Did you ever wonder about what's happening in China's endless struggle with religion? This slideshow examines the current plight of religion in China.

1. Religion & Spirituality in China
by
Donald C
Menzel
A Special
Presentation
12 February
2015

2. Background & Approach
• Don as a “China Watcher”
• What this talk is not about
– History
– Philosophy
– Economics
• What this talk is about
– The contemporary plight of religion in China
– Spirituality and religion “born again” in the New China
– The struggle ahead with the CCP

4. Chinese Religion and Spirituality

5. Chinese religion is not an organized, unified system of beliefs and
practices. It has no leadership, headquarters, founder, or
denominations. Instead, "Chinese religion" is a term describing the
complex interaction of different religious and philosophical
traditions that have been influential in China. Chinese religion is
composed of four main traditions: Chinese folk religion,
Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. - See more at:
http://www.religionfacts.com/chinese_religion/#sthash.JX3AoC4C.d
puf
Chinese religious rituals are especially based in Chinese folk religion
and Confucianism but are influenced by Taoism and Buddhism as
well. - See more at:
http://www.religionfacts.com/chinese_religion/practices.htm#sthas
h.Q6bv9cp9.dpuf

6. What is the story of the Chinese spirituality?
China is one of the most ancient civilizations on earth, and
Chinese religion is one of the oldest forms of religion.
Evidence of burial practices has been dated to as early as
5000 BCE. Today, Chinese religion is a complex mix of
Chinese folk religion, Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism and
Communist anti-religious sentiment.
- See more at:
http://www.religionfacts.com/chinese_religion/history.htm#
sthash.WPnzHyru.dpuf

7. Culture, Customs, Superstition
• 2008 Olympics
• Pearl Buck in China
• Ghost festival
• Tomb sweeping
Ancestor Worship
Ancestor worship (also called ancestor veneration) is a
ritual practice that is based on the belief that deceased
family members have a continued existence, take an
interest in the affairs of the world, and possess the ability
to influence the fortune of the living.

8. The Hungry Ghost Festival is a traditional Chinese holiday
celebrated on the fifteenth day of July with some
similarities to Western culture’s Halloween. It is believed
that the gates of hell are thrown open, releasing hungry
ghosts to wander on the earth in search of food. A solemn
holiday, the Ghost Festival represents the connections
between the living and the dead, earth and heaven, body
and soul.

9. Tomb Sweeping
or
Pure Brightness Festival
A festival of commemoration that combines sadness and happiness—
held in early April every year.

10. Religion in Chairman Mao’s China
• 1949-1957—soon after the founding of the
People’s Republic of China in 1949 the
Communist Party launched political
campaigns against religious organizations as
the ideological enemy and subversive
political forces.

11. Religious Affairs Department
• Within the Commission of Culture and Education
• With the main tasks of driving out the foreign
missionaries, pressing Catholics and Protestants
to cut off ties completely with foreign countries,
and handling the transition of the educational
institutions, charity organizations, and religious
bodies that at one point received funding or
subsidies from the US and other Western
countries.

12. 1966-1979
Eradication
The death of religion in China?

13. Cultural Revolution . . .
Smash
• Old customs
• Old culture
• Old habits
• Old ideas
Worship of Mao becomes a folk religion with dedicated
temples and burning of incense sticks—authorities carry out
waves of atheist propaganda, anti-superstition campaigns,
and brutal crackdowns. The Mao personality cult or “political
religion” had hundreds of millions of sincere worshippers.

14. Are religions thriving or dying?
• “All kinds of religions are thriving in China
today”—Genggand Yang
• “To live in China in the early years of the 21st
Century was to witness a spiritual revival that
could be compared to America’s Great
Awakening in the 19th Century.”—Evan Osnos

15. About 500,000
people are
baptized as
Protestants
every year. –
South China
Morning Post, 7
August 2014

17. Enlightenment?
• 1994—all religious groups required to register
with the government and foreigners prohibited
from proselytizing
• Evil cults banned—Falun Gong 1999
• Non-Christian groups banned that originated in
other countries such as the Unification Church,
the Children of God, Mormonism, and others.
• In December 2014, in China’s Jerusalem,Wenzhou
officials banned schools from holding Christmas-
related events.

18. Enlightenment?
• Chinese Communist Party bans new
Communist party members who practice
religion. “Believing in communism and
atheism is a basic requirement to become a
party member.”– Li Yunlong, a professor at the
Party School of the CCP central committee.

19. Chasing Faith in the New China?
• Do you remember the prophecy by members
of the Church of Almighty God that the world
would end on December 21, 2012 as
predicted by the ancient phase of the Mayan
calendar? Chinese authorities responded by
arresting 1,000 members of the church,
asserting that group staged illegal protests
and spun out of control.

