“Sinicization” has become the slogan that guides Chinese official policy towards religion. What does it mean? Where will it lead? This book is one of the first in English that answers these questions.
Since its announcement by Xi Jinping in 2015, "Sinicization" has become the slogan that guides Chinese official policy towards religion. What does it mean? What effects is it having on Chinese religions? Where will it lead? This book, with contributions from experts in the major religious traditions in China, is one of the first in English that answers these questions.0From the top down, Sinicization is a project to control all forms of religion in China, even ancient indigenous forms, to make them conform to the demands of its Party-State. From the bottom up, however, religious believers are using the slogan either to sincerely attempt to adapt traditional practices to their modern cultural context or to protect their faith by offering lip service to government demands - or some combination of the two.
The speed and the scale with which traditional religions in China have been revived and new spiritual movements have emerged in recent decades make it difficult for scholars to stay up-to-date on the religious transformations within Chinese society. This unique atlas presents a bird’s-eye view of the religious landscape in China today. In more than 150 full-color maps and six different case studies, it maps the officially registered venues of China’s major religions - Buddhism, Christianity (Protestant and Catholic), Daoism, and Islam - at the national, provincial, and county levels. The atlas also outlines the contours of Confucianism, folk religion, and the Mao cult. Further, it describes the main organizations, beliefs, and rituals of China’s main religions, as well as the social and demographic characteristics of their respective believers. Putting multiple religions side by side in their contexts, this atlas deploys the latest qualitative, quantitative and spatial data acquired from censuses, surveys, and fieldwork to offer a definitive overview of religion in contemporary China. An essential resource for all scholars and students of religion and society in China.
"Extraordinarily timely and useful. As China emerges as an economic and political world power that seems to have done away with religion, in fact it is witnessing a religious revival. The thoughtful essays in this book show both the historical conflicts between state authorities and religious movements and the contemporary encounters that are shaping China's future. I am aware of no other book that covers so much ground and can be used so well as an introduction to this important field." —Peter van der Veer, University of Utrecht
This book examines the complex relationships of civil society and Christianity in Greater China. Different authors investigate to what extent Christians demonstrate the quality of civic virtues and reflect on the difficulties of applying civil society theories to Chinese societies.
This book is a collection of studies of various religious groups in the changing religious markets of China. These ethnographic studies demonstrate many shades of gray in the religious market and fluidity across the red, black, and gray markets.
China under Xi Jinping: an Interdisciplinary Assessment offers an overview of reforms and changes that took place in China under Xi Jinping’s administration in years 2012–2022. The book focuses on the impact of Xi’s rule on China’s political system, with special attention given to the features that distinguish Xi from his predecessors. The authors discuss, among others, the Xi Jinping Thought and the nature of his leadership, factors contributing to China’s economic success, the future of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s response to challenges in terms of security, climate policy, energy transition, pandemics, as well as its ambition to become a global superpower in domains such as space exploration and sports. The volume also analyzes the in fluence that Xi Jinping’s government has exerted on the Chinese state, society, and culture, concentrating on areas such as healthcare, education, politics regarding religion, the evolution of Chinese nationalism, the developments in Chinese cinema, music, language, and even political humor. To understand what characterizes Xi as a politician and how his time in o ffice is reflected in today’s China, experts on China-related matters appear in five parts, or “dimensions” including: political, economic, social, cultural, and foreign policy issues. This publication will spark the readers’ interest in and increase their awareness concerning the developments in the People’s Republic of China under Xi Jinping.
From the 1960s until his death in 2013, Robert N. Bellah was the preeminent figure in the study of religion and society. He broke new ground in mapping the religious dimensions of human experience, from the great breakthroughs of the first millennium BCE to the paradoxes of American civic life. In three final essays, published here for the first time, Bellah grapples with the contradictions of modernity, and seven leading thinkers respond with profound, exhilarating new perspectives on our present predicament. Challenging Modernity critically assesses the modern project to shed light on the tensions between its transcendent aspirations and the perils we now face. Its contributors analyze the roots of the collapse of the political, economic, and cultural institutions that promised perpetual progress but now threaten global catastrophe. Reflecting the range of Bellah’s scholarship, they span the disciplines of history, sociology, anthropology, and philosophy. They extend Bellah’s insight that only deep historical, cultural, and religious understanding can help us meet modernity’s harrowing challenges by sharing responsibility for the global interdependence of our common fate.
The Battle for China’s Spirit is the first comprehensive analysis of its kind, focusing on seven major religious groups in China that together account for over 350 million believers: Chinese Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Tibetan Buddhism, and Falun Gong. The study examines the evolution of the Communist Party’s policies of religious control, how they are applied differently to diverse faith communities, and how citizens are responding to these policies. The study—which draws on hundreds of official documents and interviews with religious leaders, lay believers, and scholars—finds that Chinese government controls over religion have intensified since November 2012, seeping into new areas of daily life. Yet millions of religious believers defy official restrictions or engage in some form of direct protest, at times scoring significant victories. The report explores how these dynamics affect China’s overall social, political, and economic environment, while offering recommendations to both the Chinese government and international actors for how to increase the space for peaceful religious practice in a country where spirituality has been deeply embedded in its culture for millennia.
Taking an inter-disciplinary approach, Spruyt explains the political organization of three non-European international societies from early modernity to the late nineteenth century. The Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires; the Sinocentric tributary system; and the Southeast Asian galactic empires, all which differed in key respects from the modern Westphalian state system. In each of these societies, collective beliefs were critical in structuring domestic orders and relations with other polities. These multi-ethnic empires allowed for greater accommodation and heterogeneity in comparison to the homogeneity that is demanded by the modern nation-state. Furthermore, Spruyt examines the encounter between these non-European systems and the West. Contrary to unidirectional descriptions of the encounter, these non-Westphalian polities creatively adapted to Western principles of organization and international conduct. By illuminating the encounter of the West and these Eurasian polities, this book serves to question the popular wisdom of modernity, wherein the Western nation-state is perceived as the desired norm, to be replicated in other polities.