Yasmin Koppen Introductory Guide to Religious Studies: Re-Narrate the Religious in Postmodern and Postsecular Age Lecturer: Isomae

Junichi

July, 2nd 2010 SS10

The Modern Secularization of China: Chinese Religion and the Law This short essay shall extrapolate first the meaning of secularization as well as the position of religions in the eyes of the Chinese law. What is to know about secularization China? Well, depending on your viewpoint, it either happened quite early or doesnt even exist. Religion in China is a broad and diverse topic; therefore we have to acknowledge some differences: My main interest is in the popular religion, this term refers to an uncountable number of cults who center around local heroes, wonders, nature spirits and so on but their object of worship never made it into the canon or was acknowledged by the elite of Chinese officials or nobles. It is the most spread kind o religion. Then we have the grand religions of China which mostly refers to Chinese Buddhism and Daoism just as Confucianism although there are some scholars who deny that Confucianism is a religion. The last kind are the foreign religions, religions that came to China a long time after Buddhism Nestorianism, Judaism, Islam and Christianity in roughly this order. Religion is often understood as a pillar of civilization; religion offers protection, explanations and hope, it is also a source of legitimation. There have been written many books about the grand religions or the foreign religions of China, yet popular religion was shoved aside for a long time and only reclaimed attention in roughly the past twenty years. Popular religion was and mostly is one of the most important factors for group identity. Religion isnt offered on a religious market quite as freely as it is today in the west. While in the modern Peoples Republic of China (PRC) nobody is forced into a certain kind of religion, most people are still born into one and follow either the religion of their relatives or none. Historically speaking, the religion was not only a matter of the family but of the whole village. Chinese religion tends to be pragmatic and ritualistic; this can be seen in the popular religion just as well as Chinese popular Buddhism and the state cult of imperial China. So, if the residents of a village prayed to a god for rain and the rain came, it would fall on all the land. That way, everybody profited and those who tried to exempt themselves from the village community would be facing harder conditions of trade and mutual helping, as they profited without acting in the apparent religion. In the north of China, this religion was often represented by an influential temple system, where one temple could belong as a truce to several villages and directed the economy between them all and the outside world. In the southwest of China these villages often spawned brotherhoods or sisterhoods of oath which were devoted to a single popular god and lived on until the age of modern urbanity, they also were the primary source for later secret societies(1). What this should express is, that popular religion is a bounding-factor of the very base societal units. Coming back to the topic of religion and politics, we have to consider that on a broad scale there are only two directions a religion can go in the view of a state: It can either legitimate and support the state and by this become orthodox, or it can criticize and undermine the state and its orthodoxy, by that becoming heterodox. China has had a very fluid way of royal succession based on the tianming the mandate of heaven. The mandate basically says that a king or emperor is invested by the power of Heaven itself and if an emperor does something wrong, he may loose the mandate of heaven, which

