早期基督教在罗马帝国的传播方式

早期基督教⁽(1))的传播与发展在不同阶段得益于不同因素的推动。公元一世纪,在传播的初始阶段,早期基督教依托于母体犹太教进行传播,并逐渐突破了犹太教教义的局限;公元二世纪至君士坦丁统治之前,早期基督教处于发展阶段,这一时期的传播基于教会组织所发挥的组织优势;《米兰敕令》颁布以后,早期基督教的传播便开始借助于统治者的政治权力在罗马帝国逐渐发展壮大。通过对早期基督教在罗马帝国的传播方式的研究,可以对其发展的原因形成更立体、更深刻的认识。早期基督教在不断地调整自身与传统的关系、不断地适应新形势的过程中发展壮大,最终成为罗马帝国的国教,从而促进罗马帝国政治文化内涵的变化。     

现实认知:当前基督教“中国化”的社会处境

<正>基督教从其纯正信仰的立场,好似主张不卷入政治,但仍明确表示顺服政府、服从在上的政治权威,同时主张政教分离。然而在现实社会中,脱离政治处境的抽象"政教分离"基本上不曾存在。从基督教的历史发展来看,早期基督教会遭受罗马帝国的打压,没能躲开政治;罗马帝国后期基督教成为国教,进入了政治中心;此后中世纪的教宗国更是政教合一。马丁·路德推动欧洲宗教改革运动后,西方政教关系随之出现变化,有过"教随国定"现象,对比以往的     

试论基督教在西欧从古代向中世纪过渡时期的历史作用

木文探讨了基督教在西欧从古代向中世纪过渡时期的重要历史作用,主要包括基督教在促使西罗马帝国最后灭亡、促进西欧社会生产力的恢复与发展、促进民族融合以及对西欧政治的影响等方面。     

基督教的产生与文学审美本质的丧失

有一种观念认为,罗马帝国的衰颓是由于基督教的出现.事实上,基督教的出现,与其说是罗马帝国衰颓的原因,勿宁说是罗马帝国衰颓的结果.它的产生,与罗马帝国感性主义的蜕变与泛滥是分不开的.     

基督教与欧洲中世纪文化教育

公元5世纪,曾经不可一世的罗马帝国在日耳曼民族入侵浪潮的冲击下土崩瓦解了,入侵者们摧毁了罗马帝国的一切文化成就,却惟独保留了基督教,并且在一百多年的时间里全部皈依了正统的基督教会。事实上,早在公元3世纪,就有一些具有奉献精神的传教士越过多瑙河和莱茵河,深入到日耳曼人居住的地区传播基督教信仰。尼西亚公会议(325年)以后,遭到正统教会谴责的阿里乌派也开始向罗马帝国境外的日耳曼地区渗透,结果使得西哥特人、东哥特人、汪达尔人、勃艮第人和伦巴第人等早在入侵罗马帝国之前就皈依了阿里乌派基督教。正是由于在日耳曼民族中已经有…     

谈谈基督教三大派系的区别

许多人,包括教徒和非教徒,对基督教三大派系究竟有什么区别,不是很清楚。各派系教徒只是对本派的教义、神学、经典、礼仪、节日、神职、教制、教历、教堂等有所了解,而对其他派系的详情就不甚了解。本文就基督教三大派系———东正教、天主教和基督教新教之间的区别,作如下介绍:学过世界史的人都知道,公元395年,罗马帝国一分为二,分裂为东、西罗马帝国。随着罗马帝国的分裂,君士坦丁堡是东正教中心,罗马是天主教的中心,东正教是在帝国东部地区的特殊历史环境中形成的,由于帝国东部的政治、经济、文化、语言、民族等方面与西部不同,因而东正…     

试析基督教走向世界的原因

基督教之所以能迅速地突破民族、国家和地区的限制而走向世界,绝非偶然.这既有客观的历史原因,又有不同于其他国家宗教和民族宗教的内在宗教素质.罗马帝国的"世界性"范围,罗马帝国统治集团的大力扶持利用,基督教对犹太教的超越,基督教教义思想具有的"普世性",基督教着重个人体验的信仰途径以及简便易行的宗教礼仪,基督教组织的发展变化等多种因素使基督教很快走向世界.在基督教发展成为世界性宗教的过程中,保罗等人起了重要作用,他对早期基督教教义的改造适应了时代的需要.     

