ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a structural analysis of the relationship between the state, religious communities and other social institutions in contemporary China. The central objective is to explain the current religious revival within China despite the state’s strict restrictions, growing religious dynamics and the demand for more autonomy. It attempts to integrate Confucian ideas of the state and association (including religious communities) with a Christian social theory of the state and social institutions in order to work out a proper philosophical and theological interpretation on the structural problem of religious freedom, focusing on the role of the state in particular, with respect to traditional Chinese cultural and religious resources, political order, and the current religious situation. In this way, it hopes to strengthen religious practice in its public dimension, and to transform traditional subordination of religion to political dominance by promoting religious vitality in public life and religious interactions with the state, so as to foster greater religious freedom in China.
