Although scholars have explored the regulatory governance of Christianity at the local level, less attention has been paid to the ambiguity, tension, and inconsistency of the religious policies imposed by the central government and its challenges to local bureaucrats’ regulatory practices.Offering insightinto the theory ofinstitutional work, this article intends toaddress this gap, revealing how localbureaucrats in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province,employcontextual solutions(e.g.,discursive work, selective implementation, and operational work)torepair thetop-downpolicy problems they encounter.In the post-Mao era, the visibility of local Protestant organisations, inaphysical and metaphorical sense, has been entangled with contradictions inreligious regulations and the central-local discrepancy.

Index by keyword:

Editor’s notes

An earlier version of this article was presented at the Comparative Research Seminar of the Sociology Department, Yale University. The authors would like to thank members of the audience, particularly Philip Gorski, Deborah Davis, and Julia Adam for their comments and suggestions. We also wish to thank Yan Long, Hui Zhang, Christine Lee, Jianbo Huang, and Ningyang Chen, as well as the two anonymousreviewers, for their constructive suggestions and help in revising this article.

Church-state relations in postsocialist China

7With the visible revival of Christian populations and churches in the early years of the post-Mao period, some overseas observers and researchers (Aikman 2003; Stark and Wang 2015) made optimistic assumptions about the future of Christianity in China. They predicted that as more educated and urban elites joined churches, Christians would embrace strong civic characteristics and play an important role in the country’s democratisation in the future. This decontextualised reading of the growth of Christianity ignored the political context enabling that growth and thus overestimated the agency of Christian organisations in China.

9A large scholarly literature focuses on church-state relations in China (Goossaert and Palmer 2011;Koesel 2014; Sun 2017; Vala 2017; Reny 2018), going beyond the dominance-resistance paradigm and presenting the complex and dynamic interplays between authoritarian power and Protestant organisations.Researchers (Potter 2003;Leung 2005; Palmer 2009) have cautioned that the post-Mao state’s institutional acceptance of the recovery of Christian churches should not be taken as indicative of the state’s softened control over Christianity. On the contrary, the institutionalisation of religious regulation has worked to keep Christian organisations incheck through frequent monitoringas local governments have legitimacy and legal codes. Nevertheless, the institutionalisation process isentangled with some implicit policy directives coined in new terms (Ying 2016a; Chang 2018). In recent decades, the state’s growing anxiety about Christianising China (Zhongguo jidujiaohua中國基督教化) has led to more restrictive attitudes towards the expansion of Christianity in China, with new concepts and measures for greater control, such as the slogan “Sinicizing Christianity.” Scholars have documented how governmental actors have devised new concepts and discourses to sustain or transform the institutionalisation efforts. For instance, bureaucrats have demanded that Christians express patriotism, and thus loyalty to the Party-state (Vala 2013), and conceive of cross-removal as part of the political project to sinicize Christianity (Cao 2017: 44).

10More recently, some scholars have made an analytical turn by identifying the management of Christianity as a local game and taking a closer look at the practices of religious governance at the local level. The lower-level bureaucrats who adapt institutional principles and methods to the local context are the topic of a number of studies. Liu and White (2018) have argued that the local RAB bureaucratsin Xiamenengaged in dialogue and negotiation with a Protestant elite based on the Three-Self church structure, and that frequent interactions forged positive relations between bureaucrats and these elites. McLeister’s (2013) research reported similar findings in Zhejiang.Vala (2017) attributed the existence of unregistered churches to mutual trust and information between local bureaucrats andsomeChristian elites. Reny (2018) argued that local bureaucrats’ strategy of containment on house churches was bound and conditional on their keeping a low profile and sharing information with the PSB. Zimmerman-Liu and Wright (2013) have developed an explanation scheme that includes some variables to address the situation of “underground” churches in China, such as the location of Christian organisationsand關係 (guanxi, relationships or social network),as well as political and economic pressuresthat the local cadres face.

