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This book analyzes the interaction of religion, society, and governance in China - suggesting it is much more subtle and complex than common convention suggests. The edited work addresses civic engagement, religion, Christianity, and the rule of law in contemporary Chinese society.
This book addresses the issue of Christianity in public life in China through methodological and constructive approaches. It aims to answer the following questions: How does Christianity, with its moral and spiritual resources, engage in and contribute to public life in China? How does Christianity operate amidst a background of religious diversity, cultural and social dynamics, and political realities in China? The distinctive contribution of this book is that it moves beyond simple description and evaluation of what is happening in Chinese Christianity toward a constructive theology for the distinctive realities of Chinese culture, society, and politics. This book proposes Christian public responsibility in order to identify the moral problems in Chinese public life. It attempts to enhance a public face of Christianity in China theologically and ethically by activating Christian resources in response to public life and highlighting Christianity's moral impact on the state and civil society without "the imposition of confessional bonds" or "the exercise of authoritarian control." (quoted from Abraham Kuyper). This book relies on both methodological and constructive approaches to define the meaning of public theology while making theological efforts to engage in public issues constructively in the Chinese context. Besides the Western Christian public theologians such as Kuyper, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Nicholas Wolterstorff, this book extensively refers to Chinese resources such as Christian thinkers, philosophers and social scientists, etc. to perceive public theology in China. This new formulation of Christian public theology in China desires to engage with Chinese experiences, struggles, traditions and ideology such as Confucianism and communism when investigating moral responses to public issues such as social justice, human rights, and religious freedom. A Christian co-construction with philosophical and social scientific perspectives on public life will lead to the modification of moral vocabulary in Chinese public life.
How does Christianity continue to experience growth in an increasingly authoritarian political system that enforces strict regulations on religion? How are ordinary Christians affected by social and political changes in the country, and how do they make their influence felt in wider society? Taking Chinese Christians’ experience as a case study, Lim and Sng examine the possibilities and limitations of Christian engagement in society under an authoritarian regime. They look especially at efforts by religious individuals and groups who are seeking to address social issues by engaging in unobtrusive and non-antagonistic activities that interact with controlling state institutions. Their emphasis is on everyday lived religion, analysing how Christians express their faith in their everyday activity and not only in spaces demarcated as falling within the religious domain. This book is a valuable reference for scholars and students looking to understand religion in relation to politics, culture and everyday life in rapidly modernising East Asian societies and particularly in China.
This book examines the growing diversity of religions and worldviews across East & Southeast Asia, and the factors affecting prospects for 'covenantal pluralism' in these regions. According to the Pew Religious Diversity Index, half of the world’s most religiously diverse countries are in Asia. The presence of deep religious/worldview difference is often seen as a potential threat to socio-political cohesion or even as a source of violent conflict. Yet in Asia (as elsewhere) the degree of this diversity is not consistently associated with socio-political problems. Indeed, while religious difference is implicated in some social challenges, there are also many instances of respectful multi-faith engagement, practical collaboration, and peaceful debate. Whether or not religious/worldview difference is part of a positive pluralism depends on a complex array of legal and cultural conditions. This book explores these dynamics and contingencies in Asia, structuring the inquiry according to the theory of 'covenantal pluralism'. Covenantal pluralist theory calls for (a) a constitutional order characterized by freedom of religion/conscience and equality of rights and responsibilities, combined with (b) a culture of practical religious literacy and virtues of mutual respect and protection. Volume I offers a pioneering exploration of the prospects for this robust and non-relativistic type of pluralism in East & Southeast Asia. (Volume II examines South & Central Asia.) The chapters in these volumes originally appeared as research articles in a series on covenantal pluralism published by The Review of Faith & International Affairs.
World Christianity, Urbanization and Identity argues that urban centers, particularly the largest cities, do not only offer places for people to live, shop, and seek entertainment, but deeply shape people's ethics, behavior, sense of justice, and how they learn to become human. Given that religious participation and institutions are vital to individual and communal life, particularly in urban centers, this interdisciplinary volume seeks to provide insights into the interaction between urban change, religious formation, and practice and to understand how these shape individual and group identities in a world that is increasingly urban. World Christianity, Urbanization and Identity is part of the multi-volume series World Christianity and Public Religion. The series seeks to become a platform for intercultural and intergenerational dialogue, and to facilitate opportunities for interaction between scholars across the Global South and those in other parts of the world.
