Beijing: the center of spirituality - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Beijing is regaining its position of China's spiritual universe, writes author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao in the New York Times. While much of its past has been destroyed, the city where Johnson lives is now regaining its position of China's spiritual capital. A struggle between commerce, communist and traditional values.

Ian Johnson:

When I first came to Beijing in 1984, the city felt dusty and forgotten, a onetime capital of temples and palaces that Mao had vowed — successfully, it seemed — to transform into a landscape of factories and chimneys. Soot penetrated every windowsill and every layer of clothing, while people rode simple steel bicycles or diesel-belching buses through the windy old streets. 

Then, as now, it was hard to imagine this sprawling city as the sacred center of China’s spiritual universe. But for most of its history, it was exactly that. 

It wasn’t a holy city like Jerusalem, Mecca or Banaras, locations whose very soil was hallowed, making them destinations for pilgrims. Yet Beijing’s streets, walls, temples, gardens and alleys were part of a carefully woven tapestry that reflected the constellations above, geomantic forces below and an invisible overlay of holy mountains and gods. It was a total work of art, epitomizing the political-religious system that ran traditional China for millenniums. It was Chinese belief incarnate.... 

Once in a while, somewhat awkwardly, the Communist state even recreates the old rituals. In March, some friends of mine, retirees who are amateur singers and musicians, were hired as extras for a ceremony on the spring equinox. About 30 of them dressed up in gowns and Qing dynasty-era hats and marched solemnly to the altar. Accompanied by a small orchestra of musicians playing gongs, cymbals and kettle drums, they strode up to a table filled with imitation dead animals laid out for sacrifice. A young man dressed as the emperor then kowtowed and made the ritual offerings, all under the strict guidance of experts from the local cultural affairs bureau who had read accounts of the ancient practices. Later, videos streamed around social media platforms like WeChat, reinforcing the popular idea that the past is returning.

Much more in the New York Times.

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A spiritual revival changes China - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Hundreds of millions Chinese turn to religion, as part of a spiritual revival, tells author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao to CBN. "While the government remains deeply suspicious of China's religious revival, Johnson says it hasn't stopped people from exploring matters of faith."

CBN:

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ian Johnson believes what's transpiring in China is nothing short of "one of the world's great spiritual revivals" and says the world better take note because the impact of this "spiritual transformation" could have significant global implications. 

"People {in China} are looking for new moral guideposts, some sort of moral compass to organize society," said Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion after Mao. "So they are turning to religion as a source of values to help reorganize society." 

Johnson spent six years researching the "values and faiths of today's China." He says the fastest-growing drivers of this "religious revolution" are unregistered churches or so-called "house" or "underground" churches. 

"These groups have become surprisingly well-organized, meeting very openly and often counting hundreds of congregants," Johnson wrote in an article for The Atlantic. "They've helped the number of Protestants soar from about one million when the communists took power to at least 60 million today."... 

While the government remains deeply suspicious of China's religious revival, Johnson says it hasn't stopped people from exploring matters of faith. 

"Hundreds of millions of Chinese are consumed with doubt about their society and turning to religion and faith for answers that they do not find in the radically secular world constructed around them," Johnson writes in his book.

More at CBN.

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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Illegal churches: large, and condoned by the government - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Not registered gatherings of religious believers have been a major force in the growing search for religion in China, but - says author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao in the Atlantic - they have largely been condoned by the government, and Johnson does not believe that might change.

Ian Johnson:

China, the world’s rising superpower, is experiencing an explosion of faith. The decades of anti-religious campaigns that followed the 1949 communist takeover are giving way to a spiritual transformation—and among the fastest-growing drivers of that transformation are unregistered churches. 

Once called “house” or “underground” churches because they were small clandestine affairs, these groups have become surprisingly well-organized, meeting very openly and often counting hundreds of congregants. They’ve helped the number of Protestants soar from about 1 million when the communists took power to at least 60 million today. Of these believers, about two-thirds are not affiliated with government churches. In other words, Protestants in non-government churches outnumber worshippers in government churches two to one. 

This fascinated me, and I wondered how it happened. Why were these independent churches so effective in appealing to China’s burgeoning middle class? And how do they survive despite government efforts to rein in religious groups not part of government-run places of worship? To find out, I knew it would be important to report from the ground up. If you rely solely on newspaper headlines and human rights reports, you’ll only understand one aspect of a society: its problems. For instance, after reading the recent Freedom House report about intensifying religious persecution under Chinese President Xi Jinping, you may come away with the impression that in China the main story of religion is repression. But any casual visitor to the country can tell you that the number of churches, mosques, and temples has soared in recent years, and that many of them are full. While problems abound, the space for religious expression has grown rapidly, and Chinese believers eagerly grab it as they search for new ideas and values to underpin a society that long ago discarded traditional morality.

