And some other scholars argue that the status of Confucian learning in the Chinese culture is superior and once Confucian learning becomes a religion, it will lose its superiority. These scholars may be still immersed in the past glory of Confucian culture, or may still hope to bring back such a glory, simply shunning away from the fact that Confucian culture in the modern world is withering away. Ignoring the declining status of Confucian culture in the contemporary world and still dreaming that it would surpass other cultures sound like a pipe dream. Such a dream lacks the sense of reality and cuts off the ties between Confucian culture and real life. Some people support Confucianism and some others oppose it; though their views are opposite, their starting points are based on one common mistake. They both regard Confucianism as a “bizarre” religion and portrayed it as some low-grade superstition. Some supporters of Confucianism put special emphasis on the concept of “Heaven” ( 天) in Confucianism, just as the early Christian missionaries in China compared the concept “God” ( 神) to the concept “Heaven” in Confucianism, the Chinese scholars compare the Confucian “Heaven” to the Christian “God” in order to assert Confucianism as a legitimate religion. Some other supporters correctly realize that “Heaven” in Confucianism has been apotheosized, and therefore they shift their attention to the primitive religion of the Shang and Zhou Dynasty to find the religious characteristic of Confucianism. They believe that this is the only way to find the academic foundation for Confucianism as a religion. And those who oppose Confucianism, for the same reason, think that Confucianism is a religion that reduces the humanities to a disreputable level and damages the rationalism and humanism in Confucian culture. So in order to defend Confucian learning, they vehemently oppose Confucianism. The common mistake of those supporters and opponents originates from the fact that they mechanically copy the theories of religion from Western academia, they perceive and define religion according to the religious experience of Western scholars. As a result, they insist on drawing a boundary line between religion and the humanities. However, “Heaven” in Confucianism is not equal to the Christian “God”, and the sage ( 圣人) in Confucianism is not divine and does not have any supernatural power. The ultimate goal of “being Sage” (成圣) in Confucianism does not count on the next life either. Nevertheless, all these can’t prevent Confucianism from being a kind of religion. Confucianism integrates the religious function and humanizing function. Though its over-emphasis on sacrificial rites was criticized by Mozi ( 墨子) and his followers, and it experienced a critical point of life and death during the Tang and Song Dynasty when Buddhism and Daoism were flourishing, yet Confucianism stood its ground and displayed its religious function of “establishing an ethical value system for the whole community and educating the public to make a right choice on the direction of their own destiny” ( 为天地立志，为生民立道) .

