Beyond the market: exploring the religious field in modern China

Abstract

This introduction discusses in general terms the applicability of the religious-economy (or market) model to the religious field in China and summarises the discussions in this special issue. This model has been adopted as a tool with which to grasp theoretically the complexities of said field; however, its application to Chinese religion(s) has taken place without an in-depth discussion of its analytical value to this subject matter. Contributions to this issue critically discuss the religious-economy model with regard to the institutionalised religions of Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism, ‘popular’ or ‘local’ religion, and the new player, 19th-century Protestant Christianity. While some contributions acknowledge a certain heuristic value of the market model, all of them point to conceptual flaws and highlight the need for revision. Taken together, they suggest a methodological pluralism in response to the pluralism of the Chinese religious field itself.

Keywords:

• theory of religion
• religious field
• religious economy
• China

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Beyond the market: exploring the religious field in modern China

Acknowledgements

We wish to express our thanks to the discussants and commentators of the papers presented at the workshop in Lampeter, in particular Hubert Seiwert, Peter van der Veer, Lu Yunfeng and Terry Rey, as well as the internal and external reviewers.

Notes

¹Especially well known and popular even beyond the realm of researchers of Chinese religions is de Groot's (1918) theory of a Chinese ‘universism’ which attempts to describe a coherent and common traditional Chinese world view.

²This model has been criticised, however, by nearly all scholars in the field.

³A thorough discussion of the theoretical premises and implications of the religious-economy model from different angles is provided by the various contributions to this volume.

⁴For more information cf. http://www.uni-leipzig.chinesereligions.