I'm Krista Tippett. This hour, a parallel story to the ubiquitous news of China's economy

and politics. We learn about the ancient and reemerging spiritual landscape of China.

We explore the irony that the Chinese state gleaned some of its dismissive modern ideas

about religion from the West. And this shaped, for example, its hostile encounter with

Tippett. A lot of these attitudes of Chinese officialdom and their hostility towards religion

comes from the 19th century when the West was hardly into religious freedom. You know, Christianity

was the name of the game. At that time in the West, it was this muscular Protestantism

that thought that Christianity was the most superior and they were not advocating freedom

religion much. This is speaking of faith. Stay with us.

Speaking of faith is supported by the Fetzer Institute, sponsor of Karen Armstrong's

Charter for Compassion. You can learn more at Fetzer.org.

I'm Krista Tippett. This hour, we explore some of the dramatic story and the irony of

China's traditions of reverence and ritual. My guest is anthropologist and filmmaker

May Fair Yang. She has traced spiritual impulses at the heart of emerging civil society in China.

Yet she also explains how the upheavals of the 20th century created an amnesia in the West

as in China itself about China's rich pluralistic religious inheritance. She argues provocatively

that modern China gleaned some of its recent dismissive attitudes about non-Christian religion

from the West and this shaped, for example, its hostile encounter with Tibet.

From American public media, this is speaking of faith,

public radio's conversation about religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas.

Today, China's hidden spiritual landscape, history, irony, and re-emergence.

In grand historical perspective, China is a crucible of religion and philosophy. Confucianism,

...