| The researcher was often in a mental dilemma for the study of Christianity in China. Especially, religious practice with Chinese characteristics is unique in non-institutional churches. In the Chinese context and culture, the researcher observed that these believers demonstrated an obvious inconsistency on their values and actions in the practice of the doctrines of Christianity. In fact, they showed a kind of tension contacting with institutional-believers and non-Christians. Therefore, how do they express their faith, how do they construct their faith system, how do they practice their faith in the public sphere?Three main questions concerned in this paper are:1. How do they construct their faith identity as urban non-institutional actors in city?2. What is their order in convictional group?3. How the relationship is between the order of non-institutional churches and the general order in our society.These three questions illustrated the issues of non-institutional churches in the context of Chinese society from the micro, meso and macro levels respectively. The researcher has been concerned about these issues of non-institutional churches for a very long time. As a result, with the in-depth study, the most important question was gradually arised accompanied by the generalization of above questions. That is:how the relationship is between the order of convictional groups in non-institutional churches and the existing general order in our society? If are there obvious and irreconcilable tension between them?This article attempted to elaborate the order of structures in religious groups under the classified system. In the premise of religious sociality, how do they construct the order of their groups with "relationship-practice" as the theoretical framework.This paper argued that the formation of religious groups’order is the kind of actors identity based on the common values, in the process of institutionalizing norms of religious beliefs, as well as at the ceremony based on recognition to the legitimacy of religious authority. In addition, the influence of external powers and the differentiation of interests groups could not be ignored in religious practice.The order is a process of mutual construction. The research was launched in the background of Chinese society form integration into differentiation. Urban residents gradually alienated the existing power models under governance and came in a system of transformation of social structure. Their footsteps did not stop chasing the "ideal world" that nobody ever known it. And, the characteristics of urban&rural community of one was not a complete change. The only change was the object and content of their faith today. Nowadays, a lot of people started a self-organized social order in their city, constructing their own meaning of grass-roots society in the real world. The presence of non-institutional churches was a fact that people have been chasing the "ideal" world.As we all known that the mechanism put so much concern in sociology, namely, why should there be such a structure and the order of society. In the study of non-institutional churches, the researcher attempted to elaborate the mechanism of their faith from the psychological level and the mechanism of faith legitimacy. Stigma-suffering and a reputation-building were the opposite process that constructed faith relationship and meaning in convictional world of believers. The fact of depending on the existing system was another mechanism of its faith order. In conclusion, the researcher believed that the relationship is full of tension between the order of the non-institutional churches and the existing general order in society.But it do not constitute a radical change of system.This paper in the last chapter echoed previous chapters, in which wrote religious action in the social background during the historical period and this present age on a certain similarity. This paper also discussed the possibility of non-institutional churches as the autonomous organizations of our society. In fact, this is also the relationship between the non-institutional churches and society in general order. The researcher argued that their relationship is competitive with symbiotic and covariate features in a contradictory unity. |
