Talk:Religion in China

Page views for this article over the last 30 days
Detailed traffic statistics

Sources for future article expansion

• Brown, Tristan G. (5 March 2015), "Feasts of the Sacrifice: Ritual Slaughter in Late Imperial and 20th-Century China", All about China, Washington: Middle East Institute.

This is a fascinating account of how Eid al-Adha rituals led to Muslims/Hui becoming the usual butchers in western China not only for the imperial elite but also for mandatory state sacrifices to the Chinese gods (considered to be meat-eaters if not carnivores) and suspect Commies during the paranoid Nationalist era (since killing cattle could only be a plot to reduce agricultural output and undermine the state). It should probably be introduced here, as well as at Islam in China, Chinese cuisine, and similar pages. — LlywelynII 00:18, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Split off history section

As this article is too long to navigate comfortably I’ve split off content into a draft article and want to get it through Draft:History of religion in China thoughts on this? We might want to update it though because the draft is rather old. Tagging @Æo Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 21:13, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

@Immanuelle: A splitting of the article was probably due, given its length and the fact that the new Wikipedia interface V22 has completely destroyed the layout of most articles, including this one, necessitating their revision. However, your way of doing the splitting has been, for the umpteenth time, hasty. First of all, I don't see any approval of the subdivision, either on this page, here or here. Second, the last time I edited this article was more than five years ago. Over the years, the article, including the parts you have split off, has severely degenerated: paragraphs have been deleted, sentences have been interpolated, references have been altered, and it has been filled with a lot of journalistic junk. I have not checked the integrity of this article for over five years. Therefore, the latest revision was not the most advisable to be split. I doubt that you took these issues into consideration before proceeding with the splitting. Æo (talk) 14:39, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

I see as well as you do that both this and the split article require a ton on work and in what ways, and I'm actively working on it. My approach at first has been to just hack at it, that's how unruly it is, but I feel like I will be able to get it more presentable, especially with a little help.

(P.S. Immanuelle is taking a break from the site for a bit.) Remsense聊 15:00, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

@Remsense: Thank you for your efforts. I had already planned to return to work on this article myself in the future, envisioning possible ameliorations based on the most recent publications about the subject, but not before finishing the improvement of "Religion in Hungary" (after which I planned to focus on "Religion in France"). Religion in China is a huge and complex — and extremely fascinating — subject, especially the major religious tradition of the country, Chinese folk religion (which varies, even in its terminologies, from province to province). Over the last two decades, academic studies on the subject have increased both in number and quality; I write a list of some recent publications herebelow.--Æo (talk) 13:29, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you so, so much for the list. This is one of several very-big-complex-topic articles I've got spinning in the air right now, but I still want to help do it justice. Remsense聊 13:43, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

New sources 2023

• Wang, Xiaoxuan (2019). "'Folk Belief', Cultural Turn of Secular Governance and Shifting Religious Landscape in Contemporary China". In Dean, Kenneth; Van der Veer, Peter (eds.). The Secular in South, East, and Southeast Asia. Global Diversities. Palgrave Macmillan Cham. pp. 137–164. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-89369-3_7. ISBN 9783030077518.
• Zhao, Xiaohuan (2021). "Form Follows Function in Community Rituals in North China: Temples and Temple Festivals in Jiacun Village". Religions. 12 (12). MDPI: 575–592. doi:10.3390/rel12121105. ISSN 2077-1444.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
• Zhang, Chunni; Lu, Yunfeng; He, Sheng (2021). "Exploring Chinese folk religion: Popularity, diffuseness, and diversities" (PDF). Chinese Journal of Sociology. 7 (4). SAGE Publications: 575–592. doi:10.1177/2057150X211042687. Archived (PDF) from the original on 15 October 2023.
  • Contains CFPS 2018 data*.
• Ashiwa, Yoshiko; Wank, David L. (2020). The Chinese State's Global Promotion of Buddhism (PDF) (Report). The Geopolitics of Religious Soft Power. Berkley Center, Georgetown University. Archived (PDF) from the original on 16 February 2021.
• "Measuring Religion in China" (PDF). Pew Research Center. 30 August 2023. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 September 2023. Website.
  • This is a surprisingly good study compared to Pew's previous ones on the same subject; it summarises key points in the definition, history and regulation of religion in China, and compiles the demographic data from the best surveys of the 2010s, including the most recent ones, the CFPS 2018* and the CGSS 2021. The study also contains the most recent (2014 to 2018) data on counted (not only officially registered; not total including all the unregistered) places of worship in China**.
• Wenzel-Teuber, Katharina (2023). "Statistics on Religions and Churches in the People's Republic of China – Update for the Year 2022" (PDF). Religions & Christianity in Today's China. XIII. China Zentrum: 18–44. ISSN 2192-9289. Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 June 2023.
  • Also contains CFPS 2018 data*.

