Shanrendao, or The Way of Goodness, founded by Wang Fengyi (1864-1938), an illiterate peasant from Chaoyang County, Liaoning Province, is one of many hundreds of religious cults in Northeastern China that proliferated in the late Qing. Defined by Prasenjit Duara and Shao Yong as either a redemptive society or a secret society, both designations fail to capture Shanrendao’s identity prior to its absorption into the Wangguo daode hui (Universal Moral Society) in 1928.

Through close reading of Volume 3 of the Shanrendao text, Wang Fengyi yanxing lu (The Words and Deeds of Wang Fengyi), this study explores the formative stage of Fengyi’s doctrines and activism to improve moral customs, circa 1890-1909. Frustrated by a perceived prevalence of moral corruption and desperate to make sense of a seemingly collapsing society, Fengyi borrowed from local customs and reworked Neo-Confucian morality to craft both a metaphysical explanation for the social disorder and a morality-healing technique to ameliorate the ills of his rural neighbors. As Fengyi began to institutionalize his redemptive activism, he incurred the watchful eye of the state; he further faced financial constraints that limited his initiatives. These twin constraints pushed him to join forces with the more socially exalted Daodehui, lending Shanrendao both greater legitimacy and economic resources; as revealed through later volumes in Wang Fengyi yanxing lu, this came at the cost of the founder’s agency.

Using Shanrendao as a case study, this project reveals the circulation of socio-cultural repertoires across classes. Fengyi, by weaving together vernacularized Neo-Confucian ethics and grassroots practices, constructed his metaphysical approach to redeeming the socio-moral order; as his reputation grew within Northeast China, his pastiche of Shanrendao doctrines came to be reintroduced to elites and officials, demonstrating both the persistence and the malleability of “traditional” culture in a modernizing world.