The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao by Ian Johnson (PDF)

Description

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, a revelatory portrait of religion in China today—its history, the spiritual traditions of its Eastern and Western faiths, and the ways in which it is influencing China’s future. The Souls of China tells the story of one of the world’s great spiritual revivals. Following a century of violent anti-religious campaigns, China is now filled with new temples, churches, and mosques—as well as cults, sects, and politicians trying to harness religion for their own ends. Driving this explosion of faith is uncertainty—over what it means to be Chinese and how to live an ethical life in a country that discarded traditional morality a century ago and is searching for new guideposts.Ian Johnson first visited China in 1984; in the 1990s he helped run a charity to rebuild Daoist temples, and in 2001 he won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the suppression of the Falun Gong spiritual movement. While researching this book, he lived for extended periods with underground church members, rural Daoists, and Buddhist pilgrims. Along the way, he learned esoteric meditation techniques, visited a nonagenarian Confucian sage, and befriended government propagandists as they fashioned a remarkable embrace of traditional values. He has distilled these experiences into a cycle of festivals, births, deaths, detentions, and struggle—a great awakening of faith that is shaping the soul of the world’s newest superpower.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐We’ve seen several academic books about religion in contemporary China in recent years, but this look at Chinese religious practice by the American journalist Ian Johnson is both well researched and highly accessible. Like other books by journalists living in China, “Souls of China” features first-hand accounts that bring a kind of intimacy and immediacy that the general reader finds engaging. In Johnson’s book, these passages are not ends in themselves, but serve to illustrate Johnson’s thesis about the state of religion in China today. When he joins in on a Buddhist pilgrimage or a Protestant Christmas Eve service, Johnson reveals a society hungry for meaning beyond that which a free market and Communist ideology can provide. “I know there’s something bigger than us that guides us,” says one of his subjects (p. 174).Johnson says that the aspirations of the people in his book can be summarized by the word “Tian” or “Heaven.” By this he means that they seek justice and respect, and a well-ordered society. The author goes on to say that this yearning for justice, order, and meaning may help transform Chinese society, perhaps not in the way that Buddhism and Taoism transformed Taiwan into a democracy, but that in the long-term will influence China to embrace shared universal values and morality. President Xi, who has demonstrated a willingness to be heavy-handed in his control of Chinese society, at the same time seems comfortable with a certain level of religious practice, so long as the religion being practiced has Chinese characteristics and is overseen by one of the state bodies regulating religion (p. 356). In general, this means that Christianity, and especially Catholicism, have not fared well against the state apparatus. Nonetheless, the tolerance for some things religious has given all religious expressions a little more latitude than they may have had before.When it comes to Western-derived religions, Johnson devotes most of his space to Protestant sects; Protestantism, because it is decentralized and isn’t tied to a foreign base of influence, is thriving relative to the state-controlled Catholic Church, with its suspicious Vatican ties. It’s unfortunate there isn’t more on Catholicism given the rich history of the Catholic Church in China. (Johnson subsequently wrote about the Catholic Church in China in the Jesuit periodical, America, October 2, 2017.) You won’t find much about Islam in “Souls of China,” either.That being said, I truly enjoyed reading this book. Johnson is a fine stylist, his research is solid, and his understanding of Chinese culture refined. His explanation of the rise of religion in China today is very convincing. Moreover, his candor and respectfulness in dealing with his subjects makes this a very humane work, one that makes you care about the people he describes. In short, this is one of the best overall non-academic books on contemporary China and Chinese culture available in English.

⭐As a busy academic, I hardly read a book word by word. Ian Johnson’s The Souls of China, however, is one of those books that I’m willing to read so closely. This book will help you better understand – even challenge your old knowledge on – what “religion” is, what China is, and how contemporary faith is practiced by ordinary Chinese people.The topic of the book – religion – is heavy, but the book itself is easy to read. Johnson strategically chooses three groups of ordinary people to tell a consistent story – the spiritual revival after Mao – that is big enough to reflect the “soul(s)” of contemporary China. Many readers might have read much about Chinese “Culture” (with a capitalized C), but very few books in the market do a good job detailing how Chinese “Culture” is perceived and practiced in everyday life and thus become Chinese cultures that really matter for most ordinary people. In his sophisticated writing, Johnson presents us Chinese religious beliefs through the Ni family in Beijing that makes an annual pilgrimage to a Buddhist temple that worships Our Lady of the Azure Clouds, the Li family in Shanxi that practices a form of family-based Daoism and folk religion, and a group of Protestant Christians in a house church in Chengdu led by a charismatic preacher Wang Yi. These stories Johnson brilliantly narrates in the book are so intriguing that I sometimes thought I was interacting with these people directly.Johnson shows his wisdom from the mundane details of ordinary people’s everyday lives. He is humble and respects every person in this book, which is part of the reason why this book is so original, so special and so touching. By showing that ordinary people in China can understand “infinitely more,” Johnson allows them to speak, in their own words, about how they actively seek faith to transform and fulfill their lives on their own, instead of being led, aimlessly, by the vague slogans of the Party and the radical changes brought by modernity and globalization.As a Chinese scholar in the West, I have been trained to criticize other colleagues’ works. But The Souls of China is so insightful that I have to drop my weapons and give it my highest compliments. I have to admit that I’ve learned a lot about my country and my people from this book. A good journalist is also a lay sociologist; Johnson is too good to be an ethnographer, as he can always easily fit into Chinese communities and provide his readers the best observations.No matter how much you know about China – from a knowledgeable scholar of China Studies to a lay reader who is recently planning your first trip to China – you will find this book original, enjoyable, informative, intriguing, smart, and sometimes “as surprising as cold water running through your back.”

⭐Fantastically detailed, humble and compassionate insight into beliefs and practices in modern China. Brilliantly written, thoroughly researched, thoughtful and engaging.

⭐Great book for all those interested in religion in China. I think this would be an especially good book for young foreign born Chinese or children of the Chinese diaspora that want to learn more about the religion of their ancestors and the modern landscape of religion in China today. A bit more geographically diverse coverage would be appreciated though since the book mostly focuses on people and religion n the North and very little in the South, but otherwise it is very engaging.

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