Ban online bibles signals broader crackdown - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Bibles have been legally available in China, both in print and online. But a recent crackdown by the authorities on online bibles might signal a wider crackdown, writes journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, for the New York Times.

Ian Johnson:

The Bible is printed in China but legally available only at church bookstores. The advent of online retailers created a loophole that made the Bible easily available. This was especially important in China given the growing dominance of online shopping.

The closing of that loophole follows new government religious regulations that have effectively tightened rules on Christianity and Islam, while promoting Buddhism, Taoism and folk religion as part of President Xi Jinping’s efforts to promote traditional values. The moves also come as China is engaged in negotiations with the Vatican to end the split between the underground and government-run Catholic Church. 

This would end a nearly 70-year split between the Chinese government and the global church, which Beijing traces to the Vatican’s historically strong anti-Communist stance. Observers said the new measures could be a sign of a broader crackdown. At a news conference Tuesday outlining Beijing’s approach, a government spokesperson said the Vatican would never be allowed control over the clergy in China. That came after a recent government reorganization in which a hard-line Communist Party department took over management of religious policy. “It sounds like the opposition force within the Chinese authorities who oppose the Vatican-China relations have their voice,” said Yang Fenggang, head of the Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University. “It clearly shows that they worry or are concerned about Catholics as well as Protestants.”

More at The Star.

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How state and religion are intertwined in China - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

In China power and religion are intertwined, argues journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao and you cannot understand China without knowing its religion. At the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy, he explains how religion moved from apparently irrelevant to crucial in today's China. Why religion is not going away, as many intellectuals have thought.

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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Why Beijing and the Vatican are eager to close a deal - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Despite fierce opposition, both the Vatican and the central government in Beijing seem very eager to sign a deal on reestablishing diplomatic relations. Journalist Ian Johnson, who broke the story end January, and author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao tries to figure out why both a so eager to push ahead, he tells at PRI. The real issue for both is about social control, he says.

PRI:

 The Vatican has centuries of experience in China. It was Jesuit priests who first established a permanent place for Christianity in China starting in the 16th century. Francis is the first Jesuit to become pope, and he appears eager to heal the divide running through Catholicism in China by normalizing relations between the Vatican and Beijing. 

Those diplomatic ties were severed in 1951, soon after the communists took control of the mainland. Life for Chinese Catholics has been complicated, to say the least, ever since. For the Chinese government, re-establishing diplomatic relations with the Vatican would be a victory for public diplomacy. But the real motivation for Xi and his government is about social control, says Ian Johnson. 

“Beijing just issued new regulations on religion that call for even tighter control on religion,” says Johnson, author of “The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao.” 

“This is not really a socially reform-minded administration that’s willing to open up or take a gamble. I think if a deal presents itself, that’s great. They’ll do it. But if not, they’re probably happy to walk away.” 

Another attractive possibility for Beijing in all this is related to Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province. The Holy See is one of just 20 states with diplomatic ties to Taiwan. If normalizing the relationship with mainland China coincided with breaking the Vatican’s recognition of Taiwan, that would be something Xi could celebrate. 

For his part, Francis would like to heal the rift running through Catholic life in China. He'd also like to grow the church in that country. There are an estimated 10-12 million Catholics in China. By comparison, Protestants — and this is a low estimate — number around 60 million there. 

Legally, China does recognize Catholicism as one of the country’s five official religions. The authorities in Beijing even help appoint some Catholic bishops in China. This has long been a sticky issue for the Vatican. 

In recent weeks, the pope has shown he is willing to be flexible on this issue. Papal authorities asked two underground Chinese bishops to resign and make way for candidates approved by the Chinese government. 

“Many Catholics don’t feel comfortable going to the officially recognized Catholic Church, because many of those bishops and the priests under them, who they appointed, were not approved by Rome,” Johnson says. 

“Some people think, ‘I’m not being loyal. I’m not being a good Catholic. I’m not being loyal to the pope if I go to these official churches.’” 

“It’s a difficult situation, and it slows the growth of the religion,” Johnson adds.

 More at PRI 

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How the Vatican changed its position to China - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

The Roman Catholic Church at the Vatican has shocked its communities in China by asking two "underground" bishops by complying to the country's rulers. Journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, tries to make sense out of the move for the New York Times.

Ian Johnson:

In a statement released on Monday, the former bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal Joseph Zen, confirmed the broad outlines of the Vatican’s recent efforts, writing that he traveled to Rome this month to personally deliver to the pope a letter from an underground bishop who had refused to resign. 

