Christian scholars such as Wu Lei-chuan (1870–1944), Xu Bao-qian (1892–
1944), Liu Ting-fang (1892–1947), Xie Fu-ya (1892–1991), Zhao Zi-Cheng
(1888–1979), Wei Zuo-min (1888–1976), and Wang Zhi-xin (1881–1953) did
much work in the comparative study of Confucianism and Christianity.
Many missionary societies published numerous books, newspapers and journals
in promotion of the religious studies and also trained some scholars in the
field.
In short, from the turn of the century until the Communists took over China
in 1949, religious studies in China followed a pattern quite similar to its
Western counterparts, producing many talented scholars and important works
in a difficult situation of revolutions and wars.
Disappearance. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in
1949, all academic activities, like all other cultural and social activities, were
subordinated to Marxism-Leninism and Maoism, and all academic institu-
tions were transformed into enterprises of the Communist Party of China
(CPC). Every branch of literature, art and culture, every branch of the
humanities, social sciences, and academia was admonished to ‘have partisan-
ship’. Religious studies, too, was transformed into an instrument of the Party’s
policy.
During the 1950s and 1960s the CPC brought into the ‘United Front’
religious people who advocated on the one hand the Party’s leadership, and
on the other pushed atheist propaganda and confined religious activity and
expression within religious sites or churches.
Through a series of successive ‘political campaigns’ instituted from above,
the ideological criticism of all non-Marxist-Leninist ideas eventually developed
into the institutional abolition of all teaching and research in many disciplines
which were dismissed as ‘bourgeois pseudo-sciences’, such as sociology and
demography. These campaigns degraded the material and social situations of
scholarly institutions along with the conditions of everyday life for scholars
and support staff, and it became extremely difficult, in some cases impossible,
to pursue research in private.
Such a policy led to the disappearance of any serious study of religion by
academics and of any courses in religious studies from universities. At that
time, articles and publications in the field were very few and filled with severe
attacks and jeering comments on all religions, dismissing them as superstitious
and counter-revolutionary. Apart from a very few exceptions, such as several
Buddhist scholars who were to contribute to a Buddhist encyclopedia edited
in Sri Lanka, religious studies no longer existed in China.
In 1963 Chairman Mao Zedong summoned Prof. Ren Ji-yu and praised his
articles as a Marxist study of Buddhism. In the interview with Ren, Mao said
that one cannot write well on the histories of philosophy, literature, and the
world without a ‘criticism of theology’. Owing to these words, the first
institution for the study of religion was set up in 1964, the Institute of World162
HE GUANGHU, CHUNG CHIN-HONG, AND LEE CHANG-YICK