11With a contextualised view of church-state relations, this body of localised analyses has successfully identified some key variables in the discussion of the intricate interactions between church and state. However, the existing literature has yet to theorise how local bureaucrats are often caught between theinconsistent and often conflicting formal measures imposed by the central government and the complicated local societies. Since the 1980s, the administrative frameworks of the central government have been fluctuating between tolerance and restriction towards Christian churches. Central administrations always disregard specific local contexts, and their formal measures and regulations have been full of ambiguity and contradictions, with multiple inconsistent and often conflicting logics. While some scholars have recognised that such a policy environment presents serious challenges to local governments(Ying 2016a;Chang 2018), how local agencies handle such ambiguity and contradictions in policy implementation remains understudied. In particular, the reform of religious regulation has been a trial-and-error process. Regulatory measures are revised over time, and scrapped measures can be brought back. Yet little is known about how local agencies cope with such disruptions and discontinuity while maintaining the façade of policy consistency in their bureaucratic routines, because most studies are based on short-term cases.

12This article offers a longitudinal approach to understanding local bureaucratic practices. To do so, it draws on data collected over 19 years and incorporates the literature of institutional work from state theory. Institutional work refers to “the purposive action of individuals and organisations aimed at creating, maintaining, and disrupting institutions” (Lawrence, Suddaby, and Leca 2009: 215).In this article, we attempt to explore howlocalbureaucrats have provided contextual solutions torepair the policy problems (Masood and Nisar 2022)createdby the central government. This article will analyse three types of institutional work in the regulatory practices of Protestant churches: discursive work, selective implementation, and operational work. In the current analysis, discursive work refers to local bureaucrats’ efforts to initiate interpretations to conceal discontinuity and inconsistency in rules and policies and also to construct a rationale for problematising Protestant growth. Selective implementation describes how local bureaucrats selectively implement registration and other religious policies to blur the boundary between the legal and illegal in an effort to maintain Protestant groups’ compliance without causing unnecessary turbulence in the local community. Operational work refers to local bureaucrats’ “efforts to implement concrete actions [of institutional regulation] affecting the everyday behaviors”(Cloutier et al. 2016: 266) of local Protestant organisations.Wediscuss how local bureaucrats implement concrete and temporary actions to deal with the limited distribution of church quotas. The entanglement of formalinstitutionalisation and specific-initiative-oriented operational work charts the space in which bureaucrats can engage in negotiation and flexible acceptancewhile restricting the growth of Protestant organisations.

13Through a close look at the interaction between local state agents and a variety of Protestant churches with distinct institutional statuses in Wenzhou, this article, from the perspective of institutional work, attempts to navigate how local bureaucrats’ regulatory endeavours are applied to Protestant organisations to deal with ambiguity, tension, and inconsistency in the institutionalisation ofreligious regulations. To further existing academic discussions, this article attempts to illustrate three points: firstly, the daily regulatory attentions of local bureaucrats distributed among the diverse Protestant groups are independent of the groups’ institutional status. By discursively producing “religious problems,” local bureaucrats have persistently set up trials for Protestant organisations to prove their compliance. The “red lines”(hongxian紅線) in the management of Protestant organisations, in this sense, were historically constructed. Secondly, local bureaucrats had practical knowledge about the potential challenges posed by particular Protestant groups that did not coincide with religious regulations prescribed by the higher-level government. However, seemingly poor implementation of these regulations principally echoes the state’s ideological imaginary of religious problems. Finally, ambiguity in the religious regulations offered the local government discretionary room to manipulate the visibility of Protestant organisations to balancethe conflicting policy directive between constraint andassimilation.

Discursive work obscures the discontinuity of religious policy

14Religious policieshave changed a good deal in the four decadessince the post-socialist reforms,producing discontinuous religious imaginary and correspondent discourses that havesignificantly shaped the situation of Protestant Christianity in Wenzhou.From “China’s Jerusalem” to “Protestant fever” and “unlawful building,” discourses have justified the state’s tightened regulations on local churches while disguising the impact of these regulations.