The letter came from Bishop Zhuang Jianjian of the southern Chinese city of Shantou, an 88-year-old who had been secretly ordained in 2006 with Vatican approval. 

In December, Bishop Zhuang was escorted by government officials to Beijing, where he was taken to the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse to meet a papal delegation believed to have been headed by Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, who leads the Vatican’s China negotiating team... 

In his statement on Monday, Cardinal Zen said that when he delivered Bishop Zhuang’s letter to the pope, the pontiff expressed sympathy for the underground bishops, telling the cardinal that his negotiators should not “create another Mindszenty case,” a reference to a pro-democracy bishop in Hungary who was forced out of his country in 1956 and replaced with a person acceptable to the government. 

Cardinal Zen wrote that he had been heartened by the words. “I was there in the presence of the Holy Father representing my suffering brothers in China,” he said. “His words should be rightly understood as of consolation and encouragement more for them than for me.” 

The Rev. Bernardo Cervellera, the editor of Asianews.it, said the developments showed that Vatican negotiators were prepared to give the Chinese government “carte blanche, and accept all requests and pose no opposition on questions that affect the church in China.” 

But Father Cervellera said the pope’s reported comments to Cardinal Zen may have signaled that he was not entirely in agreement with his negotiators. 

People following the issue said that the highly unusual series of events showed how badly the Vatican wanted a deal. 

“The fact that both sides can carry on the negotiation till now shows that the Vatican must consider this a rare opportunity,” said Wang Meixiu, a researcher on Chinese Catholicism at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. 

Dr. Chen (Dr. Chen Tsung-ming, research director at the Ferdinand Verbiest Institute) in Belgium said that one reason for the Vatican’s eagerness was a sense that the faith had been growing relatively slowly compared with other religions in China. While the number of Protestants has grown from one million in 1949 to at least 50 million today, the number of Catholics has largely tracked population growth, increasing from three million in that period to at most 12 million today, in part because of the schism in the Chinese Catholic Church. 

The pope’s background as a priest in the Society of Jesus may also play a role, Dr. Chen said. Jesuits arrived in China more than 400 years ago, establishing a permanent presence for the church on the mainland after several failed efforts in earlier centuries. But they did so by being extremely flexible and conforming to local norms — a point that may be informing the pope’s negotiating approach. 

“He has a sense of mission,” Dr. Chen said. “There’s a historic responsibility.”

More details in the New York Times.

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Religion: a way to restore some order in China - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

The less-than straightforward relation between China's communist rulers and religion is one of the complicated concepts author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao tries to explain. From repression, to tolerance and now moving to a idea to use religion to restore some order, that relationship has changed profoundly, he tells The Politic, although it varies depending on what religion you look at.

The Politic:

President Xi Jinping´s administration has embraced different traditions, including religious ones, that serve his party. Can you talk a little bit about this, what has he done, and why is it important now that he has been re-appointed for another five-year term? 

After he took power in 2012, he very quickly made a series of highly symbolic visits. He visited the hometown of Confucius in Qufu, and he prayed to Confucius. He made another visit to UNESCO in Paris and praised Buddhist tradition, and he also had public meetings with Buddhist leaders. So then, they began to push this propaganda campaign of the China dream—this is Xi Jinping’s signature slogan—and this dream is a national rejuvenation, but it’s also social justice, and they use traditional images and traditional ideas and concepts to promote that. 

That was the beginning of the efforts. This is one of the reasons he is very popular, and it’s probably because they feel that society went out of control. His campaign against corruption is very popular, [the thinking is], “Yes, we need to stop corruption, but we also we need some kind of frame to get society in order.” 

If you think about it broadly, you got the Mao Era, and the Reform Era, and then the government backed away from the control of society, and they let people do what they wanted to do as long as they didn’t challenge the government. By the 2000s, people thought that things had gotten out of control. The internet was coming up, [new] NGOs were forming, and they didn’t want the Party to be challenged. So, starting before Xi Jinping, but especially after he took power, there’s been this effort to reassert control over society. I think they see religion as a useful tool in the overall effort to restore some sort of order in society. 

From what I understand, in the 19th century, religion and politics were very intertwined. And now, apparently, it is becoming intertwined again, so how are people receiving these changes? And what are the implications of this? 

Well, I don’t think they can go all the way back. In the old system, the emperor was a quasi-deity, the son of heaven. 

