外来的和尚会念经？--宗教复兴的社会影响估计

Visiting Monks Give Better Sermons:Re-estimate Social Impact of Religious Revival

近年来,我国宗教活动复兴,呈现出两个特点:传统民间宗教回归和基督教的迅猛发展。但是已有宗教资本的信任研究结论不一、缺乏共识。原因是:理论上,忽视宗教的文化和制度情境;方法上,缺乏足够的技术手段克服信仰和信任关系的内生性。本文在考虑我国差序信任格局与社会主流思潮影响的基础上,选择广义倾向值配对的方法估计基督教信仰对不同类型信任的因果效应,侧重宗教信仰的社会心理基础以及基督教崛起的社会影响。研究发现:相比佛教,基督教的确对一般信任与人际信任有显著的积极作用,且基督教徒呈现高委身性与高信仰宽容并存的特点,可能对社会整合具有积极影响;与此同时,对基督教、佛教与世俗群体的心理认知对比却发现:"常民"对"神民"的心理隔阂甚于教派之间,影响社会整合。

In recent years, the religious revival in China has caused the return of traditional folk religions and the rapid spread of Christianity. However, existing religious researches are contradictory, due to ignoring the cultural context and endogenous problem. Conditioning on the trust structure and the impact of mainstream social thoughts, this paper identifies the causal impact of Christianism on different type of trust, using the method of propensity score matching. Our statistics indicate that Christianity belief does have a significant positive effect on general trust and interpersonal trust. Featured with highly religious commitment and tolerance, Christianity may have a positive impact on social integration. At the same time, the comparative study on psychological cognition of Christian, Buddhist and secular groups reveals that the secular group is likely to depreciate religious people than the opposite, which brings potential risk to social integration.