there are no local Reform Taoist congregations right now? No, not yet. We exist as an Internet-based community of faith and spirituality. We certainly encourage our members to form localized groups where possible and practical, of course; thus far, though, our membership is still too widely geographically-distributed to make such groups feasible. Other Frequently-Asked Questions (last updated March 9, 2009)
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