Download or read book Religion in China written by Fenggang Yang and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2012 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion in China survived the most radical suppression in human history--a total ban of any religion during and after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1979). All churches, temples, and mosques were closed down, converted for secular uses, or turned to museums for the purpose of atheist education. China remains under Communist rule. But in the last three decades, religion has revived and thrived. Christianity has been the fastest growing religion for decades. Many Buddhist and Daoist temples have been restored. The state even sponsors large Buddhist gatherings and ceremonies to venerate Confucius and the legendary ancestors of the Chinese people. Traditional Chinese temples have sprung up in some areas. On the other hand, quasi-religious qigong practices, once ubiquitous in public parks throughout the country, are now rare. All the while, the authorities have carried out waves of atheist propaganda, anti-superstition campaigns, severe crackdowns on the underground Christian churches and various ''evil cults.'' How do we explain the religious situation in China today? How do we explain the religious situation in China today? How did religion survive the eradication measures in the 1960s and 1970s? How do various religious groups manage to revive despite strict regulations? Why have some religions grown fast in the reform era? Why have some forms of spirituality gone through dramatic turns? In Religion in China, Fenggang Yang provides a comprehensive overview of the religious change in China under Communism, drawing on his ''political economy'' approach to the sociology of religion.
Download or read book The Battle for China s Spirit written by Sarah Cook and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-05-16 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Atlas of Religion in China Social and Geographical Contexts written by Fenggang Yang and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Atlas of Religion in China Social and Geographical Contexts written by Fenggang Yang and published by Brill. This book was released on 2021-06-03 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Shades of Gray in the Changing Religious Markets of China written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-07-05 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Souls of China written by Ian Johnson and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2017 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist: a revelatory portrait of religion in China today, its history, the spiritual traditions of its Eastern and Western faiths, and the ways in which it is influencing China's future. Following a century of violent antireligious campaigns, China is now awash with new temples, churches, and mosques as well as cults, sects, and politicians trying to harness religion for their own ends. Driving this explosion of faith is uncertainty over what it means to be Chinese, and how to live an ethical life in a country that discarded traditional morality a century ago and is still searching for new guideposts. Ian Johnson lived for extended periods with underground church members, rural Daoists, and Buddhist pilgrims. He has distilled these experiences into a cycle of festivals, births, deaths, detentions, and struggle a great awakening of faith that is shaping the soul of the world s newest superpower. (With black-and-white illustrations throughout).
Download or read book The Souls of China written by Ian Johnson and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-03-06 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the Best Books of the Year: The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor China is in the midst of one of the world’s great spiritual awakenings: some 300 million Chinese currently practice a faith, while tens of millions more follow personal gurus, populist masters and New Age sages. This astonishing revival began in 1982 when the Communist Party pledged to allow what it thought would be a small-scale practice of religion under government supervision. But the faithful have expanded far beyond the Party’s expectations: Today, China’s cities and villages are filled with new temples, churches, and mosques as well as cults, sects and politicians trying to harness religion for their own ends. Fueling this resurgence is a popular desire to rediscover a moral compass in a society driven by naked capitalism. For six years, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Ian Johnson lived for extended periods with three religious communities: the underground Early Rain Protestant congregation in Chengdu, the Ni family’s Buddhist pilgrimage association in Beijing, and yinyang Daoist priests in rural Shanxi. Johnson distills these experiences into a cycle of festivals, births, deaths, detentions, and struggle that reveals the hearts and minds of the Chinese people—a great awakening of faith that is shaping the soul of the world’s newest superpower.
Download or read book Freedom of Religion in China written by Asia Watch Committee (U.S.) and published by Human Rights Watch. This book was released on 1992 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: V. Arrests and Trials
Download or read book The Cowshed written by Ji Xianlin and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2016-03-08 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Chinese Cultural Revolution began in 1966 and led to a ten-year-long reign of Maoist terror throughout China, in which millions died or were sent to labor camps in the country or subjected to other forms of extreme discipline and humiliation. Ji Xianlin was one of them. The Cowshed is Ji’s harrowing account of his imprisonment in 1968 on the campus of Peking University and his subsequent disillusionment with the cult of Mao. As the campus spirals into a political frenzy, Ji, a professor of Eastern languages, is persecuted by lecturers and students from his own department. His home is raided, his most treasured possessions are destroyed, and Ji himself must endure hours of humiliation at brutal “struggle sessions.” He is forced to construct a cowshed (a makeshift prison for intellectuals who were labeled class enemies) in which he is then housed with other former colleagues. His eyewitness account of this excruciating experience is full of sharp irony, empathy, and remarkable insights into a central event in Chinese history. In contemporary China, the Cultural Revolution remains a delicate topic, little discussed, but if a Chinese citizen has read one book on the subject, it is likely to be Ji’s memoir. When The Cowshed was published in China in 1998, it quickly became a bestseller. The Cultural Revolution had nearly disappeared from the collective memory. Prominent intellectuals rarely spoke openly about the revolution, and books on the subject were almost nonexistent. By the time of Ji’s death in 2009, little had changed, and despite its popularity, The Cowshed remains one of the only testimonies of its kind. As Zha Jianying writes in the introduction, “The book has sold well and stayed in print. But authorities also quietly took steps to restrict public discussion of the memoir, as its subject continues to be treated as sensitive. The present English edition, skillfully translated by Chenxin Jiang, is hence a welcome, valuable addition to the small body of work in this genre. It makes an important contribution to our understanding of that period.”