19In one representative example, a RAB bureaucrat argued that Protestant preachers and pastors wereover-shepherding (la yang拉羊):

Wenzhou people are good at doing business, and predictably, [the city’s] preachers and pastors also do well in marketing their religious business. They go to spread the gospel everywhere, especially among migrant workers and innocent young students (…). They are overenthusiastic and go out of their way (chuge出格) (…). These preachers distinguish themselves from their colleagues in TSPM and are eager to shepherd more converts as their testimony. (Interview, 9 March 2009)

20Whereas in earlier periods bureaucrats downplayed the state’s role in promoting the resurfacing of Protestantism from the underground, today’s narratives of Protestant fever likewise deny the government’s participation in shaping the high profile of Protestantism in the local religious landscape. All that has changed is that they now describe the attributes of Protestant organisations that have led to growth in a negative light, exaggerating the agency and capacity of Protestant churches and the weakness of other religious or cultural organisations.

21Furthermore, in light of China’s ascendance as an emerging global power since the late 2000s,Christianity has been the subject of scrutiny.Its allegedly explicit connection with colonial history and Western theological underpinnings makes it suspicious and a threat to the new policy directive of sinicization, although officials are unable to articulate how this nationalist advocacy differs from the Three-Self principles previously in place.

24In this section, we have briefly reviewed the changes in religious policies in post-Mao Wenzhou. Local state agents exercised hegemony over Protestant churches that allowed them to initiate interpretations that concealed the discontinuity and inconsistency of religious policies and that constructed a rationale for problematising Protestant growth as “out of control.” The discursive construction of Protestant fever problematised the growth of Protestant churches and populations, and downplayed the role of the state and its discontinuous religious imaginary in shaping the local religious landscape. The legible organisation of Protestantism, which facilitated the state’s institutional regulations, is now interpreted as evidence of its potential threat. Protestants’ desire for conspicuous church buildings, which bureaucrats used to incentivise their registration in the TSPM system, came under criticism for producing unlawful construction. Ultimately, the categorising of political stances of Protestant groups into compliant versus dissident was dynamically produced along with the discursive construction of religious “problems.” As this section suggests, visibility was once a blessing for local Protestant organisations,but in the last decade it has become a curse.

Selective implementation responses to formal regulations

26According to the TSPM’s investigation, Aoyang County had 158 unregistered churches in 2009, and members of the community and local bureaucrats were well aware of their existence. The RAB bureaucrats had their own rationalefor identifying which among these were, in the words of local bureaucrats, “potentially problematic.” In the mid-2000s, Mr Wu, a RAB bureaucrat, told us that theRAB had attempted to crackdown on some unregistered congregations, and that international media had reported on this as an example of China persecuting Christians. The minister of foreign affairs had responded by sending officials to Wenzhou to investigate the event, and Mr Wu’s office was chastised for causing unnecessary social disputes. They therefore decided thatthey should develop sophisticated thinking before targeting unregistered churches.

27We asked Mr Wuhow theRAB determined which unregistered churches were politicallysensitive, but he did not answer directly.Rather, he gave usseveral typical profiles of Protestant adherents:for example, patients suffering from health problems, migrant workers converted by their bosses,andseniors and housewives going to churchto kill timeorfindsocial support. He said these typeswere present inboth registered and unregisteredProtestantchurches.This depiction reflected a typical official perspective and Communistunderstanding of religion, which is thatreligion has its undeniable existence in the lower level of socialism and is confined to vulnerable or marginal groups. Spreading the gospel to these social categories would thus be considered irrelevant to politics.

29RABand PSB bureaucrats have policed some unregistered churches, however. Our 2009 fieldwork identified three unregistered house churches orgathering spots ina single neighbourhood of a newly developed urban area in Aoyang County, of which one had received an administrative penalty (xingzheng chufa行政處罰) forhaving an unauthorised religious venue and was urged to stop its religious activities. This churchbelonged to a sect known as the New Urban Church.All of the sect’s churches areunregistered andrecruit their members amongyoung urbanites, especially among the well-educated urban middle-class. Pastor Ying had organised the church, which was baptising new adherents at a rate of about 30 people a year. Local bureaucrats saw this as significant growth and were particularly concerned because of the high percentage of young people in the church.

