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Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule

Online ISBN:
9780199918591
Print ISBN:
9780199735655
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule

Fenggang Yang
Fenggang Yang

Professor of Sociology and Director of Center on Religion and Chinese Society

Purdue University
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Published online:
19 January 2012
Published in print:
26 October 2011
Online ISBN:
9780199918591
Print ISBN:
9780199735655
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

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 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.

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