Ever since Europe’s Age of Enlightenment many regard a society without religion as the better, more peaceful one. However, a glance at Chinese history shows that this did not always prove true. The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) was without doubt one of the most radical and brutal fights against all religious beliefs and practices. Countless temples, mosques and churches were destroyed and countless people arrested for their spiritual beliefs. Countless were also the immaterial losses, nobody knows exactly how much of the spiritual and religious knowledge was lost forever, when pictures and scriptures were burned and chains of oral tradition were broken. Mao Zedong died in September 1976. His wife Jiang Qing and the other members of “Gang of Four” were arrested in October of the same year. But it took until 1982 for the Communist Party to publish “document 19” - an official directive on religions and how to deal with them. Only then were many religious experts released from prison or labor camps, and a renaissance of religious traditions could begin
