Modern simplified Chinese is the language of China's state-sanctioned religious publishing apparatus, through which the government-approved Buddhist, Taoist, Islamic, Catholic and Protestant associations produce officially reviewed scripture editions, catechetical material and clergy training texts under the oversight of the Chinese Communist Party's religious affairs bureaucracy, a system distinct from the unregulated devotional Chinese-language publishing that circulates through unregistered house churches and underground Catholic communities loyal to Rome.
Chinese Christian Bible translation history includes the influential Chinese Union Version completed by Protestant missionary committees in 1919, still the most widely used Chinese Protestant Bible translation today, while Chinese Buddhist practice today draws on modern simplified-character editions of the Buddhist canon alongside the older Classical Chinese textual tradition it derives from.
Falun Gong, a religious movement founded in China in 1992 that blends qigong practice with Buddhist and Taoist elements, produced a substantial body of modern Chinese devotional literature before the government banned the movement in 1999 and launched a sustained suppression campaign against it that continues today, both inside China and, through diaspora practitioners, in Chinese-language publications distributed internationally.