means there will be catastrophes and wars until the emperor atones for his misdeeds or another ruler is established. How fluidal this way of legitimizing new powerful rulers who dont need to be member of a certain lineage is best summed up in the following Confucian proverb: Chng z wi wng, bi z wi zi [If (you) succeed, you will be king; if (you) loose, you will be a bandit.]. China experienced religious attacks quite often, especially after the introduction of Daoism at the end of Eastern Han-Dynastie (220 CE) and Buddhism in the Chinese medieval (~220-581 CE). Millenarian movements stroke against the ruler ever so often again. The reasons for religious motivated attacks against the state were the protest against suppression, the fight for political dominance or millenarian aims themselves. To protect itself against these claims and attacks, the Chinese state developed strong mechanisms of control which lead in the late imperial China and the PRC to religious suppression. In imperial China an emperor cult was developed similar to that of ancient Rome everything was tolerated as long as the emperor wasnt attacked and accepted as son of heaven. This was legitimated by Confucian ethics as disturbances of the orthodoxy would lead to physical catastrophes (2).On the other hand those suppressions lead to rebellions that otherwise wouldnt have existed or gave rebellious groups the possibility to go into hiding until it was too late (3). This is especially true of the foreign religions Muslims and Christians only started to become violent when their old way of living was inhibited by new political lines. Looking at the history of China, we realize that suppression of religion and violent attacks against the state are in a constant exchange of social acceptance. The system of Confucian orthodoxy with relative religious freedom and hereditary religion that was only changed on the basis of ling [efficaciousness] of certain gods went on for centuries, but then came an important caesura: The communist turn. Where did communism come from? Here, the socio-economic viewpoint is of interest, I wont go into details about the political establishment because it would burst the volume of this essay. To sum it up: After the catastrophes of the Chinese north-west, were communism established its first political base, there came hunger. With hunger, there came dying or moving both left large parts of non-inhabited free land that would be sold very cheap. Yet most of the populace still had no money and so the well-doing people bought out the peasants the result was a rising number of landlords and a decreasing number of free peasants. Instead the peasants were treated like slaves, while the urban parts of the country suffered from no such social shifting. The idea of communism was introduced mainly by scholars in academic circles (4), their students mostly consisted of youths who had suffered hard circumstances in their childhood and were aware of the pressure from the west, but a radicalization happened only slowly. During the civil war between the communist parties and the Guomindang, both parties tried to involve the secret societies, bandits and millenarian religious groups to strengthen their ranks and because these groups had experience in the fight against the state. The civil war was a fight for the central authority, for the meaning and line of

coming decades and the communist party was rather an underdog at first, coming from the more heterodox ranks of society. From 1913 to 1930 the communists lived as suppressed group, trying but failing to establish a position supported by the people. Everything changed when from 1934-35 the communists finally gained support by the enraged peasants who revolted against their enslavers. October 25th 1935 the Long March ended in Yanan which became the communist base and in 1941 an own government (5). With the gain of even only local power the social value of the communists changed and mostly the landlord-elite was only exchanged for a cadre-elite. The decline of the Qing-Dynasty, the fail of the Republic of China and the civil war brought endless suffering over the population of China. During these circumstances, popular gods had a hard time showing their efficacy ling. The people lost their trust into them and following the example of the fighting corps, temple became secularized and treated as storage rooms or whatever seemed handy. Conservatism, old morality, the five relationships couldnt compete with the need for rationalization and industrialization, as they couldnt help the people to order their world anymore. This lead to the dead of gods as one might call it, because spirits and gods were only thought of alive if they were cared for and talked about, to show off their ling and gain new worshippers. When people stopped caring for their local mythical beings, the customs got forgotten and with them the god, spirit or hero. The gods were traded in for communism. And this is where our problem starts: Some people say here starts the secularization, others deny it and everything depends on the question: Is communism a religion? This cant be answered on a global scale but this question has interested many scholars of Chinese history. I will claim communism to be an own kind of a new, progressive faith as I will show in the following trademarks: The Chinese communism, according to C.K. Yang (1961), caused a feeling of enlightenment in the converts, because suddenly the chaotic world could be explained again and seemed to be in order. Also, the communist ideology demands the leaving and treachery of family members if these were deemed reactionary. A member had to turn hir whole life to a higher cause and abandon the old life in sake of the new, quite similar to the Buddhist practice. Communism is one of the most sharply dividing ideologies of Chinese history and shows characteristics that westerners would nowadays compare with the popular (!) connotation of the word sect. The order of communism bases on a belief in absolute truth and the destiny-bound infallibility of the theory to be on the way to a stronger and economically better adjusted nation. Obedience is a virtue and deviationism a vice. There was political, secular aim quite to the contrary in the early days of Chinese communism there was the quite diffuse promise to fight for benevolence and the far away horizon, the latter is especially important because of centuries it was a synonym for the life-after-death (6). What is deemed an anti-religious position in Chinese communism can just as well be treated as that of an absolutistic faith watching other kinds of belief. Because Chinese communism only deems itself to be rightful and truthful there cant be another right belief-system beneath it. Just like a Christian missionary,

