Yang Tianjiao and Chen Tianjia: Practical Exploration of Special Education on the Marxist View of Religion in Universities
Since the 18th Party Congress, the Party and the state have attached great importance to education in the Party’s theories, principles, and policies regarding religious issues within universities. At the 2016 National Conference on Religious Work, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: “We must extensively publicize the Party’s theories, principles, and policies on religious issues, promote religious laws and regulations, and strengthen guidance of public opinion regarding religion.” The 2014 "Opinions on Further Strengthening and Improving Publicity and Ideological Work in Universities Under the New Situation" pointed out the need to actively carry out publicity and education for university students on the Marxist view of religion, the Party’s religious policies, and relevant laws and regulations. Effectively publicizing and popularizing the Party and state’s religious policies—especially the Marxist view of religion—to university students is an important component of ideological and political work in universities. The integration and optimization of education on the Marxist view of religion in university Ideological and Political Theory Courses (IPTC) is an inherent requirement of ideological and political education. It is an internal necessity for fulfilling the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education [1]. It helps guide university students to form a correct view of religion and to understand and identify with our country's religious policies. Furthermore, it facilitates the formation of a complete Marxist worldview. This has significant theoretical and practical implications for consolidating the guiding position of Marxism in the ideological sphere, strengthening the ideological foundation of the Party's governance, and preventing and resolving major risks in the ideological realm.
In current university ideological and political work, due to constraints in disciplines and teaching staff, education on the Marxist view of religion still needs further deepening and optimization. There is a lack of support from relevant courses, and teaching is primarily based on scattered knowledge points. At present, the arrangement of content in nationally unified IPTC textbooks lacks a certain degree of systematicity and focus. Universities that conduct specialized teaching on the Marxist view of religion are rare, and efforts in teaching research and exploration still need to be strengthened. This study uses the teaching practice of IPTC at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) as an example to explore the feasibility of optimizing education on the Marxist view of religion.
I. Design Concept and Teaching Practice of the Special Module on the Marxist View of Religion
(1) Design Concept
The report to the 20th Party Congress pointed out: "The fundamental question of education is: Who should we cultivate, how should we cultivate them, and for whom should we cultivate them?" This indicates the development goals and action guide for integrating the Marxist view of religion into university ideological and political education in the New Era.
University IPTC textbooks do not have a dedicated chapter for education on the Marxist view of religion. The content of the Marxist view of religion is complex, highly informative, and contains many key difficulties. It involves basic theoretical knowledge of the Marxist view on the origin, development, and patterns of change of religion; the essence of religion; the roots of its emergence; and its social functions. It must also include basic principles and policies such as the comprehensive implementation of the policy of freedom of religious belief, the management of religious affairs according to law, the principle of independence and self-management [2], and the active guidance of religion to adapt to socialist society. Furthermore, it should include China’s laws and regulations regarding religion and scientific atheism. However, from the perspective of existing teaching conditions, it is unrealistic to cover everything comprehensively. Therefore, the core of specialized teaching focuses on making the Marxist view of religion enter the "hearts, minds, and actions" [3] of students.
First, the Marxist view of religion is taken as the governing principle while incorporating research results from other disciplines. Correctly explaining "what is the Marxist view of religion" serves to "desensitize" and "demystify" the specialized topic of religion, returning the "religious issue" to a "normal state." This means moving beyond the psychological state of being afraid to mention or discuss it, and instead promoting the Party's religious work principles and policies with confidence and composure. It involves a comprehensive and objective display of both the "positive factors" and "negative factors" of religion. Through the classic Marxist authors’ discourses on religious phenomena, instructors carry out theoretical education to explain the laws of religious emergence, development, and change, as well as the essence, roots, and social functions of religion in a clear-cut, fair, and objective manner—telling China's religious stories using Chinese discourse. On the other hand, based on China's long-standing traditional culture and the lines, principles, policies, and great achievements of religious work in New China, students are educated and guided to correctly understand the general religious situation and development trends in the world and China, thereby cultivating and strengthening their identification with the Marxist view of religion and scientific atheism. While emphasizing theoretical leadership, the course also considers research results from philosophy, sociology, psychology, and brain science to demonstrate the complexity of religious phenomena. It clarifies our country's religious principles, policies, laws, and regulations, and teaches basic principles such as the separation of education and religion, the prohibition of Party and Youth League members from believing in religion, and the requirement that religious activities must be conducted within the scope of the Constitution and the law.
