On sinicizing Christianity - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

China's central government has been trying to sinicize religion, and that had especially a major effect on Christianity, writes journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao. For the New York Review of Books, he reviews Jesus in Asia by R.S. Sugirtharajah, but starts with a thorough overview of Beijing's efforts to curtail Christianity.

Ian Johnson:

Over the past few years, the authorities in Beijing have given churches across the country orders to “Sinicize” their faith. According to detailed five-year plans formulated by both Catholic and Protestant organizations, much of this process involves the predictable palaver of state control: “to actively practice core values of socialism, love the motherland passionately, support the leadership of the Communist Party, obey the law and serve society.”¹ 

But the authorities want more than just political control; they want a say over Christianity’s spirit, too. According to one document, “Chinese styles” are to be promoted in the religion’s “building, painting, music, and art,” and also in Christian liturgy and theology. Other documents speak of reflecting Chinese traditions, but what this means isn’t exactly clear—perhaps filial piety, ancestor worship, and explicitly rejecting foreign influence. 

While these new regulations affect China’s other religions too, they hit each one in different ways. They probably matter least to Daoism, which is an indigenous Chinese religion, and little to Buddhism, which is a global religion but has been in China for so many centuries that it has spawned local schools and practices. But for China’s other two main religions, Islam and Christianity, the rules raise serious concerns. In the case of Islam, the state’s aim seems to be mainly political control of sensitive border regions, because of the faith’s predominance among several ethnic minorities, especially the Hui and the Uighurs, who live in China’s far west. 

Christianity poses a subtler and possibly more profound challenge. This is not only because it has spread among the ethnic Chinese, or Han, majority, who make up 92 percent of China’s population, but also because it has grown fastest not in remote border regions but in the cultural heartland and among white-collar professionals who are supposed to be leading China’s modernization. This makes Christianity the first foreign religion to gain a central place in China since Buddhism’s arrival two millennia ago. Hence the authorities’ unease and their vague desire for Christianity to become something Chinese and nonthreatening. 

These concerns have arisen before. Christianity has had a presence in China for four hundred years. Missionaries such as the Jesuit Matteo Ricci got a foothold in the country by acting like Confucian officials: dressing in gowns, learning the formal language of classical Chinese, and downplaying differences between Christianity and Chinese thought. The Jesuits called God tianzhu, or “lord of heaven,” a plausible term for the Heavenly Father, but not coincidentally also the name of an old Chinese deity. Over the following decades, Christianity spread in North China by fitting into familiar folk religious patterns: offering moral precepts that sounded like Confucian principles or worshipping a virgin saint who seemed much like local female deities. Missionaries in this era, before imperialism made them arrogant, softened unfamiliar or disturbing ideas, such as Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection.² 

The new effort to sinicize Christianity is something different—and probably unique in its encounter with Asia. In years past, Chinese and other Asian governments were weak, and even if Christianity found followers it was later tarnished by the fact that missionaries arrived along with Western gunboats. Now we have a strong government in Beijing that accepts the reality of Christianity but wants it to conform to Chinese foreign and domestic policy. This isn’t unusual in Christian history—look at the innumerable British churches with tableaux and plaques that glorify British imperialism—but Beijing’s firmness is something new in Asia.

The full review in the New York Review of Books.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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How China's urbanites create new identities - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

China's big cities are developing a new city life, including new identities, writes journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, at the opening chapter of, Shanghai Sacred: The Religious Landscape of a Global City, by photographer and anthropologist Liz Hingley, quoted in a review of the photo exhibition in Liverpool at Creative Boom.

Creative Boom:

With around 26 million inhabitants, the megalopolis is home to a multitude of religions from Buddhism and Islam, to Christianity and Baha'ism, to Hinduism and Daoism and many other alternative faiths, which are constantly growing and evolving. 

In the book's introduction, Ian Johnson, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and specialist in Chinese religion, adds: "Freed from being defined by where they were born, China’s urbanites have created new identities, discovering for themselves what they truly believe with the aid of new technologies, social media and convergence of faiths and cultures. 

"Some of this religious life takes place in skyscrapers and apartment blocks, but also in the pockets of the past that still dot Shanghai: a traditional New Year’s dinner, the persistence of burning paper houses, cars, and money for the dead, or a rambunctious music group announcing a wedding, birth, or funeral. Faith in China may be vulnerable, yet its unwavering importance is beyond doubt. Its very presence in people’s hearts makes it impossible to eradicate. More than economics or politics, it is these moments that are the new heart of China."

More in Creative Boom.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Daoism is key to understand China - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Daoism is key to understand today's China, says journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao. to ABC News. "You can provide values, an escape for people, or turn inward to piety, but you cannot challenge the Government. You can't be an alternative source of values or the Government will turn against you."

ABC News:

Author and journalist Ian Johnson has been investigating the revival of Chinese folk religions like Daoism for the past two decades, and he says to understand Daoism is fundamental to understanding China. "It's the DNA of Chinese culture, it includes the ideas like calligraphy, Chinese medicine, things like Feng Shui — all of these things come out of Daoist ideas," he said... 

Mr Johnson says there is much more suspicion of Western religions. 

"You can provide values, an escape for people, or turn inward to piety, but you cannot challenge the Government. You can't be an alternative source of values or the Government will turn against you." The Government is watching the growth of Daoism carefully. It wants to ensure it does not turn into another Falun Gong type movement that could threaten the Government and lead to another brutal crackdown like that which happened two decades ago.