中世纪教会的进一步发展及变迁

基督教会在向西方传播并发展的同时，也在罗马帝国的东部取得了巨大的发展。教会这样发展的格局有着复杂的原因，其中直接的原因便是政治上的分立。公元395年，狄奥多西大帝驾崩前将罗马帝国分赐给他的两个儿子，其中阿卡狄乌斯得到帝国的东部，霍诺留得到了帝国的西部。     

从契约神到太阳神:密特拉教在罗马世界的传播及演变

密特拉是琐罗亚斯德教主神阿胡拉·马兹达的副神,也是契约神。庞培在公元前67年首次见到了奇里乞亚的密特拉崇拜。密特拉教的西传,极可能经过了小亚等希腊化地区,直接传播到罗马帝国的可能性不大。密特拉在1世纪晚期传入罗马世界后很受欢迎,在军队中很流行,在罗马上层也有传播,得到戴克里先、尤利安等皇帝的支持,被视为罗马的太阳神。在3—4世纪的罗马帝国,密特拉教一度成为和基督教相提并论的两大东方宗教。虽然由于多种因素的影响,密特拉教在罗马世界的传播最后失败了,但对罗马社会和文化宗教等领域产生了多种影响。     

中国化:基督教在华更新与复兴的必由之路北大核心CSSCISSCI

基督教的在华发展、基督教在中国社会的适应与融合,以及基督教与中国文化的关系,都是中国宗教在探究中又尚未得到彻底解决,但在今天又至关重要的问题。在东西文化的相遇及交流中,基督教具有典型意义。基督教的本源在亚洲,其文化元素本来属于东方文化范围,但因其在古罗马帝国时期在地中海周边地区的生存与扩展,     

Missional Discipleship

Most communities of the world, and particularly in the continent of Africa, are multi‐faith and multicultural. Christianity is a major religion in the continent that has succeeded in persuading adherents of African traditional religions to switch off from their indigenous belief and switch on to Christian belief. 1 Christianity is not the only religious faith in Africa. It has other sibling monotheistic religions and other religious expressions. Christianity, being a mission‐oriented religious faith, has a mandate to bring about transformation as reflected in its sacred text, the Bible. This article will explore how the transformation is stimulated and sustained. Meanwhile, it is necessary to state that African people were religious people even before the advent of Christianity and Islam. As a result, religion plays a critical role in their public engagements. Nevertheless, what may be investigated further would be whether religion, and Christian faith in particular, influences the people to be good citizens/disciples as they engage in the socio‐political and economic life of the society. The article seeks to use the notion of missional discipleship as a compelling stimulus for inclusive transformation in African societies.     

Constitutional Privilege and Constituting Pluralism: Religious Freedom in National, Global, and Legal Context

Lori Beaman argues that religious freedom in Canada and the United States is well established in theory (or myth) but limited in practice, privileging Protestantism in particular and varieties of Christianity in general. Focusing on the treatment of other religions in the courts of the two countries, she defends the hypothesis that these legal systems tend to reinforce the hegemony of Christianity, using this as an implicit model of what constitutes a religion, and thereby maintaining the marginalization and restricting the freedom of other religions. The present article sets Beaman's arguments in a wider global context, exploring the extent to which Christianity does and does not serve as a global standard for religion; and addressing the question of why issues of religious freedom so frequently end up being the subject of legal judgment and political decision. The main conclusions drawn from this global contextualization are that maintenance of some kind of religious hegemony is the rule all across global society, not just in Canada and the United States, and that unfettered freedom of religion or genuine religious pluralization is correspondingly rare, if it exists anywhere. Moreover, it is argued that such limitations, frequently expressed in legal judgments and political decisions, are more or less to be expected because they flow from the peculiar way that religion has been constructed in the modern and global era as both a privileged and privatized, as both an encompassing and marginalized social domain. The article thereby simultaneously reinforces and takes issue with Beaman's position: the modern and global reconstruction of religion invites its infinite pluralization at the same time as it encourages its politicization and practical restriction. Religions act as important resources both for claims to inclusion and for strategies of relative exclusion.     