31In some sense, by enforcing institutional codes on less obedient churches, the local bureaucrats initiated a negotiation with the targeted churches. If the churches showed their willingness to adapt to the regulations, more or less, local bureaucrats conceived of them as being basically compliant. Moreover, applying regulations to the targeted churcheswould intensify the self-discipline of all the rest.

33In this section, we have described the selective implementation of religious regulation. While officials used the TSPM regulatory system against unregistered churches they considered a threat, targeting was based on local bureaucrats’ practical knowledge to conceptualise the political potentiality of local churches from diverse backgrounds. Selectively implementing regulations was a realistic choice for local bureaucrats in a resource-scarce environment whose capacity for management and monitoring was limited. It also allowed them to maintain compliance among Protestant churches without enforcing extensive and persistent regulations, since targeting some churcheswould intensify self-discipline among the rest. Local bureaucrats’ statements about why they singled out specific churches or religiousactivities indicated that their selection complied principally with the state’s ideological imaginary of religious problems, such as mission work to the young generations and rapid expansion.

Operation work with ambiguity in institutional regulations

34One workday in 2009, we visited the TSPM office and found a group of elders and clergy of unregistered house churches from all over the county. They were seeking an opportunity to apply for legal status. We asked them why they desired to be assimilated into the TSPM system after years of independence. Indeed, among them was a pastor we had known in 2003 and who had told us that his church had deliberately resisted TSPM registration to avoid frequent interference from the local government. Six years later, he explained to us that his church had become aware of the need to cooperate with the TSPM and receive institutional status to maintain their religious space in their village. He said:

Our church, although without legal registration, is known and tolerated by the government (...). Due to village renewal, the cadre of our village committee told us that the land we had rented [as a gathering spot] would be taken back to build a residential compound for the villagers (...). We paid money to the village committee in exchange for the land several years ago (...). However, our operations are not that formal and we have no land certificate (...). No one had predicted that the situation would go this way (...). Our fellow villagers who practise idol worship pointed out that we were illegal (...). So, brothers and sisters in our church asked me to go to the TSPM to apply for registration. We could become formal by receiving legal status, and in this way, [retain control of the land we have been using]. (Interview, 20 July 2009)

35There had been a shift wherein the church once saw TSPM registration as a potential source of government interference, but now saw it as a means of obtaining protection from interference at the village level.

36We do not know what the outcome of the appeal for registration was at the time, but the churches were facing an obstacle in that the central state restricts the total quota of registered religious organisations in order to curb the growth of religion. Anthropologist Mayfair Yang (2004: 744) learned during her fieldwork in Wenzhou in the 1990s that registration would not be available to new applicants after 1994. The local RAB and TSPM in Wenzhou told us the same thing.

37How toaccept and manage previously unregistered Protestant groups while sticking to the controlled quota for registered churches creates a dilemma for local religious regulators. As the head of the local RAB, Mr Zhao, told us in 2009:

To do religious regulation work, we should abide by both the laws [which refer to freedom of religious belief] and the policies [which call for restraining the growth of religion]. But we are confused at times: some regulatory issues would be acceptable in legal terms but not in terms of policies. Which rules should we follow? (Interview, 20 December 2009)

39This dilemma was manifest in local bureaucrats’ approach to independent church groups that were seeking TSPM registration. Generally, adherents of these unregistered churches would not join large Three-Self churches, and the churches sought institutional status without completely sacrificing their independence. RAB bureaucrats offered applicants the option of applying for institutional status as a “church” or to apply for the more flexible identification as a “gathering spot.” Protestant organisations applying for the “church” registration with the intention of constructing legally accepted church buildings need the approval of both the Provincial Department of Land and of the Provincial Department of Housing and Urban-rural Development for their use of land for church construction. Further, prefecture-level governments approve “gathering spots” while the provincial government approves “churches,” and aRAB bureaucrat told us that the prefecture-level government was far more inclined to approve applications. In terms of the new regulative Measure for the “Approval for and Administration of Temporary Places for Religious Activities” (“zongjiao linshi huodong didian shenpi guanli banfa” de tongzhi“宗教臨時活動地點審批管理辦法”的通知) in 2018, Protestant groups without formal status can apply to the local RAB for status as a “temporary religious congregation site.” The “gathering spot” designation had become so accepted that the local government not only encouraged new applicants to apply for the status of “gathering spots,” but also changed the status of previously sanctioned “churches” to “gathering spots.”

