Abstract
From 2015 onwards, “sinicizing religions” has become the mantra of China’s religious policy, inspiring new regulations and constraining the functioning of religious organizations. After summarizing the “sinicization” doctrine and policy, this paper examines how Chinese scholars in religious studies position themselves in such a context. It reviews the developments of the field after 1979; it appraises the complex interplay between the scholarly community and policy makers; it examines how scholars in religious studies now respond to the official policy, as they strive to balance descriptive and prescriptive assessments. It shows how the search for ideal-types as well as for ‘sinicized’ typologies and methodologies partly function as an adaptative tactic. The need to answer political imperatives revives older debates on religious forms and functions, and, to some extent, stirs theoretical imagination. However, political constraints make it difficult for scholars to focus on current religious trends, as they find it safer to debate on a somewhat atemporal model of “Chinese religion”.
Highlights
A contextual appraisal of the way ‘religion’ and religions are approached by government and scholars in China will frame the way we formulate and tentatively answer a series of interrelated questions: How did Chinese researchers reconstruct religious studies as a legitimate field of research in the course of the last 40 years? Could their scholarship have, wittingly or unwittingly, prepared the call currently put forward by the Party-State? How do Chinese academics respond to this same call? in which way does the stress on religious sinicization reshape a much older debate over the existence and characteristics of what is termed ‘Chinese religion’? Why and how does the current debate extends to the feasibility of sinicizing religious expressions but religious
As the sinicization policy was designed, systematization of its tenets was needed in order to provide decision-makers, academics, and religious leaders with an understanding of religion congruent with the tasks assigned to religious organizations
Zhang’s stance partially resonates with the themes developed during a “national conference on popular beliefs” that was organized by the State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA) in December 2016.26 On this occasion, SARA’s head, Wang Zuo’an, developed a twofold discourse: On the one hand he insisted on the importance of “guiding” and “managing” folk beliefs; on the other hand, he spoke of “actively exploring and steadily promoting pilot work on folk beliefs” (Fenghuang 2016)
Summary
From 2015 onwards, and especially after the 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in October 2017, the Chinese authorities have called for the “sinicization of religions” (zongjiao zhongguohua 宗教中国化) and, through position papers, study sessions, internal directives and new legal dispositions, are “guiding” (dao 导) religious organizations towards this goal.. Taking this set of questions as a whole implies that the state of religious studies in China cannot be assessed independently from the political imperatives that constrain the field, and that it would be a mistake to evaluate Chinese official appraisals and policies regarding religion without taking into account the way scholarship interacts with them. An increasing wealth of both analytical and ethnographic resources provides Chinese researchers with alternative approaches and concepts for locating religious realities within society and culture Still, these same researchers cannot but follow indirect, even circuitous argumentative trajectories, which makes it easier for them to assess and refine ideal-types than to grasp and evaluate current trends
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