The Chinese government official was telling me about how he had experienced changes during his career in the government’s policies dealing with religious groups. When he was first studying for government service, he said, the party line was that religion was a bad thing, and the ultimate goal was to banish it from Chinese culture. Then, when he entered government service, he said, that viewpoint was modified: officials were saying that since religion cannot be eliminated, it should be tolerated. Now, he reported, the guiding principle was that the government very much needed to partner with religious groups to promote “social harmony.”
An official statement from the 17th Party Congress of the Chinese government in 2007 that urged religious organizations "to actively participate in building up a harmonious society" confirmed his observation.
That official worked in the State Administration for Religious Affairs, which was established by the government in the 1950s to monitor and supervise the five “approved” religious groups in China: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestant Christianity, and Catholicism. It may seem odd for Catholicism to be treated as a separate religion from Protestant Christianity, but the Catholic Church does not easily conform to the “Three Self Principles” that regulate religious life in China: Each religious body must be “self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating.”
Since the Vatican is officially a state, with Rome appointing all bishops, Catholicism does not measure up to the self-governing requirement. There is a network of Chinese Catholic parishes that function under bishops appointed by the government, but there are also “underground” congregations that are loyal to Rome.
The Vatican has been negotiating with the Chinese government in recent years, looking for a compromise arrangement for appointing bishops, but those conversations are made difficult by its own Chinese bishops, such as Cardinal Zen of Hong Kong, who insists that the Chinese officials are enemies of the faith and cannot be trusted to keep any promises they might make to the church.
I met with religious affairs officials many times during my two dozen visits to China. They saw me as a friend because of “the China controversy” that surrounded my 1993 inauguration as president of Fuller Theological Seminary. On a trip to China in the mid-1980s, my predecessor had established friendly relations with the late Bishop K.H. Ting, the head of the network of registered Chinese congregations, and when I heard that the bishop would be attending my inaugural ceremony, I invited him to give a brief greeting at the event. When word got out about the invitation, the protests started.
The global evangelical community, including many seminaries and church bodies in North America, tends to give strong support to the cause of the underground churches in China—those congregations that refuse to register with the government as legally approved entities. Fuller Seminary, a large evangelical theological school, featuring an appearance by Bishop Ting at a major campus event, was seen as a betrayal of the cause of religious freedom in China.
There was also a protest on our campus. Chinese students from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and other countries—including the U.S.—held prayer meetings, asking God to tell me to withdraw the invitation to the bishop. While I did not back down, I did meet with the protesters, listening carefully to their concerns. I told them that as someone who had participated as a graduate student in anti-war protests at the University of Chicago during my doctoral studies—including a sit-in at the school’s administrative offices—I felt that I deserved whatever they chose to do at my inauguration. They responded with a limited protest that we agreed upon. They passed out black armbands to those attending the inaugural ceremony, and a designated group of five of them were given assigned seats in the front row. They quietly but visibly walked out while the bishop spoke, and when he finished, they returned out of respect for me. The proceedings, then, went well, but the protest was featured in some of the published reports regarding my inauguration.
With the start of my 20-year presidency, the seminary’s relationship with Chinese Christianity became a major focus for Fuller. In my two dozen visits to China, I preached in local congregations, met regularly with church and government leaders, and lectured in many of the 21 “Three-Self” seminaries.
A major cooperative effort aimed at “social harmony” was initiated in consultation with the Religious Affairs Administration. They told us that China was experiencing significant increases in divorce, suicide, and addiction. “We don’t have adequate mental health services in place yet,” he said. “Can Fuller Seminary help us by training pastors here to counsel people who are going through difficult times?” We agreed to do so.
In the Chinese context, “harmony” has a Confucian connotation. A harmonious society is one in which every person accepts his or her rightful place in the natural order of things. In classic Confucianism, the idea of one’s rightful place was linked to the understanding of defined-role relationships: parent-child, husband-wife, old-young, teacher-student, and so on. It goes without saying that this concept acquires new meanings when managers of a socialist system use it. Accepting your assigned position in the social order as set forth by party ideology is the first step to finding your rightful place in the overall scheme of things.
