二十世紀以降，臺灣即未曾自外於幾項最重要的全球性宗教發展趨勢。這些趨勢特別指由國家所主導的世俗化計畫，欲借此將宗教與一般社會領域切割開來，尤其是宗教與政治生活的連結，以及伴隨前述趨勢而來的宗教化傾向，這部分特別指自覺性的重新審視宗教信仰與體現化的宗教實踐之增長。然而，臺灣在接受這些全球性的宗教發展趨勢中，是受到自身獨特的歷史、經濟與政治經驗所形塑。首先，臺灣宗教本身相對之下較低的制度化程度，容許了更有彈性與更快速的宗教演變。第二，臺灣宗教在歷經殖民統治與威權控制下，存活的比在中國大陸的好，使得兩地在過去二十年間發展出不同的模式。第三，臺灣迅速的經濟成長，造成臺灣宗教的發展同時結合了商業化與市場經濟取向及與之相對的、反思市場經濟的道德重整取向。臺灣的經濟成長再加上其國際地位的混沌不明與民主化歷程，更進一步促成了獨特的地方性的宗教發展。

Taiwan has been part of some of the most important global religious trends of the twentieth century and beyond. These include state-led secularization projects intended to separate religion from other aspects of social and especially political life, and related religious developments like an increase in self-conscious reworkings of religious belief on the one hand, and growing embodied practice of religion on the other. Taiwan’s reception of these global trends, however, has been shaped by its unique historical, economic and political experience. First, the relatively low levels of religious institutionalization have allowed flexible and rapid religious evolutions. Second, religious resources survived colonial and authoritarian control better than they did on the mainland, leading to different patterns over the last two decades. Third, the rapid market successes led to a combination of commercialization and market celebration with countervailing religious tendencies toward moral recuperation from the ills of the market. Economic change combined with Taiwan’s diplomatic limbo and democratization further encouraged uniquely local religious developments.