Scholars have been tossing around the question of whether ancestor worship really qualifies as “religion” or if it’s something altogether different—more of a social ritual or ethical system. One camp leans on classic definitions (think Durkheim’s “sacred versus profane”), arguing that since ancestral rites invoke spirits and involve offerings, they tick the religion box. Yet another set of voices points out that these practices are often inseparable from family hierarchy, lineage cohesion and community governance—more civil society than church service.

There’s also a thorny East–West divide in play. Western religious studies have traditionally framed “religion” through a Christian lens, so they wrestle with fitting the Chinese jiào (教) or Vietnamese đạo (道) neatly into familiar categories. Some Chinese scholars prefer to call ancestor reverence “ethics” or “cultural heritage,” sidestepping the term religion altogether. It’s a bit like trying to jam a square peg into a round hole—definitions get stretched and sometimes downright bent out of shape.

Lively debates surface around Confucian rites in modern China. The government’s push to list them as “intangible cultural heritage” rather than religious ceremonies highlights how political forces shape these labels. Meanwhile, millennials in Hong Kong are scanning QR codes at virtual ancestral halls, blending fintech with time-honored piety—and raising fresh questions about what counts as “worship.”

Anthropologists favor an emic approach—learning from participants themselves rather than imposing external categories. That’s where voices like Gananath Obeyesekera’s become vital, reminding everyone that imposing a Western “religion-or-not” filter risks Orientalist oversimplification. On the other hand, categorizing ancestor rites as strictly “social glue” can underplay their spiritual dimensions, especially in places like Taiwan where temple festivals still draw huge crowds in the name of ancestral spirits.

In the end, the debate isn’t just academic hair-splitting. It influences cultural policy, the revival of traditional temples, even how new generations perceive their heritage. Label it religion, tradition, ethics or culture—ancestor worship keeps stirring the pot, proving that some traditions resist tidy pigeonholing.