According to recent reports from China, the government is tightening its control over religious groups. There are increased efforts to shut down “unregistered” bodies, and the “Three-Self” movements are being more closely monitored in their week-to-week activities. SARA’s role has also changed. It is no longer a government agency and is now under the control of the United Front, which means that it is in close contact with the party rather than merely being under state management. This means that more careful attention is being given to religious ideas, with the party now requiring that religious groups demonstrate that they are engaging in the “Sinicization” of their teachings and practices. For the Three-Self churches, this means that they must show that Christianity is an authentic Chinese religion and not a Western import.
Actually, the sinicization mandate can be seen as a positive development for the Christian community. The "contextualization" of theology has received a great deal of attention in recent decades. Different cultural contexts require different configurations of theological ideas. Western sermons about salvation from individual guilt, for example, do not apply easily to the “honor and shame” cultures of rural Asia.
Indeed, the Chinese concept of social harmony can be seen as having some overlap with the idea of shalom, a Biblical concept representing a rich understanding of human flourishing. In the Babylonian captivity, the prophet Jeremiah urged the exiled Jewish people “to seek the welfare and shalom of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare and shalom you will find your welfare and shalom” (Jeremiah 29:4–8). Christians in China today can accept that promoting "social harmony," also known as shalom, is a mandate.
Chinese Christian leaders can also offer to help organize interfaith dialogue on religious understandings of social harmony. There has been surprisingly little engagement among religious groups in China, and Christians could point to ways that shared efforts by religious groups—care for the aging, improving schools in rural areas, marriage counseling, and the like—can benefit Chinese society.
The Chinese Christian community has experienced serious persecution in the not-too-distant past. This required the churches to promote a private faith, lived out in isolation from the larger culture. Important spiritual lessons were learned under those difficult conditions. But there are opportunities today for applying those lessons to a more active public faith that responds to new cultural opportunities for demonstrating a commitment to human flourishing in China.
Dr. Richard J. Mouw is president emeritus of Fuller Theological Seminary. A philosopher, scholar, and author, prior to his two decades as president, he served as provost and senior vice president for four years and as professor of Christian philosophy and ethics beginning in 1985.
Originally from Webpage: "religionunplugged.com"
CCD reprinted with permission.
