June 17, 2009
By: James Miller
[caption id="attachment_248" align="alignright" width="200" caption="A Taiji quan performance at a Daoist temple in Sichuan"][/caption] There is hardly a truth more sacred to the contemporary American imagination than that religion must be free from interference by the state and that the...
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May 13, 2009
By: James Miller
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="360" caption="A poster announces a power plant to be built in Tianjin, China."] [/caption] On Sunday the New York Times published a report, China Outpaces U.S. in Cleaner Coal-Fired Plants, which documented China's transition to cleaner forms of...
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February 23, 2009
By: James Miller
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Sustainability Salute from the Green Olympic Volunteers"][/caption] I'm teaching a course in religion and the environment this term, and my students are preparing to debate this very question: is democracy good for sustainability? By way of...
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January 29, 2009
By: James Miller
[caption id="attachment_219" align="alignright" width="300" caption="A collapsed building in Dujiangyan, close to the epicentre of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake."][/caption] China's massive system of hydroelectric dams and water distribution has come under fire once again. Right after the devastating Sichuan earthquake of...
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January 19, 2009
By: James Miller
Here's three reasons why China's traditional religions and cultures will play an increasingly important role in the East Asian political scene. In mainland China, more people than ever are turning to religion. An interview with Arrianna Liu, who works in...
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January 8, 2009
By: James Miller
[caption id="attachment_194" align="alignright" width="300" caption="An artist's rendering of the Dongtan eco-city"][/caption] There has been much news lately that the project to design a massive eco-city on Chongming Island near Shanghai may finally have fizzled out. The project, designed by the...
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December 30, 2008
By: James Miller
By James Miller In a recent article entitled Two Big China Stories You Missed This Year Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a respected professor of Chinese history at UC Irvine, highlighted the rehabilitation of Confucius as one of the most significant trends in contemporary China....
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December 22, 2008
By: James Miller
By James Miller Christmas, as we all know, is the grand festival of the religion of consumerism. We pay homage to our saviour Santa Claus in the vast cathedral of the shopping mall. There we make a sizeable donation to...
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December 14, 2008
By: James Miller
By James Miller An editorial in Friday's Dallas Morning News argued that Hillary Clinton, the incoming U.S. Secretary of State, should move to "close our diplomats' religion deficit." The argument was that in order to succeed in international relations, it's...
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December 8, 2008
By: James Miller
By Mary Evelyn Tucker [caption id="attachment_102" align="alignright" width="209" caption="Pan Yue"] [/caption] In a world where eco-systems are unraveling and where water, soil, and species are rapidly diminishing, there are few places on Earth where environmental problems are of greater concern...
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