40Clergy opposed local bureaucrats’ amplification of the “gathering spot” designation vociferously, and they appealed to TSPM to argue against what they saw as a degradation of their organisations. Local RAB bureaucrats were dismissive, pointing out that the only privileges afforded to churches over gathering spots are such that small Protestant organisations would not want to take advantage of them in any case, such as holding large-scale religious activities and publishing brochures for members. The officials also argued that the “gathering spot” designation would entail less assessment and monitoring from higher-level government. However, clergy saw the designation as a warning sign that they would not be allowed to grow significantly and that they would get shut down if they tried, so in their view, their churches were in a precarious spot.

41To some extent, central government actors rely on the official number of registered churches and symbolism such as rooftop crosses toperceive whether Protestant Christianity is growing excessively and thus whether bureaucrats are fulfilling their obligation to prevent such excess. Without violating the Constitution of 1982, which promises to protect individuals’ freedom of religious belief, the state cannot directly baradults from becoming Christians, except forCommunist Party members or some professionals such as school teachers. As for local RAB bureaucrats, they demonstrate to the central government that they are controlling Protestant “over-expansion” by reporting stable or even decreased numbers of churches. Manipulating the “church” designation would make the growth of Protestant organisations “invisible.” In some sense, this can be understood as a symbolic operation in the seemingly rational regulatory system.

42Nonetheless, the RAB bureaucrats continue to employ measures to exert control over Protestant Christianity. To discourage the expansion of Protestant churches, the local RAB bureaucrats declare that a “reasonable allocation” of churches have been confirmed, and that on principle they will not approve applications by local Christians for church construction permits, although what is meant by “reasonable” remains unclarified. At the same time, they have not ruled out the possibility of building officially approved religious venues, which incentivises Protestant groups’ affiliation with the TSPM. After two years of lobbying the higher government, the TSPM declared that they had finally managed to obtain a new quota for religious venues in Aoyang’s new urban area approved in the late 2000s. TSPM clergy and local RAB bureaucrats presented this in a positive light. Churches thus exist with the understanding that opportunities may arise in the future, and that any conduct that displeases regulators may be punished with the denial of opportunities that nevertheless may never come.

43Some house church leaders have considered never applying for institutional status. A clergyman of an unregistered church told a TSPM pastor in our hearing that he did not think there was any need for TSPM registration, and further that he thought rising land values would prevent his church from ever being granted land for building. His church was renting a workshop in a factory owned by a Boss Christian.

44The TSPM pastor urged the clergyman to think about the future:

For now, things will be fine as long as you can handle the relationship with local cadres and others in the neighbourhood. But in the long run, you’d better apply for registration (…). One sure bet for the future is that registration will become more difficult and complicated. It’s been a general tendency – not only in religious regulations but also in other aspects of social life. The procedure will become more standardised and formal, and the government will not make any concessions. (Data collected on 18 January 2010)

46Echoing the central government’s ambiguous and self-contradictory policy directives, local bureaucratsare expected torestrict the growth of Protestant organisations on the one hand, while on the other hand they set out to persuade more house churches to becomeaffiliated, formally or informally,with the TSPM, which would improve their capacity for monitoring. Thus, the daily administrative practices of local regulators (including local bureaucrats of the RABand TSPM) would warrant balancing the conflicting intentions between constraint andassimilation.In order to meet the higher-level government’s expectations of curbing Protestant growth, local bureaucrats manipulate the number of “churches” they report to the higher-level government, which is also a symbolic operation in the seemingly rational regulatory system. While RAB bureaucrats laid out the advantages of institutional status and proposed the status of “gathering spot” or “temporary religious congregation site” as flexible and advantageous, Protestant groups rightly felt this did little to clarify ambiguities in the regulatory system or eliminate the risk they faced of exposure to future campaign governance.