One implication is that there are other religions in China besides the ones the government is happy to support. The government is comfortable with Buddhism, Daoism, these so-called traditional religions, but it is less comfortable with Christianity and Islam, which also have significant populations. I think this could be a source of tension in the future. Already there are quite Islamophobic bloggers who write against Islam and question whether Islam is part of China. Actually, Islam has been in China for over a thousand years, so it’s not like it arrived last year. And about half of the Christians of China are not part of the official church, they are part of unregistered churches. I think they want to make them register with the government, those roughly thirty million Christians, and that’s going to be difficult, it can cause a lot of tensions. 

Why do they oppose Christianity and Islam? 

I think they don’t oppose it per se. I think what they don’t like is the foreign influence, foreign ties. It is the same with NGOs. NGOs in China can form, but they can’t take foreign money. So, with Christianity and Islam, you have inherent foreign ties. In Catholicism, bishops must be appointed by the Vatican, and in Protestantism, you also have ties with global, Evangelical movements. They send, not missionaries, but trainers, especially Chinese-Americans who come with a tourist visa and then teach and train pastors. Then, Islam also has a really strong global component, for example with the pilgrimage to Mecca. Some countries also want to donate money to build mosques, and the government is always trying to limit that. 

More in The Politic.

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You need to understand religion to understand China - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, explains what five books you need to read to understand China in a Five Books interview. Not surprisingly, those five books also focus on religion, just like Ian's own bestseller. The search for a moral framework.

The Five Books Interview:

As you say, we can’t understand China without understanding religion, but up until recently, a lot of people would have found that statement strange, because many people – historians, ethnographers and journalists – largely ignored religion in China. It was considered to be an unimportant topic, even though it had been central to the question of how to modernize China over the past century. 

Reformers from Kang Youwei to Sun Yat-sen, and leaders such as Chiang Kai-shek – not to mention Mao Zedong – saw traditional Chinese religion as a key social ill that had to either be massively reformed or eradicated. This unleashed one of the most radically secularizing campaigns in history, with hundreds of thousands of places of worship, mainly traditional temples, destroyed. 

So in the 1970s one political scientist wrote—and I’m paraphrasing—of the astounding fact of our time that a nation with one quarter of the world’s population had no religious life as people had known it. At that time, all places of religion under Mao had been closed, and religion didn’t seem to be an important part of Chinese life. But that began to change at the end of the Mao era. Religion had been attacked for over a century, but in the reform era for roughly 30 years until the Beijing Olympics, there was a relatively laissez-faire policy toward it. There were moments of persecution, but by and large religion flourished on its own. 

Now we’re in an era where the state is actively picking losers and winners, and religion is back at the centre of a national conversation in China, playing a role in what kind of society and values does China have – what are the ideas, the beliefs of this rising superpower? Many Chinese are grappling with these questions, while the government is trying, in typical Chinese government fashion, to guide and shape it. But it’s a very messy complex question. 

Is religion filling what some people call the spiritual vacuum in China, as the nation figures out what its identity is in this newest incarnation? 

There are people in China who are looking for values and answers to basic moral questions. Some find it in humanism or in democracy or in human rights, but the government has largely made these taboo topics. We do have dissidents, for example, who think China needs to change to a more open liberal society and a more participatory political system. A lot of those moral issues could be solved by having a more moral government, one that doesn’t rely on coercion and violence to keep itself in power. But other Chinese also see a wider moral issue, that China needs some kind of a moral framework.

More in the Five Books Interview.

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 Return of Religion: larger than a China quest - review

Ian Johnson

Journalist Ian Johnson's latest book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao is not short of positive reviews. But Jeremiah Jenne gives in the World of Chinese his review an extra twist. The Return of religion in China is not limited to the country's search of new values, but might be part of a worldwide search of values, Jenne writes.

The World of Chinese:

Overall, this is an impressive book, combining ethnography, journalism, substantial scholarship and an excellent prose style, as one would expect from an author whose work regularly graces the New York Times, the New York Review of Books and other publications around the world. It is also a subtle memoir. Johnson makes no secret of how his own religious journey is intertwined with many of the people he writes about. Rather than being a distraction, as might have been the case with an author of lesser talents, these asides provide insight into the practices and beliefs described by his interviewees. 

As religious historian Jaroslav Pelikan has said (via the eminent Chinese historian Joseph Levenson’s classic Confucian China and its Modern Fate): “Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. And, I suppose I should add, it is traditionalism that gives tradition such a bad name.” 