More in ABC News.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more stories by Ian Johnson? Do check out this list.
 

The link between climate and Daoism - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

China is assuming global leadership on climate, now the US is backing out. But how is that related to the grassroot feelings of its citizens? ChinaDialogue asks author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao on the links between the environment and the emerging Daoism.

ChinaDialogue:

IJ: On the more abstract level there is this idea that the body is a microcosm of the universe. You can recreate the universe in your body through different cultivation techniques. When Daoists meditate in a cave they talk about going back to the womb of the earth, trying to resync with the earth on some symbolic level. On the other hand I think it's a mistake to translate the traditional Daoist concept of ziran (自然, nature) in a modern ecological way. It's more of an idea that you should be part of the cosmos (顺其自然). 

Concretely there are moves by Daosim to position itself as a green religion. But in my view it seems to be an effort to rebrand itself because people have a hard time understanding what Daosim is. The so-called ‘world religions’ like Islam, Christianity and Buddhism, all have clear stories. Shakyamuni was a prince. He went outside and saw the world suffering. Then he discovered the solution to suffering was to end desire. Daoism is more of a folk religion which doesn't really have a clear story, even though it is inside so much of Chinese culture, from Tai Chi to Fengshui. Marketing Daoism proves to be difficult. For historical reasons, it was also socially marginalised by the Manchurian rulers of the Qing Dynasty who were Buddhists. 

The result is that even today the educational level of Daoist priests tends to be low. Almost nobody has a university degree. Buddhist temples would have monks with doctoral degrees who are much more able to tell stories and convert people. So Daoism is faced with a crisis and turns to ecology as a re-marketing opportunity. I don't mean it's disingenuous or that it's fake. But whether it will succeed or not is debatable. 

CD: Do you think Chinese religions have the potential of forming the foundation of a new environmental awareness and to contribute to the global conversation about conservation? 

IJ: There is potential in the sense that most of the temples are in the countryside and in mountainous areas. They used to have large land holdings. And some of them present themselves as stewards of these areas. I know some Daoist temples around Maoshan outside of Nanjing have organic tea and organic herbal products. The challenge for them is again the educational level of the priests who have difficulty marketing themselves successfully to the better educated urban elites. They even have trouble writing the promotional materials. Nowadays there are local governments that assist Daoist temples in marketing and attempts to elevate the level of sophistication of Daoism in general. 

I think overall, Chinese are thinking about the same issues as other people around the world. These ideas that societies are not organised fairly, that there is a lack of justice and transparency which led to great political upheavals in the West concern Chinese society as well. If there is one idea that unites all the faith groups I’ve followed, it is the idea of justice, and of "tian" or heaven. I think that's a very strongly Chinese idea that society should be just. And justice is not something given by a party or a political campaign but it is divinely given. In Miaofengshan, these pilgrimage groups all perform stories of righteousness as part of their rituals. 

The spiritual revival shows that Chinese people are participating in this global conversation. And it would be interesting to see if China through Daosim or other religions could contribute something unique.

More on ChinaDialogue.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get on touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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China's search for happiness - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Most of China has left poverty behind, but people are still not happy. The search for moral values is now taking over the desire among China's citizens, says author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao in PRI. How turning to religion can change the country.

PRI:

“As one guy who told me, 'We used to think we were unhappy because we were poor. Now, we’re no longer poor, but we’re still unhappy,'” says Ian Johnson, a long time correspondent in China, most recently writing for The New York Times and the New York Review of Books, and author of the new book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao. 

If it’s tempting to pull out the old saying "money can’t buy happiness," many Chinese are more interested these days in figuring out what can. And so, a search for meaning has intensified in recent decades, as the descendents of those who once revered Mao Zedong and the Communist Party, and Chinese emperors before that, now embrace new centers of meaning, and new communities that share their values... 

“A lot of it is driven by this feeling that there are no shared values in Chinese society anymore,” says Johnson. “People constantly talk in social media –—and this is uncensored (by the Chinese government), it’s OK to talk about it — this lack of minimum moral standards in society, that anything goes, as long as you don’t get caught.” 

Another driver, Johnson says, is a desire for community in a society that has rapidly urbanized, with rural Chinese moving to new cities, and old urban-dwellers losing their neighborhoods to demolition and construction of new developments. 

The Communist Party officially recognizes five religions — Buddhism, Daoism, Protestantism, Catholicism and Islam, and tries to control each under the umbrella of the state, forbidding most ties with foreign centers of power, such as the Vatican. The party has long been wary of competing parallel power structures, including "house churches," gatherings of Protestant Chinese who seek to practice their faith outside of the strictures of Communist Party rules. Many such adherents still remember and respect Watchman Nee...

Turning to religion or spiritual practice is one way Chinese are now looking for meaning, but, as in the past in China, what starts with finding a new moral center, can lead to a yearning to shape new relationships and rules in society. China is still finding its moral compass and its direction, some 40 years after Mao’s death, and what started as a search for meaning may yet lead to more sweeping societal change. It’s a prospect that makes the Communist Party nervous, and keeps it vigilant. 

“I think all religions have an over-arching idea of justice and righteousness, and heaven, ‘tian,’ that ‘s above all else,” Johnson says. “It helps create among people that it’s not the government that gives us rights and laws. It comes from something higher. And I think that’s the change that could come to China in the future.”

More in PRI.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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