There are also some scholars claiming to be liberals and regard the United States as a successful model. They simply assume some academic theories of liberalism, which are only popular in Western academia, as the real-life ideology of the present Western countries. Then in the name of “Enlightenment”, they use those theories as a kind of ideological weapon to attack Chinese traditional culture, especially blaming Confucian culture as the “accomplices to authoritarianism”. Moreover, they deem everything related to Confucianism, the Confucian revival as their attacking object. Some extremists in this group not only become Christian believers, but also continuously make fierce slander and critical remarks on Confucianism. Even some of China’s top research institutions of religion are penetrated by religious forces and are openly filled with some so-called “academic researches” which involve personal religious beliefs in their academic studies. There are some other liberals who provide support to Confucianism, only on the premise that Confucianism should be brought into the category of liberalism. Because they believe the purpose of Kang Youwei to establish Confucianism was to establish a so-called “modern state”, thus the setting up of Confucianism must be based on the premise and ultimate goal of establishing a “modern state”, otherwise, Confucianism, or the reconstruction of Confucianism in contemporary China would be judged once again as the “accomplice of authoritarianism”. Here the so-called “modern state “is just the “Constitutional Democracy” from the standpoint of liberalism. I believe those people are extremely naive in their political thinking, and their worship for the United States borders on blindness. Francis Fukuyama’s “End of history” has a profound impact on them, and the doctrines of some liberal scholars like John Rawls and Friedrich Hayek have become their guide whenever they think about the China problems. And if we call people with extreme nationalist sentiments the “Angry Youths”, and then we can call those people who blindly worship the United States and their liberalism, and those who are politically naïve, the “Angry kids”. They often indiscriminately apply words from the American liberals to Confucianism, and force other people’s religious beliefs to meet their political demands. Their naiveness is also demonstrated in their changing attitude to the traditional culture and Confucian culture, their decreasing hostility to Confucian culture, or even some kind of friendliness, is not because they really feel the charm of Confucian culture and recognize its value, but simply because of the change of views that appeared in the new Chinese version of the liberal thinker Hayek’s book which they fall back on. Of course, such mechanical and blind imitations of Western practice are not limited to the liberal political studies in China, but have permeated throughout the humanities and social sciences. For example, every year when the Teachers’ Day approaches, there are activities focusing on the mental health of teachers on the grounds that 90 percent of teachers are psychologically unhealthy. When the World Police Day comes, the mental health of the police comes under the spotlight on the grounds that 90 percent of China’s police are psychologically unhealthy. The main reason why there are few Chinese teachers or policemen who are psychologically healthy is that those psychologists not only copy foreign academic theories, but also copy their experimental data, that is to say, the psychological scales they use are designed for Westerners rather than for Chinese. The Chinese are more implicit in their emotional expressions, so when they are measured by the Western psychological scale, the results turn out to be “not happy” or “unhealthy”. Sadly, when such mechanical imitations of Western academia become so rampant, there are few independent thinkers in China and there is no real “intellectual circle”, there are only blatant plagiarisms or subtle imitations. Admittedly, such a problem cannot be solved in a short period of time, yet academia’s continual reflections on the one-sided New Culture Movement and the radical Cultural Revolution, at least teach us a lesson, that is to maintain vigilance against any noble slogan! Confucianism is Confucianism, politics is politics, the former solves the demand of faith, and the latter solves the demand of politics. A sound society must accommodate different demands, and no single demand can forcibly abduct another! When discussing the relevance of Confucianism to politics, the researchers of Confucianism also express their concerns. They believe that the main function of Confucian culture is to teach people to become an “inner sage and outer king” ( 内圣外王)- “to become a sage through self-cultivation and to become a king through promoting the sage way of doing things to his people”, and they are afraid that once Confucian culture becomes a religion, such a function would be impaired. With such a concern, Confucian learning and Confucianism seem to become an either/or choice. As a matter of fact, Confucianism provides another bridge linking Confucian learning and its believers. Confucianism neither replaces Confucian learning, nor ends it, and instead it promotes Confucian learning. In addition, the existence of Confucianism is by no means harmful to the political function of Confucian learning. In fact, Confucianism is Confucianism, and politics is politics, both of which should always be clearly separated. Believers of Confucianism can hold different political views, or participate in different politics; and people with different political views can also believe in Confucianism. Some scholars worry that Confucianism would harm Confucian culture’s function of “helping the king govern his people through promoting the sage way of doing things”; this kind of worry mainly originates from the demand to make Confucianism the state religion. A state religion is a form of religion, namely a religious body or creed officially endorsed by the state, and the Anglican Church of England is an example. The reason why doubts have arisen over the demand to remake Confucianism the state religion is because some regard such a demand as a pursuit of “theocracy “. The state religion is not directly equivalent to “theocracy”, the concerns over the state religion are apparently due to some misunderstanding. And it is undeniable that this misunderstanding has indeed caused trouble to the reconstruction of Confucianism. Another more serious reason is that some scholars who advocate remaking Confucianism the state religion are precisely those who hold a strong interest in Confucian political philosophy or political Confucianism. Thus the religious demand and the political demand become bundled together, not only the cultural legitimacy of Confucianism must be proved, so must its political legitimacy. Of course, there is nothing wrong to put the reconstruction of Confucianism in the overall strategy of the Chinese Cultural Renaissance. However, if we regard making Confucianism the state religion as the only way to achieve the reconstruction of Confucianism, it’s still a kind of political kidnapping. As I have emphasized repeatedly, religion is religion and politics is politics, Confucianism only provides guidance in faith, and cannot become a tool of the political demand, no matter how reasonable and how just one believes these political demands are. II Whenever talking about Confucianism, we need to start with a proper definition of the word “religion”. Theoretically, we regard Confucianism as a religion ( 宗教) rather than merely Confucian teaching（教化）. In fact, considerable progress has been made in defining the nature of Confucianism during the past several years. Lots of opinions and ideas have emerged, yet there has been no final conclusion so far. It’s common that opinion varies from person to person in academic discussions and we should not expect a fixed conclusion, but scholars may still find some new inspirations if they steer their vision from the ivory tower to real life, and take a look at the overall status of Confucianism and its development in China’s neighboring countries and regions.

In South Korea, Confucianism is one of the major religions and has plenty of followers. In Indonesia, the local Chinese have fought for many years to gain a legal status for Confucianism and finally they have made Confucianism a legitimate religion recognized by the Indonesian government, though it is still not recognized by the Chinese government. Besides, Confucianism there has developed to be a modern religion which meets the demands of modern life and modern followers. In Hong Kong, Confucianism also enjoys a legal existence. In Taiwan, all kinds of Confucianism organizations and activities have flourished ever since the period of Japanese aggression. And those organizations and activities have made tremendous contributions to the protection of Chinese culture and the social cohesion of the whole nation. On the Chinese mainland, places where rites of Confucianism are performed are emerging, including some academies of classical learning and temples.

