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Understanding China’s Religious Landscape from Below: The Sinicization of Religion and Christianity in the Xi Jinping Era

Wonji Yoo 1

1한밭대학교 인문교양학부

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ABSTRACT

This study takes a bottom-up approach to understand the changing religious landscape in contemporary China with a special focus on Christianity. Under the Xi Jinping regime, China has been enforcing the sinicization of religion, a political campaign imposing more restrictive regulations on religious practices. To understand the sinicization of religion as a complex and ongoing process rather than a state-only-driven project, this study draws attention to multiple voices in China’s churches. The implementation of religious policies and the responses of religious actors in the local context are far more complex and flexible than the national-level policy discourse implies. Many pastors and believers strive to find ways to adapt to an increasingly repressive environment. They consent to the presence of the Party, build guanxi with local authorities, depoliticize church activities, reshape church operational structures based on small units, and cut ties with foreign organizations. These coping strategies help local believers to present themselves as non-threatening to socio- political stability and to maximize the possibility of survival. The religious and political practices at the quotidian level demonstrate that religious agency can be enacted in ways that advocate neither complete resistance nor absolute obedience to the authoritarian regime.

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