ABSTRACT
Given China’s dramatic and spectacular transformation in the past four decades, one would expect to see some equally dramatic and spectacular transformations in the religious landscape. Despite the appearance of a sudden shift from a seemingly “Godless” China to a landscape of undoubtedly vibrant religious life (the occasional suppression and constant surveillance by the state notwithstanding), one should not overestimate the success of Maoist socialism to wipe out religion altogether nor underestimate the substantial impact more than seven decades of societal transformations under Chinese socialism have had on the nature and shape of Chinese religious life. All religious traditions are complex, dynamic, ever-changing clusters of institutions, practitioners and consumers, knowledge and practices, material culture, sociopolitical relations and hierarchies fully amenable to innovations, inventions, and reinventions all the time. There is always a complex and dynamic relationship between reproduction and innovation in religious life. In this chapter, I will focus on a few key aspects of how religion relates to broader societal transformations in contemporary China: 1) the politics of legitimation; 2) religion as a new field of political and socio-economic activities; 3) communities and networks; 4) transmission, reproduction and innovation; 5) religion, philanthropy and religious subjectification.
