Between secularist ideology and desecularizing reality: The birth and growth of religious research in communist China

Under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, the scholarship of religious research in China has changed from virtual nonexistence in the first thirty years (1949-1979) to flourishing in the reform era (1979-present). Moreover, the predominant view on religion has moved away from militant atheism to a more scientific, objective and consequently more balanced approach to religion. This paper attempts to trace this intellectual history in China and to examine the role of academia in the religious scene. There are three distinct periods in this development: the domination of atheism from. 1949 to 1979, the birth of religious research in the 1980s, and the growth of the scholarship in the 1990s, despite Political restrictions. Religious research was intended by the government to serve atheist propaganda, but it grew into an independent academic discipline responsive to the desecularizing reality.