Chinese Religious Life

Thirty years ago, religion was severely repressed throughout China. Since the end of the Cultural Revolution, however, religious communities have reemerged in vast numbers and many new forms of religious practice have developed. This book offers an introduction to religion in contemporary China. Instead of adopting the traditional focus on pre-modern religious history and doctrinal traditions, Chinese Religious Life is based on the social dimensions of religious life, with essays devoted to religion in urban, rural, and ethnic minority settings; to the religious dimensions of body, gender, environment, and civil society; and to the historical, sociological, economic, and political aspects of religion in contemporary Chinese society. This volume of essays, written by a team of internationally renowned scholars, is based on both field research and historical and textual studies.

David A. Palmer is an assistant professor in the department of Sociology and fellow of the Centre for Anthropological Research at the University of Hong Kong. His most recent book (co-authored with V. Goossaert) is The Religious Question in Modern China (2011). Glenn Shive is the executive director of the Hong Kong America Center, a consortium of Hong Kong universities promoting academic exchange between the United States and Hong Kong and between the United States and China via universities in Hong Kong. His B. A. in religion and Ph.D. in Chinese history are from Temple University in Philadelphia. Philip L. Wickeri is Advisor to Hong Kong's Anglican Archbishop on Theological and Historical Studies and Adjunct Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California. His most recent book is Reconstructing Christianity in China: K. H. Ting and the Chinese Church (2007).