The slim crescent that rose above the skyline on July 9th signifies the beginning of this year’s holy month of…
Revisited: The “good” and the “bad” Muslims of China
China
Freedom struggles of China’s Christian rights lawyers
In 2008 or 2009, at an early stage of an extensive research program on criminal defense lawyers in China, I…
Millenarianism in the Soviet Union and Maoist China
As late modernizers, both Russian and Chinese societies urgently catapulted themselves into modernity, not through the gradual capitalist rationalization process…
Crossing and conversion: Conclusion
Religious identity is a deeply political fact that takes different shapes in different political configurations. Conversions are therefore suspect and…
In defense of the fragment
Richard Madsen has done me the favor of reading my book carefully and sympathetically. He points out that the complexity…
Modern spirits
The Modern Spirit of Asia is like a brilliant pencil sketch for an uncompleted oil painting. Something inspiring appears in…
Looking back while hurtling forward
At a time when the late twentieth century giants of comparative social science—like S.N. Eisenstadt and Robert Bellah—have recently passed away…
Christianity grows in China
Over at The Telegraph, Tom Phillips writes about the rapid growth of Christianity in China.
Chinese religions in comparative historical perspective
This short essay draws up the principal ideas from a book chapter concerning the historical field of Chinese religions in…
Gazing into the future
The efflorescence of religious life in China over the past thirty-some years has been truly amazing. In the rural areas…