Abstract
Chinese communal religion is welcoming a momentous change in its legal status after being attacked as “superstition” for over a century. In the last decade or so, the Chinese government is experimenting with the new legal designation “minjian xinyang huodong changsuo” (site of folk belief activity) as a regulatory category for the governing of communal religion across the country. In this chapter, the author argues that the new regulations are just the latest chapter in what he terms the “cultural turn” in secular governance of religion in China as the government lacks intention of fully legalizing communal religion. The new regulations though could have significant and long-term consequences on many fronts.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
In traditional Chinese society, “territorial temples,” or temples dedicated to the worship of territorial deities, related ritual activities, ritual calendars, religious networks and organizations, constitute a system that forms one pillar of most local communities. In this sense, I therefore refer to “territorial temples” as communal religion in this chapter.
- 2.
See Vincent Goossaert and David Palmer, The Religious Question in China (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011), for an account of the twentieth-century classification of the five “official religions” of China (Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism and Catholicism) and the consignment of local communal religion to the category of “feudal superstition.” For an account of local communal religion in a specific region (Putian, Fujian), see Kenneth Dean and Zheng Zhenman, Ritual Alliances of the Putian Plains, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2010). Dean and Zheng (2010: vol. 1: 52) mention that: “Some flexibility in the application of these categories has been demonstrated by the designation of temples of the Three in One movement in the Xinghua area as ‘sites of local religious activity’ (minjian xinyang huodong changsuo). The concept of a ‘local religion’ moves beyond the limits of the policy of the five official religions and shows greater awareness of complex lived reality on the ground.” This chapter uses the term “site of folk belief activity” rather than “popular religion” or “local religion” to highlight the paradox of the accordance of legal status to territorial temples without granting their activities the full status of a “religion.”
- 3.
In addition to Vincent Goossaert and David Palmer, The Religious Question in Modern China, there is an extensive literature on the twentieth-century state attacks on the temples of local communal religion. To name only a few, please see Prasenjit Duara, Culture, Power and the State: Rural Society in North China, 1900–1942 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), Chapter 5; Kenneth Dean, Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), especially Chapter 3; Rebecca Nedostup, Superstitious Regimes: Religion and the Politics of Chinese Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asian Center, 2010); and Shuk-wah Poon, Negotiating Religion in Modern China: State and Common People in Guangzhou, 1900–1937 (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2011).
- 4.
The full name of Document No. 19 is “Guanyu woguo shehuizhuyi shiqi zongjiao wenti de jiben guandian he jiben zhengce” [Basic Viewpoints and Policies on the Religious Question during Our Country’s Socialist Period], issued in March 1982. It renounced the use of coercive measures to stamp out “religion” and reiterated the Party’s “religious freedom” policy. It also stipulated the “selective” and “gradual” re-opening of some sites of legal religion.
- 5.
Chen Jinguo and Lin Minxia, “Ruhe zouxiang ‘shanzhi:’ Zhejiang Sheng minjian xinyang ‘shehui zhili’ zhuanxing de fansi” [How to Proceed to “Benevolent Rule:” Reflections on the Transformation of “Social Governance” on Folk Belief in Zhejiang], Zongjiao Lanpishu 2015 [The 2015 Blue Books on Religions], ed. Qiu Yonghui (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2016), 195–215.
- 6.
Robert P. Weller, “Responsive Authoritarianism and Blind-Eye Governance in China,” in Socialism Vanquished, Socialism Challenged, Eastern Europe and China 1989–2009, ed. Nina Bandelj and Dorothy J. Solinger (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 83–102.
- 7.
Chen Jinguo and Lin Minxia, “Ruhe zouxiang ‘shanzhi’.”
- 8.
Adam Yuet Chau, “The Politics of Legitimation and the Revival of Popular Religion in Shaanbei, North-Central China,” Modern China 31, no. 2 (2005): 236–78.
- 9.
This means that the government can only give ad hoc approval/disapproval when the activities are actually taking place.
- 10.
Yu Liyuan, “Jiaqiang minjian zongjiao guanli, cujin zongjiao wenhua shengtai pingheng, yi Fujian wei zhongxin” [Reinforcing the Regulation of Folk Religious Belief, Precipitating the Balance of Ecology of Religious Culture, a Research Focusing on Fujian], Shijie zongjiao yanjiu [Studies of World Religions] 2 (2012): 84.
- 11.
For general surveys of scholarly research of religion in the People’s Republic of China, see Daniel L. Overmyer, “From ‘Feudal Superstition’ to ‘Folk Beliefs’: New Directions in Mainland Chinese Studies of Chinese Popular Religion,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 12 (2001): 103–26; Fenggang Yang, “Between Secularist Ideology and De-secularizing Reality: The Birth and Growth of Religious Research in Communist China,” Sociology of Religion 65, no. 2 (2004): 101–19.
