基督教普世主义及其矛盾

本文主要从教会论而非救赎论的层面来讨论基督教普世主义,目的是探讨普世主义教会观产生的源头、发展线索以及在实践中的矛盾表现。本文认为从教会教义的形成与发展以及圣经教训内容本身两方面来看,普世主义教会观直接秉承罗马普世主义思想文化资源;论述了古代和中世纪教会普世主义的矛盾发展及其引发教会分裂的历史过程,认为难以解决的矛盾主要表现在制定教会教义与确立教会权威这两个问题上;探讨了普世主义在20世纪取得突飞猛进的原因,并简略讨论了普世主义在中国新教教会中的情况。     

Psychotherapy in Cyberspace

Research concerned with human beings is always an interference of some kind, thus posing ethical dilemmas that need justification of procedures and methodologies. It is especially true in social work when facing mostly sensitive populations and sensitive issues. In the process of conducting a research on the emotional life histories of Israeli men who batter their partners, some serious ethical questions were evoked such as (a) Did the participants really give their consent? (b) What are the limits of the researcher-participants relationship and who decides them? (c) For whom is the study beneficial? and (d) To what degree did the methodology fit with the participants? In this article, I discuss the Socratic idea of truth revealed through dialogue and the idea of reciprocity that was developed in Buber's (1949) ethics of dialogue and Habermas' (1990) communicative ethics. The 3 essential conclusions drawn from the ethical questions raised and the discussion of the thinkers that are mentioned previously are (a) dialogical methodology is ethically justified; (b) dynamic interactions give a more holistic perspective of the human nature, thus enriching the field; and (c) through dialogical methodology both researcher and participant profit from growth of knowledge, which is a key for empowerment and change.     

Seeking the Pathos of God in a Secular Age: Theological Reflections on Mystical Experience in the Twentieth Century

Our current context is a “moving” and unstable one. We are facing not only a time of change, but what Pope Benedict XVI terms “an epochal change.” The impact of this transformation upon religion is unmistakable. In this article I reflect on one aspect of this impact: the one that affects and transforms the experience of God, also called mystical experience. I explore the concept of experience, trying to give a more precise idea of what we understand by mystical experience. I then reflect on the importance of mystical biographies and narratives to theology, including the particular characteristics that emerge when this narrative is about the mystical experiences of twentieth‐century people of faith. I present the specific “case” of Dorothy Day as an exemplification of mystical experience. I conclude with several reflections about how human beings find the way towards God in our secular.     

Standards for Health Care Chaplaincy in Europe: Questions from an Orthodox Perspective

The Standards' ecumenical implications are critically assessedin view of the risks which their cross-denominational or cross-faithcooperation implications on the one hand, and, on the otherhand, their secular commitments to mutual learning, non-proselytizing,professionalism, and efficiency assessment might carry for chaplains'properly spiritual orientation. The problem posed by the ambiguityof language is raised as a warning that concepts like humandignity have a profoundly different meaning in secular and Christiancontexts. Invoking such concepts can be seriously misleading.     

Communication for Life in Cyberspace

Cyberspace communication is a key driving force of the neoliberal globalization that has led to worldwide crisis. Despite some positive perspectives, cyberspace communication has played a crucial role in the dominance of global markets by transnational corporations. The ethical foundations of the problematics of cyberspace communication lie in a social Darwinism that leads to ruthless competition based on egoistic morality. This article posits the notion of love as an alternative ethics, drawing on perspectives of Christian love (especially those of US ethicist Paul Ramsey) as unselfish love for others, as well as on East Asian traditions of love (such as Buddhist compassion, Confucian jen, and Korean jung). The article argues that unselfish love offers a perspective to overcome an anthropocentric perspective of communication. In this way, human beings can build a community with all living beings and develop harmonious relationships with them to live together on the earth.     

Religious Discourse and Cyberspace

This article explores the evolution and development of a typology of cyberspatial religious discourse over the course of a few years. The vast quantity of information published on the Net requires the creation of a typology in order to identify and classify the different approaches, attitudes, applications and functions of religion on and in cyberspace. The three different typologies indicate, on the one hand, the versatile character of cyberspace, and on the other hand, the ever-expanding nature of its perimeters. They show that cyberspatial discourse, religious or not, cannot be confined within restricted boundaries but must be perceived as a changeable and unforeseen structure, having the capacity to adapt itself according to the visions, fantasies, ingenuities and inventiveness of the users. They also suggest that despite the rhizomatic construction of cyberspace, the information published on the innumerable religious sites can be systematised in a ‘logical’ formation.     

The Unsettled German Discussions of Justification: Abiding Differences and Ecumenical Blessings

Abstract :  This essay provides an analysis of The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification . It argues that the future of ecumenism demands greater attention to doctrinal differences than was evident after 1980 in much of the Roman‐Lutheran dialogue on justification, especially as it unfolded in Germany.     

God Language

Abstract

Words are inadequate to describe God. The words of the recent past have limited the concept of God by using only the masculine images and gender to describe God. Purposefully using feminine images and gender and using non-gendered symbols helps to expand our conception of God. The paper deals almost exclusively with God language in a Christian context. Rationales for describing each member of the Trinity in feminine as well as masculine terms are developed and various resources for using gender-inclusive and gender-neutral terms for God are shared.     

Speaking of God after the Death of God

Abstract :  This article affirms the ability to talk about God in the twenty‐first century 40 years after God died (according to Death‐of‐God theologians) in the 1960s. It does so by an appeal to the proper combination of mystery and revelation ideally expressed in the paradox that God reveals Godself as hidden. The language of God's revealed hiddenness comprises a "middle way" which avoids the extremes of theological hubris on the one hand and atheism or unbelief on the other, making it possible to speak today of God in a faithful yet humble manner.     

Ungraceful God: Masculinity and Images of God in Brazilian Popular Culture

Abstract

The article investigates how God is represented in popular culture, especially in music, in Brazil. It gives a general background about Brazilian culture showing how religion is part of the identity constructions of Brazilian people and how it is marked by multiplicity, syncretism and hybridization. It then analyses two popular songs that make explicit statements about "who God is" and how those statements are related to traditional masculine gender constructions. Finally, the article discusses how issues of masculinity and religion have been approached in recent scholarship and points to the need for other ways of imagining God that are related to people's experience.     

“Seeking the Absentee”: A European Perspective on Evangelism in the Wake of a Feral God

Abstract Europe's religious “demise” is well reported and often lamented in missionary circles. This article aims to offer a contrary perspective using the common approach of evangelism: “double listening”. The task is to listen to our culture and our text in conversation and to discover what the text is saying afresh to our needs and values. It is, however, largely expected that this double listening will yield itself to the means by which Christ can change and counter culture. But what if our double listening reveals the deafness of evangelism to the voice of Christ in our culture? This paper aims to explore the widespread religious experience in Europe of God's absence, and how it prompts us to re‐examine the stories of Jesus and the rhetoric we use to describe Europe's religious life. It contends that much evangelism in Europe is too inhospitable or unsophisticated to see this absence as anything other than something we should rush to fill with the latest model of our reliable 24/7 god. However, it might be leading us to acknowledge something about the life of faith that Jesus seems to offer in much of his teaching. Europe's resistance to organized religion is painful to experience, but it might be inviting us into a fresh conversion to what God is doing beyond our walls. If so, evangelism will have to learn a fresh humility as well as to provide the fresh energy to discover and partner God there.