the Chinese communist wants to save the people by establishing xiejiao [evil cults] as a prohibited category, it wants to lead them on the right path by showing how religion only exploited the people out of their ignorance. With the establishment of the communist government in October of 1949, Chinese communism reached highest authority and by that: orthodoxy. As they deemed themselves to be the only rightful savior of the people, they including Mao Zedong thought religion would stop to exist. Until the 1950s only direct resistance was persecuted but most groups except for the foreign religions were to weak to even try it (7). But while communism did forget its primary aims to help the poor and destroy elites it didnt forget its own story of success. As they had recruited themselves from religious groups, they knew religion was an important factor for the establishment of any kind of resistance. Yet until the 1950s there was no attack against religion in general. Until 1952 there were the thought that humans had to rid themselves of religion, that its extinction couldnt be ordered from above. With this mindset the article 88 of the Constitution of the Peoples Republic of China was crafted, it guarantees religious freedom for every inhabitant of China as long it wouldnt object the communist party, by that incorporating basically the same stance as all emperors after the Song-Dynasty (10th century). However, this article was mainly aimed at the freedom from religion, it explicitly states that the organization of anti-religious campaigns was legal and those campaigns might be very violent. Examples for anti-religious examples were the looting of active temples. The government decided that religion had to be repelled by atheistic education, demythologization and a differentiated interpretation of important literate works in the communist ideal. Therefore we can conclude that whatever could be called secularization didnt develop as a popular movement aimed at breaking the suppression of authoritative force as it derived from the Enlightenment Age in west, but it developed from an oppressive authority that wanted to force it onto the people. The efforts to make being religious as hard as possible incorporated for example taxes on incense and the abolition of special rights for priests and monks (i.e. not having to enlist to the military) which had existed since the Chinese medieval. Religion shouldnt offer any advantages anymore and indeed, many Chinese came back to a secular life because being religious showed to be too much of a bother. Most political lines against religion, however, could only affect the Five Religions: Daoism, Buddhism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism. They were categorized among zongjiao mixin religious superstition. In the choice of words here we can see the heavy western influence that came with communist ideology: zongjiao is no Chinese word, it is a translation of the western concept of religion as it was unknown to the Chinese in the 18th century; mixin supports my thesis that communism may be an own kind of religion, as if it wasnt and didnt consider itself as the rightful belief, how could there be evil beliefs? The Five Religions that were officially acknowledged suffered from the strictest governmental control, although they were legal, they were considered impure and cadre members were not allowed to join. Besides them there were the individual practices like