Conclusion

47Although scholars have explored the regulatory governance of Christianity as a local game, little attention has been paid to the ambiguity, tension, and inconsistency of the religious policies imposed by the central government and its challenges to the regulatory practices of local bureaucrats. This article has attempted to fill this void and show how localbureaucrats have provided contextual solutions torepair the policy problems institutedby the central government.With insight intoinstitutional work(e.g.,discursive work, selective implementation, and operational work), we draw four major conclusions.

48Firstly, discursive work illustrates how local bureaucrats exercise hegemonic power in the regulation of Protestant churches. They have used this power to initiate interpretations of religious policiesin order to conceal their discontinuity and inconsistency and also to construct a rationale for problematising Protestant growth “beyond control” from the perspective of higher-level government. By discursively producing “religious problems” and “red lines,” local bureaucrats have persistently set up trials for Protestant groups to prove compliance. In some sense, a seemingly sophisticatedinstitutionalisation of religious regulations, though poorly implemented today, could be mobilised for future governance of “uncontrolled” expansion.

49Secondly, selective implementation is the realistic choice of local bureaucrats based on their resource-scarce environment. By their practical knowledge of how to conceptualise the political potentiality, local bureaucrats’ statements about why they single out specific churches ormisconduct indicate that their selection complies principally with the state’s ideological imaginary of “religious problems.” The Protestant organisations that the local bureaucrats target for selective implementation intensify the self-discipline of Protestant groups in general.

50Thirdly, through operational work, local bureaucrats havebalanced the central government's conflicting intentions of constraint and assimilation. They have enjoyed discretionary room tomanipulate the number of institutionally categorised “churches” reported to the higher-level government, while at the same timeconvincingindependent churches ofthe certainty and security provided by institutional status and encouraging them to flexiblyadapt to the system.

AIKMAN, David. 2003.Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power. Washington: Regnery Publishing.

BAYS, Daniel H. 2003. “Chinese Protestant Christianity Today.”China Quarterly 174: 488-504.

CAO, Nanlai. 2007. “Christian Entrepreneurs and the Post-Mao State: An Ethnographic Account of Church-state Relations in China’s Economic Transition.”Sociology of Religion 68(1): 45-66.

———. 2017. “Spatial Modernity, Party Building, and Local Governance: Putting the Christian Cross-removal Campaign in Context.”China Review17(1): 29-52.

CHANG, Kuei-Min. 2018. “New Wine in Old Bottles: Sinicization and State Regulation of Religion in China.”China Perspectives 113: 37-44.

CHEN, Cunfu, and Tianhai HUANG. 2004. “The Emergence of a New Type of Christians in China Today.”Review of Religious Research 46(2): 183-200.

CHOW, Christie Chui-Shan. 2021.Schism: Seventh-day Adventism in Post-denominational China. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

CLOUTIER, Charlotte, Jean-Louis DENIS, Ann LANGLEY, and Lisa LAMOTHE. 2016. “Agency at the Managerial Interface: Public Sector Reform as Institutional Work.”Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory26(2): 259-76.

GOOSSAERT, Vincent, and David A. PALMER. 2011.The Religious Question in Modern China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

KOESEL, Karrie J. 2014.Religion and Authoritarianism: Cooperation, Conflict, and the Consequences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

LAI, Hongyi H. 2006. “Religious Policies in Post-totalitarian China: Maintaining Political Monopoly over a Reviving Society.”Journal of Chinese Political Science 11(1): 55-77.

LAWRENCE, Thomas B., Roy SUDDABY, and Bernard LECA. 2009.Institutional Work: Actors and Agency in Institutional Studies of Organizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

LEUNG, Beatrice. 2005. “China’s Religious Freedom Policy: The Art of Managing Religious Activity.”China Quarterly 184: 894-913.