- 12.
For a typical discussion of “folk belief” in China in the early 1990s, see Luo Weihong, “Zhongguo de minjian xinyang tantao” [A Probe into Folk Belief in China], Shehui Kexue [Social Science] 8 (1994): 55–58.
- 13.
Chen Jinguo and Chen Jing, “1994–2013 nian minjian xinyang shiwu zhili moshi de tansuo he fansi—a yi Fujian Sheng weili” [Investigation and Reflection on the Mode of Governance of Folk Belief Affairs from 1994 to 2013—The Example of Fujian], Zongjiao Lanpishu 2014 [The 2014 Blue Books on Religions], ed. Qiu Yonghui (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2015), 171–225.
- 14.
Xi Wuyi, “Fujian minjian xinyang kaocha baogao” [Report on Folk Belief in Fujian], in Zhexue yu zongjiao, di yi ji [Philosophy and Religion, volume one], ed. Li Shen and Chen Weiping (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2008), 159–79.
- 15.
For example see “Mutual Respect in Worship of Mazu,” http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/m/fujian/2014-06/16/content_17591444.htm. For a discussion of cross-strait cultural exchange and religious revival, see Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern, “Growth of the Mazu Complex in Cross-Straits Contexts: (Taiwan, and Fujian Province, China),” Journal of Ritual Studies 23, no. 1 (2009): 67–72.
- 16.
For examples, see http://www.sara.gov.cn/gjzjswjjgjj/nsjg20170904202223297400/ywss220170904202223297400/gzdt620170904202223297400/464677.htm. See also Kong Deji and Wu Rujia, “Dalu minjian zongjiao guanli bianju” [Shifting Scene of the Administration of Communal Religion in Mainland China], http://www.ifengweekly.com/detil.php?id=982.
- 17.
Sebastian Heilmann, “From Local Experiments to National Policy: The Origins of China’s Distinctive Policy Process,” The China Journal 59 (2008): 1–30.
- 18.
To give a few examples, see the visit of the vice head of SARA and the head of SARA’s fourth department’s to Wenzhou, http://www.wztz.org.cn/system/2012/05/23/103181694.shtml; SARA’s first national roundtable on the affairs of “folk belief” in Wenzhou (2012), http://iwr.cass.cn/xw/201211/t20121119_3049620.shtml; and the second national roundtable in Quanzhou (2016), http://www.sara.gov.cn/xwfb/xwjj20170905093618359691/518954.htm.
- 19.
“Fujian Sheng minjian xinyang changsuo shidian guanli diaoyan” [Investigation on Trial Management of Site of Folk Belief Activity in Fujian], http://www.fjdh.cn/wumin/2009/04/16243459966.html.
- 20.
“Guanyu dui wosheng minjian xinyang guifan guanli de jianyi” [Suggestions on Standardized Regulation of Folk Belief in Our Province], http://ducha.shaanxi.gov.cn/suggest/websit/htmlfiles/tacont/6969.htm.
- 21.
“Guangzhou Shi minzongju bushu minjian xinyang miaoyu shidian guanli gongzuo” [Ethnic and Religious Office of Guangzhou City Arranging Trial Management of Folk Belief Temples], http://www.sara.gov.cn/xwfb/dfgz20170906202831621887/566486.htm.
- 22.
- 23.
For examples see (Heilongjiang, northeastern China) http://www.sara.gov.cn/xwfb/dfgz20170906202831621887/565074.htm; (Qingdao and Tengzhou, Shandong, eastern China) http://www.sdmw.gov.cn/channels/ch00186/201511/FB68E0E0-7277-4373-8908-471C0D4E1AFC.shtml, http://www.sdmw.gov.cn/channels/ch00013/201510/01C524A5-0B6B-49A9-AAB2-A313BEE7DE0E.shtml; and (Yunnan, southwestern China) http://www.rl.gov.cn/smzj/Web/_F0_0_048D56O4E53AXW5KFCVICYPBT9.htm.
- 24.
“Guanyu jiaqiang minjian xinyang shiwu guanli de yijian” [Opinion on Reinforcing the Regulation of Folk Belief Affairs], http://www.wztz.org.cn/system/2011/11/18/102874975.shtml. Similar processes were also seen in some other provinces such as Shannxi, Fujian, and Guangdong.
- 25.
“Longwan Qu kaizhan minjian xinyang huodong changsuo yinhang kaihu shidian gongzuo” [Longwan District Conducting the Experiment of Site of Folk Belief Activity Opening Bank Accounts], http://www.lwnews.net/system/2014/07/22/011727626.shtml.
