East Asia has some of the highest rates of religious abandonment in the world, according to a Pew Research Center study released June 17. But while many East Asians are not followers of organized religions, they hold onto spiritual beliefs associated with the region’s faiths.
Pew Research Center surveyed more than 10,000 adults over a four-month period in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and neighboring Vietnam and found that significant numbers of adults across the region say they have no religion, ranging from 27 percent in Taiwan to 61 percent in Hong Kong.
But among those without a religious affiliation, at least four in ten believe in gods or invisible beings, more than a quarter say that mountains, rivers and trees are inhabited by spirits, and more than half make offerings to deceased ancestors.
“When we measure religion in these societies not by whether people say they have a religion but by what they believe and what they do, the region is more religiously active than it might first appear,” the report said.
The survey also points out that the religious identity of people in East Asia is remarkably fluid.
Many say they have transitioned from the religious identity they were raised with to another religion or to no religion: In Hong Kong and South Korea, 53 percent of adults have changed their religious identity since childhood.
The prevailing trend is de-secularization rather than changing faith: Hong Kong (37%) and South Korea (35%) have the highest proportions of adults in the world who grew up religious but no longer belong to any particular religion, ahead of several Western European countries such as Norway (30%), the Netherlands (29%) and Belgium (28%).
“There’s been a lot of research and discussion about how secularized Western Europe is,” said Jonathan Evans, a senior fellow at the Pew Research Center and lead author of the report, “but there seems to be less discussion about the religious change that occurs over the life course of people from East Asia.”
He added: “It’s really interesting to see how East Asia and religious identity fit into a more global understanding.”
Despite high dropout rates, public attitudes towards proselytising vary widely: Majorities of adults in Japan (83%) and South Korea (77%) believe it is unacceptable to persuade others to convert to your religion. Taiwan and Vietnam are divided on proselytising, while a majority of respondents in Hong Kong (67%) believe proselytising is acceptable.
In Hong Kong, 30% of adults say they were raised with no religion, but 61% currently say they have no religion, a 31-point increase. Meanwhile, 29% of Buddhists in South Korea say they were raised Buddhist, but only 14% currently identify as Buddhist, a 15-point decrease.
The Pew team faced cultural and linguistic challenges in collecting data in East Asia, where the concept of religion is relatively new, introduced by scholars only about a century ago. According to the report, commonly used translations of “religion” are typically understood to refer to “organized, hierarchical forms of religion, such as Christianity or new religious movements,” producing results that are “based on Judeo-Christian, Eurocentric thinking,” Evans said.
In the new survey, Pew designed questions to measure common beliefs and practices across Asian societies, revealing a highly vibrant spiritual life among East Asians.
In Taiwan, only 11 percent of adults say religion is very important to them, while 87 percent believe in karma, 34 percent have practiced meditation, and 36 percent have been visited by the spirits of their ancestors.
In another striking example, 92% of non-religious adults in Vietnam say they have made offerings to their ancestors in the past year. Majorities of adults in all five countries surveyed say they believe in unseen beings such as gods, deities or spirits.
Evans explained that while people may subscribe to a particular religious tradition, such as Christianity or Buddhism, the line between ritual and practice is often blurred.
“Some people might classify this as a Buddhist practice, but do you see Christians doing it? Do you see people who are not religious doing it?” he asked, adding, “People may label themselves, but that doesn’t necessarily reflect what their beliefs or practices are.” —Religion News Service
