Boss Christians: The Business of Religion in the "Wenzhou Model" of Christian Revival

Cao, Nanlai

doi:10.1086/tcj.59.20066380

Cited by 36 publications

(23 citation statements)

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“…Many also refer to Christianity as a more rational religion, both modern and efficient (especially in terms of health and welfare) and able to fulfill ethical aspirations raised by recent economic and urban growth. But as Nanlai Cao has precisely explained, Christianity in places like Wenzhou is used as a support system for entrepreneurial and capitalist networking rather than as a response to a moral quest (Cao 2008).…”

Section: The Religious Context Of Chinese Christiansmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Chinese Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity

Yang¹,

Tong²,

Anderson³

2017

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Section: The Religious Context Of Chinese Christiansmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Chinese Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity

Yang¹,

Tong²,

Anderson³

2017

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“…In addition, many reform ideas were not put forward by economists and government officials, but by writers, journalists, ordinary citizens and last but not least by businessmen. One prominent example is the widely acknowledged renaissance of private entrepreneurship in the city of Wenzhou fuelled by Christian businessmen (Cao, 2008(Cao, , 2010.…”

Section: Cognitive Distance Mattersmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Distributed Cognitive Economics of Reform: A Framework

Lieber

2015

Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics

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We present an enriched cognitive approach to the political economy of reform based on the notion of distributed cognition. Our aim is to describe the origination causation of economic reforms highlighting the interactions between people, artefacts as well as internal and external representations. In particular, we ask how reformers are able to turn a cognitively ill-defined situation into a cognitively well-defined situation. The proposed framework, we tentatively call 'the distributed cognitive economics of reform', emphasizes three key messages: First, economic reforms are creative processes largely driven by self-organized innovation and acts of public entrepreneurship. Second, the cognitive distance between individuals both enables and constraints cooperation and, most importantly, learning. Third, reformers' ability to communicate to a wide range of audiences is crucial in times of reform. In consequence, successful reformers often rely on policy metaphors as primary means to manage high levels of uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Presenting post-1978 Chinese economic reform as a case study, we argue that the notion of distributed cognition can improve our understanding of economic reform processes. JEL: B41, B52, P41, Z18Economic agents bring to their actions not just their preferences and endowments, but also their understandings-associations and meanings they have derived from their history of previous actions and experiences. In many of the small, standard problems of economics, we can ignore this. In the larger issues of development and reconstruction, and in constructing an economics for problems of complication and ill-definition, we cannot. We need to take cognition seriously. (Arthur, 2000) Grand reformist plans to straighten out thought, to induce all of us to apply the same normative guidelines across content domains and social context, are fated to run into sharp resistance from ordinary people who insist on thinking, feeling, and acting in seemingly incommensurable ways across spheres of activity and who appear content with ad hoc "compartmentalizing" solutions when conflicts are called to their attention (Tetlock et al., 2004, p. 261).

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“…It is possible that there was a dispute between Huang and his accuser, Yang Haoxi, with Yang able to call on the police to help him. Or it could be a struggle over control of a particular house church by contending "boss" Christians -local Christian entrepreneurs for whom establishing and running a church is a source of prestige, who treat "their" parishioners as employees (see Cao 2008Cao , 2011 -with Huang and Yang merely being pawns representing the real contenders.…”

Section: Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protestantism in China: A Dilemma for the Party-State

Schak

2011

Journal of Current Chinese Affairs

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This paper examines the relationship between the Chinese state and Protestantism. It demonstrates that it varies widely from place to place; moreover, the actual relationship between individual churches and the local authorities that are supposed to govern them paints a quite different picture from that implied by the laws and regulations. The paper also argues that the state faces a dilemma: On one hand it feels threatened by the appearance of autonomous organizations such as unregistered churches, while on the other it values the contributions they make to society and recognizes that subjecting them to the Three-Self Patriotic Movement and China Christian Council would require a good deal of force and be very socially disruptive.

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Boss Christians: The Business of Religion in the "Wenzhou Model" of Christian Revival

Cited by 36 publications

References 0 publications

Global Chinese Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity

Global Chinese Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity

The Distributed Cognitive Economics of Reform: A Framework

Protestantism in China: A Dilemma for the Party-State

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