Much more at the Atlantic.

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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Related articles

• Cultural change experts at the China Speakers Bureau

China's search for a moral foundation - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

To get rich is glorious was China's leading principle for decades, but slowly the country starts to search for a moral foundation, says author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao to PJMedia. "According to Johnson, China lacks the mechanisms the U.S. has available for creating social change. In China."

PJMedia:

The issue of spiritual emptiness is not exclusive to the Chinese, Johnson said, opining that many in the U.S. probably share this disillusionment with modern capitalistic society. He pointed to populist movements in the west, which are building momentum against a system that many see as rigged, where too much weight is placed on economics. 

“Society since the reform era has become defined by economics: to get rich is glorious. And that there aren’t too many other values in society,” Johnson said. 

Like in the U.S., there is an increasing suspicion of unfairness in China. Johnson described a scenario that one might witness in Beijing: a Chinese citizen who worked for the government 15 years ago and was awarded 10 apartments in Beijing that are now worth about $1.5 million each. Johnson said this scenario is “perfectly possible.” That person can afford to drive around in sports cars and send their children to expensive schools, flaunting their wealth.

“People are not stupid. They realize this is how a lot of money was made in China, and they feel cheated,” he said. 

Johnson admitted that there are plenty of brilliant entrepreneurs in China, as well.

“There are people who really deserve the millions that they make, but there’s a whole lot of people, probably the majority of millionaires in China, I would guess, earned this through what sociologists call rent-seeking efforts,” Johnson said. 

According to Johnson, China lacks the mechanisms the U.S. has available for creating social change. In China, the media does not have free editorial discretion, and there are no trade unions – another reason many of the Chinese are turning inward and toward faith-based groups for answers. 

Johnson said that inequality and the growing divide brought on by an increasingly globalized and capitalistic society were not as obvious or as widely flaunted in the era of Mao. Some Chinese who are in their 60s and 70s who grew up under Mao’s leadership are nostalgic for their youth, he said, but also for a time when perks and privileges weren’t rubbed in their faces. 

“There are certainly people who are nostalgic for the past,” Johnson said. “Just as you find people in Russia who are nostalgic for Stalin, there are people nostalgic for Mao.”

More in PJMedia.

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Religion: ways for a better society - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao discusses Taoism, Christianity and Buddhism and how they help Chinese citizens' ideals and hopes for a better society at the Asia Society.

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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Chinese, using religion to make sense out of their world - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

The South China Morning Post reviews Ian Johnson's book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao and delves into the hearts and souls of the growing number of religious believers in China.

The South China Morning Post:

While religious practices have been allowed to return to the mainland, there is still a cautiousness, especially when it comes to foreign involvement in such activities (and the example of the Falun Gong is always there, for those religious groups who might consider growing too large or becom­ing too independent from the state). 

Throughout the book, Johnson is by his subjects’ sides as they search for greater meaning or perform age-old rituals. He engages in Buddhist and Taoist meditation, seeking his own answers, and he attends a retreat with a 94-year-old Taoist, Nan Huai-chin, who is described as China’s most famous contemporary sage. He also attends a meditation course in caves in southern China. 

The Chinese, in an effort to catch up with the West, have discarded many of their traditions and instead tried out new ideologies “like suits of clothes” – warlordism, fascism, communism and “authoritarian capitalism”. Many are now wondering what has been lost and who they really are. 

Johnson writes, “Hundreds of millions of Chinese are consumed with doubt about their society and turning to religion and faith for answers that they do not find in the radically secular world constructed around them.”

More in the South China Morning Post.

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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The complex face of religion in China - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

The Guardian praises Ian Johnson's book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao and his well-documented tour along Taoist musicians, rebel Christians and celebrity Zen Buddhists, and where the CCP is still firmly in charge.

The Guardian:

Xi’s remarks exemplified the fierce tensions that surround the past and present role of religion in communist China. While the party acknowledges and accepts the resurgence of religious belief made possible by the post-Mao thaw, it retains an ongoing compulsion to regulate faith – a compulsion that has resulted in violent suppressions of spiritual movements such as Falun Gong. 

