Cultural Studies On Contemporary Chinese Religion

This paper elaborates on contemporary China's religion-related issues from the perspective of cultural philosophy. To be more specific, it offers an analysis of and a discussion on the theoretical and real problems associated with religion by means of cultural philosophy's thinking. The analysis included herein contain the following parts:Chapter 1– Religion from the Point of View of Cultural Philosophy: Religion is the type of social cultural system that uses supernatural, super-realistic belief as its precondition and holy worship as its foundation to normalize and institutionalize the ideology and behavior it governs. It possesses such unique features as being transcendent, illusive, ultimate, holy and practical. Religious culture has both positive and negative functions on different social hierarchies, including social groups, individuals, etc. From the point of view of cultural philosophy, the generation of religious culture consists in two aspects: the generation of humanity and that of culture. Marxism's theories on religion are the theoretical premise and foundation for our studying of religious culture and Marxism's system of theories on religion has rich content across the different aspects of religion. In the present age, Marxism's system of theories on religion combines with the status quo of China to form a China-specific version of the system, which is bound to be of profound importance.Chapter 2– An Exploration of the History of China's Religious Culture: Contradictory views have ever remained as to whether religion ever existed throughout the history of China. The fact that Chinese and Western scholars hold different views on China's religious culture reflects the existence of major differences between Chinese and Western religions, and all these differences can be traced back to the unique history, national situation and cultural tradition of China. The development of China's religious culture, dynamic in nature, can be roughly divided into three stages, including the primitive society period; the Three-Dynasties and Qin-Han Dynasties period; and, the middle ancient period. In comparison with the several major religions in the West, China's religious culture has developed its unique features, including adherence, acceptance of life as it is through facing all sorts of failures and successes in an unperturbed manner, magnanimousness, utilitarianism and the quality of being hierarchical. This unique religious culture of China originates from the traditional way of thinking, cultural background and political-economical structure of China.Chapter 3– Real Presentation of China's Temporary Religions: In the current stage of development, each of the major religions of our country has developed a tendency to become worldly to some extent. As the globalization progresses, our country's religions are bound to show signs of the new trend of development brought about thereby, which features the getting more complex of religious groups and motives in becoming religious, the diversification of religious activities in both content and form, the changing of the five-major-religion configuration to a certain extent, and more communications among different religions. At the same time, the negative effect of the market economy will also be reflected in the religious realm, bringing some problems to the religious development in China: poor organization and blind development of religious organizations; folk beliefs; superstitious worship; and blind following of evil religions.Chapter 4– Introspection of Temporary China's Religion-related Issues from a Cultural Perspective: In summarizing temporary China's religion beliefs and related problems from the point of view of cultural philosophy, seven types of religious view exist, including the belief crisis; dislocated values; conform-to-the-public; psychological help seeking; international penetration; distortion and misunderstanding; and identity-with-the-tradition ones. These types of view on religion all have their own in-depth cultural roots, but yet there are reasons on the part of the believer as the subject of belief. The reasons on the part of the believer as the subject of belief include: lack of religious knowledge, the psychological or ideological status of the believer as the subject, a disorder of the believer's system of values during the current social transformation period, and unbalanced cultural, psychological status experienced during the aforementioned period.Chapter 5– Leading of the Values of China's Religions: Based on the viewpoints of dialectical materialism and of historical materialism, we shall provide guidance to religious believers with respect to their religious values, by adopting religious relations in real life as the standpoint, so that they can realize self-perfection in life and social practice. The main approach to guidance is: adjusting and adapting cultural and psychological views; establishing correct ideals and beliefs; helping select the correct sets of values; laying emphasis on cultural care; and enhancing ideological and cultural cultivation. Apart from these types of guidance, we shall recognize religion-related problems in a rational manner as well. By taking into consideration the real situation, we should treat religion-related problems in an objective, fair and comprehensive manner and stick to Marxism's system of notions on religion in handling all sorts of religion-related problems. To realize this goal, we will have to lead the religions in such a manner that their development suits the development of our harmonious socialist society. Leading the religions so that they stay in harmony with our socialist society not only has its precondition and foundation, but it also has a real path to its realization.