Second, it adheres to the combination of theoretical education and problem analysis. Theoretical knowledge of the Marxist view of religion is combined with the practical difficulties encountered by students themselves, adopting a problem-oriented approach. For instance: "What are the main reasons for university students to believe in religion?" "Why can't Communist Party members have religious beliefs?" "Is the end of science theology?" These are typical questions raised by students since the inception of this specialized module. By collecting these questions, instructors extract typical problems to display in class, guiding students to think and forming a "problem domain."
Finally, proceeding from the holistic approach to national security [4], the course focuses on cultivating students' security awareness. At the 2021 National Conference on Religious Work, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that in the field of religious work, we must "adhere to the holistic approach to national security, uphold the principle of independence and self-management, and coordinate the advancement of relevant work." This provides the fundamental compliance for implementing education on the Marxist view of religion within the perspective of the holistic approach to national security. As a subsystem of social operation, religion is closely related to China's national security.
(2) Teaching Practice
Regarding teaching, the UCAS teaching team aims to present the material in class in a comprehensive and scientific manner, ensuring that the content is academic, cutting-edge, and flexible, while maintaining curricular articulation and continuity. The teaching objectives include three aspects: First, using the scientific worldview and methodology of dialectical materialism and historical materialism to reveal the essence of religion and the objective laws of its emergence, development, and eventual demise, allowing students to correctly understand the social roots of religion's emergence and existence and to view its social functions and limitations dialectically. Second, by studying the important discourses on religious work by General Secretary Xi Jinping and other national leaders, as well as relevant laws and regulations, students can correctly understand major issues—such as China’s basic religious policies, religious extremism and terrorism, cult prevention and governance, the prevention of religious infiltration on campuses, and US religious issues regarding China and political security—under the framework of the holistic approach to national security. Third, the course actively promotes mainstream socialist ideology and scientific atheism, fortifying the main ideological position so that religion adapts to a society of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
The UCAS Marxist view of religion teaching team relies on the School of Marxism and the Center for Cult Phenomena Research. The faculty has long provided academic support and policy recommendations to relevant departments, possessing a deep foundation in research and practice as well as an international perspective. This prepared the ground for carrying out education on the Marxist view of religion. Since 2019, UCAS has established a specialized religious education module in the required graduate course "Marxism in China and the Contemporary World" (hereafter referred to as the "Zhong-Ma Course"). At the same time, it has built an integrated framework for religious knowledge across undergraduate, master's, and doctoral IPTCs. Starting from the four aspects of teaching objectives, content, characteristics, and evaluation, the team has strengthened the organic integration of the Marxist view of religion with theoretical IPTCs, constructing a teaching system for the Marxist view of religion primarily for students in science and engineering.
The religious module of the UCAS Zhong-Ma Course relies on materials such as Q&A on Campus Religious Policy Knowledge and Practice and How to Identify and Prevent Cults published by the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Education. It clarifies key teaching content, including general knowledge of basic Marxist religious theory, the infiltration of overseas religious cult forces in China and how to prevent it, and China's religious policies and laws. By linking theory with practice, the module fully responds to the real-world religious issues and ideological doubts encountered by university students in their actual lives, "clearing the turbid and promoting the clear" [5] and "rectifying the source" [6] to strengthen their ideals and convictions.
Figure 1: Teaching Concept and Display of Partial Content for "Understanding the Marxist View of Religion"
During the teaching process, students show great interest in religious issues. In the interactive Q&A of the introductory session, many typical questions further prompt instructors to continuously provide targeted teaching content based on the students' actual ideological status. Although students' questions are divergent and mostly reflect the manifestation of religious phenomena in social and spiritual life, the essence of the questions reflects students' thin theoretical reserves regarding the Marxist view of religion, superficial grasp of specific knowledge of religious phenomena, and insufficient understanding of the Party and state's principles and policies on religious work. Therefore, in the design of the specialized teaching, a "problem domain" is formed to quickly present the broad picture of religious issues, eliminating students' sense of theoretical unfamiliarity, deepening their perceptual understanding and participation, and stimulating their desire for knowledge, reflection, and resonance.
