“私人信仰方式”与“漏斗效应”——当代中国基督徒人数的增长逻辑

在当代中国五大宗教之中,基督教徒的人数一直存在争议。特别是在解释基督徒人数为何增加的问题上,国内外学术界存在多种讨论,其相关数字之争,悬而不决,以至于形成了近年来中国宗教学、宗教社会学讨论的重大问题。但在中国基督徒人数增加的现象之中,始终存在着一种规律性特征,这就是近几十年来基督徒人数尽管有所增加,但并不能说明基督教结构也同时发生了重大变迁;教会制度并没有明显的变化,增加的只是基督徒的人数而已。更重要的规律性现象则是,中国基督徒人数的增长逻辑主要是基于私人化的基督教信仰方式,如同私人信仰方式与教会制度之间的"漏斗效应"。对此问题的讨论,说明宗教社会学的研究重点是在于解释某种社会结构而不只是去描述宗教现象,重点是在对问题的解释,而不仅仅是去发现或描述问题。     

大学生基督徒信仰历程研究——以北京市大学生基督徒个案研究为例

近年来“宗教热”现象在大学校园中悄然兴起。本文采用个案访谈和参与观察的方法,从个体层面对大学生基督徒的信仰历程展开了研究。研究表明,大学生基督徒的信仰历程分为接触基督教、皈信基督教和信仰的稳定三个阶段。社会网络是大学生接触基督教的主要途径,大学生成长中的危机、个体需求在教会中得到的满足是推动大学生皈信基督教的重要力量,而认知上对基督教教义的反复论证与探索会暂时性地阻碍大学生皈信基督教,基督教教义和礼仪对于信徒心灵和人格的塑造使得他们进入到信仰的稳定阶段。     

试论吴耀宗先生处境化的基督教伦理观

吴耀宗先生当年之所以归向基督,首先是被基督福音的伦理内容所吸引。他认为基督教不仅是信的宗教,而且也是行的宗教,是伦理的宗教。做基督徒的要以行为来考验信仰、实践信仰和证明信仰,做信行相符、言行一致的基督徒,而不是耶稣所痛恨的能说不能行、信行不符的假冒为善之人。他强调基督徒要肯定教会以外的善行和善人,如同耶稣肯定那个好撒玛利亚人那样,因为一切的善都是从上帝而来。行善的人,不管他有没有基督教信仰,都是上帝所悦纳的。他认为爱是基督教的最高原则,但其具体实行要和处境相联系。他把基督教的爱上帝和爱人如己的最高原则与我国的具体实际和时代处境结合起来,为我国基督徒指明了爱国爱教的道路与方向,使中国基督教有了光明的发展前途。他的处境化的基督教伦理观直到今天仍然值得我们学习和借鉴。     

神学与经验(续二)

<正>人类的生存经验及宗教经验可以作为基督教神学一个基本资源的观念,意味着基督教神学关注人类本身的经验。神学在某种意识上就是基督徒对信仰群体的生存经验及宗教经验的反思。人的生存经验包括人的生存的各个层面,是人之所以为人的整体经验。而人的宗教经验则是人对超验世界或人的"终极关怀"的探寻和体验,     

身份的政治学——西双版纳傣族基督徒的身份研究

西双版纳傣族主要信仰南传上座部佛教,但有一部分傣族却信仰基督教。这部分信仰基督教的傣族主要是被傣族主流社会所排斥的边缘群体:麻风病人和披巴鬼。目前在西双版纳傣族地区,信仰基督教的依然是这两类群体的后代。他们在傣族社会是蒙受着污名的群体,被傣族社会排斥成为社会的边缘群体。但是归信基督教却赋予了他们一个新的身份:基督徒,成为普世基督教世界中的一份子。因而这群被边缘化的傣族来说,基督教在相当程度上起到了去污名化的作用。也就是说,这群被边缘化的傣族借助基督教这一外来力量管理他们受损的身份,从而借以去污名化,这是一种身份的政治学。     

当代中国基督教现状管窥:基于CGSS和CFPS调查数据

基于“中国综合社会调查”(CGSS)和“中国家庭追踪调查”(CFPS)两个全国性社会调查数据,本文探讨了当代中国基督教的三个面向:基督徒的规模和格局、基督徒的人口及社会分层特征、基督徒的社会心态。分析显示,2010年基督徒占我国成年总人口的比例大致在1.9%至2.2%之间,相对应推算全国基督徒总规模为2568万至2936万人。基督教在我国汉族地区已经成为仅次于佛教的第二大宗教。与佛教徒相比,基督徒的活动更为绵密、组织化程度更高、信众对宗教信仰的重视程度也更高。因此我们认为基督教在我国已经形成“全国存在,局部聚居”的格局。在信徒特征上,基督徒的女性比例很高、年龄结构偏老、居住在农村的信徒相对多。在社会经济地位上,基督徒的个人收入、受教育水平、职业地位不仅低于无信仰群体,也在各宗教中排名最低或几乎最低。尽管如此,基督徒平均的信任度、公平感、幸福感、精神健康程度与无信仰群体没有显著差异,甚至在社会底层,基督徒的社会心态比无信仰群体更积极。     

