Throughout history, religious beliefs and faith-based movements have played a crucial role in resisting authoritarianism, advocating for human rights, and inspiring social change. This event will explore the intersection of faith, dissidence, and political power across history and cultures.

On Wednesday, April 2 at 6:30 p.m., Harrington Spear Paine Professor at Princeton University Elaine Pagels and David C. Steinmetz Distinguished Professor of World Christianity at Duke Divinity School Lian Xi will discuss these themes and draw parallels between their recent books. Pagels’ new book, Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus (Doubleday, 2025), is a new account of the life of Jesus, which for over 2000 years has inspired people to challenge autocratic government. Lian’s book Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Lin Zhao, A Martyr in Mao’s China (Basic Books, 2018) tells the story of the dissident Lin Zhao, a devout Christian who was imprisoned and ultimately executed for her beliefs during China’s Cultural Revolution. In conversation, the authors will discuss similarities between the birth of Christianity under Roman occupation and religious belief in the Maoist area viewed through the story of Lin Zhao.

By comparing these two seemingly unrelated historical contexts, the discussion, moderated by Arthur Ross Director of the Asia Society Center on U.S.-China Relations Orville Schell, will shed light on the enduring power of faith, moral conviction and higher loyalties than to the state in the face of political oppression.

An author book signing will follow the discussion, and copies of Miracles and Wonder and Blood Letters will be available for purchase.

Elaine Pagels is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor at Princeton University and an Aspen Institute Trustee. Pagels joined the Princeton faculty in 1982, shortly after receiving a MacArthur Fellowship. Perhaps best known as the author of The Gnostic Gospels (1989), The Origin of Satan (1996), and Adam, Eve and the Serpent (1989), she has published widely on Gnosticism and early Christianity, and continues to pursue research interests on topics that include sexuality and politics, visions, and the origins of Christian anti-semitism. Her most recent books include Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (2004) and Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation (2012), Why Religion? A Personal Story (2020), and the forthcoming Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus (2025). In 2013 she received an honorary law degree from her alumni,  Harvard University, and, in 2016, the National Medal for the Arts from President Barack Obama.

Lian Xi is the David C. Steinmetz Distinguished Professor of World Christianity at Duke Divinity School. His research focuses on China’s modern encounter with Christianity. His first book, The Conversion of Missionaries (1997), is a critical study of American Protestant missions against the backdrop of rising Chinese nationalism in the early twentieth century. His second book, Redeemed by Fire: The Rise of Popular Christianity in Modern China (2010), examines the development of missionary Christianity into a vibrant, indigenous faith of the Chinese masses. Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Lin Zhao, a Martyr in Mao’s China (2018) is his most recent book. Dr. Lian’s other research projects include the flourishing of Christianity among minority peoples on the margins of the Chinese state and the emergence of Protestant elites and their prominent, if also precarious, role in the search for civil society in today’s China.

Orville Schell (moderator) is the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society. He is a former professor and Dean at the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. He is the author of 15 books, 10 of them on China, and a frequent contributor to magazines such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, Granta, The New York Review of Books, and more. He has also served as a television commentator for several network news programs, has worked both as a correspondent and a correspondent and consultant for a number PBS "Frontline" documentaries and has been the correspondent for an Emmy award-winning program for "60 Minutes" segment.