In his fascinating odyssey through contemporary Chinese religion, Ian Johnson uncovers the roots of these tensions, and the contradictory, complex face of religion in China today. He begins by describing the interlocking relations in pre-20th-century China between politics, society and multiple faiths. In the west, he argues, we are accustomed to thinking “in exclusive terms: this person is Catholic, that person is Jewish, another is Muslim. 

These faiths have … set places of worship, a holy book and, quite often, a clergy.” In pre-modern China, religious attachment lacked this absoluteness: believers veered between the “three teachings” (Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism) according to social and ritual need. 

Religion blurred ubiquitously into political power. Control of local temples and religious practices gave local bigwigs community clout; religious authority constituted the “lifeblood” of imperial rule. “The emperor was the ‘Son of Heaven’, who presided over elaborate rituals that underscored his semi-divine nature.” 

Religion’s saturation of political life made it an obvious target for reformers and revolutionaries discontented with a China torn apart by foreign enemies and domestic rebels. In searching for the roots of the country’s crises, many early 20th-century radicals blamed religious tradition – particularly but not only Confucianism – for holding China back from becoming a cohesive, modern state populated by rational, dynamic citizens. This antagonism towards religious tradition peaked during the Mao years (1949-76): temples and monasteries were destroyed; clergy were beaten, imprisoned and killed; Christians were automatically suspect as adherents of a “western” faith. (The religious impulse, of course, did not disappear through these decades: especially from the 1960s onwards, Mao was worshipped as an infallible deity.)

Much more in the Guardian.

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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China's return to soul-searching - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

China's emerging religious experiences have often been misunderstood by the West, says author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao in an interview with the New York Times. "I think the government is happy to see these things grow—almost as a form of stability."

The New York Times:

What are some of the ways faith in China is misunderstood? 

In polls, if you say, What zongjiao (religion) do you believe in? people still think it’s an odd question. The word zongjiao has been heavily politicized under the Communists. It’s better to ask people what they do rather than about labels. There was a very good study done that found something like 25% of respondents said that a god or a spirit or—I think they used a word like “Buddha”—had influenced their life in the past 12 months. That’s much higher than if you say, do you believe in zongjiao, when you get like a 10% rate [of people saying yes]. For most people there was no contradiction between, say, reading Confucian books on morality and going to a Taoist temple and then inviting Buddhist monks over to perform a funeral ceremony for your granny. It was all part of the same thing. They were not discrete organized religions in opposition to each other the way we think of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. 

You write that President Xi has helped boost Buddhism and traditional religions in China. 

Xi has strongly ramped up support for traditional Chinese ideas, including religion. A lot of guoxue (the study of traditional Chinese culture) now being taught in schools are essentially religious texts—a lot of Confucianism, but they’re reading the [the Taoist classic text] “Dao De Jing” and Buddhist texts as well. There’s been increased support for this idea of intangible cultural heritage, which includes formerly banned religious practices or things that were considered [superstition]. They’ll call it music or theater but it’s religious music and religious theater. They’ve given tons of money to these groups. You also see it in the incredible number of temples under construction. Look at Beijing, which used to have one to two Taoist temples and now there’s over 20. 

There’s a redefining of all this as culture. At one temple in Beijing, I asked a guy, “Is this religion?” And the guy shrank back, saying, “No, this isn’t religion.” And I was like, “But they’re kowtowing.” And he said, “No, it’s culture.” If you’re just a cultural-activities thing or a moneymaking tourist site, it’s more relaxed, you can do what you want. You can have a temple fair and say it’s intangible cultural heritage. 

What’s underpinning official support?

I think the government is happy to see these things grow—almost as a form of stability. If you wanted to be cynical, it’s almost as if the government buys into religion being the opiate of the masses: Let it be an opiate, because we need people to believe in something.

More in the New York Times.

Ian Johnson is a speaker of 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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The little people, and their religious believes - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Journalist Zhang Lijia's book Lotus: A Novel on prostitution in China hides nice jewels in different corners. Sex workers often held very strong religious believes, she tells Karen Ma in AsianCha."I believe it is their way of cleansing themselves, but also because they feel the deities won't judge them."

AsianCha:

KM: In the novel, I found Lotus' strong belief in Buddhism fascinating. In your research, did you find many working girls were very religious?

