As public worship is now allowed, after years of state-imposed atheism, the result has been a religious surge.
Places of worship for the five officially recognized faiths — Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism and Islam — have been restored or built anew, and public worship allowed again amid signs that the government sees limited religiosity as a useful component of its drive to build what it calls a “harmonious society.”
In the past the government had officially counted 100 million believers. Today that indicator is much higher.
A recent poll by East China Normal University estimated that 31.4 percent of Chinese 16 or older are religious, putting the number of believers at roughly 400 million.
The government’s reluctance to promote public worship is still strong.
Membership in the Communist Party, meanwhile, remains a major avenue for individual advancement, but the party does not permit members to practice religion. Many employers and even universities also look askance at believers.
A result of these mixed signals is that many people still do not feel altogether comfortable being recognized as believers.
As pointed out by Rao Vijayendra and Michael Walton in their book Culture and Public Action, a “culture of apathy” will develop when a sector of a society feels neglected by its ruling government. Under a “culture of apathy”, according to Vijayendra and Walton, will eventually weaken the government because it has lost the support of the neglected sector of society. In this case, as the government continues to discourage public worship, it is risking turning the religious sector of China against it. As more Chinese citizens are converting to religious affiliations, the government is shunning away a greater number of its citizens. The Communist Party needs to become more tolerant of public worhip if it wants to avoid loosing power to rule over China.
As stated by a Professor of Philosophy at People’s University in Beijing,
“I hope the government will look at the zeal in religion positively, and see that it can help restore social order and harmony, that it helps governance and is not a threat.”
Chinese International Affairs 