the faith into ones an ancestor which was called general superstition and were considered too minor to persecute. Further, everything of popular religion, even nonorthodox traditions of the Five Religions, was summed up into fengjian mixin, the feudalistic superstition. The scarcity of formal organization, the fluidal belief-systems and their charismatic leaders made them impenetrable for government control. This only strengthened the distrust of the communist government who deemed the Fengjian Mixin a pool of counterrevolutionary powers. The state exploited its privilege of interpretation by starting campaigns that depicted the Fengjian Mixin as economically retarded, politically disinterested, irrational, and full of criminality, the evil incarnate. Main argument of the government was still the so called exploitation of people by the prices of religious service providers. During these campaigns, the government itself used magical rhetoric, for example, it stated that Fengjian Mixin had to be exorcised (8). While the Five Religions and the General Superstitions condition had worsened over time, the Fengjian Mixin were persecuted since 1949, however during the 50s there were a few violent movements who distorted the attention to themselves. Realizing that religion wouldnt vanish by itself and the people still werent convinced to step away from it, Mao started the Cultural Revolution with the aim to close all sides of worship and to destroy religion itself. Only 1978 the constitution of 1954 was revised and the Five Religions got more freedom, although under the surveillance of the Bureau of Religious Affairs. Main task of that Bureau was the registrations of cults, which was needed to make them legal. (9) Yet only 60 years after its founding the government realized that persecution of all believers lead to a strong antagonism from the populace. A new Art.36 would be produced for the new constitution but non-approved religions could be called a, and persecuted as, xiejiao at every time someone saw it fit. 2004 faced the most important transformations of religious jurisdiction. The Article about religious freedom was taken over to the Regulations on Religious Affairs as Art.2. Main point of it is still that no citizen may be forced to be religious, but it is also stated that believers have to live in harmony with each other. Art.3 leaves holes for interpretation as it states: The State, in accordance with the law, protects normal religious activities, Religion may not harm the state or society. That way, normal can be interpreted as one may (10). A new bureau under the Bureau of Religious Affairs was founded, which would now be controlling the popular religion. The unregistered and persecuted cults were divided from popular techniques like divination. But the registering of Xiejiao became much harder, especially since the rise of more Christian non-orthodox groups and the Falun-Gong incident of October 1999. That incident had caused a Legislative of the Banishment of Heretic Cults which deemed members of Xiejiao-cults as traitors of the state. The Banishment was abolished 2002 without substitution, the popular practices (but not the popular religion!) would be protected as cultural inheritance. However the seemingly looser legislative on popular religion wasnt made because communists changed their minds, it was made to be more able to better control

the security risk of Fengjian Mixin and its Xiejiao-cults. The government had understood that heavy suppression only drove the cults into hiding. How religions are really treated, though, depends on the local official who has the honor of decision on every case it is presented with. The lower the local levels gets, the less like it is that the official holds strictly onto the guidelines of the Communist Party of China (11). As example: Popular religious cults could be registered as either Buddhist or Daoist cults. Also, a big part of the donations to single temples comes from local officials who officially belong to no religion. But well, it could be that that certain local god really exists and if that local official wouldnt offer anything it could have spiritual repercussions on him therefore he rather donates (12). Another aspect is the social dynamic if the official excludes himself from worship, he states that he doesnt want to belong to the local society, and if he doesnt it will make his work a lot harder. Adding to that the pressure of relatives, the local officials really have more reasons to submit to the local cults than to the laws of a government that may be really far away. Now we know that the PRC is technically secularized if one wants to interpret the CPC purely ideologist, the political offices have to be free from religion, but the communist ideology offers a good substitute on a dogmatic scale. The secularization isnt supported by the people as they never felt a need for it. There never was a large-scale theocracy or actively faith-based government in China, while Confucianism dominated the state was ritualistic but religion played no role of importance on the political habitus. So, there was nothing the people had to react to or develop ideas of secularism. Religion was a part-time activity and still is. The secularization was handed down from the high levels of government, but considering the characteristics of Chinese communism it is more fitting to say that with communism, China got its first faith-based government. Is that secularization? Or is secularization in China rather a dream of western observers? (1) Yang, C.K.: Religion in Chinese Society. Berkeley, 1961. p. 58, 59, 179. (2) Yang 1961 p.192-194, 196 (3) Yang 1961 p. 105, 136-137. (4) Chau, Adam Yuet: Miraculous Response. Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China. Stanford, 2006. p.24 and Selden, Mark: The Yenan Way in Revolutionary China. Cambridge, 1971. p.19-20 (5) Selden 1971 p.59-61. 64-65, 69. p.180-182, 189. (6) Yang 1961 p. 378-387. (7) Yang 1961 p. 386ff. (8) Anagnost, Ann S.: Politics and Magic in Contemporary China, in: Modern China 13/1, 1987. S.41-61. S. 43-44, 46-48. (9) Chan Kim-Kwong/Carlson, Eric R.: Religious Freedom in China: Policy, Administration, and Regulation. A Research Handbook. Santa Barbara, 2005. p. IX. (10)Chan/Carlson 2005. p.79 (11)Chan/Carlson 2005, p.7, 13-16 (12)Chau 2006, p. 197, p. 69-71.