Lost in the Market, Saved at McDonald's: Conversion to Christianity in Urban China

Protestant Christianity has been growing very fast in China under communist rule. This article shows that the converts are not all marginalized individuals deprived of material and social resources. An increasing proportion of the converts are well-educated young people in urban China. To explain this conversion to a nontraditional religion, the micro-level factors of individual crisis, individual choices, and personal bonds are inadequate. The meso-level institutional factors of organizational strengths and competitiveness are important, but religious organizations are severely constrained by restrictive regulations in China. I argue that the macro-level contextual factors are very important to understand the phenomenon of large-scale conversion to Christianity in China today. The crucial contextual factors are the increasingly globalized market economy under political repression. Christianity provides peace and certainty in facing wild market forces. The Christian faith is liberating amid a stifling political atmosphere. McDonald's is a prominent symbol of the globalized market, which, like Christianity, is perceived as modern and cosmopolitan within the Chinese context.     

Chinese Christianity in international perspective: some remarks on ecclesiology and fundamental concepts engaging East and West

ABSTRACT

In Chinese legislation on the Church as well as in the theological debate in China and, the concepts of religion and Christianity predominate, depending, from a historical perspective, on the influence of nineteenth-century philosophical and theological ideas from the West, conveyed by socialist political theory, by the weak ecclesiology in missionary societies operatingin China before 1949, and influential theologians setting the scene. The idea of Sinicisation contributed to the perpetuation of the nineteenth-century ideas of religion and Christianity in China. Today, however, there are signs of change. The churches in the accelerating multi-modernity in China wishto clarify what is unique for the Christian Church. Sometimes, however, what is characteristic of the Church in China is also characteristic of the Church in many other places in the world.     

The Essentiality of “Culture” in the Study of Religion and Politics

This article reviews various theoretical approaches political scientists employ in the analysis of religion and politics and posits culture as a conceptual bridge between competing approaches. After coming to the study of religion slowly in comparison with other social science disciplines, political science finally has a theoretically diverse and thriving religion and politics subfield. However, political scientists’ contributions to the social scientific study of religion are hampered by a lack of agreement about whether endogenous or exogenous theoretical approaches ought to dominate our scholarship. I assert that the concept of culture—and more specifically, subculture—might help create more connections across theoretical research traditions. I emphasize how the concept of religion‐based subculture is inherent in psychological, social psychological, social movement, and contextual approaches to religion and politics scholarship, and I explore these theoretical connections using the example of religion‐based “us versus them” discourses in contemporary American politics.     

西方马克思主义宗教论说的六个问题领域

宗教在当代社会的"私人化",使基督教不仅作为一种信仰传统、也作为一种文化叙事引起诸多学科的关注,进而在基督教与马克思主义的关系方面形成了新的论说模式。马克思主义与基督教神学是否存在着可能交合的问题领域?这应该对中国目前的宗教学研究具有重要的借鉴价值。本文作者就此归纳为六个方面,并提出相关讨论。     

The Christianization of African Traditional Religions

In studies of the historical growth and spread of Christianity in Africa, the focus has been too much on Christianizing African social and religious institutions and structures, and not enough on African traditional religion itself, which needs to be addressed by Christianity. This article addresses the core – that is, the theology and worldview – of the African traditional religion. It argues that this core needs to be Christianized and shows how this can be done. In order to achieve this task, the article uses a new theological method, a “systematic theology” of African traditional religion, as the basis for a theological method of engagement and interaction of religions and worldview. This new method explains in practical terms how Christianity can effectively Christianize African traditional religions and worldviews.     

A Religiously Partisan Science? Islamic and Christian Perspectives

Both within Christianity and Islam we can find influential scholars who maintain that science is not religiously neutral because it contains a naturalist bias. They argue that Christians or Muslims should respond by developing their own kind of science, an “Islamic science,” a “sacred science,” a “theistic science” or a “faith-informed science.” In this article the recent writings of two advocates of such a view, standing in two different religious traditions, namely Mehdi Golshani (Islam) and Alvin Plantinga (Christianity) are compared, analyzed, and evaluated. A distinction between different ways in which religion might enter into the fabric of science is introduced and it is argued that the most crucial issues surround the question of whether or not religion ought to play a part in the validation of theories.     

Environmental Decline and the Rise of Religion

Abstract. Historically, crises have spawned deliberate, widespread efforts to change a culture's worldviews. Anthropologists have characterized such efforts as “revitalization movements” and speculated that many of the world's religions, including Christianity, arose through revitalization. Some responses to the planet's environmental crisis share the characteristics of both a revitalization movement and an incipient religion. They call for a science‐based cosmology and an encompassing reverence for nature, and thus differ from responses to environmental decline offered by traditional religions. As environmental problems deepen, historical precedent suggests that religious shifts in affected cultures may follow.