- 26.
“Minjian miaoyu you le tesu zhanghu, bimian caichan jiufen” [Communal Temple’s Money to Have Special Bank Account, Avoid Property Disputes], see http://www.fjnet.com/jjdt/jjdtnr/200809/t20080913_81901.htm.
- 27.
See Adam Chau, “The Politics of Legitimation and the Revival of Popular Religion in Shaanbei, North-Central China,” Modern China 31, no. 2 (2005): 236–78. See also Chau’s, Miraculous Response: Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006).
- 28.
See Kenneth Dean’s Chapter 4 in this volume: “Spirit Mediums and Secular/Religious Divides in Singapore.”
- 29.
While both sets of regulations required the provision of detailed information about temple organization and activities for the registration of territorial temples, the Zhejiang Method did not ask temples to provide proof “having enough money to regularly carry out folk belief activities” or “evidence of legal financial sources.” Neither did it stipulate, as the Hunan Regulations did, that the “overall area of temples intending to register has to be larger than fifty square meters.” The approval of folk belief activity sites was at the behest of the provincial-level religious bureau in the case of the Hunan Regulations, whereas in the Zhejiang case regional-level religious bureaus were authorized to issue these approvals.
- 30.
“Inculturation,” according to A Dictionary of the Bible, generally refers to “the attempt to make a religious (e.g. Christian) message accessible in and through a local culture.” Second, it specifically denotes “the adaptation of Christian liturgy so as to accommodate the beliefs and practices of non-Christian cultures.” See W. R. F. Browning ed., A Dictionary of the Bible (2nd ed.) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, published online: 2010).
- 31.
James L. Watson, “Standardizing the Gods: The Promotion of T’ien-hou (‘Empress of Heaven’) along the South China Coast, 960–1960,” in Popular Culture in Late Imperial China, ed. David Johnson, Andrew J. Nathan, and Evelyn S. Rawski (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 292–324.
- 32.
Peter van der Veer, The Modern Spirit of Asia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 153–54.
- 33.
Chen Zhenhua and Zhang Zhuping, “Dangdai Zhejiang minjian xinyang de jiben zhuangkuan yu zhili chuangxin shijian” [Basic Situation and Practices of Administrative Invention on Folk Belief in Contemporary Zhejiang], November 25, 2016, Zhongguo Minzu Bao [China’s Ethnic Minority News]. Nonetheless, there were still more than 24,000 territorial temples in the province, according to official statistics.
- 34.
For the national church model, see Vincent Goossaert, “Republican Church Engineering—The National Religious Associations in 1912 China,” in Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation, ed. Mayfair Yang (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 209–32. For the institutionalization of legal religions in contemporary China, see David Palmer, “China’s Religious Danwei: Institutionalizing Religion in the People’s Republic,” China Perspectives 4 (2009): 17–30.
- 35.
For a survey of discussions of “religious ecology” in Chinese academia, see Philip Clart, “‘Religious Ecology’ as a New Model for the Study of Religious Diversity in China,” in Religious Diversity in Chinese Thought, ed. Perry Schmidt-Leukel and Joachim Gentz (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 187–99.
- 36.
Fan Zhengyi, Zhongshen xuanhua zhong de shizijia--Jidujiao yu Fujian minjian xinyang gongchu guanxi yanjiu [Cross among Roaring Deities—A Study of Coexistence of Christianity and Folk Belief in Fujian] (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2015).
- 37.
“Jiang ‘minjian xinyang’ guisu Daojiao guanli” [Bringing ‘Folk Belief’ under the Regulation of Daoism], http://www.chinesefolklore.org.cn/forum/redirect.php?tid=37085/goto=lastpost.
- 38.
This is roughly one tenth of territorial temples in Ruian according to my estimate.
- 39.
Those certificates include “member certificate” (huiyuanzheng); household Daoist certificate (jushizheng); and Jade Emperor Blessing certificate (yuhuangfu) (this type of certificate shows that the receivers have participated in the Jade Emperor Blessing ritual, which confirms them as disciples of Ying. More than 19,000 people have been awarded this certificate).
- 40.
Master Ying, for example, at the request of the government, organized member temples to donate money to various charitable events in the name of the Daoist Association such as the official poverty-deduction project and Sichuan earthquake relief. Ying said they have given out more than six million CNY since 1993.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wang, X. (2019). “Folk Belief,” Cultural Turn of Secular Governance and Shifting Religious Landscape in Contemporary China. In: Dean, K., van der Veer, P. (eds) The Secular in South, East, and Southeast Asia. Global Diversities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89369-3_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89369-3_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-89368-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-89369-3
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)