当代中国宗教状况报告——基于CFPS(2012)调查数据

本报告利用"中国家庭追踪调查"的数据对我国当代宗教状况进行了描述。调查发现,我国只有10%的人自认为有宗教信仰。在这些人中,女性、中老年人、受教育水平低的被访者比例偏高;宗教信仰与收入之间不存在相关,但当人们的客观收入相当时,有宗教信仰的人对自身经济地位和社会地位的主观评价更高,这意味着宗教信仰有助于增加人们对现状的满足感。佛教仍然是我国最有影响力的宗教,6.75%的被访者自认为信仰佛教,几乎是其他所有宗教信徒总和的两倍;另外,相较于基督徒,佛教信仰者的年轻人和高学历者比例更高,而文盲和半文盲的比例更低。数据显示,1.9%的人信仰基督教,据此推算,我国大概有2600万左右的基督徒,从信徒规模来看,基督教已成为汉人地区第二大宗教;在局部地区基督徒的绝对数量已经超过佛教徒,所以我们判断基督教在我国已形成"全国存在、局部聚居"的格局。男外,从信徒的组织化程度、信徒参与宗教活动的频率以及信徒对宗教信仰重要性的主观评价这三个指标来看,基督教甚至已经超过佛教。     

做门徒的代价

前不久,在苏丹发生了一起“逼迫基督徒放弃信仰”的事件,让我再次深思做主门徒的代价.一名叫梅里·易卜拉欣的怀孕妇女因嫁给基督徒并且改信基督教而被判死刑.据她的丈夫丹尼尔说,她在监狱里被迫带着锁链生下了自己的女儿.当地法院给了她两年的宽限期,在孩子断奶后,她会因背叛伊斯兰教而被鞭笞100次,随后处死.穆斯林法官已经给了易卜拉欣生存的机会,如果她放弃基督教的信仰成为穆斯林,可以免于一死.但是勇敢的易卜拉欣说：“要处死我就快点动手吧,我不会改变我的信仰,我拒绝改变信仰.我不会放弃基督教苟且偷生!”易卜拉欣面对死亡的威胁毫不畏惧,勇敢地坚持自己的信仰.这让我想起德国神学家潘霍华的那句话：“当基督呼召一个人时,他是召他来为他死.”这句话道出了作为主的门徒必须具备毫无惧怕、决不妥协的心志,令人警醒.     

寻索身份:赵紫宸处境神学的努力

赵紫宸(1888-1979)是20世纪中国基督教一位杰出的神学家、神学教育家、基督徒作家、诗人、圣诗作者和著名的教会领袖。他学贯中西,一生致力于基督教与中国文化的融合,致力于创建中国的基督教神学。他的神学是其在自己的文化、社会、政治处境中信仰寻求相关性解释的产物。另一方面,在其处境神学的思考中,他又努力寻求基督教的独特性。在其构建中国基督教神学的努力中,他清楚自己中国基督徒的身份认同,他是基督徒,更是中国人。他竭力要说明的是,一个真正的基督徒,也应是一个真正的爱国者。因此多一个基督徒,并不会少一个中国人。基督与中国、基督教与中国文化、神与人、宗教与伦理是其神学运思的两个焦点,通过这样的神学思考,他试图构建一个为人生为社会的基督教。他的这种努力也表明一个真正的中国基督徒可以也应该有双重的效忠。     

社会转型与宗教皈依:以基督教徒为对象的考察

本论文借助于标准化开放式访谈法对社会转型时期民众的基督教信仰进行了探讨。研究发现,压力或危机事件的触发是现阶段民众接受基督教信仰的内在动力,社会网络的示范和导引是民众接受和皈依基督教信仰的中介因素,“神迹”或“特殊的感应”对民众皈依基督教信仰具有催化作用,教义与礼仪通过对信仰者人格的转换逐步实现其信仰的内在化。本研究认为,社会结构的转型、社会系统的非平衡状态会使宗教成为替代或补偿性因素而为更多的人选择,但宗教徒的信仰内容中所包涵的不仅是神秘的宗教经验,而且集结着许多世俗生活的需求和渴望,需要理性客观地加以解读。     

