On April 20, a grand ceremony was held at the Tianhou Square of the Meizhou Mazu Ancestral Temple in Putian, Fujian Province, to commemorate the 1,065th anniversary of sea goddess Mazu’s birth and to conduct the Spring Worship Ceremony in her honor. Photo: IC PHOTO

---

From its inception, the theoretical construction of religious studies as a discipline has been premised on the coexistence of a plurality of belief systems and cross-cultural contexts. The field attempts to derive a universal framework for understanding belief systems, including their internal mechanisms and external functions, through the comparative study of diverse religious phenomena. However, such comparisons have often taken for granted a latent starting point—the characteristics of faith as shaped by Western religious traditions. In this sense, these features have served as a theoretical archetype for interpretative models in religious studies.

Building upon this foundational orientation, religious studies has in practice followed a set of principles when approaching belief systems in non-Western societies. These include the identification, scrutiny, and evaluation of religious phenomena: using certain pre-established criteria to distinguish “faith” from “magic” or “superstition,” examining how various cultural traditions engage with supernatural forces or deities to assess their “religiosity,” and ultimately judging these belief systems based on normative frameworks. Consequently, the theoretical edifice of modern religious studies remains marked by Western presuppositions and methodological biases, which often contradict the discipline’s own ideal of pluralistic coexistence and value-neutral comparison.

A genuinely comparative study of religion should uphold the principle of epistemological fairness, that is, ensuring that diverse belief forms are interpreted and understood without being subjected to a singular evaluative standard. It should also resist the tendency toward universal judgment rooted in particular traditions.

This theoretical predicament compels us to reconsider the implications of the Sinicization of religion. From the perspective of theoretical reconstruction, this project entails a dual trajectory. On one hand, it foregrounds the temporal, localized, and context-sensitive manifestations of belief, emphasizing the ways in which religious life is indigenized and historically situated. On the other hand, it calls for a renewal of theoretical paradigms—one that grounds theory-building in close observation and nuanced description of contemporary faith-customs (xinsu) and socio-cultural realities in China. Only in this way can we develop a theoretical space for religious studies rooted in Chinese religious phenomena, while simultaneously contributing to global disciplinary discourse.

Faith-customs as foundation of communal life

Western missionaries were among the earliest “observers” of religious life and practical expressions of faith in China. Judging what they encountered by their own theological frameworks, they often concluded that the Chinese people lacked “true” faith. In their conceptualization, “faith” had a specific and doctrinally defined meaning, one that bore little resemblance to the ritual practices and devotional customs prevalent among the populace in southern China—particularly in the coastal provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong. Yet one undeniable fact is that Chinese communities have long maintained continuous interaction with transcendent forces and sacred powers through temple networks and ritual activities. These practices function as mechanisms of social integration, helping individuals understand ethical norms and social order, while also providing concrete religious techniques for addressing both personal and collective crises.

Such faith-customs are inseparable from daily life. Their highly functional and technical nature within everyday contexts may render their sense of transcendence and sacrality seemingly “thin.” Moreover, the coexistence and integration of diverse religious elements within specific rituals can appear to dilute the exclusivity and “elevation” of belief. Moreover, the deeply customary—often even “instrumental”—character of these ritual and festive activities may seem to undermine their perceived sacredness. However, this perception itself rests on a preconceived binary between belief and custom, as well as a conceptual divide between the sacred and the secular.

In primary level societies across Fujian and Guangdong, faith functions in two interrelated ways. Temples and rituals, first, serve to bind people from various places into a shared lifeworld or community of everyday practice. At the same time, through the ongoing enactment of rituals, the divine reveals the principles of heaven and earth to the people, thereby enabling them to internalize cosmic order and ethical norms in the course of daily life. 

Popular religious customs in these regions are grounded in a temple-based system, structured through pantheons of deities and expressed through ritual performances. These ritual events are not understood by participants as “tests” of divine power, but rather as essential means of maintaining social order and addressing crises, making them integral components of daily life. The active presence of highly functional deities in everyday affairs narrows the perceived distance between the sacred and the ordinary. 

