The Social Scientific Study of Religion in China

Summer Institutes 2004

The first Summer Institute for the Social Scientific Study of Religion was held on July 12-25, 2004 at Renmin University of China, Beijing.  More than 70 faculty members and graduate students from over 20 provinces participated in it, and 61 people received certificates for fully participating in all the lectures and completing fieldwork practices

The major lecturers were two internationally renowned scholars:  Professor Eileen Barker of the London School of Economics, an authority of new religious movements, lectured in the first week. Professor Dean Hoge of The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, an expert on mainline Protestant denominations and the Catholic Church, lectured in the second week. Their lectures focused on sociological research principles, methods and theories in the study of religion, and used their own studies to illustrate the process of planning and carrying out research projects. The reading materials were printed, bound, and distributed at the beginning of the Summer Institute.  Each of the lectures had consecutive Chinese interpretation and lasted about 3.5 hours

In addition, Professor Joseph Tamney of Ball State University, the President of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, gave the opening lecture on “modernization and religious change in Chinese and Western societies.”  Professor Patricia Wittberg of the Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, editor of the Review of Religious Research, introduced major journals in the social scientific study of religion in the West.  Professor Peter Ng of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and five leading Chinese scholars each gave a two-hour talk.  The Chinese scholars were Dr. Zhuo Xinping, Director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute for the Study of World Religions (CASS ISWR), Professor Gao Shining of CASS ISWR, Professor Gong Zhebing of Wuhan University, and Professors He Guanghu and Fang Litian of Renmin University.  Professor Fenggang Yang also gave two lectures.

In conjunction with the Summer Institute, the first International Symposium of Chinese Sociology of Religion was held immediately before the Summer Institute on July 10-11, 2004.