It has been widely recognized that Christianity is the fastest growing religion in one of the last communist-run countries of the world: the People's Republic of China. Yet it would be a mistake to describe Chinese Christianity as merely a clandestine faith or, as hoped by the Communist Party of China, a privatized religion. Alexander Chow argues that Christians in mainland China have been constructing a more intentional public theology to engage the Chinese state and society, since the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). Chinese Public Theology recalls the events which have led to this transformation and examines the developments of Christianity across three generations of Chinese intellectuals from the state-sanctioned Protestant church, the secular academy, and the growing urban renaissance in Calvinism. Moreover, Chow shows how each of these generations have provided different theological responses to the same sociopolitical moments of the last three decades. This study illustrates how a growing understanding of Chinese public theology has been developed through a subconscious intermingling of Christian and Confucian understandings of public intellectualism. These factors result in a contextually-unique understanding of public theology, but also one which is faced by contextual limitations as well. With this in mind, Chow draws from the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theosis and the Chinese traditional teaching of the unity of Heaven and humanity (Tian ren heyi) to offer a way forward in the construction of a Chinese public theology.
This book offers a unique historical documentation of the development of the ambitious religious entrepreneurism by leaders of the Early Rain church (and later Western China Presbytery leadership), in an effort to gain social influence in China through local institution-building and global public image management. It unravels the social processes of how this Christian community with a public image of defending religious freedom in China was undermined by an internal loss of moral authority. Based on publicly available texts from Chinese social media that aren’t readily available in the West as well as in-depth interviews, it is framed by existing scholarship in social theories of the public sphere, charismatic domination in social transition, and the role of power in organizational behaviour. These churches’ stories show how Christianity, which has long been politically marginalized in communist China, has not only adapted and challenged the socio-political status quo, but how it was also ironically shaped by the political culture. This is an insightful and critical ethnographic study of one of modern China’s most famous house churches. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of Religion in China as well as those working in Religious Studies, Asian studies, Chinese studies, and Mission Studies more generally.
In celebration of Alister E. McGrath’s sixty-fifth birthday in 2018, this Festschrift aims to highlight him as a lauded scholar, who exemplifies an interface of science, theology, and religion. It comprises works by McGrath’s theological allies and colleagues from diverse ecclesial homes including Graham Ward, Oliver Crisp, Tony Lane, Sung Wook Chung, Randall Zachman, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Jonathan Wilson, Jeffrey P. Greenman, Robert Kolb, Sister Benedicta Ward, Michael Lloyd, Bethany Sollereder, and Patrick Franklin. Critical but appreciative is the posture with which these contributors engage the wide range of McGrath's own scholarly pursuits and publications. This volume, edited by Dennis Ngien, covers these themes that are central to the life and witness of the church: atonement, Christology, Trinity, eschatology, mission, Reformation, science, nature, culture, evangelism, and theodicy—there is much to ponder and reap here. Readers will join with the contributors and pay tribute to McGrath who has risen to a life of significance as a scientist turned theologian, professor, author, Christian apologist, and churchman.
With comparative case studies from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, Jianlin Chen's new work offers a fresh, descriptive and normative perspective on law and religion. This presentation of the original law and religious market theory employs an interdisciplinary approach that sheds light on this subject for scholars in legal and sociological disciplines. It sets out the precise nature of religious competition envisaged by the current legal regimes in the three jurisdictions and analyses how certain restrictions on religious practices may facilitate normatively desirable market dynamics. This updated and invaluable resource provides a new and insightful investigation into this fascinating area of law and religion in Greater China today.
China's Urban Christians: A Light at Cannot Be Hidden looks at how massive urbanization is redrawing not only the geographic and social landscape of China, but in the process is transforming China's growing church as well. The purpose of this book is toexplore how Christians in China perceive the challenges posed by their new urban context and to examine their proposed means of responding to these challenges. Although not primarily political in nature, these challenges nonetheless illustrate the complex interplay between China's Christian community and the Chinese party-state as it comes to terms with the continued growth and increasing prominence of Christianity in modern China.