China’s Spiritual Revival And The Environment

Will China’s spiritual revival benefit the environment?

Ian Johnson’s latest book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao has rekindled a conversation that started almost a century ago: what’s the spiritual status of the Chinese people?

A hundred years ago, China’s humiliating defeat on the world stage kicked off a painful round of soul-searching within the country’s intellectual elites, many of whom blamed it on the nation’s backward state of mind. Since then, campaigns, movements and revolutions have been waged to reform and reshape the soul of the Chinese people; some have advocated the complete abolishment of traditional Chinese beliefs while others have insisted on their reinforcement.

Johnson’s book documents a new phase in this history of self-examination. By following various Chinese groups, including pilgrims in Beijing, Daoists in Shanxi and Christians in Chengdu, he depicts “a great awakening of faith that is shaping the soul of the world’s newest superpower”, which many outside China are either unaware of or can’t fully understand.

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