(De)Globalization, the global imaginary, and religious narratives: a theoretical framework and the East Asia litmus test / Beilei Bai

Religions 16 (2025)

Local access dig.pdf[Bai-Globalization.pdf]

Abstract: Faced with the twin challenges of globalization and de‑globalization, do reli‑ gions exercise agency in these trends? In other words, do they give shape to them, or are they rather shaped by them? If the influence is reciprocal, how should the process be‑ hind this be described? This article sets itself two tasks. Firstly, it endeavors to develop a theoretical framework by which to conceptualize the question just posed. Secondly, it applies this framework to the case of China and, more cursorily, to the East Asian context in general. I start my analysis by approaching “globalization” as a shared vision of the world, referred to, in this article, as the “global imaginary”. The recent erosion of the lat‑ ter has led to “deglobalization”, a set of narratives that remain correlated to the globalist storyline they confront. Central to the topic is that fact that the crisis experienced by the global imaginary affects the interplay between its secular and religious dimensions. The secular imaginary had fostered a homogenous narrative that has caused both ontological and epistemological crises. The resurgence of religious discourse within the narratives of deglobalization is to be understood as part and parcel of competing interpretations of the global modernization process, since the latter obeys both secular and religious forces. Fo‑ cusing in the second part of this article on trends and representations proper to China in its regional context enables us to better assess how the globalization and deglobalization narratives intermingle in religious and secular dimensions in a way that reshapes each of them

Publisher description:
本書主要從全球地域化的角度，探討了中國當代基督教發展的新特點，新趨勢。書中對上海、泰安、天水、溫州四地的基督教堂的歷史演變和現今狀況做了深入細緻的田野調查，依據大量數據和案例試圖說明基督教做為一種普世宗教，只有與當地文化相協調、相變化、相改造，變成為一種有當地文化特色的宗教，才可能落地生根並獲得發展.

Contents: 序. 緒論全球地域化的宗教互動模式 -- 中國社會“地方基督教”的比較研究
第一章普世基督教與中國“地方基督教”的關係建構
第二章全球地域化視野中的四地基督教歷史
第三章對四地基督徒的分析
第四章制度變遷與認同模式轉換：全球地域化視角下的上海北堂
第五章泰安市青年路基督教會
第六章生存合法性、信仰合法性與中國地方基督教的生成——天水市北道教會個案
第七章基督教地方化的溫州模式——“義工傳道”與教會制度的演變
結語全球地域化與中國城市基督教
跋學科聯動，團隊精誠：跨學科研究與寫作
參考文獻.