ARI Working Paper Series

This paper examines themes within Chinese theoretical scholarship on religion, from the dual perspectives of religious studies and Marxism. It focuses particularly on the three decades since the 1982 promulgation of “Basic Ideas and Policies Concerning Our Country’s Religious Question in the Socialist Era” marked a turn to an apparently more tolerant religion policy. Although this and subsequent policy shifts have undoubtedly shaped academic perspectives, scholars do retain a great deal of autonomy. Published scholarship has revived numerous debates about the nature of religion and its future under socialism, including some theoretical contradictions that hearken back to the very earliest days of the Communist Party. The paper closes with a discussion of the spiritual significance of Marxism in the twenty-first century.