Our "pilgrimage" Of The Times: The Anthropology Of The Contemporary Urban Religion

Since 1979, the beginning of the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping, a massive resurgence religion has taken place across China. This phenomenon deeply challenged the secularization theory.This research bases on the case study of San Guan Tang temple, a Buddhist temple in Shanghai. By taking religion as one of the societal components and temple as one of the social organizational formations, the author discusses the meaning of religiosity to the survival and development of San Guan Tang temple under the process of Chinese social changes and modernity.The author discusses the temple's structure, operating mechanism, the distinguishing feature of its lay Buddhists and the interaction between the temple and the powerful community official organizations, as well as that between the temple and the relevant governmental official sections.The author describes the procedure of temple's operation in three dimensions: the communication of the interior members, the way of recruiting temple postulant and fund rising. In order to overcome the diachronic limitation of the social organizational formations, the essay expresses the characteristics of the fore-passed Buddhist group, which was managed by the former temple abbot, as well as the development of the Buddhist organization under the management of the current temple abbot.By the analysis, the author tries to demonstrate that religiosity is a very important concept to understand the construction and development of the Buddhist temple - San Guan Tang.