Fenggang Yang

Transformations in new immigrant religions and their global implications

Immigrant religious communities in the United States are undergoing profound transformations. Three processes of change occurring in new immigrant religions are described and analyzed: (1) adopting the congregational form in organizational structure and ritual, (2) returning to theological foundations, and (3) reaching beyond traditional ethnic and religious boundaries to include other peoples. These changes support the new paradigm in the sociology of religion that refutes secularization theories: Internal and external religious pluralism, instead of leading to the decline of religion, encourages institutional and theological transformations that energize and revitalize religions. Moreover, these changes are not merely attributable to Americanization. Rather, these changes have transnational implications for global religious systems-implications that are facilitated by the material and organizational resources that new U.S. immigrants possess.

THE RED, BLACK, AND GRAY MARKETS OF RELIGION IN CHINA

The economic approach to religion has confined its application to Christendom in spite of the ambition of the core theorists for its universal applicability. Moreover, the supply-side market theory focuses on one type of religiosity—religious participation (membership and attendance) in formal religious organizations. In an attempt to analyze the religious situation in contemporary China, a country with religious traditions and regulations drastically different from Europe and the Americas, I propose a triple-market model: a red market (officially permitted religions), a black market (officially banned religions), and a gray market (religions with an ambiguous legal/illegal status). The gray market concept accentuates noninstitutionalized religiosity. The triple-market model is useful to understand the complex religious situation in China, and it may be extendable to other societies as well.

Chinese Conversion to Evangelical Christianity: The Importance of Social and Cultural Contexts

Why do immigrants abandon their traditional religion and convert to Protestant Christianity? Existing sociological theories of conversion are mostly based on studies of individuals who convert into cults. Factors of individual personality and interpersonal bonds in small networks, or assimilation motives, cannot adequately explain the growing phenomenon of conversion to evangelical Protestantism among new immigrant groups from Asia and Latin America. Based on interviews and ethnographic observations in Chinese churches in the Greater Washington, D.C., area, I argue that social and cultural changes in China in the process of coerced modernization are the most important factor for Chinese conversion to Christianity ; identity reconstruction of immigrant Chinese in a pluralist modem society also contributes to Chinese conversion to evangelical Christianity ; institutional factors are of secondary importance. This study also has important theoretical implications, to the ongoing debates concerning the reasons for and sources of growth among conservative Christian churches in the US.

Determinants of Religious Giving in American Denominations: Data from Two Nationwide Surveys

En utilisant deux series de donnees datant de 1987-89 et 1988, les AA. se sont penches sur les formes du don aux Eglises. Les protestants conservateurs ont les plus hauts niveaux de don, les catholiques les plus bas, les protestants traditionnels se situant entre les deux extremes. Le don individuel est largement pratique et atteint 75% du total. Les indicateurs principaux du don individuel sont: une foi solide, une theologie conservatrice et un intense engagement ecclesial. Les individus qui prevoient leurs dons dans le temps sont en general plus genereux. Le benevolat consacre a la vie ecclesiale est plus important chez les protestants conservateurs et moindre chez les catholiques

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 desesularizing reality. [I was] overwhelmed by the total secularisation of a society and culture that once placed high value on religious shrines, festivals and symbols. During our visit [to China in 1972] we saw almost no evidence of surviving religious practice.... We saw no functioning Buddhist temples. Some of those we visited had been converted to use as tea houses, hostels or assembly halls; others were maintained as museums.... Some Chinese with whom we talked were curious about religion. They were amazed to learn that educated persons in the West continue to believe and practice religion. For them, they said, the study of scientific materialism had exposed the logical fallacies and absurdities of religion

