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China RELIGION
Traditionally, China's Confucian elite disparaged religion and
religious practitioners, and the state suppressed or controlled
organized religious groups. The social status of Buddhist monks and
Taoist priests was low, and ordinary people did not generally look
up to them as models. In the past, religion was diffused throughout
the society, a matter as much of practice as of belief, and had a
weak institutional structure. Essentially the same pattern
continues in contemporary society, except that the ruling elite is
even less religious and there are even fewer religious
practitioners.
The attitude of the party has been that religion is a relic of
the past, evidence of prescientific thinking, and something that
will fade away as people become educated and acquire a scientific
view of the world. On the whole, religion has not been a major
issue. Cadres and party members, in ways very similar to those of
Confucian elites, tend to regard many religious practitioners as
charlatans out to take advantage of credulous people, who need
protection. In the 1950s many Buddhist monks were returned to
secular life, and monasteries and temples lost their lands in the
land reform. Foreign missionaries were expelled, often after being
accused of spying, and Chinese Christians, who made up only a very
small proportion of the population, were the objects of suspicion
because of their foreign contacts. Chinese Christian organizations
were established, one for Protestants and one for Roman Catholics,
which stressed that their members were loyal to the state and
party. Seminaries were established to train "patriotic" Chinese
clergy, and the Chinese Catholic Church rejected the authority of
the Vatican, ordaining its own priests and installing its own
bishops. The issue in all cases, whether involving Christians,
Buddhists, or members of underground Chinese sects, was not so much
doctrine or theology as recognition of the primacy of loyalty to
the state and party. Folk religion was dismissed as superstition.
Temples were for the most part converted to other uses, and public
celebration of communal festivals stopped, but the state did not
put much energy into suppressing folk religion.
During the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, in 1966 and
1967, Red Guards destroyed temples, statues, and domestic ancestral
tablets as part of their violent assault on the "four olds" (old
ideas, culture, customs, and habits). Public observances of ritual
essentially halted during the Cultural Revolution decade. After
1978, the year marking the return to power of the Deng Xiaoping
reformers, the party and state were more tolerant of the public
expression of religion as long as it remained within carefully
defined limits
(see Political Realignments at the Party Center
, ch.
11). Some showcase temples were restored and opened as historical
sites, and some Buddhist and even Taoist practitioners were
permitted to wear their robes, train a few successors, and perform
rituals in the reopened temples. These actions on the part of the
state can be interpreted as a confident regime's recognition of
China's traditional past, in the same way that the shrine at the
home of Confucius in Shandong Province has been refurbished and
opened to the public. Confucian and Buddhist doctrines are not seen
as a threat, and the motive is primarily one of nationalistic
identification with China's past civilization.
Similar tolerance and even mild encouragement is accorded to
Chinese Christians, whose churches were reopened starting in the
late 1970s. As of 1987 missionaries were not permitted in China,
and some Chinese Catholic clergy were imprisoned for refusing to
recognize the authority of China's "patriotic" Catholic Church and
its bishops.
The most important result of state toleration of religion has
been improved relations with China's Islamic and Tibetan Buddhist
minority populations. State patronage of Islam and Buddhism also
plays a part in China's foreign relations
(see Relations with the Third World
, ch. 12). Much of traditional ritual and religion
survives or has been revived, especially in the countryside. In the
mid-1980s the official press condemned such activities as wasteful
and reminded rural party members that they should neither
participate in nor lead such events, but it did not make the
subject a major issue. Families could worship their ancestors or
traditional gods in the privacy of their homes but had to make all
ritual paraphernalia (incense sticks, ancestral tablets, and so
forth) themselves, as it was no longer sold in shops. The scale of
public celebrations was muted, and full-time professional clergy
played no role. Folk religious festivals were revived in some
localities, and there was occasional rebuilding of temples and
ancestral halls. In rural areas, funerals were the ritual having
the least change, although observances were carried out only by
family members and kin, with no professional clergy in attendance.
Such modest, mostly household-based folk religious activity was
largely irrelevant to the concerns of the authorities, who ignored
or tolerated it.
Data as of July 1987
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