With such living evidence of Confucianism out there, it seems outdated and ridiculous for scholars to still debate whether Confucianism is a religion or not. If we use the concept of religion from textbooks or books on religious studies to examine Confucianism and do find any inconsistencies, what should be adjusted are definitely those books. Moreover, the concept of religion, which was based on the religious experience of Europe and Asia Minor, has been repeatedly adjusted when it went beyond Europe. Otherwise, it wouldn’t even explain why Buddhism, claiming to be atheistic, is a religion. In addition, Confucianism’s influence far exceeds other religions in the eastern part of the Eurasian continent and its doctrines uniquely combine reason and faith, religion and moralization, governance of the world and people’s hearts. Facing such a world-influential religion like Confucianism, we should of course adjust and improve the basic theory of religious study based on these new facts and new experiences, how can we use outdated theory to deny the living facts of Confucianism!

Just like the previous discussion about whether the discipline of Chinese philosophy was legitimate or not, the discussion about whether Confucianism is a religion also serves as a warning to Chinese scholars. Those scholars used the framework and concept of Western philosophy to analyze and interpret the discipline of Chinese philosophy and created a lot of farfetched academic findings, which separated us even further from our own Chinese philosophy. Similarly, blindly depending on foreign religious theories and ignoring China’s own cultural experience prevents our scholars from seeing a true Confucianism that has actually been living with us. It is understandable that if some foreign scholars, due to the limitation of cultural experience, fail to recognize the religious characteristic of Confucianism, but it is a great pity for our Chinese scholars to measure our own cultural traditions with a foreign standard! The religious studies in China also face the contradictions between foreign academics and local culture, and we need to overcome such contradictions through theoretical constructions.

So what on earth is Confucianism? Before answering this question, let’s briefly summarize some distinct differences between Chinese religions and Western religions. Let’s take Christianity as a representative of Western religion and make a comparison between Christianity, Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. Firstly, human beings are not endowed with divinity in Christianity and Christianity doesn’t discuss the question of how human beings can become God. On the contrary, Confucianism believes that human beings can become a sage or a saint; Taoism think human beings can live a long life and even become immortal eventually, and Buddhism holds the opinion that human beings go into a cycle of life and death, and can free themselves from worldly sufferings and become a Buddha. So no matter if it is the local Chinese Confucianism, Taoism, or Buddhism that was introduced into China, they all theoretically admit the connection between temporality and immortality, and admit the possibility of pursuing perfection in the real world. Thus we cannot use the European cultural experience, which has clear boundaries between God and human beings, religion and humanity, to regulate our indigenous religions. What’s more, Confucianism always puts human beings at the center rather than God. It is a religion that dedicates its effort to teach people how to become a man ( 成人). Just as the great Song Dynasty Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi said, “Thousands of words from the sages only aim to teach people how to become a man.” And the ultimate aim of “becoming a man” is to pursue “ultimate goodness” ( 至善) and “become a sage” (成圣). In this sense, Confucianism is a religion of humanity. It is not monotheistic, polytheistic, or pantheistic. It is atheistic. It doesn’t worship Gods or heroes, instead it worships sages. It is a religion of sages. In history, Confucianism called itself the “sage religion”, its founder the “sage” or the “greatest sage”, the birthday of its founder “the sage birthday”, its learning “the sage study”, and its classics the “sage books”. With regard to its world view, Confucianism holds the opinion that all things generate from Yin ( 阴) and Yang ( 阳) (The concept of yin/yang literally meaning “shadow and light”, is used to describe how seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn in relation to each other.). And as to its outlook on life, Confucianism believes that by exploring the objective law of how nature changes, human beings can understand the law of human society and the changes in an individual’s existence. And relating to its outlook on life and death, Confucianism emphasizes “exploring the whole development of things from the very beginning to the end ” ( 原始返终) and facing life and death positively since “life gives one pleasure while death gives one peace” ( 存顺没宁). In a word, Confucianism has its own doctrines and features. We cannot blindly modify Confucianism in order to adapt to the religious system built on the European cultural experience; instead we should adjust the related religious theories and try to build a theoretical system that is based on the living facts of Confucianism. III What on earth is Confucianism? The discussion about Confucianism is not simply academic, but also with a strong practical concern. To perceive Confucianism in the context of the contemporary cultural background, we need to see it multi-dimensionally.