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The Religion of the Nonreligious and the Politics of the Apolitical: The Transformation of Falun Gong from Healing Practice to Political Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2013

Junpeng Li
Junpeng Li*
Affiliation:
Columbia University
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Junpeng Li, Department of Sociology, Columbia University, Knox Hall, 606 West 122nd Street, MC 9649, New York, NY 10027. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article applies the conflict-amplification model to the development of Falun Gong. Falun Gong emerged in the early 1990s as a health-enhancing practice and part of the state-sanctioned qigong movement in China. Faced with increasing state suspicion of qigong and fierce competition from other groups, it metamorphosed into a new religious movement in the mid-1990s. State efforts to keep Falun Gong out of the political realm had the effect of releasing the group's political potential and led to its campaign of “truth clarification,” which further alerted the state to its ideological challenge and capacity to mobilize. Through a process of mutual feedback, the antagonism between the two parties culminated in religious violence and in Falun Gong's transformation into a political movement. The organizational evolution of Falun Gong is an illustration of the religion of the nonreligious and the politics of the apolitical in an authoritarian state.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 177 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2013 

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