中國大陸的宗教信仰自由狀況，一直備受各方面的關注。中國政府宣稱中國人民享受充分的信仰自由，但不少評價對官方的論述立場卻不予認同。本文指出，要持平地探討這方面的問題，必須從政教關係的角度來作闡釋。政教關係包括政府與宗教、政府與教會、宗教與政治及教會與政治四方面的內容。本文主要據上述的分析框架來檢視當代中國政教關係的特色，其中尤重其對中國基督教發展的制約。本文強調，改革開放政策下黨國與社會關係的調整，對我們了解當代中國的政教關係，有著重大的意義。黨國對宗教的立場，已從意識形態的指導轉向實用主義關懷，承認宗教在中國社會主義社會的長期存在，因而更多從社會功能與穩定的前提來處理宗教事務。同時，宗教團體的發展空間在近年亦趨增多，具備官方與非官方的雙重性質。唯有擺脫「零和式」的思維，才能對宗教（特別是基督教）在當前中國威權體制下的發展，有更深入的認識。

Religious liberty in Mainland China is nevertheless a controversial issue. The Chinese government declared that people in China are enjoying so much freedom while many comments disagreed with it. In order to draw an objective conclusion, the writer believed that a comprehensive view of Church-state relationship is required. Churchstate relationship had four different aspects: 1) government and religion; 2) government and church; 3) religion and politics; 4) church and politics. This article tried to evaluate the major characteristics of church-state relationship in contemporary China, under the above framework, particularly in discussing how such relationship constrained and influence the development of Christianity in China. This paper emphasized that the changing relation between the Party-state and society under the "Open and Reform Policy", have significant implication on the church-state relation on contemporary China. Under the religious pragmatism, the Party-state admitted the long-term existence of religions in Chinese socialistic society, and tried to explore more positive function of them. Recently, Chinese religious organizations also enjoy more room than before. It is much better to down tune such a "zero game" theme, so that we can deeply understand the development of various religions (particularly Christianity) under the Chinese authoritarian regime.