---

–* CFPS 2018: ~70% overall Chinese folk religion: 33% Buddhism, 18% Taoism, 19% other; ~25% non-believers; ~5% Abrahamic religion: 2-3% Christianity, 2-3% Islam.
–** 2014–2018: 280,000 traditional religions' sites: 165,000 deity temples, 102,000 ancestral temples, 9,000 Taoist monasteries (only registered), 1,600 Confucian temples (only registered); 190,000 Buddhist temples and monasteries (of which 34,000 are registered); 60,000 Protestant churches; 6,400 Catholic churches; 39,000 Islamic mosques. Cf. Pew 2023, pp. 29, 47-50, 69, 90.

---

--Æo (talk) 13:29, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Update

China says the largest religion is Buddhism but this page says it's "No Religion/Chinese Folk Religion". I think one should be updated. Furthermore, I think "Buddhism" should go to Chinese Buddhism and not Buddhism. GamerKlim9716 (talk) 19:49, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

The simple answer is that "No Religion" is not a religion, meaning that it doesn't count. Chinese Folk Religion is also not a single religion, but covers all of the various localized traditional Chinese religions, beliefs and more. Thus as a single religion, Buddhism may indeed be the largest! Vif12vf/Tiberius (talk) 03:19, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

I get your point but I feel like, using that logic, no religion and Chinese folk religion should be removed from this page since the page is specifically about religion. But idk. GamerKlim9716 (talk) 06:27, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

only 33.4% is chinese buddhist!!The percentage of chinese buddhist in china is nearly 80% at least.So,change this percentages. 103.109.59.33 (talk) 11:02, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Further splits

So, after splitting History out, we're still at 20k words. Anywhere from 3 to 8k of this is total fluff, but I think China is rammified to such a degree that we may need all three of Religion in China, Demographics of China, and Religious demographics of China. Certainly seems so, as a matter of sheer practicality. Talk me down from this? Remsense诉 17:16, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

India is being sneaky about it by having Religion in India as well as Indian religions. That seems like cheating. Remsense诉 17:20, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Probably the definition "Indian religions" should be made less ambiguous (the adjective "Indic" would probably be broader, and therefore better to refer to the "Indian civilisation", which does not necessarily correspond only to the contemporary state of India), but in this case a separate article makes sense. Furthermore, Indian religions are spread globally today, and there are branches of them which were not even founded in the Indian subcontinent (for instance, the Hare Krishna movement of Hinduism was founded in the United States, while Ravidassia as an identity clearly and institutionally separated from Sikhism first emerged in the United Kingdom if I am not mistaken, let alone the fact that most of today's Buddhism is an East Asian development).--Æo (talk) 17:09, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose: The section should be updated with the new statistics, and consequently the most obsolete ones might be eliminated, but it would be a very bad idea to create an umpteenth separate article (and potentially a WP:CFORK) which over time would no longer be maintained and would become prey to vandals. I would actually also be in favour of merging "History of religion in China" — split by Immanuelle — back into this article, for the same reasons. As an aside, I am also against the recent removal of various images illustrating fundamental astro-theological concepts of Chinese religious culture: they are at the core of Confucianism, Taoism and the whole complex of Chinese religiosity, both ritual and doctrinal, and of Chinese civilisation itself, and without them a true, deep, and thorough understanding of the latter is impossible. They are not too esoteric and abstruse, and they are what is taught to any disciple of legitimate traditional schools of Chinese religion; see for instance the Ming Shan Temple in Switzerland, whose address is Chemin de l'Etoile Polaire 3, Bullet, and which teaches the Wujimen Taoist school, which focuses on the Ursa Major constellation. Æo (talk) 16:49, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  • This article is very much over my head at the moment, but it does seem like a candidate for a "History" dedicated article at least.
  • I agree the concepts deserve potential illustration, but the particular way they existed in the article seemed extremely idiosyncratic, such that I could not really rewrite them. I would appreciate someone else doing so.

  Remsense诉 17:10, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Largest religion in China is Chinese Buddhism but why the pew researchers don't counting them as Buddhist??

The pew researchers are counting many people as christains in western europe who don't actively practise christainty ,,but they are not counting many people as buddhist who do not activly practice Buddhism.This is a great bias on Buddhist population in western media.As a result they estimate buddhist population only 500 million. For example,many people in France,Germany,Spain,Uk are not religious but pew researchers count them as mostly christains.On the other hand many people in Japan are not actively buddhist,pew researcher count them as atheist. 103.61.241.132 (talk) 03:19, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

This is a good question, but it's not clear where Pew researchers do not count Buddhists as Buddhists or how you want it to affect the article, which, as you say, gives Buddhism as the largest religion.ch (talk) 05:57, 15 November 2024 (UTC)