Introduction

We hope this international academic society can encourage meaningful communications among social scientists who study religion from East Asia, and facilitate further development of the scientific study of religion in this region. In the world today, East Asia posits as a hot spot of religious changes. Religious groups in societies experiencing radical changes often occur, grow, and disperse with contextual social changes. Similar to previous cases in Korea and Japan, Chinese religious groups exhibit certain features that are common to transitioning societies, while pertaining particular characteristics. The empirical studies of those changes will certainly enhance and contribute to the development of general theories and methods of social scientific study of religion in East Asia. As taken initially and impressively  by Max Weber (1915) and Robert N. Bellah (1957), Asian religions, e.g., Confucianism, Taoism,  and Tokugawa religion have usually been examined in terms of the large-scale comparative perspective whose framework was primarily based upon the lens of Western religion, that is, Protestantism. This methodological tradition has continued to influence ordinary social scientific studies of religion. As noted, this confronts many challenges in contemporary East Asian religious situations. This society aims to provide an academic platform, in which all scholars of religion can extend the boundaries of social scientific understanding of religions by communicating and exchanging their ideas and knowledge about religious situations of East Asian societies.