And yet, Johnson shows how today’s religious revival is more than just the reanimation of sages and practices, and that, ultimately, this might be a story bigger than China. As Johnson writes in his final chapter, “Perhaps because Chinese traditions were so savagely attacked over the past decades, and then replaced with such a naked form of capitalism, China might actually be at the forefront of this worldwide search for values.”

More in the World of Chinese.

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.

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The long-term effects of China's religious revival - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Religious persecution in China is high on the political agenda, but most people do not see how the country's religious revival is going to change our relations in the long run, argues journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

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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Why religion did not die out in communist China - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

China started - after initial suppression - to tolerate religion under Deng Xiaoping, as the communist rulers of the country expected religion was something for the older generation and would die out. Journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao explains in a Q&A to JWT Intelligence why they were wrong. And the implications for business.

JWT Intelligence:

Why was religion in China suppressed to begin with? 

It’s important to go back to before the communists, back to the 19th century when other countries were confronted with how to modernize. Many people felt religion was holding people back. In late 19th century China, some saw religion as a social ill, similar to footbinding or opium smoking. Buddhism, Daoism, folk religions were by and large suspect. Hundreds of thousands of temples were destroyed. When the communists took over in 1949, they carried it forward in more radical fashion. During Mao’s Cultural Revolution from 1966-1976, he banned all places of worship. Mao himself was almost like a god; the little red book almost like a bible. Then he died. 

Under Deng Xiaoping’s capital and economic reforms, control over a lot of society was loosened. He allowed seminaries to open, and monks, nurses and imams to be trained. It was thought that some old people still believed in religion and religions would slowly disappear. 

But they didn’t? 

No. As people got wealthier, there was a widespread perception that in China, there is a lack of shared values and China is in a sort of moral vacuum. We see this in social media—somebody is injured in the street and nobody helps them. There are food safety scandals. People are asking, “what sort of society have we become?” This is one of the reasons people are turning to religion. 

Now the government feels some religion can be useful, especially if it doesn’t have foreign ties. Some are viewed less favorably, like Islam and Christianity. But Buddhism and Daoism are now tolerated and even encouraged. This slow shift that began about 10 years ago really picked up pace under current President Xi Jinping. 

We see an explosion in the number of temples, churches and mosques paid for by ordinary people through donations. Religions are getting more active in proselytizing and even Buddhists and Daoists are trying to compete in this religious marketplace.

More in JWT Intelligence.

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 political dimension of China's religious awakening - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Most reviewers of Ian Johnson's latest book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao focus on religion, while his book also has a profound political dimension. "Interesting that only a religious journal gets the deeper meaning of my book--not only as a challenge to religion and values, but also to China's political order," writes Johnson on Facebook.about the review in Voegelinview.

Voegelinview:

“For I saw it was impossible to do anything without friends and loyal followers; and to find such men ready to hand would be a piece of sheer good luck, once our city was no longer guided by the customs and practices of our fathers, while to train up new ones was anything but easy.”[1] 

Ian Johnson argues, with considerable evidence, that the People’s Republic of China is undergoing a great awakening, comparable to that experienced by the United States in the nineteenth-century. This is in some sense inevitable in the generation after the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, where religions, including Daoism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and especially folk religions (most of which are Daoist), were brutally suppressed. Totalitarianism led, in China’s post-totalitarian (and still officially atheist) phase, a spiritual and moral crisis that manifests itself in low social trust. In this regard, Johnson cites Peking University ethicist He Huaihong’s observation: “We can feel the overlay of savagery in our ordinary lives” (88). Johnson argues the Chinese are turning to faith as a way of filling the spiritual and moral void they experience in their culture. He combines first-rate journalism and interviewing with the most recent social science studies to show that, in discussing “China’s rise,” one must also account for its spiritual awakening that comprises, in a rough estimate, approximately 300 million believers (31). 

Johnson focuses on the lively activities of a handful of religious groups, including the Protestant Early Rain Reformed Church in Chengdu that is led by a former democracy advocate, Wang Yi; a group led by Li Bin in Shanxi province that is world-renowned for its musical performances of Daoist rituals; Beijing’s Ni family that is the custodian of the temple dedicated to Our Lady of the Azure Clouds, an important Daoist goddess, along with several other representative samples of religious believers. 