LZ: Yes, many sex workers are very religious. One woman I interviewed told me about a dream, which I borrowed for the novel. She dreamt that she died—in fact, at one point she was obsessed with the idea of death, and often thought she was going to die. So she wrote down her bank details for her mother, in case she died and no one knew where to find the money she had in various banks. In this dream, she was dead. Her whole family—parents, sisters and daughter—came to say goodbye in front of her tomb. They laid down a bunch of white flowers. From death, she watched them, as if in a film. On closer examination, she saw the flowers were made of toilet paper.

It seems to me a high percentage of working girls have some kind of religious belief, either Buddhism or Christianity. I believe it is their way of cleansing themselves, but also because they feel the deities won't judge them. 

KM: Would you say your strong interest in writing about characters/people on the fringe has something to do with your own background?

LZ: Yes, absolutely. Because of my poor family, I've always taken an interest in the "little people"—xiao ren wu, those who struggle at the bottom of society. Artists tend to be attracted to those living on the fringe. Also I believe how these people are treated is the true measure of a society.

More in AsianCha.

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

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My picks for religious developments - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Journalist Ian Johnson provides in The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao an unprecedented view on how religion has been developing in China over de past years. In an interview with the author for the LA Review of Books Ting Guo argues Johnson did miss important developments. Ian Johnson disagrees.

LA Review of Books:

You provide readers with a religious landscape of China, taking them by turns to different regions. But some important places are missing from your map. As a Southerner, for instance, I felt that Jiangnan — a region with major cosmopolitan cities like Shanghai and home to Zhejiang province, a place that has seen a religious boom — was skipped over. 

I don’t exactly agree. I specifically put in a large section on Jiangnan. The Master Nan chapter is set there, as are key parts of the chapters on internal cultivation. But I take your point — there isn’t much on areas like Fujian or Guangzhou, which have important and vibrant religious traditions. I was faced with a quandary: a book about a huge country has to be selective in order to be coherent. A survey of China would be a different kind of book. 

Any book involves a series of choices and this was no different. When it comes to books about religion in China, many people in the West would expect to see chapters on Tibet and Xinjiang, but I focus on Han Chinese. This explains why I don’t include deal with Islam, despite a strong interest in that religion that shows through in my other writings, from a previous book, A Mosque in Munich, to interviews I’ve published with scholars working on Chinese Muslims, such as Matthew Erie, and pieces I’ve done on recent books about Xinjiang. I also selected aspects of religions that I thought were more indicative of China’s future development. So I don’t write too much about Wenzhou and “boss Christians,” who are successful business people with large churches, because I think they are specific to a region and a model that is dying out.

More in the LA 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.

In March he won the prestigous Shorenstein Journalism Award. Are you looking for more stories by Ian Johnson? Do check out this list.

Xi Jinping as a guardian of Buddhism - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Journalist Ian Johnson will soon publish his groundbreaking book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao. For the New York Times he selected a special story, on how president Xi Jinping became the guardian of Buddhism and other traditional believes, and today uses it, not as an object for repression, but as a part of China's globalization strategy.

Ian Johnson:

In 1982, two men arrived in this dusty provincial town. One was Shi Youming, a Buddhist monk who was taking up a post in the ruins of one of Zhengding’s legendary temples. The other was Xi Jinping, the 29-year-old son of a top Communist Party official putting in a mandatory stint in the provinces as a bureaucrat in the government he would eventually lead. 

The two forged an unusual alliance that resonates today. With Mr. Xi’s backing, Youming, who like most Buddhist monks preferred to go by one name, rebuilt the city’s Linji Temple, the birthplace of one of the best-known schools of Buddhism. Even after Mr. Xi was transferred, he regularly visited Youming in Zhengding and sent officials there to study the partnership between the party and religion. 

Mr. Xi’s early encounters with religious life give insight into a man who has run China with a firmer hand than any other leader since Mao Zedong. Although he is best known abroad for his efforts to expand China’s territorial reach in the South China Sea or his high-profile campaign against corruption, at home the president is engineering a remarkable about-face for the Communist Party: an effort to rejuvenate China’s spiritual life through an embrace of some religions. 

As an organization that has tried to squelch religion, the Communist Party under Mr. Xi is now backing it in ways that echo the approach of strongmen like Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who use faith to legitimize their rule. Faced with growing social tensions and slowing economic growth, the government is turning to religion to bolster its hold on power.

Mr. Xi, by making China a guardian of a major faith like Buddhism, also sees religion as a way to promote China’s position in a world still dominated by the United States, which he tentatively plans to visit for a meeting with President Trump early next month.

Indeed, one of Mr. Xi’s signature lines is, “If the people have faith, the nation has hope, and the country has strength.”...

