Foreign media mostly focus on China’s crackdown on religion, but it’s approach has become much more nuanced, says journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, at the New York Times. Two truly global religions, Islam and Christianity, cause China’s leadership most trouble.Read More →

Religion has returned to the center of politics, argues journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao at the McGrath Institute for church life. Religion has returned to center of society over the past decades.Read More →

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 Read More →

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 BoomRead More →

Journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao reviews a show at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City on Tibetan Buddhism for the NY Review of Books, a must read even when you do not make it to New York. Ian Johnson adds on Facebook: “Probably no faith is more stereotyped than Tibetan Buddhism, which has morphed in the West to a sort of feel-good faith led by a nice guy with a Nobel Peace Prize.”Read More →

Religion is on the rise in China, despite worries from the government. China’s diaspora’s are a source of Christianians, as a growing number of Chinese return home with their newly found religious feelings, says journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, at CNN in a story on Kenya.Read More →

China is trying to pacify Islam by force, but is achieving the opposite of the stability it wants to secure, says Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China, to Foreign Policy. “By using more force to increase stability, the government is achieving the opposite effect.” Read More →

Western interest on Taoism has much focused on sex and especially premature ejaculation, and Amuse author Kate Lister asked journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, for his take on the subject.Read More →

China’s central government has been cracking down on both Protestantism and the Islam over the past year. The direct future looks grim, says journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao at Foreign Affairs in an addition to a piece he wrote two years ago. The government can still go back to its pragmatic take on religion, but Johnson is not sure it will.Read More →