Download or read book Religion and Nationalism in Chinese Societies written by Cheng-tian Kuo and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion and Nationalism in Chinese Societies explores the interaction between religion and nationalism in the Chinese societies of mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. On the one hand, state policies toward religions in these societies are deciphered and their implications for religious freedom and regional stability are evaluated. On the other hand, Chinese Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Daoism, Christianity, Islam and folk religions are respectively analyzed in terms of their theological, organizational and political responses to the nationalist modernity projects of these states. What is new in this book on Religion and Nationalism in Chinese Societies is that the Chinese state has strengthened its control over religion to an unprecedented level. In particular, the Chinese state has almost completed its construction of a state religion called Chinese Patriotism. But at the same time, what is also new is the emergence of democratic civil religions in these Chinese societies.
Download or read book Chinese Religiosities written by Mayfair Mei-hui Yang and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2008-11-04 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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
Download or read book Under Caesar s Sword written by Daniel Philpott and published by Law and Christianity. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first systematic global study of how Christians respond to persecution, presenting new research by leading scholars of global Christianity.
Download or read book Faiths on Display written by Tim Oakes and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2010-10-16 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By providing a unique perspective on China's changing relationship with religion, this groundbreaking book explores the role the Chinese state continues to play in religious revival today. Throughout China, spaces for religious expression and practice have been rebuilt, revived, and contrived for display by local officials hoping to cash in on tourist revenue. Faiths on Display argues, however, that the results of the state's instrumental approach toward religion are far from predictable. The volume explores the ways revived religious practices and commercial tourism development intersect in China, offering surprising insights into the contested nature of state governance in a rapidly transforming society.
Download or read book Religion in China Today written by Daniel L. Overmyer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-07-17 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Table of contents
Download or read book China s New Confucianism written by Daniel A. Bell and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-19 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is it like to be a Westerner teaching political philosophy in an officially Marxist state? Why do Chinese sex workers sing karaoke with their customers? And why do some Communist Party cadres get promoted if they care for their elderly parents? In this entertaining and illuminating book, one of the few Westerners to teach at a Chinese university draws on his personal experiences to paint an unexpected portrait of a society undergoing faster and more sweeping changes than anywhere else on earth. With a storyteller's eye for detail, Daniel Bell observes the rituals, routines, and tensions of daily life in China. China's New Confucianism makes the case that as the nation retreats from communism, it is embracing a new Confucianism that offers a compelling alternative to Western liberalism. Bell provides an insider's account of Chinese culture and, along the way, debunks a variety of stereotypes. He presents the startling argument that Confucian social hierarchy can actually contribute to economic equality in China. He covers such diverse social topics as sex, sports, and the treatment of domestic workers. He considers the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, wondering whether Chinese overcompetitiveness might be tempered by Confucian civility. And he looks at education in China, showing the ways Confucianism impacts his role as a political theorist and teacher. By examining the challenges that arise as China adapts ancient values to contemporary society, China's New Confucianism enriches the dialogue of possibilities available to this rapidly evolving nation. In a new preface, Bell discusses the challenges of promoting Confucianism in China and the West.
Download or read book The Politics of Inclusive Pluralism written by Bob Fu and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2020-12-16 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Long live the red terror!" This and other political slogans were used by China's communist rulers as leverage for conflict and conflict management during 1949. China's Cultural Revolution movement understandably fueled anger, fear, and terror among Chinese citizens. Currently, contrary to the positive facade that China, under the control of the Communist Chinese Party (CCP), tries to project regarding human rights, a dark reality reveals a brutal authoritarian state with no concern for religious freedom. What guiding philosophy could best help procure, provide, and protect religious freedom for all in a post-communist, Christianized, democratic China? Bob Fu argues that while various Christianity-oriented theories may appear promising, they fail to provide an adequate pluralistic foundation for protecting the religious freedoms of people of all faiths and none. The predominant theory of political liberalism in the West likewise fails to prove sufficiently inclusive for all faiths and worldviews. As an alternative, the author defends Baorong Duoyuan (inclusive pluralism), his own contextualized theory modeled after principled pluralism. This model, he believes, has the potential to help ensure that religious freedom for all becomes a reality.
Download or read book Sinicizing Christianity written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chinese people have been instrumental in indigenizing Christianity. Sinizing Christianity examines Christianity's transplantation to and transformation in China by focusing on three key elements: Chinese agents of introduction; Chinese redefinition of Christianity for the local context; and Chinese institutions and practices that emerged and enabled indigenisation. As a matter of fact, Christianity is not an exception, but just one of many foreign ideas and religions, which China has absorbed since the formation of the Middle Kingdom, Buddhism and Islam are great examples. Few scholars of China have analysed and synthesised the process to determine whether there is a pattern to the ways in which Chinese people have redefined foreign imports for local use and what insight Christianity has to offer. Contributors are: Robert Entenmann, Christopher Sneller, Yuqin Huang, Wai Luen Kwok, Thomas Harvey, Monica Romano, Thomas Coomans, Chris White, Dennis Ng, Ruiwen Chen and Richard Madsen.
