Causes of the Religious Revival in Post-Cultural Revolution China

Abstract

 In the studies conducted by overseas scholars on the religious situation in mainland China and the Chinese Communist Party’s religious policies in the post-Cultural Revolution era, a phenomenon that has frequently drawn attention is “religious revival”. In many of these studies, two factors are often identified as the primary causes of this revival: the lingering effects of religious policies during the Cultural Revolution and the direct influence of religious policies during the Reform and Opening-up period. In reality, the “religious revival” after the Cultural Revolution has a political-economic internal cause, aside from the external factor of changes in political environment. This internal cause is related to the inherent nature of religion itself. This article argues that this internal cause is the logical driving force behind the sudden “religious revival” in the post-Cultural Revolution era.