Figure 2: "Problem Domain" Teaching Concept and Display of Partial Courseware in the Introductory Session
Always taking the "fostering of virtue through education" as the fundamental principle, the course emphasizes humanistic care and correctly analyzes social phenomena such as "university students offering incense instead of making progress" [7]. It guides students to use relevant theoretical knowledge to analyze and solve problems in light of their own situations, encouraging them to establish lofty ideals and firm convictions. Through Q&A sessions starting from students' ideological confusion regarding personal ideals and beliefs, the course guides them to use the stance and viewpoints of the Marxist view of religion to analyze the causes of problems from the surface to the essence and provides timely suggestions for solutions. The course avoids forced indoctrination of theory as much as possible; instead, it uses the Marxist view of religion as a theoretical tool to guide life practice by solving real-world problems.
Through the case study method, theoretical knowledge is given vitality, and vivid cases of religious infiltration are integrated into national security education. On the one hand, by combining cases such as the "Soil Loosening Project," the "Pyramid Project," and the "Gospel Westward Plan," [8] students are made to realize that overseas forces are using religious infiltration as a breakthrough point to implement strategies of "Westernization" and "polarization" against China. This allows students to understand the hazards and identification methods of illegal underground churches, remain vigilant against campus proselytization, and recognize the new media era's forms of overseas religious infiltration disguised as public welfare, academia, or training.
In addition, warning education regarding illegal organizations involving religious beliefs—such as cults, religious extremism, and "spiritual multi-level marketing"—is also covered in the module. This truly allows students to recognize that religious issues are closely linked to national security in terms of politics, territory, culture, society, and information. On the other hand, through the lectures, teachers explain key issues such as "What are illegal religious activities?", "What is campus proselytization and infiltration?", "New characteristics of current campus proselytization and infiltration," "Currently active cult organizations in China and their infiltration methods," and "What is religious extremism and its ideological manifestations?" This allows students to use the Marxist view of religion to recognize and analyze the negative factors that religious phenomena may bring to society. It clearly explains the dangers of religion/cults/infiltration activities and their diverse contemporary forms, enhancing students' ability to resist infiltration. It guides students to differentiate the harms of illegal organizations from the perspectives of political security, cultural security, and social security, according to the logic of the holistic approach to national security.
Figure 3: Teaching Design and Display of Partial Content Integrating National Security into the Marxist View of Religion
II. Analysis of the Effectiveness of Specialized Teaching on the Marxist View of Religion
This part of the research investigates the actual situation of the religious module in the UCAS required graduate Zhong-Ma Course through questionnaires and interviews, conducting a retrospective assessment of teaching effectiveness. It focuses on clarifying two major issues: first, students' cognition of religion and religious activities; second, students' cognition of the Zhong-Ma Course religious module, including satisfaction levels and reasons, specific gains, classroom effects, and students' specific opinions and suggestions. The survey content includes: respondents' cognition of religion (primarily the identification of feudal superstition, pseudoscience, and cults, and the channels for religious knowledge); respondents' cognition of the Zhong-Ma Course religious module (satisfaction, gains, and cognition of China's religious policies after the course); and respondents' suggestions for the course. The survey subjects were master's and doctoral students at UCAS taking the Zhong-Ma Course, totaling 1,365 person-times.
(1) Quantitative Analysis of Survey Results
- Regarding religious cognition. First, 65.71% of respondents possess blurred understandings of the Marxist view of religion, which include confusion regarding religious behaviors, pseudoscience, or superstitious content. Second, nearly 50% of respondents indicated they had come into contact with "spiritual marketing" [9] content such as "meditation, awakening, and ascension," extraterrestrial cults, or spiritual cultivation; among them, approximately 3% of students showed great interest in and attention toward such cult-related content, suggesting that some students remain at risk of insufficient resistance. Third, a high proportion of students obtain religious knowledge through channels outside the classroom, most of which promote the positive aspects of religion. Furthermore, 21.17% of respondents stated they had no channel to obtain formal and systematic religious knowledge.
