The “Five Nature” Theory Of Religion In View Of History

The "Five Nature" theory of religion refers to the religious characters of chronicity, mass, nationality, complicity and internationality. The China Communist Party scientifically summarizes the national religious problem into the "Five Nature" theory of religion which not only is the theoretical guideline for the China Communist Party to draw up religious policy but also represents the China Communist Party’s cognitive level of and cognitive attitude towards the religious issue. Although the "Five Nature" theory of religion was proposed after the founding of China, its formation and development also embodies the historical developing process in which, on the basis of the special national conditions, the Party, applying the Marxist religious theory, understood and analyzed the religious issue as well as formulated the religious policy and solved the religious problems independently in different historical periods of revolution, construction and reform.Since its establishment, the China Communist Party began to pay attention to the religious issue; moreover, in different historical periods, the Party, according to the distinct epoch topics and social contradictions, has been searching for the religious policy in line with the China’s actual conditions. In the early days, with the transmission and ideological equipment of Marxism, the China Communist Party accepted the Marxist religious view and attached it to the practice in China. During the new democratic revolution period (1919-1949), some Party leaders like Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai contributed themselves to the religious work. Combining the Marxist religious theory with the specific practice of the China’s revolution, they preliminarily summed up a set of theoretical principles and historical experience coping with the religious issue from the practice of handling the national religious united front, agrarian revolution and the relationship between the foreign missioners and the church. Those theories and experience provide the Party and government with the beneficial reference to deal with the religious issue after the founding of the country. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Party has made clearer about the "Five Nature" theory of religion. It directly put forward the "Five Nature" theory of religion to take place of the representation of the "Five Nature" in religious policy, which is the transformative development of the "five visceral qualitiese" in religion. Ever since the Reform and Open up, owing to the Party and country’s correctness of the unreasonable religious policy during the Cultural Revolution, the religious policy has become mature and stable. Nowadays, along with the multiple needs of the public’s spirit and belief as well as the complicated domestic and foreign environment, our religious issue encounters new problems and challenge. For that matter, the "Five Nature" theory of religion goes through new development and innovation, among which more attention has been paid to the culture and internationality of the religion.