I’ve found that Mr. Xi’s embrace of faith is incredibly popular among most Chinese. While Christians may cringe at his views, many more others see his support for traditional faiths as positive — a re-creation of the imperial Chinese state’s support for certain faiths and belief systems. Far from being an anomaly in Mr. Xi’s rise, his stint in Zhengding is most likely something else: a template for the mixing of faith and politics — a reimagining of the political-religious state that once ruled China.

Much more in the New York Times.

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Religion: flourishing in China - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

When you believe Western media, religion is suffering severely from repression in China. But author Ian Johnson explored for his book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao the different religions in the country and discovered they are flourishing like they did not do for a long time, he tells to Christianity Today.

Christianity Today:

What are the major religious movements you explored? 

First, I look at groups in Beijing that practice Buddhism and other Chinese folk religions, which have been suppressed in the past but are making a big comeback with a bit of government support. These are primarily working-class people, the kind you don’t meet very often or read about too much. 

Then I spent time with a group of folk Taoist priests living in Tseng Chi province, in the countryside. Even though China has urbanized, about half the population lives in rural areas. Taoism is China’s indigenous religion. I got a feel for religion in the countryside, and a sense of the adaptations people make when they move to the cities. I visited a family where the father stayed in the village and the son moved to the town, which caused some tensions. 

The other major group is the Chengdu Protestants, named after the province where they are concentrated. Protestantism is China’s fastest growing religion. I wanted to look at an unregistered church, because they are growing the fastest, and because they’re so dynamic and interesting. In some ways, they’re the future of one big segment of religious life in China. I also wanted to avoid spending too much time in Beijing. If you spend all your time there, you would think the Communist Party is all powerful. But in Chengdu you see this unregistered church that’s running its own seminary and kindergarten. It bought a floor in an office building. And all of this is happening even though it’s technically illegal. You get a feel for the diversity of China and how things outside of Beijing can be a bit more freewheeling. 

How would you categorize the folk Buddhist “tea associations” around Beijing? 

I do think this is religious practice, even if the government is more comfortable calling it “culture.” They don’t really know what to make of it. This is not really any one religion. It’s more the way most Chinese religion was practiced in the past, a hodgepodge of Taoism, Buddhism, and various other things. For most people, there wasn’t a sharp theological boundary between Taoism and Buddhism. 

These things used to be viewed as mere superstition—praying to gods for children, good health, or things like that. And the government, in the hard Communist era under Mao, made it illegal. But increasingly, the government doesn’t see it as harmful because it can provide a kind of stability. It gives people something to believe in and it’s not overtly political, so the government is willing to encourage it. 

It’s all self-organized, and people are really quite pious. The government might call it culture, but they’re worshiping at these temples. Almost all of them have little shrines in their homes, like a statue of a god or Guan Yin, the Buddhist goddess of mercy. They light incense and say prayers. You wouldn’t know it just from walking around Beijing, because it’s not so visible. But there are about 80 or 90 of these groups in Beijing, with more forming all the time. 

Why do Protestantism and Chinese folk religions seem to appeal to different classes of people? 

Protestantism is more likely to appeal to Chinese with higher levels of education. That’s not to say that people who believe in Buddhism and Taoism all have less education. But Protestantism is a more modern religion in the sense that you have a more unmediated relationship with God. You can pray directly to God, the pastor addresses you directly in his or her sermons, and there’s more participation by the congregation. 

In a traditional Chinese ceremony, you tend to have a religious experience through an intermediary. The priest figure does ceremonies and says prayers on your behalf, and you’re more passively watching this happen. Many urban, educated people want a more active religious experience. Wang Yi, the pastor of Early Rain Reformed Church in Chengdu, is a very good speaker. His sermons address real-life issues that people face. Traditionally in Buddhism or Taoism you don’t have that kind of interaction with the priest. They are doing something for you, but they’re not really talking to you.

More in Christianity Today.

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 experts on cultural change in China? Do check out this list.

Ian Johnson discusses his forthcoming book on the return of religion

 

What makes China tick? - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Journalist Ian Johnson discusses his forthcoming book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao on the return of religion in China. Chinese want now to do more than only make money, he says. They are looking what brings us together. What makes China tick?

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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What Xinjiang needs is de-escalation - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

While religion is getting more leeway in China, the opposite is happening for the Tibetans and Uighur, says journalist Ian Johnson, author of the upcoming book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao in the Globe&Mail. Just last week Xinjiang, home to the Uyghur, saw a strong increase in security forces.