Figure 4: Statistics on students' contact with spiritual marketing information such as cults and spiritual cultivation.
- Regarding the understanding of the religious thematic modules in Middle-school and Marxist [10] courses. First, students are highly interested in religious knowledge, and integrating the Marxist view of religion into Ideological and Political Theory Courses (IPTC) in a thematic format is welcomed by students. Among them, 93.7% of respondents expressed satisfaction with the teaching of religious issues covered in the curriculum. Additionally, some students are interested in introductions to specific religions; according to statistical data, these are mainly concentrated on Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam.
Second, students believe it is essential to teach religious themes in IPTC. Over 50% of students believed that, compared to their previous vacuum of religious knowledge, they systematically acquired knowledge about religion through the teaching of this theme. 46.23% of students stated their previous cognition of religion was inaccurate, and through the teaching of this theme, their understanding of religious knowledge became more professional, allowing them to recognize real-world religious phenomena more profoundly; 37.73% of students stated they gained a certain understanding of the risks associated with religion; and 29.01% of students stated they understood the Marxist view of religion more deeply and began to comprehend China’s religious stance and religious discourse. In addition, 156 students, accounting for 11.43%, began to take an interest in religious issues through the teaching of this theme. Third, the mastery of the Party and state’s religious policies is incomplete; there is a need to further balance the popularization of religious knowledge and religious policies in instructional arrangements. Most respondents exhibited a "familiar but vague" situation regarding the religious policies taught in class—a manifestation of inaccurate, inadequate, and shallow cognition—and lacked a basic understanding of China's laws and policies regarding religious affairs. According to the questionnaire results, few people chose all four correct options simultaneously. In the question regarding the management principles of religious affairs in China, only 23.22% chose the correct option.
Figure 5: Statistics on content students are most interested in or benefited from in thematic teaching.
Figure 6: Statistics of student feedback on thematic education of the Marxist view of religion.
(2) Qualitative Analysis of Research Results From the research, it is evident that university students have a strong demand for knowledge related to religion and religious policy, but they lack formal classroom learning centered on the Marxist view of religion. It is necessary to further strengthen the content of the Marxist view of religion in IPTC textbooks for undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students. Integrating the Marxist view of religion into IPTC in a thematic format is welcomed by students, and most respondents stated that teaching religious policy in IPTC is essential. In classroom teaching, students are interested in religious knowledge, but the efficiency of knowledge transmission and transformation is insufficient. First, concepts and theories are highly abstract; for example, the classic Marxist formulation: "Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world," is difficult for students to comprehend. Second, due to an unclear understanding of the background and design philosophy behind the Party and state’s religious policies, mastery of these policies is incomplete. There is a need to further balance the popularization of Marxist religious knowledge and religious policies in instructional arrangements. Clock hours remain insufficient and the teaching format is relatively singular, leaving students feeling "unsatisfied." A high proportion of students obtain religious knowledge through non-classroom channels, mostly involving positive factors of religion with few negative factors mentioned. Meanwhile, spiritual marketing activities such as "spiritual cultivation" and extraterrestrial cults have deeply penetrated major internet platforms in China, and some students lack the ability to discern them. Master’s and doctoral students confuse concepts such as illegal religions, cults, harmful qigong, and spiritual marketing. Some student Party members experience ideological confusion regarding activities like praying to gods and worshipping Buddha.
Overall, teaching the Marxist view of religion through thematic lectures in IPTC has, to a certain extent, met students' thirst for knowledge and answered their religious confusion, particularly playing a role in consolidating the Marxist scientific worldview. However, there remain issues worthy of further optimization, such as the curriculum content still being too limited to fully answer students' questions or respond to new trends in society regarding religion, cults, and spiritual marketing organizations. The University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) [11] initiative to strengthen the integration of the Marxist view of religion into university IPTC is indispensable and must be consistently maintained. On the other hand, it highlights the urgency and direction for continuously improving and optimizing the education and teaching of the Marxist view of religion.
