Conversion to Protestant Christianity in China and the 'supply-side model

Explaining changes in the Chinese religious field

Bibliographic Data

ID4879906
AuthorsThomas Klein (0000-0002-5762-9323, Loughborough University, corresponding author), Thoralf Klein
Year2011
Volume41
Issue4
Pages595-625
Publication date2011-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligion (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0048-721X • E-ISSN: 1096-1151
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0048721x.2011.624694
OpenAlexW2088543758
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited86

In this article, I put the ‘supply-side model’ advocated by religious economists to an empirical test. The ‘supply-side’ model in some measure already constitutes a move ‘beyond the market’, as it seeks to expand and enlarge the economic interpretation of religion by linking it to a concept of networks and social tensions and integrating the concept of religious and cultural capital. In applying the model to the (dynamics of the) historical growth of Protestantism in 19th and early 20th-century China, I examine three distinct aspects of the conversion process: the supply-side (missionaries), the demand niches (Chinese converts), and the question of ‘strict’ churches. Arguing that the religious background of Protestant converts – their rootedness in Chinese popular religion – determined this process throughout, I seek to develop an understanding of religious competition, supply and demand that takes cultural interpretive frameworks into account

China · Christianity · Competition (biology) · Demand side · Economics · Field (mathematics) · Interpretation (philosophy) · Market economy · Microeconomics · Political science · Positive economics · Protestantism · Sociology · Supply and demand · Supply side · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Society, and Development · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology · Religious studies

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