SOURCE: Yutang, Lin. “Lin Yutang.” In Famous Conversions: The Christian Experience, edited by Hugh T. Kerr and John M. Mulder, pp. 205-09. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1983.

In the following essay, Lin discusses his views on religion and why he came back to Christianity.

Many people have asked me, some with great joy, some with great disappointment, why I, a self-declared pagan, have returned to Christianity. I have returned to Christianity and have rejoined the Christian church because I wish to re-enter that knowledge of God and love of God which Jesus revealed with such clarity and simplicity.

The question of paramount importance is, Can man survive without religion? For over thirty years, my only religion was humanism or the Confucian concept of the self-perfectibility of man through education—the belief that humanity is sufficient unto itself. I now believe that mankind cannot survive without religion; that...