III. Strategies and Recommendations for Strengthening and Optimizing Marxist Religious Education in Universities
(1) Profoundly Grasp the Laws of Education in the Marxist View of Religion Education in the Marxist view of religion is an important component of ideological and political education. It shares many commonalities with other contents of ideological and political education but also possesses its own specificities. The most obvious is its interdisciplinary character, which is professional, scientific, and mass-oriented. It is by no means a simple dissemination of policy or popularization of knowledge, but rather a political guidance, theoretical concern, ideological lead, and practical guide for university students; it is an important theoretical examination of issues of faith and belief. Grasping and evaluating "meta-problems" in educational theory, such as teaching content, scope, and effectiveness, requires the support of long-term exploration into the laws of teaching.
The religious issue is one of the major issues in national governance [12], exhibiting extremely diverse and complex manifestations on a global scale. Under the "Great Changes Unseen in a Century," [13] the phenomenon of university students being impacted by pluralistic cultures and values has become increasingly prominent. Therefore, in the exploration and research of teaching laws, we must firmly grasp the atheistic foundation of the Marxist view of religion, taking into account interdisciplinary perspectives, professionalism, and scientific rigor. We must "speak politics through scholarship," leading to correct political conclusions through rigorous academic discussion. Allowing students to both "listen" and "gain" requires extensive teaching practice. When articulating the basic content of the Marxist view of religion, one should proceed from the perspective of the Chinese narrative, highlighting the regular and substantive parts of the Marxist view of religion—just as in professional courses—truly achieving "explaining the facts clearly, clarifying the reasoning, and thoroughly explaining the principles."
Currently, the exploration and practice of the laws of education in the Marxist view of religion are still lacking in the educational circles; there exists a phenomenon of "not daring to speak" or "not wanting to speak," which has further weakened the development of related teaching and research. From the teaching situation at UCAS, university students are very interested in religious issues, matters of faith, the positioning of traditional culture, and the conflict between materialism and idealism. However, hampered by limited theoretical and policy levels, many confusions remain. Faced with the impact of various harmful trends of thought and emerging religions today, there is an urgent need for university IPTC teachers to deepen their understanding of teaching laws, constantly explore unique methods and paths suitable for classroom teaching, and properly equip students with theory.
(2) Exploring More Effective Discourse for Education in the Marxist View of Religion IPTC possesses distinct contextual characteristics. Especially in the teaching of the Marxist view of religion, whether it is the ontological presupposition of materialism, the basic premise of atheism, or the goal of requiring the educated to identify with and maintain ideological security, a set of educational discourses that can truly "enter the brain and heart" is required. Otherwise, it will face problems of distortion, lack of authenticity, and ineffectiveness. University students are relatively unfamiliar with professional religious topics, and in daily life, they are mostly limited to a rough perception of religious culture at the level of physical artifacts. Furthermore, the content of the Marxist view of religion is highly abstract with many knowledge points. For many recipients of education, the discourse in IPTC is one of the few moments in their lives when they come into contact with theories and knowledge related to religion. Therefore, great importance must be attached to the construction of discourse regarding the Marxist view of religion.
First, the authenticity of the teaching discourse on the Marxist view of religion should be strengthened. Teaching language must utilize rich language, images, and audio-visuals to construct a discourse system that students can personally experience, narrowing the distance between students and theory/policy. Second, sincerity should be taken as the basic norm of teaching discourse. Due to the specificity of religious issues, when teaching course content, one cannot simply quote the religious policies of the Party or the original texts of Marxist classical writers without explanation. In the discourse, both parties should achieve a harmonious and sincere reflection through dimensions of thought, emotion, and responsibility, so that the thinking of students and teachers can substantially converge. Finally, teaching discourse should possess appropriateness, avoiding imperative language such as commands, preaching, and exhortation. Especially today, when students generally have a strong sense of self and the relationship between teacher and student is no longer an imbalanced one-dimensional relationship, IPTC teachers should start with themselves, using more discursive regulation, micro-narratives, and hidden narratives to explore more effective teaching discourse.
