Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule
Fenggang Yang
Abstract
What has happened to religion in China since the Communist revolution? Against all the odds of eradication measures dictated by the atheist ideology and secularization effects of modernization, religion has survived and has been reviving and thriving despite Communist rule. This book presents a comprehensive overview of Chinese versions of Marxist atheism, evolving religious policies, and the religious change in China under Communism. It presents a fresh definition of religion for the social scientific study that classifies the religious and religion-like phenomena into a clear order. Working ... More
What has happened to religion in China since the Communist revolution? Against all the odds of eradication measures dictated by the atheist ideology and secularization effects of modernization, religion has survived and has been reviving and thriving despite Communist rule. This book presents a comprehensive overview of Chinese versions of Marxist atheism, evolving religious policies, and the religious change in China under Communism. It presents a fresh definition of religion for the social scientific study that classifies the religious and religion-like phenomena into a clear order. Working within the new paradigm in the sociology of religion that explains religious vitality instead of secularization, the book adopts a political economic approach. It contends that the dominant “supply-side explanations” in the new paradigm is not suitable to explain the religious change in China. The author articulates the triple religious market model in a shortage economy of religion under heavy regulation, which is very much a demand-driven economy of religion. Moreover, China is only one case of religious oligopoly, where a selected few religions are sanctioned by the state. Oligopoly is the most common type of religion-state relations in the world today. What has happened to religion in China may be indicative of religious dynamics in other oligopoly societies under heavy regulation.
Keywords:
China,
Communism,
religion,
atheism,
religious policy,
religious monopoly,
religious pluralism,
religious oligopoly,
secularization,
new paradigm,
religious economy,
shortage economy of religion
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2011 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199735655 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2012 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199735655.001.0001 |