基督教的传播与罗马帝国统治者的因应对策

罗马帝国统治者以政治标准和实用态度裁决基督教,从视为犹太教的一个小教派予以默认,到将其视为一种非法的宗教加以迫害,再到承认其合法性,都是基于统治者的利益和政治的现实需要而调整,最终基督教提升为国教。罗马帝国的基督教政策为未来的国家统治者干涉教会事务确定了先例,对中世纪西欧政教关系的格局产生了深远影响。     

Rethinking the Great Commission: Incorporation of Akan Indigenous Symbols into Christian Worship

Symbols are communicative tools with performative functions in all cultures. Apart from their decorative functions, non‐Christian symbols adopted into Christianity have had a tremendous impact on Christian life since the early times, especially in liturgical practices. Through Western missionary activities, Ghana inherited Christian biblical‐liturgical art as has been developed in the home countries of the missionaries. However, since the 1960s Adinkra symbols have been incorporated into Christian worship and theology, receiving attention within secular and religious circles because of their communicative potential. On the religious level, some churches have adopted them as logos or incorporated them into architectural designs and liturgical art. This paper seeks to investigate what motivates various missions to choose particular Adinkra symbol(s) and what they hope to achieve with them. Furthermore, it attempts a theological reflection on the communicative potential of artefacts in Ghanaian Christianity as a response to the “Great Commission. “We approach the subject from a historical, contextual, and theological perspective, using selected Roman Catholic and Methodist churches in Ghana as case studies. The study employed unstructured in‐depth interviews and photo elicitations to trace the relationship between visual arts and religion, with particular emphasis on Christian visual arts and how they have informed Christianity in Ghana.     

Challenging Christianity: Leo Tolstoy and religious education

The religious thought of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy is a well documented but often overlooked example of unorthodox Christianity. This paper uses the example of Tolstoy’s religious thinking to question the integrity of the current representation of Christianity in UK schools. It also uses Tolstoy’s criticism of orthodox Christianity to suggest a possible consequence of the existing depiction of Christianity on students’ understanding and attitudes.     

The Messiah and Rabbi Jesus: Policing the Jewish–Christian border in Christian Zionism

For all their ostensible difference and separateness, Judaism and Christianity have a long history of mutual engagement and profound entanglement. I take Daniel Boyarin's assertion that ‘…the borders between Christianity and Judaism are as constructed and imposed, as artificial and political as any of the borders of the earth’ (2004, 1) as my starting point. But what Boyarin sees as an ongoing process of differentiation between Judaism and Christianity and distinct identity-building in late antiquity, I look for still today in Christian Zionism. The busy border crossing continues to separate people and ideas at the same time as it serves as the meeting place between them, the uncomfortable place where Judaism and Christianity rub up against each other. This paper examines some constructions of the Jewish–Christian border by way of two case studies of prominent religious leaders, each firmly at home in their respective communities, Jewish and Christian, who ventured out to the borderland of Christian Zionism. This is the story of what happened when they returned home to find themselves examined by those who monitor the Jewish–Christian border, and deemed to be over the limit with intoxicants brought over from the ‘other side’.     

Contributors

The ‘imagined community’ (famously defined by Benedict Anderson) could not be created out of nothing. It built upon previously existing identities. And though nineteenth-century nationalism is often seen as essentially secular, the most powerful of these identities were frequently religious. Indeed the clergy often played a major role in promoting a national consciousness. While a ‘national church’ readily saw itself as the embodiment of the nation’s past history, present identity and future aspirations, religious minorities usually had a more ambivalent relationship with a nationalism that was always in some degree exclusive. And even in the case of a ‘national church’, the interests of politicians and ecclesiastics were not always the same. Moreover some nineteenth-century nationalisms were defined in ways to which religion was largely irrelevant, or were in explicit opposition to the Catholic Church. Nonetheless, in ways that varied in kind and degree from country to country, nationalism and Christianity came to be intertwined in nineteenth-century Europe. National identities were to an important degree defined by reference to specific Christian traditions, their history, their forms of worship, and their heroic figures. At the same time nationalism often came to be seen as an integral part of Christianity. Readiness to die for the motherland was presented as a Christian duty and, in particular, Christian preachers of this era were strongly influenced by the concept of a God-given national mission, which justified nationalist claims and might sometimes justify war.     

