The 2012 Fall-Winter issue of Chinese Law and Religion Monitor contains five papers exploring the subjects of religion and law, citizenship rights, and church-state relations in China. These papers are about China's religious regulations and management of religion, Christianity's advancement of constitutional government and civil society, the influences of marginalized Mormonism on American politics, church-state relations in the Chinese tradition vis-a-vis Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism, the early British constitutional government-citizenship society, church-state relations, and classical theories of religious tolerance. Also included in this issue are official documents related to churches and Christians that were persecuted by the government.

To sum up, the central topic of the four papers is religion, in particular Christianity, and the significance of religious freedom for constitutionalism and social civilization. It is inevitable that the development of Christianity in China, including government-sanctioned churches but in particular the increasingly mature house churches, will exert a broad influence on people's awareness of faith, produce socially progressive ideologies, and as a result, advance China's political ecosystem, civil society, and the rule of law, and promote China's overall social civilization.As some scholars have pointed out, the corruption of human society and the decline of powerful nations, if not caused by interference from outside forces, always begins with ethical and moral corruption within a society. Christianity created a glorious civilization in the West, but today, the Christian-influenced ethical system is facing unprecedented challenges from political pride and democratic bias and is rapidly declining in Europe and the United States. “Desolations have been decreed.”On the other hand, Chinese society is at the point of going through a [process of] fission and re-composition of its civilization; Christianity is sprouting like buds in the spring and roaring like the surging tides. Who can stop such a robust advance of civilization? Not only that, to our great amazement, the ethics of the Orthodox Church is already being resurrected in Russian society on the platform of the church, and this once-glorious civilization is on the verge of shining again. Thus is the curtain slowly rising to reveal a new era in the history of human civilization.

The Chinese Law & Religion Monitor is a biannual publication containing policy documents and academic works involving law, religion, and politics in China, with English translation.

The Battle for China’s Spirit is the first comprehensive analysis of its kind, focusing on seven major religious groups in China that together account for over 350 million believers: Chinese Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Tibetan Buddhism, and Falun Gong. The study examines the evolution of the Communist Party’s policies of religious control, how they are applied differently to diverse faith communities, and how citizens are responding to these policies. The study—which draws on hundreds of official documents and interviews with religious leaders, lay believers, and scholars—finds that Chinese government controls over religion have intensified since November 2012, seeping into new areas of daily life. Yet millions of religious believers defy official restrictions or engage in some form of direct protest, at times scoring significant victories. The report explores how these dynamics affect China’s overall social, political, and economic environment, while offering recommendations to both the Chinese government and international actors for how to increase the space for peaceful religious practice in a country where spirituality has been deeply embedded in its culture for millennia.

This book argues that as new political and social values are formed in post-socialist China, Christian values are becoming increasingly embedded in the new post-socialist Chinese outlook. It shows how although Christianity is viewed in China as a foreign religion, promoted by Christian missionaries and as such at odds with the official position of the state, Christianity as a source of social and political values - rather than a faith requiring adherence to a church is in fact having a huge impact. The book shows how these values inform both official and dissident ideology and provide a key underpinning of morality and ethics in the post-socialist moral landscape. Adopting a variety of different angles, the book investigates the role Christian thought plays in the official discourse on morality and love and what contribution Chinese Christians make to charitable projects. It analyses key Christian publications and dedicates two chapters to Christian intellectuals and their impact on political liberal thinking in China. The concluding chapter highlights gender roles, the role of the Chinese diaspora, and the overlap of the government and Christian agenda in China today. The book challenges commonly held views on contemporary Chinese Christianity as a movement in opposition to the state by showing the diversity and complexity of Christian thinking and the many factors influencing it.

V. Arrests and Trials

The Oxford Handbook of Calvin and Calvinism offers a comprehensive assessment of John Calvin and the tradition of Calvinism as it evolved from the sixteenth century to today. Featuring contributions from scholars who present the latest research on a pluriform religious movement that became a global faith. The volume focuses on key aspects of Calvin's thought and its diverse reception in Europe, the transatlantic world, Africa, South America, and Asia. Calvin's theology was from the beginning open to a wide range of interpretations and was never a static body of ideas and practices. Over the course of his life his thought evolved and deepened while retaining unresolved tensions and questions that created a legacy that was constantly evolving in different cultural contexts. Calvinism itself is an elusive term, bringing together Christian communities that claim a shared heritage but often possess radically distinct characters. The Handbook reveals fascinating patterns of continuity and change to demonstrate how the movement claimed the name of the Genevan reformer but was moulded by an extraordinary range of religious, intellectual and historical influences, from the Enlightenment and Darwinism to indigenous African beliefs and postmodernism. In its global contexts, Calvinism has been continuously reimagined and reinterpreted. This collection throws new light on the highly dynamic and fluid nature of a deeply influential form of Christianity.