Between Spiritual Economy and Religious Commodification: Negotiating Temple Autonomy in China

• In Event: The State and Religious Leadership: Empowerment, Disempowerment, and its Consequences

Abstract

The official religious policy in China is said to allow priestly management in religious communities as long as they recognize the Communist Party’s legitimacy to rule and observe the state’s religious policy. In reality, variations exist even among those communities that appear to display political conformity. This research investigates such variations by exploring the local state’s enclosure of historic Buddhist and Taoist sites and the variant strategies of the religious communities to preserve and expand their presence. Temple enclosure is typified by the physical division of and fencing in a temple along with its affiliating structures and lands. The clerics of an enclosed site lose all or part of the temple revenues and management autonomy. Based on the fieldwork of 16 Buddhist and four Taoist sites between June 2012 and August 2014, I will show how the contestations over the usage of religious sites are structured by the state’s framework of economic development and religious governance. On the one hand, the revenue-driven agents of the state seek to enclose temples and acquire complete control over the temple economy. On the other hand, the monks and nuns try to secure autonomy in temple management as well as state acquiescence for its survival and expansion. I argue that no enclosure will result when a temple has demonstrated political conformity with the regime and is richly endowed with religious and political resources, such as ritual specialty and horizontal network connections with overseas religious communities.

Author

• Kuei-Min Chang, Columbia University