The roman catholic church and interreligious dialogue: Implications for Christian‐Muslim relations

At the Second Vatican Council, 1965, the Roman Catholic Church, in the declaration Nostra Aetate, opened a new and more positive relationship with Islam and other world religions. In 1984 the Vatican issued a second document, on mission and dialogue, which strongly encouraged interreligious dialogue and set out in detail the breadth of activities involved. Since then there has been in some Catholic circles a growing fear that the emphasis on dialogue has led to an abandoning of the. Church's missionary obligation to proclaim the full Christian Gospel to non‐Christians and to invite them to Christian faith. At the end of 1990 the present Pope issued the encyclical letter Redemptoris Missio, ’on the permanent validity of the Church's missionary mandate’. This was followed five months later by another Vatican document on Dialogue and Proclamation. This paper examines these four documents in the light of the wider debate taking place among Christians on the relationship of Christianity to men and women of other faiths. It concentrates on the specific case of Christian‐Muslim relations and concludes that there is even more need for Christians and Muslims to be religiously sensitive and open; to know and esteem each other's values, and to cooperate for the social, moral and religious well‐being of the whole human family.     

Attitudes toward religious diversity among American exemplars of Christian virtue

An important concern within contemporary Western societies is how religious adherents view and engage religious diversity. This study attempts to further understandings regarding religious diversity in contemporary society through the accounts of American Christian religious exemplars whose religious identification spans the conservative evangelical, liberal Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions. Ninety‐six in‐depth interviews were conducted with individuals recognized by their congregational leadership as exemplifying Christian virtues and thereby Christian commitment. Weak denominational allegiances, accompanied by salient identification with broad Christian religious traditions were found. Mainline/liberal Christians tended to identify conservative/evangelical Christians as ‘others’, while conservative/evangelical Christians identified Mormons as ‘others.’ Also, a shift in attitudes toward Catholics was found among Protestants, and attitudes toward non‐Christian religions were respectfully civil across a range of theological understanding of these religions. The implications of these findings for religious identity in contemporary society are explored with particular attention to religious diversity.     

Plagues,Pagans, and Christians: Differential Survival,Social Networks,and the Rise of Christianity

In his book, The Rise of Christianity, Rodney Stark argues that the early Christian church indirectly benefitted from the plagues that struck the early Roman Empire in the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Common Era. In particular, he argues that the early church's doctrines concerning love, charity, and social service would have led Christians to enjoy higher survival rates than pagans, which would have left the social networks of the former relatively intact, while those of the latter in disarray. Moreover, since recruitment to new religious movements occurs largely through social ties, the probability that an average pagan would have converted to Christianity would have been greater after the plagues than before. In this article, we use computer modeling to test Stark's hypothesis. Not only do we find support for his hypothesis, we also show that higher survival rates for either group not only would have benefitted their respective social networks but also would have benefitted their competitor's social networks, highlighting how network effects often flow in multiple and unexpected ways. We conclude with suggestions for future research, in particular how scholars can build upon our analyses and explore alternative assumptions.     

‘The Most Beautiful Jewesses in the Land’: Imperial Travel in the Early Christian Holy Land

This essay examines the ways in which Jews were encoded into the holy land travel literature of the Christian Roman Empire (fourth through sixth centuries) as a means of naturalising and authenticating new modes of Christian, imperial power. Postcolonial criticism is used to analyse pilgrimage texts of the holy land (the Bordeaux pilgrim, Egeria, the Piacenza pilgrim) in order to explore various modes of constructing imperial Christian identity through use of the ‘figural Jew’ of ancient Palestine.     

“Noxious Weed”: Persecution in the Development of Korean Christianity

The experience of persecution during the late Joseon and Japanese colonial period was not unusual for Korean Christians, who endured living as a minority faith within a hostile context. Like the pre‐Constantinian Christian communities and many Christians today who live in the global South, suspicion and persecution defined their world as openly confessing Christians, and they embraced, as part of converting to Christianity, the stark reality that their faith could incur personal harm in the form of hostility, incarceration, and even death. This article explores how conversion and maintaining Christian faith in a society adverse to Christianity shaped believers’ self‐understanding of the breadth of faith and acceptance of its mortal implications. Focusing on the Catholic and Protestant experience in Korea, Christian believers rigorously tested the country's attitudes against Christianity. In so doing, their experience provokes a critical reflection on the profoundness of the missionary mandate and illuminates the complexity with which their faith is forged as they must confront the brutal reality that they may be, at the very least, arrested. For many Korean Christians during Joseon Dynasty and the Japanese colonial period (1910–1945), conversion to Christianity was part of the process that transformed for believers a religious identity that was understood to be potentially detrimental to their relationship with the state.