Thus, rather than signaling the erosion of belief, the incorporation of faith-customs into the fabric of daily life reflects the community’s deep recognition and acceptance of the cosmological vision they embody. In this sense, faith-customs represent an effective mode by which foundational religious concepts shape both the structure of daily life and the patterns of social behavior. They should not be viewed as evidence for the absence of “true faith” among the Chinese people, but as a meaningful expression of religious life in its own right.

Self-Cultivation in everyday life

For members of primary level communities in the Fujian and Guangdong regions, periodic and highly customary ritual practices—centered on ancestral halls, local temples, festivals, and deities—are woven seamlessly into the rhythms of daily life. Reverence for deities and enthusiastic participation in rituals and festivities arise not from a strict sense of conversion or confessional belief, but as natural expressions of everyday religiosity. Within their lived world, different deities serve distinct functional roles, each responsible for particular aspects of life. Their cooperative presence ensures social order and maintains harmony between humans and the natural world. The doctrinal lineage of these deities, or the diverse traditions from which they originate, holds little importance to local practitioners. What truly matters is the deity’s function within the life-world and the appropriate ritual forms of engagement—this is the knowledge that truly counts. 

At the same time, knowledge about deities, ritual forms, and the associated norms and taboos is acquired through the embodied repetition of stable ritual rhythms and customary practices. This knowledge is pre-reflective and non-systematic. Unique local faith-customs, such as regular ancestral worship, deity festivals, offering rituals, and temple repairs, are experienced not as separate from daily life, but as integral to it. These practices are deeply internalized and serve as key components of both kinship and regional identity. Through these ritual activities, community members gain a sense of order and an understanding of life. The constant presence of deities in everyday life underwrites the foundational rules and normative behaviors of social life.

Public engagement with ritual and customary practices is holistic. Such events not only reflect the relationship between the divine and the everyday, and the forms of human-divine interaction, but also reveal, often in subtle and tacit ways, the mechanisms by which social resources are mobilized and local power structures maintained. In this sense, every participant in faith-customs, every insider to local ritual life, acquires a tacit, embodied consensus regarding social order and behavioral norms. It is through sustained engagement in these practices that self-cultivation occurs, which is indeed a gradual, implicit process of internal transformation achieved within the lived context of the communal lifeworld.

In traditional China, particularly in the south, this form of ethical transmission and intergenerational cohesion was not achieved primarily through extensive reading or textual comprehension of Confucian classics. Rather, it was realized through concrete, repeated actions embedded in local ritual life. Faith-customs, deeply embedded in everyday experience, thus served as a vital mechanism for ethical formation, social regulation, and the maintenance of communal identity.

Theoretical implications of ‘localization’

It is evident that a superficial observation of local faith-customs in the Fujian and Guangdong regions is insufficient to fully explain the complex interactions between local social life and religious belief, much less represent the distinctly Chinese characteristics of faith. Yet even beginning from a modest focal point allows us to glimpse the broader picture. For theoretical researchers, the complexity of local lives opens vast theoretical space and possibilities upon close examination.

From a theoretical perspective, the Sinicization of religion must first clarify the logical relationship between theory and experience. Experience does not simply conform to pre-existing theoretical models; rather, theoretical vitality emerges from increasingly diverse and richly detailed empirical observations. Therefore, we should move beyond the conventional three-step model of identification, scrutiny, and evaluation, and return to close observation, description, and understanding of local religions, thus immersing ourselves in the lived, everyday world and the ongoing dynamics of faith customs.

Religious practice does not merely impose structure upon the lifeworld; it also generates intrinsic impetus and mechanisms for community cohesion and intergenerational continuity. Faith enters popular cognition not primarily through doctrinal indoctrination or affirmation of exclusive truths, but through diverse expressions of a shared foundational order. On this basis, the “human-divine interactions” that unfold in daily life are not attempts to coerce the divine, but are rather ongoing, limited negotiations grounded in a fundamental understanding of order, aiming to maintain the stability of life and ethical norms.

From this perspective, approaching the vernacular and engaging closely with lived human experiences constitutes the theoretical meaning and core imperative of “localization.” From the standpoint of religious studies theory, deep ethnographic engagement with local faith-customs is not only urgently needed for rediscovering indigenous religiosity but is also essential for critically reassessing existing religious theories and establishing the legitimate foundation for a Chinese religious studies theory.

Cheng Lesong is a professor from the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Peking University.

Edited by YANG XUE