(3) Improving the High-Quality Support System for Education in the Marxist View of Religion As a great project for cultivating talent for the Party and the state, ideological and political education requires multi-party synergy and the formation of a joint force. Among these, four aspects are particularly important: Party leadership, institutional support, the faculty team, and textbook construction. Due to the specificity of education in the Marxist view of religion, teaching it well and making it "come alive" is of fundamental significance for the entire Marxist theoretical system. First, Party committees (Party leadership groups) at all levels should take the spirit of Central Committee documents as an important guide and effectively shoulder political and leadership responsibilities. For one, university Party committees should guide different administrative departments of the school to profoundly draw "educational genes" and "management genes" from the Marxist view of religion, putting an end to the phenomenon of "not wanting to touch" or "not daring to touch" religious issues. This will drive more educational subjects to participate in the process of Marxist religious education and promote the implementation of "all-staff education." [14] Second, they should explore and optimize systems related to the "Marxist View of Religion" IPTC, "Curriculum Ideology and Politics," [15] campus culture, and the "Second Classroom," [16] ensuring sufficient clock hours and integrating the value significance of the Marxist view of religion throughout the entire process of ideological and political education to build a closed loop, thereby achieving "whole-process education." Third, the linkage of the whole society is the inevitable choice for moving IPTC toward "Great Ideological and Political Education." [17] Explaining China's religious policies well provides ideological support for the Great Unity, the Great Union, [18] and a firm patriotic stance.
Second, providing solid academic support is a foundational measure for implementing education in the Marxist view of religion. For a long time, the reason why this education has appeared somewhat thin is largely due to the faculty's inability to "teach it well" or "explain it clearly." Supporting teaching practice with high-quality academic research on the Marxist view of religion, while effectively ensuring the implementation of Party leadership throughout the entire process, can provide an institutional path for cultivating the faculty team and providing a continuous stream of backup educational forces.
Third, many scholars have called for improving the construction of the faculty team specializing in Marxist religious studies to enhance educational effectiveness. Currently, the contingent of professional scholars in Marxist religious studies is seriously insufficient; there are few academic institutions for Marxist atheism and Marxist religious studies, and there is a lack of academic research guarantee. Problems such as journal construction and the publication of results have led to a shortage of disciplinary knowledge reserves and a serious generational gap in talent. Therefore, the vast contingent of university IPTC teachers can certainly serve as the main force for teaching the Marxist view of religion. As a key link in students' ideological and political education, university IPTC teachers should naturally shoulder the heavy responsibility of propagating China's Marxist view of religion. Building a team of teachers with excellent quality and firm positions requires a complete educational system, solid and powerful institutions, and a mechanism that can guarantee a steady stream of backup forces. Therefore, strengthening the training of educators in the content of the Marxist view of religion is crucial, especially when facing students with religious beliefs, which requires a comprehensive knowledge reserve integrating history, religion, psychology, and other fields.
Finally, it is necessary to improve instructional content and the development of teaching materials. Regarding the Party's ethnic policies, particularly "forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation" [19], the nationally unified textbook An Introduction to the Community of the Chinese Nation has already been published and distributed. However, a specialized textbook on the Marxist view of religion has yet to be published. Currently, aside from the unified textbooks for university ideology and politics courses (思政课), specialized courses on education in the Marxist view of religion have not been established in most universities; various textbooks and books often take the form of popular readers. There is a need to organize the compilation of textbook readers for the promotion and education of the Marxist view of religion specifically oriented toward university students. Furthermore, the construction of teaching materials should emphasize temporal relevance in terms of content, ensuring that relevant information is updated promptly. This should be supported by new media tools to innovate educational and teaching models, using vivid cases to clearly and thoroughly explain the "origins of religion," the "laws of religious development," the "socio-historical foundations of religious emergence and its limitations," the "laws of the withering away of religion," and the "principles by which proletarian political parties handle religious issues."
(About the authors: Yang Tianjiao is a Master's student at the School of Marxism, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences; Chen Tianjia is an Associate Professor at the School of Marxism, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.)
Internet Editor: Tong Xin Source: Science and Atheism, Issue 3, 2024