Religion in Contemporary China: Revitalization and Innovation

ISBN-13: 9780415459341 / Angielski / Twarda / 2010 / 246 str.

Adam Yuet Chau

Opis

Before the modernist transformations of the twentieth century, China had one of the richest and most diverse religious cultures in the world. The radical anti-traditionalist policies of both the Republican and Communist regimes as well as other socio-historical factors posed formidable challenges to China's religious traditions but, this book argues, these conditions also presented new opportunities for re-generation and innovation. It shows that economic reforms and the concurrent relaxation of religious policies have provided fertile ground for the revitalization of a wide array of religious practices, including divination, ancestor worship, temple festivals, spirit mediumism, churchgoing, funeral rites, exorcism, pilgrimages, sectarianism, sutra chanting, and the printing and distribution of morality books. Equally new forms of religious practices have emerged such as lay Buddhist preachers, "Maoist shamans," and a range of qigong sects/schools. Written by an international, interdisciplinary team of experts who have all conducted in-depth fieldwork research in China, this book provides a wide-ranging survey of contemporary religious practices in China. It examines the different processes and mechanisms of religious revivals and innovations, and, more broadly, relates the Chinese example of religious revitalization to larger issues of social and cultural continuity and change.

China had one of the richest and most diverse religious cultures in the world before the modernist transformations brought about by the Republican and Communist regimes, both of which had radical anti-traditionalist polices. The recent economic reforms and concurrent relaxation of religious polices have provided fertile ground for the revitalization of a wide range of religious practices including divination, ancestor worship, temple festivals, spirit mediumism, funeral rites, exorcism, pilgrimages and more. At the same time apparently new forms of religious practices have emerged, including lay Buddhist preachers, "Maoist shamans", and a bewildering number of new sects and schools. This book provides a wide-ranging and in-depth survey of contemporary religious practices in China. It examines the nature of contemporary practices, including formal and informal practices, mainstream religions such as Buddhism and Daoism, minority religions such as Roman Catholicism and "new" religions. It explores how this remarkable religious effervescence has come about, discusses which practices are revivals of older practices, which are new ones and which older practices have not been revived, and relates religious revitalization and innovation to larger issues of social and cultural continuity and change.

O autorze

Adam Yuet Chau is University Lecturer in the Anthropology of Modern China in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge, UK.  He is the author of Miraculous Response: Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China.