Study of religious beliefs and practices in contemporary China: Case study of popular religion in Shenzhen

This is a study of the rapid development of religious beliefs and practices among ordinary Chinese in an urban environment. It focuses on the changing of such beliefs and practices after adoption of economic reform in China. The analytical framework of this dissertation is based on the theory of religiousity. Data was gathered through in-depth interviews of ordinary believers in Shenzhen, a newly developed industrial city in Guangdong province, just north of Hong Kong, in order to understand the merging of religious belief in modern society from their living experiences and value choices.; The goal of this thesis is a comprehensive understanding of these experiences and value choice in relationship to spiritual life. Historical factors and the social, political and cultural backgrounds which influence people's religious feeling, attitudes and beliefs are also examined. My findings enable us to grasp of the real situation appropriately of how the individuals interviewed manage and adapt his spiritual lives in modern society. After careful assessments of current theories of religion and sociology, this study finds that neither secularization theory nor rational choice theory can provide any help to interpret religious activities and development on the Mainland. My case study of popular religious activities in Shenzhen points out that the orientation of research on religion should be switched from religious institutions to the behaviors of individual believer's. This is to say that current study of religion in such an environment should be focused on individual religious life rather than on religious institutions and teachings.; This study also demonstrates that people have a strong sense of religious identity that constitutes an important sources of current religious phenomena and new religious movements in China. To have individual and free religious identity entirely depends on removal of political controls over religion. This study concludes that a form of religious pluralism has developed in China. People have a relatively free choice of their religious faith and activity. Religious practices that have been viewed as secret belief, heretical idea, underground religion, or atheism have become choices open to the public. Along with such religious development, economic pluralism also plays an important part in opening the spiritual world in which individuals can exert more control over their religious lives. This new freedom of choice of religious identity helps us understand the development of new religious movements in China. This dissertation concludes that because these newly developed movements have their legitimacy from the popular religiosity, they will become the major resource for the beliefs of ordinary people in the future.