Johnson uses the term, “religion” for his Western readers but at the outset he explains this term is misleading. Researchers know not to ask the Chinese if they are religious because the answer will be overwhelmingly negative (28-29). But their response is not a sign of atheism. It is a problem of methodology and terminology because “religion” is too Western and implies something separate and alien to daily life, as well as dogma. Before the twentieth-century, the Chinese lacked a term for religion. The contemporary term, zongjiao, is a Japanese import (20-21).  Instead of religion, Johnson notes that China is seeing an awakening of ritual and of faith (xinyang). He understands ritual the same way Plato has the Athenian Stranger discuss nomoi, the customs and mores of a society. Indeed, the book is structured around the annual cycle of traditional festivals that are returning.

Much more in Voegelinview.

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Why Catholicism is shrinking in a increasing religious China - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Protestantism, Buddhism and Taoism grow fast in China, but followers of the Catholic faith are dwindling.  Author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao reports from the countryside on why Catholicism finds it harder to find a solid footprint among Chinese looking for moral values, for the America Magazine.

Ian Johnson:

A key reason for this divergence goes back to the issue of localization. The church’s reluctance to indigenize until the mid-20th century contrasts with the explosive growth in the number of indigenous Protestant leaders as early as the 1920s and ’30s. Many were jailed by the Communists, but their followers formed the basis of today’s huge Protestant “house church” movement. For better or worse, Protestantism in China travels lightly, with self-taught pastors forming churches and attracting large congregations in only a few years. 

This sort of spontaneous institution-building is harder to realize in a more formally structured faith like Catholicism. This is especially true because of China’s state control over religion. In the 1950s, the Communist government set up patriotic associations to control all five religious groups in China—Buddhism, Catholicism, Islam, Protestantism and Taoism. These committees now manage mosques, temples and churches, appoint key clergy, and run seminaries. 

For groups like Protestants, government control is a burden, but they are more decentralized, so they can ignore hierarchies and flexibly respond to demand. Put simply, any pious believer can form a Protestant church and declare himself or herself head of it. 

That is harder for Catholics to do. After the Communists set up the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association in 1957, state officials began appointing their own bishops. Many Catholics began to feel uncomfortable about attending churches under government control and some stopped going. Others set up an underground Catholic Church in certain parts of China. This church does not recognize the “patriotic” church’s legitimacy. But even the underground church has a fairly rigid hierarchy, with appointments requiring approval by highers-up in China. 

Over the years, the split between the “open” and the underground church has become less pronounced, especially after Benedict XVI’s letter to the church in China in 2007. In it the pope essentially said the underground church should not be a permanent institution (“the clandestine condition is not a normal feature of the Church’s life”) and that Catholics can participate in services offered by the state-recognized church. 

But state control over religion is still problematic, hampering growth and regularly spilling into public view. In 2012, for example, the government appointed Thaddeus Ma Daqinauxiliary bishop of Shanghai. But Bishop Ma announced his resignation from the Patriotic Catholic Association at his episcopal ordination Mass—apparently a protest against the government’s regulation of religion. He was put under house arrest at the Sheshan Seminary, where he largely remains today, a situation that shut down one of the country’s most important seminaries for over a year.

More at the America Magazine.

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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Religious revival after 100 years of self-doubt among Chinese - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao explains at the acceptance of the Shorenstein for journalism award how after 100 years of self doubt and insecurity, religion revived. Folk religion, more than internationally established ones, has become a vibrant new source of inspiration.

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 future of religion in China - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Journalist Ian Johnson documented in this book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao how an estimated 350 million Chinese citizens found solace in religion, despite a ambiguous governments. In TimesOut Shanghai he tells how he feels that movement will develop in the future.

TimesOut Shanghai:

How do you think religion will develop in China? 

'They’re definitely all going to exist in the future, but I think they’ll appeal to different people. Big urban churches, like the one in Chengdu I describe in the book, appeal largely to white collar people in big cities, who are less interested in traditional culture and feel Christianity is more modern. But many other people are eagerly embracing traditional Chinese culture. This might be people who go fasting for a weekend with monks, or go to temples and read Buddhist mantras, or practice calligraphy. On one hand, this can be just seen as a hobby, but often there are religious statues, incense – some kind of a spiritual meaning and ritual, even if it’s not explicitly religious. But there is no interreligious dialogue in China. There are a lot of areas where religions could co-operate and it could be helpful, but people remain siloed in their religions. Christians don’t know anything about Buddhists, Buddhists don’t know anything about Christians, and nobody knows anything about Islam.' 

