The Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs – Back to the Future: Pre-modern Religious Policy in Post-Secular China
Just came across a fantastic lecture from Social Scientist Richard Madsen analysing religious policy in China:
The secularization thesis is a pillar of modern social theory. There are different versions of this thesis, but all hold that religion will fade away and/or become irrelevant to public life in the modern world. In some countries, secularization is not only the basis of a descriptive theory but of normative policy. Chinese government policy toward religion is explicitly based on both the descriptive and normative aspects of the secularization thesis.
But many social scientists are now saying that the secularization thesis is wrong and that we need a post-secularist social theory to account for the empirically obvious facts of the early twenty-first century. Religious belief and practice have not faded away, and in many parts of the world they are playing a more obvious role in public life than in the past century. Religion, moreover, is dynamically evolving, taking on new forms as well as reviving old forms, and becoming intertwined with the modern bureaucratic state and the market economy in new ways. This leads to a crisis in modern social theory but also to crises in modern political practice.
In this article, I discuss how this crisis manifests itself in Chinese politics.
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Unlike liberal democratic governments, which for the most part purport to be neutral towards religion, making religion a private matter beyond the reach of the state, the Chinese government has an active policy toward religion. The policy is carried out by the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) and the Communist Party’s United Front Department. But the policy is, on its own terms, a complete failure, which, will not be overcome as long as it continues to be guided by secularization theory. There are signs, indeed, that the Chinese government is recognizing this failure and is seeking a “post-secular” theoretical foundation for its policies toward religion.
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After being harshly suppressed during the Cultural Revolution era (1966-76), religious activity of all sorts has become increasingly visible in Chinese society. According to official statistics there are about 100 million religious believers in China.
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According to a well-connected scholar interviewed during my recent fieldwork, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party is itself concerned that all of these numbers may be too low and they are now commissioning large research projects aimed at getting more accurate statistics.
Go on, hop over and read it. It makes for a great morning read.
This lecture also ties in nicely with a post from last week:
Tags: Christianity, Politics