Resistance, Accommodation, and Indigenization: Religion and Political Transformation in Modern China

Transformation of religious practice in twentieth-century China encompassed destruction of local traditions, confrontation with Christianity and imperialism, and reconstruction of "religion" in the context of state-building. Four recent books engage alternative themes—resistance and suffering or flexibility and adaptation—that characterized this deconstruction and reinvention. Indigenization of Christianity involved violence and struggle, while other Chinese religions tacitly conformed to the new norms of the modern state.