一位中国政府官员告诉我，在他多年的职业生涯中是如何经历中国政府在宗教政策上的几次改变的。他说，当他第一次进行有关公务学习时，党的宗教政策路线是认为宗教是坏的，因此其最终目标是将宗教从中国文化中清除掉。之后当他正式进入到政府部门开始工作时，他发现，之前那种的视角发生了变化：官方开始说宗教是不能被消灭的，因此就应该容许它的存在。他说，到了现在，宗教的指导原则是，政府非常需要与宗教团体合作以促进“社会和谐”。
2007年中国共产党第十七次全国代表大会的一份官方声明也证实了他的观察，这份声明呼吁宗教组织“积极参与构建和谐社会”。
这名官员在中国的国家宗教事务局工作。国家宗教事务局是政府在20世纪50年代建立的，负责监督和管理在中国官方“承认”的五大宗教团体:佛教、道教、伊斯兰教、基督教新教和天主教。虽然将天主教与基督教新教区别成两个宗教来对待似乎有些奇怪，但天主教会并不容易遵守规范中国宗教生活的“三自原则”：即要求每个宗教团体必须“自养、自治和自传”。
因为梵蒂冈在官方上是一个正式的国家，由罗马来任命所有的主教，所以天主教不符合自治的要求。中国官方所承认的中国天主教教区是一个由中国政府任命的主教领导的组织，但除此之外，还有忠于罗马的“地下”天主教教会。
近年来，梵蒂冈一直在与中国政府交涉以寻求一种任命主教的折中安排，但这些会谈由于受到梵蒂冈内部一些华人主教的阻力而变得艰难，比如香港的陈日君枢机，他坚持认为，中国官员是信仰的敌人，是不能相信他们会信守对教会做出的任何承诺的。
我本人曾二十多次访问过中国，并且曾多次与宗教事务的官员见面。我被这些人看做是一位宗教界的朋友，是由于我在1993年就任富勒神学院院长时在就职典礼前后发生的一起“中国争议”。事情起源于上世纪80年代中期，我的前任院长曾访问中国，并与已故的中国三自教会负责人丁光训主教建立了友好的关系。因此，当我听说丁主教将出席我的就职典礼时，我就邀请他在典礼上做一个简短的致词。而当这个消息传出后，一些对此的抗议就开始了。
全球的福音派团体——包括北美许多神学院和教会团体在内——基本倾向于给予中国的地下家庭教会非常强有力的支持，这些地下家庭教会拒绝在政府注册成为受到合法承认的教会。富勒神学院作为一所大型福音派神学院，因邀请三自教会的负责人丁主教出席我们的新校长就职典礼这个大型的校园活动，而被视为对中国宗教自由事业的背叛。
富勒的校园里也发生了抗议。来自台湾、香港、新加坡和包括美国在内的其他国家的华人学生们举行了祷告会，求上帝让我撤回对丁主教的邀请。虽然我没有撤回邀请，但我去见面了这些抗议者，并仔细倾听了他们的担忧。我告诉他们，我多年前在芝加哥大学作为一位博士研究生攻读博士学位期间就曾参加过反战抗议活动——包括在学校行政办公室静坐——我觉得无论他们选择在我的就职典礼上做什么，都是我应该接受的。这些学生们以我们共同同意的有限制抗议作为回应。他们向参加就职典礼的人分发黑色袖标，并指定他们中的五人为一组坐在前排。当丁主教讲话时，他们安静但显眼地走了出去；当丁主教说完后，出于对我的尊重，他们又回来了。之后就职典礼的程序进行得很顺利，但这次抗议出现在了一些有关我就职典礼的公开报道中。
随着我二十年院长生涯的开始，富勒神学院与中国基督教的关系成为了神学院的主要关注点。在随后我的二十多次访华期间，我也曾在一些地方教会讲道，定期与教会和政府领导人会面，并在21所“三自”神学院中的许多神学院讲学。
如今，就如2007年官方声明所说的一样，当下这个旨在携手促进“社会和谐”的重大合作，在与宗教事务局的协商下展开了。他们告诉我们，中国的离婚率、自杀率和吸毒率正在显著上升。这位和我对话的宗教官员说：“我们目前还没有足够的心理健康服务，富勒神学院能否帮助我们培训牧师，为那些正在经历困难时期的人们提供咨询服务？”我们同意了。
在中国的语境中，“和谐”（harmony）具有儒家内涵。和谐社会是这样一个社会：每个人都能接受自己在自然秩序中应有的位置。在经典的儒家思想中，一个人应有的位置与对定义的角色关系的理解有关：亲子关系、夫妻关系、老幼关系、师生关系等等。不言而喻的是，当社会主义制度的管理者开始使用这个概念时，它获得了新的含义：在党的意识形态下所设定的社会秩序中，接受指派给你的位置，就是在大千世界中，在找到自己应有位置的路上踏出了第一步。
根据最新的来自中国的报道，中国政府正在加强对宗教团体的控制。政府加大了取缔“未登记”宗教团体的力度，更严密监控“三自”教会的每周活动。国家宗教事务局的角色也发生了变化。国家宗教事务局不再是一个政府机构，并且现在处于统一战线的控制之下，这意味着国家宗教事务局与党有着密切的联系，而不仅仅是在国家管理之下。这意味着宗教思想正受到更密切谨慎的关注，党现在要求宗教团体表明他们正在把 “中国化”落实在他们的教导和实践中。这对三自教会来说，意味着他们必须表明基督教是一种真正的中国的宗教，而不是一种西方的舶来品。
实际上，当下在推行的“中国化”任务可以被视做是对基督教社群而言一种正面的成长。近几十年来，神学的“处境化”受到了极大的关注。不同的文化背景需要不同的神学思想模型。例如，西方教会讲道很强调的从个人罪恶中得救的模式，在亚洲农村的“荣辱”文化中并不容易适用。
事实上，中国有关社会和谐的概念与“平安”（shalom）的概念有一些重叠。“平安”是圣经中的一个概念，代表了对人类繁荣的丰富理解。在犹太人被掳到巴比伦期间，先知耶利米敦促被掳的犹太人：“我所使你们被掳到的那城，你们要为那城求平安，为那城祷告耶和华，因为那城得平安，你们也随着得平安。”（耶利米书29：4-8）。今天的中国的基督徒也可以将促进“社会和谐”（也称为“平安”）当作一项授命来接受。
中国基督教领袖还可以帮助组织宗教间的对话，探讨对社会和谐宗教性的理解。令人惊讶的是，中国宗教团体在这方面参与很少；基督徒可以提出方法，让宗教团体一起共同努力——提供养老服务、改善农村地区的学校状况、提供婚姻咨询等等——来造福中国社会。
在并不久远的过去，中国基督徒群体曾经经历过严重的迫害。这要求教会推行一种独立于公共文化之外的个人化信仰。基督徒在那些艰难的条件下学到了许多重要的属灵功课。但是，今天我们有机会将这些属灵功课应用到公共信仰中，更积极地去响应新的文化机遇，展示我们致力于在中国促进人类繁荣的委身参与。
毛瑞琪博士（Dr. Richard J. Mouw）是富勒神学院的名誉院长。他是一位哲学家、学者和作家，在担任富勒神学院院长二十年之前，毛瑞琪博士曾担任四年的教务长和高级副院长，并于1985年开始担任教授基督教哲学和伦理学的教授。
原载于religionunplugged.com
翻译：王璐德、罗凯伦、哈拿
富勒神学院的名誉院长毛瑞琪博士：对基督教如何帮助中国繁荣的思考
