Prevention And Governance Of Religious Group Events In China

Religion has been occupying an important role in human civilization, and has been indispensable during the brightest and darkest of times. Religion’s effects on society can be both positive and negative- its positive effects ensure the smooth operation of social systems whereas its negative effects lead to rigid traditionalism and the crumbling of society, which affects the unison of people and stability of the nation. Study of collective religious events allows better understanding of the causes and evolution of these events, which assists in establishing harmony and order in the world and provides theoretical references for reducing and avoiding regional conflicts of religious origin. Yet, China has always been a multi-religious nation since ancient times, and we are going through a critical period of social transition towards adjusting how prevailing interests are structured, where conflicts themselves are in the spotlight. In this period of time, a large amount of remaining historical problems will reappear and internal conflicts among the people will be unprecedentedly complex and unique. While the interaction between China and other countries is of a broader nature and altogether more frequent, this comes coupled with various antiChina and local religious groups who spread their own word and incite the people to organize or participate in collective religious events. These events have an extremely negative impact on the stabilization and development of society, as well as people’s livelihood. Moreover, they greatly affect the smooth transformation of the society. In the case of Wenzhou, being one of the first harbor cities during the ‘Chinese economic reform ‘era, its religious activities tend to be more vibrant and develop even faster,which leads to conflicts between foreign religions and local political environment as well as between the regional cultures themselves.Currently,for the study on group events,domestic scholars have little focus specifically on religion-oriented issues,and the analysis on the cause of group events has yet to be deepened. This article adopts methodologies including literature research,comprehensive induction,real examples, etc. It elaborates regions and group events related concepts, and analyses the current typical religion-oriented group events,so as to explore the effective approaches to prevent religion-oriented group events and the measures to take after the events. This article will explore in the following aspects- the introduction part introduces the background of studies on religion-oriented group event, the meaning of it and existing studies on it internationally and domestically; second part explains the religion-related concepts in the study and their social functions,the concept,types,characteristics and nature of the religion-oriented group events, as well as the status quo of and issues related to these group events; the third part dives in to investigate “The demolition of Sanjiang Church as an illegal building” event in 2014,which is a strong representative case as it exhibits conflict between government, church and the congregation during Zhejiang’s economic and social transformation initiative- “three changes and one demolition”; the fourth part meticulously analyses the measures the government took to resolve the problems; the fifth part explores the possible effective approaches to prevent religion-oriented group events and the measures to take after the events, aiming to find the proper way of handling similar conflicts moving forward.