LIU, Jifeng, and Chris WHITE. 2018. “Old Pastor and Local Bureaucrats: Recasting Church-state Relations in Contemporary China.”Modern China 45(5): 1-27.

MASOOD, Ayesha, and Muhammad Azfar NISAR. 2022. “Repairing the State: Policy Repair in the Frontline Bureaucracy.”Public Administration Review 82(2): 256-68.

McLEISTER, Mark. 2013. “A Three-self Protestant Church, the Local State and Religious Policy Implementation in a Coastal Chinese City.”In Francis Khek Gee LIM (ed.),Christianity in Contemporary China: Socio-cultural Perspectives. London: Routledge. 234-46.

PALMER, David A. 2009. “China’s ReligiousDanwei: Institutionalising Religion in the People’s Republic.”China Perspectives 80: 17-30.

POTTER, Pitman B. 2003. “Belief in Control: Regulation of Religion in China.”China Quarterly 174: 317-37.

RENY, Marie-Eve. 2018.Authoritarian Containment: Public Security Bureaus and Protestant House Church in Urban China. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

SCOTT, James C. 1998.Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.

STARK, Rodney, and Xiuhua WANG. 2015.A Star in the East: The Rise of Christianity in China. West Conshohocken: Templeton Press.

SUN, Yanfei. 2017. “The Rise of Protestantism in Post-Mao China: State and Religion in Historical Perspective.”American Journal of Sociology 122(6):1664-725.

VALA, Carsten T. 2013. “Protestant Reactions to the Nationalism Agenda in Contemporary China.”InFrancis Khek Gee LIM (ed.),Christianity in ContemporaryChina: Socio-cultural Perspectives. London: Routledge. 59-77.

———. 2017.The Politics of Protestant Churches and the Party-state in China: God above Party? London: Routledge.

WANG, Xiaoxuan. 2020.Maoism and Grassroots Religion: The Communist Revolution and the Reinvention of Religious Life in China. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

XIAO, Yunze肖雲澤. 2017. “信仰方式與土地規則:以A省土地專項整治行動中的基督教為例” (Xinyang fangshi yu tudi guize: YiAsheng tudi zhuanxiang zhengzhi xingdong zhong de jidujiao weili, Belief Patterns and Land Rules: A Case Study of Christianity Based on Land-control Act in Province A).Logos & Pneuma: Chinese Journal of Theology (道風: 基督教文化評論) 46: 375-410.

YANG, Mayfair. 2004. “Spatial Struggles: Postcolonial Complex, State Disenchantment, and Popular Expropriation of Space in Rural Southeast China.”Journal of Asian Studies 63: 719-55.

YING, Fuk Tsang邢福增. 2016a. “創新宗教管理, 還是強化宗教控制? 評‘宗教事務條例修訂草案(送審稿)’” (Chuangxin zongjiao guanli, haishi qianghua zongjiao kongzhi? Ping “zongjiao shiwu tiaoli xiuding cao’an (song shengao),” Innovation of religious regulation, or intensified religious control? An appraisal of the “draft revision of Regulations on Religious Affairs (draft included)”).Zongjiao yu fazhi (宗教與法制) 10: 13-27.

———. 2016b. “拆十字架的政治:浙江省‘三改一拆’連動的宗教-政治分析” (Chai shizijia de zhengzhi: Zhejiang sheng “sangai yichai” liandong de zongjiao-zhengzhi fenxi, The Politics of Cross Demolition: A Religio-political Analysis of the “Three Transformations and One Demolition” Campaign in Zhejiang Province).Logos & Pneuma: Chinese Journal of Theology (道風:基督教文化評論) 44: 25-61.

ZIMMERMAN-LIU, Teresa, and Teresa WRIGHT. 2013. “Making Sense of China’s State-society Relations: Unregistered Protestant Churches in the Reform Era.”InFrancis Khek Gee LIM (ed.),Christianity in Contemporary China: Socio-cultural Perspectives. London: Routledge. 220-33.

• Share
  • Facebook
  • Twitter