Religious Diversity with Chinese Characteristics? Meanings and implications of the term ‘religious diversity’ in contemporary Chinese dissertations

Abstract

Religious diversity is important as an academic concept as well as a social phenomenon. An emerging body of literature has been devoted to analysing religious diversity in China. For example, in a previous chapter in this book, drawing up extensive ethnographical fieldwork, Gideon Elazar demonstrates how the religious landscape in China’s Yunnan Province has been enriched by a non-Chinese missionary community. Clearly, contemporary China provides an interesting setting for the investigation and understanding of religious diversity. Existing literature also shows that the degree of religious diversity is impressive not only in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau but also among some overseas Chinese communities (Tao and Stapleton, 2018). Not enough attention, however, has been paid to the ways in which the very concept of ‘religious diversity’ is received and applied by Chinese scholars in contemporary China. This chapter aims to bridge that gap by questioning how the concept of ‘religious diversity’ is used in dissertations that have been successfully defended in Chinese universities in recent years.