The Globe&Mail:

The treatment of Tibetans and Uighurs offers a glimpse of the downward spirals that can emerge under harsh policies. 

In Xinjiang, what’s needed is de-escalation, “some kind of a peace process like the British had in Northern Ireland,” said Ian Johnson, a Pulitzer-winning journalist and author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao. But that’s difficult to do when strict government policies have largely eliminated moderate voices and civil society. 

“It’s a tough hole for them to climb out of there,” he said. “And this is going to be the largest conflict area for religion and state in China going forward.” 

Elsewhere, China has so far been more lenient. Though hundreds of crosses were removed from churches in Zhejiang province, such action has barely been seen elsewhere – and virtually all Zhejiang churches remain open. 

There are signs, however, that China is preparing for stronger action. Draft rules released last fall threaten fines for those who rent space to unregistered religious organizations, and new restrictions on contact and financial transactions between Chinese believers and foreign groups Mr. Johnson warned that such a strategy could “create a lot more problems for them than they think. They’re essentially picking a fight with people who are not likely to back down.” Under Mao, he noted, the Christian church roughly quadrupled in size despite the imprisonment and death of pastors and priests.

More in the Globe&Mail.

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 political experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

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Repressing religion in China is not the big picture - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

The forceful removal of crosses at churches and the arrest of Christians have hit of Western media regularly. But that is not the big picture, says journalist Ian Johnson, author of the upcoming book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, at CNN. Those government actions are mainly symbolic, he says.

CNN:

Hundreds of Christians have also been detained or arrested attempting to resist those demolitions, ChinaAid said. 

As the larger of the Christian denominations in China, Freedom House said Protestants had been “particularly affected by cross-removal and church-demolition campaigns, punishment of state-sanctioned leaders, and the arrest of human rights lawyers who take up Christians’ cases.” 

However, Ian Johnson, author of new book “The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao,” said the focus on the cross removal misses the big picture. 

“I’d say that the most important point is that virtually none of these churches have been closed,” he said in a piece for CNN Opinion. 

“All continue to have worshipers and services just like before. In addition, the campaign never spread beyond the one province. Some pessimists see it as a precursor for a campaign that might spread nationally, but so far that hasn’t happened and there is no indication it will.”

More at CNN.

The full CNN opinion piece is here.

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 experts on cultural change at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list. Ian Johnson will be on a book tour in the US and China in April and May. Check here for the details.

Ian Johnson book tour in April, May, the US and China

Ian Johnson

The long anticipated book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao by Beijing-based journalist Ian Johnson will hit the shelves in April and May, and is followed by an intensive book tour, mostly along academic institutions in the US and China.

China's society is changing fast, and the rising popularity of new values, and traditional religious are a feature too often ignored in contemporary journalist. Ian Johnson is well positioned to give a nuanced look at the massive cultural change happening since 1949. More details about his book tour your can find here.

His book tour is pretty busy, and it seems unlikely he can book more speeches during this tour, but it might be a good way to suss out what his book is about, and how it might fit into your conference or meeting.

Are you interested in having Ian Johnson as a speaker, do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.  

Are you looking for more experts on cultural change at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

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Why Christianity grows fast in China - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

The Christian faith in China, sometimes illegally, sometimes condoned by the government, is growing fast, faster than other religions. Journalist Ian Johnson, author of the upcoming book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, explains in the Spectator why.

The Spectator:

Many Chinese converts do not want their faith to be controlled by the government — and so they join covert congregations like the one at Zion, which was founded in 2009. ‘For every one of the official churches, there’s at least another unregistered church,’ explains Ian Johnson, author of a new book on China’s religious revival, Lost Souls of China. ‘Many of those who attend “house” churches started by going to official churches and then branched out.’ The number of Christians is now estimated at around 60 to 70 million — much higher than official reports suggest. 

In Beijing, Christianity is permitted to thrive, as long as it does so quietly, but elsewhere in China there has been a crackdown. Last summer, in Zhejiang province — a region with a rich history of missionary activity — crosses were removed from the exteriors of more than 1,000 churches.... 

Christianity is growing fast within cities among the young and well-educated Chinese. ‘People don’t see a contradiction between modernity and Christianity,’ Ian Johnson says. ‘Particularly for many who are already westernised, or have studied abroad, Christianity may be more acceptable than Buddhism or Taoism.’

More in the Spectator.

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 experts on cultural change at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.