You met so many fascinating people throughout the book. Who made the biggest impression? 

'I think it’s the Beijing pilgrims who go to the Miaofengshan temple every year. More than 80 pilgrim associations from Beijing attend – groups you would just never think existed. They are really devoted people. They were typical in the sense that they really believed in actions – don’t spend a lot of time talking about it, just go and do charitable things, acts of faith. In a lot of Chinese cities, you don’t see any sign of religion. It’s not like European cities with big churches; in China you have to really look, and then you find all these people with their own faith and rituals just beneath the surface.'

More in TimesOut Shanghai.

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Hooked on the opium of the people - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

An estimated 350 million Chinese are hooked to different religions, looking for a way to deal with the lack of morality of their current society. The Spectator reviews positively Ian Johnson's book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, and describes a major change in China's cultural fabric.

The Spectator:

China has moved from zero tolerance of worship to more than 350 million believers in Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and Islam. In an era in which religion was expected by many to become extinct, this is a stunning development. It has happened in a country where the policies of the regime range from grudging tolerance to heavy-handed oppression. We need to understand the explosion of religious faith in China. Ian Johnson’s excellent book explains it. 

He depicts a nation in deep moral crisis, quoting a 2014 official opinion poll in which 88 per cent of respondents agreed that society was suffering from ‘a social disease of moral decay and lack of trust’; and he cites a bestselling novelist who writes of ‘a tide of lust and greed’ surging from every corner of his home city, Chengdu. A Communist Party communiqué laments that ‘in a number of areas, morals are defeated, sincerity is lacking’. 

Referring to the party’s promotion of moral exemplars, a blogger tells Johnson: ‘Everything they teach you is fake.’ A Christian publisher says: ‘People can’t believe how corrupt society has become.’ In a society once ruled more by ethics than laws, in which religion and community cohesion were inseparable, people regret ‘the absence of a moral compass’. 

In this crisis, Johnson shows that people are turning to religions in search of moral clarity, truth and a meaning to their lives. At a spiritual level, like believers everywhere, they have an impulse to believe in God. At a social level, especially in Christian ‘house churches’, unregulated by the state, and self-governing, they find mutual trust and shared values, communities which combine faith and action. An estimated quarter of the lawyers active in the ‘rights defence’ movement of the early 21st century were Christians.

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 stories by Ian Johnson? Do check out this list.

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.

Are you looking for more experts on China's cultural change? Do check out this list.

Foreign involvement: the red line in China's spiritual revival - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Staying away from foreign involvement is key in the massive religious revival China is going through, author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao tells NPR. Religion is condoned as long as the new movements stick to a few unwritten rules in its sensitive relations with the Communist Party.

NPR:

President Xi Jinping has called on China's citizens to continue to be "unyielding Marxist atheists." He insists that the country's 85 million Communist Party members remain atheists. But increasingly, he's loosening the restrictions on religious organizations. These days, Chinese authorities even subsidize some religious practice under the guise of backing what the government calls "traditional culture." 

Johnson writes about the myriad ways religions of all sorts are practiced today in China. He describes walking in an elaborate Buddhist-inspired funeral procession in the Beijing neighborhood called the Temple of the Tolling Bell. He delves into the small sect, Eastern Lightning, a cultlike group that will remind some readers of Falun Gong, a Chinese spiritual practice. Eastern Lightning dared to attack China's Communist Party. 

"They feel it's them against what they call the 'Great Red Dragon,' which is the Communist Party," Johnson says. "They operate illegally, and they almost try to hijack church congregations. They sometimes resort to violence; and their very secretive nature, their proclivity for violence, in some ways, this also reflects how the Communist Party runs China," Johnson says. 

The "red line" for the faithful is foreign involvement. 

"If people are part of a religion that has a strong foreign component, if they're getting money from abroad, if they're getting training, this is a problem for the government," Johnson notes. 

But ultimately, all religions are global. And that may increasingly pose a problem for Chinese authorities. 

"It's a double-edged sword for the government," Johnson concludes. "They think religion can maybe provide some stability in a society that is racing forward and doesn't have a center of gravity. ... But religion creates values that are above any government values, ideas of justice, of righteousness, of truth and these are things can come back to haunt the party."

More (including a radio interview) at NPR.

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 interested in more recent stories by Ian Johnson? Do check out this list.