The Religious Question in Modern China

by Goossaert, Vincent; Palmer, David A.

• ISBN13: 9780226005331
• ISBN10: 022600533X
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-10-22
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Recent eventsfrom strife in Tibet and the rapid growth of Christianity in China to the spectacular expansion of Chinese Buddhist organizations around the globevividly demonstrate that one cannot understand the modern Chinese world without attending closely to the question of religion. The Religious Question in Modern Chinahighlights parallels and contrasts between historical events, political regimes, and cultural movements to explore how religion has challenged and responded to secular Chinese modernity, from 1898 to the present. Vincent Goossaert and David A. Palmer piece together the puzzle of religion in China not by looking separately at different religions in different contexts, but by writing a unified story of how religion has shaped, and in turn been shaped by, modern Chinese society. From Chinese medicine and the martial arts to communal temple cults and revivalist redemptive societies, the authors demonstrate that from the nineteenth century onward, as the Chinese state shifted, the religious landscape consistently resurfaced in a bewildering variety of old and new forms. The Religious Question in Modern Chinaintegrates historical, anthropological, and sociological perspectives in a comprehensive overview of China's religious history that is certain to become an indispensible reference for specialists and students alike.

Author Biography

Vincent Goossaert is professor of Daoist history at Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris. His is the author of The Taoists of Peaking, 1800-1949: A Social History of Urban Clerics, among other books. David A. Palmer is assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Qigong Fever: Body, Science, and Utopia in China, among other books.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
A Note on Translations, Character Sets, and Abbreviations	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Religions and Revolutions
The Late Qing Religious Landscape	p. 19
Ideology, Religion, and the Construction of a Modern State, 1898-1937	p. 43
Model Religions for a Modern China: Christianity, Buddhism, and Religious Citizenship	p. 67
Cultural Revitalization: Redemptive Societies and Secularized Traditions	p. 91
Rural Resistance and Adaptation, 1898-1949	p. 123
The CCP and Religion, 1921-66	p. 139
Spiritual Civilization and Political Utopianism	p. 167
Multiple Religious Modernities: Into the Twenty-First Century
Alternative Trajectories for Religion in the Chinese World	p. 201
Filial Piety, the Family, and Death	p. 225
Revivals of Communal Religion in the Later Twentieth Century	p. 241
The Evolution of Modern Religiosities	p. 271
Official Discourses and Institutions of Religion	p. 315
Global Religions, Ethnic Identities, and Geopolitics	p. 359
Conclusion	p. 393
Bibliography	p. 405
Index	p. 441
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