Oligopoly Dynamics: Consequences of Religious Regulation

In the first part of this article, the author tries to clarify a set of interconnected concepts—religious plurality (diversity), pluralization, and pluralism. As a descriptive concept for sociological theorizing, social pluralism is further differentiated into legal, civic and cultural arrangements. Modern pluralization may have started accidentally in the United States of America, but it has become a general trend in the world. In the second part, the author argues that the predominant type of Church—State relationship in the world today is neither monopoly nor pluralism, but oligopoly. More importantly, the theoretical propositions based on the studies of monopoly-pluralism are not applicable without substantial modification to explain oligopoly dynamics. The China case shows that in oligopoly, increased religious regulation leads not necessarily to religious decline, but to triple religious markets: the red market (legal), black market (illegal) and grey market (both legal and illegal or neither legal nor illegal). Dans la première partie de cet article, l’auteur tente de clarifier un ensemble de concepts interreliés: la pluralité religieuse (la diversité), la pluralisation et le pluralisme. En tant que concept descriptif de la théorie sociologique, le pluralisme social est différencié selon les cadres juridique, civique et culturel. Si la pluralisation moderne a probablement commencé de façon fortuite aux États-Unis d’Amérique, elle est devenue une tendance généralisée dans le reste du monde. Dans la deuxième partie, l’auteur démontre que le type de relations Église—État prédominant dans le monde actuel n’est ni le monopole, ni le pluralisme, mais l’oligopole. Plus important encore, les propositions théoriques fondées sur les études du pluralisme comme monopole ne sont pas applicables sans modifications significatives pour expliquer des oligopoles dynamiques. Le cas de la Chine montre que, dans un oligopole, l’augmentation de la réglementation religieuse ne conduit pas nécessairement à la diminution du fait religieux, mais à l’émergence de trois marchés religieux: le marché rouge (légal), le marché noir (illégal) et le marché gris (à la fois légal et illégal, ou ni légal, ni illégal).

Trajectories of Folk Religion in Deregulated Taiwan

Drawing on pooled cross-sectional data collected in Taiwan, this research examines the age, period, and cohort effects on the trajectories of folk religions. We detect a temporal growth in Taiwanese folk religion from the early 1990s to the mid-1990s, followed by a downward trend in the 2000s. A slight decline of individual folk religion is confirmed across the life course among Taiwanese residents. The cohorts that experienced the martial law era in their formative stage are more likely to practice individual folk religion but less likely to get involved in communal folk religion. Finally, communal folk religion within Buddhism is falling, but individual folk religion has become increasingly popular within institutional religions. This research betters our understanding of Chinese folk religion and sheds light on the classic Weberian disenchantment thesis in the context of Chinese society.

Muslim Attitudes toward Business in the Emerging Market Economy of China

Chinese Muslims are a religious minority in a non-Islamic society that has been undergoing rapid economic and social changes. In the emerging market economy of China, Muslims hold various attitudes toward business. Based on 53 in-depth interviews with Muslim businesspeople in the capital city of Beijing, Zhengzhou in Central China, and Guangzhou in Southern China near Hong Kong, the authors find five distinguishable types of Muslim businesspeople: socially detached, socially engaged, pragmatic, traditionalist and secular. The different ways of being Chinese Muslim businesspeople offer valuable information for the understanding of the compatibility of Islam with modernity and with non-Islamic cultures.

A RESEARCH AGENDA ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN CHINA

Although the subject of religious freedom in China has appeared frequently in international news and human rights reports, it has been understudied by academic scholars. To follow the principle of shi shi qiu shi (to seek truth in facts, as promoted by Deng Xiaoping since the late 1970s as a new Chinese Communist policy principle), scholarly research ought to find facts and to develop theoretical explanations of the facts. Research does not have to become “political” in the narrow sense of antagonism or holding an ideological position. Rather it would be political in the best sense of politics, which is of, relating to, or concerned with the public interest. The conceptual, regulatory, and civil society dimensions of religious freedom would be particularly fruitful research areas in China today.

Actions, Attitudes, and Perceptions regarding Six Technologies

Abstract In a survey conducted in 1982–1983 on risk perception, judgment of the acceptability of existing safety regulations, and activism among the general public and opinion leaders for six technologies (Gould et al., 1988), little or no correlation was found between perception, attitude, and activism. In a secondary analysis of these data, using the log-linear approach, we found that (a) judgment of the acceptability of existing safety regulations plays a pivotal role both in determining the perception of risk/benefit attributed to a technology and in influencing the status and type of activism, and (b) the relationships observed between variables held true both for the general public and for opinion leaders. The implications of these findings are that (a) risk communication should entail not only communication about risks but also communication about the resources that are available to protect oneself against these risks and (b) the current view that experts form their opinions and base their actions ...