20. Chasing Faith in the New China?
• “The longer I lived in China, the more I
worried about how people responded to rapid
change. This wasn’t an issue of modernization
. . . But from what I saw, the nation’s greatest
turmoil was more personal and internal. Many
people were searching; they longed for some
kind of religious or philosophical truth, and
they wanted a meaningful connection with
others.”—Peter Hessler

21. Chasing Faith in the New China?
• “Outsiders often saw the Chinese as pragmatists
with little time for faith, but for thousands of
years the country had been knitted together by
beliefs and rituals.”—Evan Osnos
• China is in the midst of a full-fledged revival. The
‘spiritual void’ is being filled by a religious
universe, exploding centrifugal in all directions.
• See Osnos, p. 281

23. The yin-yang (Taijitu) symbol 太極圖 is one of the most
common Taoist symbols. Most of the time, this symbol
represents two opposing and complementary forces that
make up all phenomena of life. Most Taoist organizations
display the yin-yang in some way. This symbol is also very
common among all Chinese religious faiths. - See more at:
http://www.religionfacts.com/chinese_religion/symbols.htm#
sthash.5piC69az.dpuf

24. Taoism (also spelled Daoism) is a religion based on the teachings of the
Tao Te Ching, a short tract written in the 6th century BC in China. The
emphasis of the Tao Te Ching is on spiritual harmony within the
individual, which complements Confucianism's focus on social duty.
Today, there are 20 million followers of Taoism worldwide, most of
whom live in China, Taiwan, or Southeast Asia. (See Confucianism)
Many followers of Taoism are characterized by their use of the Taoism
symbol, ying yang, reading books on Taoism, and living out their beliefs
against the backdrop of Chinese culture. Taoism is also increasingly
influential in the West, especially in the field of alternative medicine and
in martial arts like Tai Chi.
- See more at:
http://www.religionfacts.com/taoism/index.htm#sthash.YqElE13P.dpuf

25. Chinese folk religion is composed of a combination of religious practices,
including Confucianist ceremonies, ancestor veneration, Buddhism and Taoism.
Chinese folk religion also retains traces of some of its ancestral neolithic belief
systems which include the veneration of (and communication with) the sun,
moon, earth, the heaven, and various stars, as well as communication with
animals. It has been practiced alongside Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism
by Chinese people throughout the world for thousands of years.
Ceremonies, veneration, legends, festivals and various devotions associated
with different folk gods/deities and goddesses form an important part of
Chinese culture even today. The veneration of secondary gods does not conflict
with an individual's chosen religion, but is accepted as a complementary
adjunct to Buddhism, Confucianism or Taoism. Some mythical figures in folk
culture have even been integrated into Buddhism as in the case of Miao Shan
who is generally thought of having evolved into the Buddhist bodhisattva Kuan
Yin. Other folk deities may date back to pre-Buddhist eras of Chinese history.
The Chinese dragon is one of the key religious icons in these beliefs.

26. Is there a heaven is Chinese Religion? The idea of Heaven
(T'ien) plays a prominent role in indigenous Chinese religion.
The term can refer to a god, an impersonal power, or both.
The concept is not well-defined, and religious scholars have
had a difficult time deciding whether T'ien was believed to be
a force like fate or a personal deity. It is also unclear whether
the ancient Chinese believed T'ien responded to human
supplication or simply worked in accordance with the
principles of T'ien. - See more at:
http://www.religionfacts.com/chinese_religion/beliefs/heave
n.htm#sthash.REqxIpJB.dpuf

27. Prayer
Chinese Buddhism and Taoism both incorporate prayer into their daily
religious rituals. In addition to the prayer accompanying offerings, the
monastic prayer (mu-yu) is said morning, noon and night to the sound of a
small bell.
Longevity Practices
Longevity practices - rituals and lifestyles aimed at gaining a long life or even
immortality - have long been a part of Chinese religion. Even before the
development of Taoism, several "hygiene schools" were teaching various
techniques for achieving longevity.
Divination, Prophecy and Astrology
Divination was commonplace in ancient China. The famous "Classic of
Changes" (composed before the third century BCE) involved divination.
- See more at:
http://www.religionfacts.com/chinese_religion/practices.htm#sthash.Q6bv9c
p9.dpuf

29. Resources
• “The New China: Contemporary Life &
Governance” (2013) – Donald C Menzel
• Go to Smashwords.com, search for Menzel
• https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/3
52367
• A multi-touch Ipad version can be
downloaded at
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-new-
china/id686948050?mt=11