The Way and Its Ways: A Quick Guide to the Religions of China

Abstract

Chinese civilization produced a peculiar system of religious beliefs and practices, its basis being the idea of continuity, cooperation or “harmonic unity” of gods and people. The mundane and the spiritual world were closely tied, like one family, with mutually obligatory relations. The goal of religious cults was to provide well being (“happiness”) already in the earthly existence. This became the basis of Chinese religious syncretism which made different religions the metaphors of each other. The stability of this system was strengthened by a certain hierarchy of cults determined both by their form and their political status. This hierarchy did not exclude the confrontation between official and socalled “indecent” cults, which reflected the general typology of cultural forms. The coming of foreign religions — Buddhism, later Islam and Christianity — did not shatter the foundations of traditional syncretism and in many ways even reinforced them. The general tendency of Chinese religion’s evolution was secularization and interiorization of its ideals and values. This development finally led to sharp confrontation between new secularized religions and the state authority. In contemporary China, as in the past, religions are supposed to serve the state and the ruling Communist party as representations of the universal moral order.