The Chinese government official was telling me about how he had experienced changes during his career in the government’s policies dealing with religious groups. When he was first studying for government service, he said, the party line was that religion was a bad thing, and the ultimate goal was to banish it from Chinese culture. Then, when he entered government service, he said, that viewpoint was modified: officials were saying that since religion cannot be eliminated, it should be tolerated. Now, he reported, the guiding principle was that the government very much needed to partner with religious groups to promote “social harmony.”
An official statement from the 17th Party Congress of the Chinese government in 2007 that urged religious organizations "to actively participate in building up a harmonious society" confirmed his observation.
That official worked in the State Administration for Religious Affairs, which was established by the government in the 1950s to monitor and supervise the five “approved” religious groups in China: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestant Christianity, and Catholicism. It may seem odd for Catholicism to be treated as a separate religion from Protestant Christianity, but the Catholic Church does not easily conform to the “Three Self Principles” that regulate religious life in China: Each religious body must be “self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating.”
Since the Vatican is officially a state, with Rome appointing all bishops, Catholicism does not measure up to the self-governing requirement. There is a network of Chinese Catholic parishes that function under bishops appointed by the government, but there are also “underground” congregations that are loyal to Rome.
The Vatican has been negotiating with the Chinese government in recent years, looking for a compromise arrangement for appointing bishops, but those conversations are made difficult by its own Chinese bishops, such as Cardinal Zen of Hong Kong, who insists that the Chinese officials are enemies of the faith and cannot be trusted to keep any promises they might make to the church.
I met with religious affairs officials many times during my two dozen visits to China. They saw me as a friend because of “the China controversy” that surrounded my 1993 inauguration as president of Fuller Theological Seminary. On a trip to China in the mid-1980s, my predecessor had established friendly relations with the late Bishop K.H. Ting, the head of the network of registered Chinese congregations, and when I heard that the bishop would be attending my inaugural ceremony, I invited him to give a brief greeting at the event. When word got out about the invitation, the protests started.
The global evangelical community, including many seminaries and church bodies in North America, tends to give strong support to the cause of the underground churches in China—those congregations that refuse to register with the government as legally approved entities. Fuller Seminary, a large evangelical theological school, featuring an appearance by Bishop Ting at a major campus event, was seen as a betrayal of the cause of religious freedom in China.
