China and Taiwan
This chapter explores religious minorities in China and Taiwan. While Chinese societies, both historical and contemporary, have demonstrated a remarkable diversity of religious beliefs, practices, and institutions, mainstream elite culture and state imperatives have helped to implement a policy that...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Walter De Gruyter GmbH
2024
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| In: |
Religious minorities online
Year: 2024 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This chapter explores religious minorities in China and Taiwan. While Chinese societies, both historical and contemporary, have demonstrated a remarkable diversity of religious beliefs, practices, and institutions, mainstream elite culture and state imperatives have helped to implement a policy that has outlawed those forms of religion that do not conform to these norms. In particular, this chapter focuses on salvationist sects and their modern counterparts, the redemptive societies. After giving a brief overview of the Chinese religious landscape from a historical perspective, and casting doubts on the reliability of statistics and numbers in distinguishing majority/minority religions, I specifically approach the topic from three angles: first, by analyzing conceptualizations of permitted and outlawed forms of religion that, in modern China, primarily revolve around the terms xiejiao (‘heterodox sect’) and mixin (‘superstition’); second, by exploring the regulatory nature of various Chinese political regimes, historically and presently, which mostly crystallizes as an oligopoly that favors a select few religions but puts restrictions on most others; third, and finally, by looking at a few examples from PRC history that illuminate how minority religions, especially salvationist sects, are portrayed stereotypically as immoral, licentious, and fraudulent charlatans to legitimate political and legal measures against them. |
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| ISSN: | 2748-1328 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religious minorities online
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1515/rmo.20855518 |