Taoist Federation (Singapore)新加坡道教总会

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

Singapore · Singapore · Singapore · 15 Arumugam Road, within the Lorong Koo Chye Sheng Hong Temple

Coordinates

1.3263, 103.892 Map ↗

First built

1990 · Registration submitted in June 1989, approved on February 2, 1990, and formally inaugurated on March 11 of the same year at Tou Mu Kung in Jurong East; first president Tan Kok Hian

Overview

The Taoist Federation (Singapore) is Singapore's only national Daoist organization. It submitted its registration application in June 1989, was approved by the Registrar of Societies on February 2, 1990, and was formally inaugurated on March 11 of the same year at Tou Mu Kung in Jurong East, with Tan Kok Hian as its first president. Its founding was prompted by the 1990 census, which showed that Daoists made up 22.4 percent of Singapore's population, a drop of more than ten percentage points from 1980, arousing concern within the community over the transmission of the faith and thereby driving efforts toward organization and doctrinal standardization. The Federation held its first formal Daoist conversion ceremony in 1992, established a youth wing in 2007 (whose members were subsequently authorized to serve as solemnizers of civil marriages), founded the Taoist College and the Sam Chin Taoist Library in 2008, and took part in the Third International Forum on Daoism in 2014. The Federation has long worked to bring the devotional practices of folk temples within a framework of Daoist doctrine, making it one of the most representative cases of the institutionalization of Daoism in Southeast Asia.

Highlights

• Singapore's only national Daoist organization
• The 1992 Daoist conversion ceremony
• The Taoist College established in 2008
• Organized in response to a decline in the proportion of Daoist believers