There was also a protest on our campus. Chinese students from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and other countries—including the U.S.—held prayer meetings, asking God to tell me to withdraw the invitation to the bishop. While I did not back down, I did meet with the protesters, listening carefully to their concerns. I told them that as someone who had participated as a graduate student in anti-war protests at the University of Chicago during my doctoral studies—including a sit-in at the school’s administrative offices—I felt that I deserved whatever they chose to do at my inauguration. They responded with a limited protest that we agreed upon. They passed out black armbands to those attending the inaugural ceremony, and a designated group of five of them were given assigned seats in the front row. They quietly but visibly walked out while the bishop spoke, and when he finished, they returned out of respect for me. The proceedings, then, went well, but the protest was featured in some of the published reports regarding my inauguration.
With the start of my 20-year presidency, the seminary’s relationship with Chinese Christianity became a major focus for Fuller. In my two dozen visits to China, I preached in local congregations, met regularly with church and government leaders, and lectured in many of the 21 “Three-Self” seminaries.
A major cooperative effort aimed at “social harmony” was initiated in consultation with the Religious Affairs Administration. They told us that China was experiencing significant increases in divorce, suicide, and addiction. “We don’t have adequate mental health services in place yet,” he said. “Can Fuller Seminary help us by training pastors here to counsel people who are going through difficult times?” We agreed to do so.
In the Chinese context, “harmony” has a Confucian connotation. A harmonious society is one in which every person accepts his or her rightful place in the natural order of things. In classic Confucianism, the idea of one’s rightful place was linked to the understanding of defined-role relationships: parent-child, husband-wife, old-young, teacher-student, and so on. It goes without saying that this concept acquires new meanings when managers of a socialist system use it. Accepting your assigned position in the social order as set forth by party ideology is the first step to finding your rightful place in the overall scheme of things.
According to recent reports from China, the government is tightening its control over religious groups. There are increased efforts to shut down “unregistered” bodies, and the “Three-Self” movements are being more closely monitored in their week-to-week activities. SARA’s role has also changed. It is no longer a government agency and is now under the control of the United Front, which means that it is in close contact with the party rather than merely being under state management. This means that more careful attention is being given to religious ideas, with the party now requiring that religious groups demonstrate that they are engaging in the “Sinicization” of their teachings and practices. For the Three-Self churches, this means that they must show that Christianity is an authentic Chinese religion and not a Western import.
Actually, the sinicization mandate can be seen as a positive development for the Christian community. The "contextualization" of theology has received a great deal of attention in recent decades. Different cultural contexts require different configurations of theological ideas. Western sermons about salvation from individual guilt, for example, do not apply easily to the “honor and shame” cultures of rural Asia.
Indeed, the Chinese concept of social harmony can be seen as having some overlap with the idea of shalom, a Biblical concept representing a rich understanding of human flourishing. In the Babylonian captivity, the prophet Jeremiah urged the exiled Jewish people “to seek the welfare and shalom of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare and shalom you will find your welfare and shalom” (Jeremiah 29:4–8). Christians in China today can accept that promoting "social harmony," also known as shalom, is a mandate.
Chinese Christian leaders can also offer to help organize interfaith dialogue on religious understandings of social harmony. There has been surprisingly little engagement among religious groups in China, and Christians could point to ways that shared efforts by religious groups—care for the aging, improving schools in rural areas, marriage counseling, and the like—can benefit Chinese society.
The Chinese Christian community has experienced serious persecution in the not-too-distant past. This required the churches to promote a private faith, lived out in isolation from the larger culture. Important spiritual lessons were learned under those difficult conditions. But there are opportunities today for applying those lessons to a more active public faith that responds to new cultural opportunities for demonstrating a commitment to human flourishing in China.
Dr. Richard J. Mouw is president emeritus of Fuller Theological Seminary. A philosopher, scholar, and author, prior to his two decades as president, he served as provost and senior vice president for four years and as professor of Christian philosophy and ethics beginning in 1985.
Originally from Webpage: "religionunplugged.com"
CCD reprinted with permission.
Reflections on How Christianity Can Help China to Flourish
