"Demographic Futures for Christianity and the World Religions"

Abstract :  Since before 1970 Christian researchers have been tracking the massive demographic shift of Christianity to the Southern Hemisphere and noting the increasingly religious nature of populations around the world. At the same time, writers on the future of religion have been drawn to extreme portrayals of decline or revival of religion. However, the world's religious situation is replete with detailed information, drawn from enormous data collections on religious affiliation and questions about religion in government censuses. Quantitative tools, utilizing this information in the context of demography provide a more nuanced view of humankind's religious future. Demographic trends coupled with conservative estimates of conversions and defections envision over 80% of the world's population will continue to be affiliated with religions 200 years into the future. This religious future will have a profound influence on Christian theology, relations between religions, and the interaction between religion and politics.     

Challenges for Christianity and Barriers to Dialogue in World Religions

Abstract

Mutual respect and understanding between the world's religions has become increasingly necessary in a global society where peace can be tenuous. This article will concentrate on challenges for Christianity in relationship with other world religions. Can interreligious dialogue benefit from what we learn from the dialogue 1 ?1?Ian G. Barbour in his work, Religion in an Age of Science, Gifford lectures, vol. 1 (San Francisco: HarperSanFranscisco, 1990), ch. 1 proposed a fourfold “typology” for relating science and theology, each containing subtypes. One of those types, Barbour called “dialogue”—which is of interest here as the model for shaping the dialogue between world religions. In his revised edition in 1997, he made minor modifications; however, in his When Science Meets Religion, Enemies, Stranger or Partners, (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2000), Barbour uses the typology as the organizing structure for all his book's chapters, which is instructive for those wanting to do more reading and understand dialogue beyond what is given here. between science and theology? Yes. 2 ?2?Email from Ted Peters, Professor at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), Program Director of the Science and Religion Course Program of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS); Prof, Peters proposed using a relational statement of this type. The science–theology dialogue is part of the ongoing effort to bridge 3 ?3?Ted Peters and Gaymon Bennett, eds., Bridging Science and Religion (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), Foreword (Robert John Russell), ix–xii; Introduction (Gaymon Bennett), 14. the intellectual divide between the discoveries of natural science that have made our lives in the material world better, and interpretations and understandings in the various faith traditions that have given meaning and value to our living in the material world.     

Teachers in Early Christianity

This article presents the idea that the Early Church supported teachers as one of the ministry offices within the local church. These teachers worked to mature the spiritual life of the congregation and so helped to free the pastoral ministry to focus on other duties, many of which fall on pastors. Most ministers, pastors, and others teach at one time or another, but the main task of teaching in the Early Church was carried on by (not merely overseen or administrated by) highly qualified Christian teachers. Three questions help explore the position of teachers in early Christianity: How does the New Testament define the teacher? How did the early church employ teachers? What principles helped to direct the Christian “Life of the Mind” in the Early Church?     

Jung and Gnosticism

Carl Jung interprets Gnosticism the way he interprets alchemy: as a hoary counterpart to his analytical psychology. As interpreted by Jung, Gnostic myths describe a seemingly outward, if also inward, process which is in fact an entirely inward, psychological one. The Gnostic progression from sheer bodily existence to the rediscovery of the immaterial spark trapped in the body and the reunion of that spark with the immaterial godhead symbolize the Jungian progression from sheer ego consciousness to the rediscovery of the unconscious within the mind and the integration of the ego with the unconscious to forge the self. For Jung, Gnostics are the ancient counterpart to present-day Jungian patients. Both constitute a psychological elite. Where most persons are satisfied with traditional means of connecting themselves to their unconscious, Gnostics and Jungians are sensi tive to the demise of those means and are seeking new ones. Where, alternatively, most other persons are oblivious to the existence of the unconscious altogether, Gnostics and Jungians are preoccupied with it. Gnostics project their unconscious onto the cosmos and are therefore striving to connect themselves to something external, not just, like Jungians, to something internal. Interpreting in Jungian terms the Gnostic myth Poimandres, I argue that Jungian psychology makes enormous sense of the myth, but not in the way that Jung envisions. Upon rediscovering his spark, the Gnostic seeks to reject his body altogether rather than to mesh the two. He does strive to reunite with the godhead, but the godhead is immateriality itself rather than, like the body, matter. Indeed, the godhead, taken psychologically, is only a projection of the unconscious onto the cosmos, so that the unconscious is thereby reuniting with itself. The Gnostic's uncompromising rejection of the body and, more, of the whole material world therefore symbolizes not, as Jung assumes, the Jungian ideal of wholeness but the Jungian nemesis of inflation or, worse, psychosis. I suggest that Jung misconstrues Gnosticism because he parallels it to alchemy, which does fit the Jungian ideal.     

Integrating Asian Christianity into History of Christianity Courses

This essay begins with diverse arguments for modifying history of Christianity courses to include the experiences of Asian Christianity. After discussing fundamental assumptions, several problems are articulated. The major portion of the essay describes three different strategies for integrating new materials into current curricular offerings. By conceptualizing the relationships between Asian Christianity and the history of Christianity in terms of (1) parallels, (2) supplements, and (3) challenges, material from theformer can be more readily incorporated into the teaching of the latter. Such strategies can be utilized in different teaching contexts, depending on the needs of students and instructors.     

Gnosticism and Psychology

In this paper, I have attempted a historical analysis of what Jung might have been thinking when he wrote the 'Seven sermons'. To this end, I tried to ascertain which Gnostic texts Jung may have consulted before writing it. These documents were then compared with the 'Seven sermons', and numerous affinities noted between it and the Gnostic texts. Jung's contemporaneous academic works were then compared with this treatise, and parallels were established between the 'Seven sermons' and Jung's emerging psychology of the unconscious. In the process, an attempt was made to show how Jung made use of Gnostic themes in his emerging psychology. While there is no way of knowing precisely what Jung was thinking when he wrote the 'Seven sermons', it is clear that he was well acquainted not only with the work of Basilides, but also with the work of other Gnostic thinkers. It is not enough to assume that because Jung chose the pseudonym of Basilides, he was necessarily Jung's primary Gnostic influence. At the same time, it is also evident that Jung was developing his own psychology during the writing of the 'Seven sermons'. We recall Jung's observations regarding the 'Seven sermons', which we quoted on page 17: These conversations with the dead formed a kind of prelude to what I had to communicate to the world about the unconscious . . . All my works, all my creative activity, has come from those initial fantasies and dreams which began in 1912, almost fifty years ago. Everything that I accomplished in later life was already contained in them, although at first only in the form of emotions and images (Jung 21, p. 192). On the basis of what has been published, there are enough affinities between his academic work and this treatise to posit that the 'Seven sermons' played an important role in the emergence of Jung's psychology. Given these numerous parallels, I suspect that Jung's unpublished writings, including the Red Book, would only strengthen the arguments put forth in this paper.     

天津宗教的历史与现状

天津是中国历史上多种宗教盛行的地区之一,特别是明朝初年筑城设卫以后,各种宗教都获得了很大发展;天津又是我国改革开放以后,认真落实党的宗教政策较好的省市之一,特别是在积极引导宗教与社会主义社会相适应方面做出了成绩。本文在调查与研究的基础上,以历史与现实相结合的方法,首次将天津历史上与现实中的各种宗教活动和社会功能向世人介绍。     

Evolutionism and Early Nineteenth-Century Histories of Religions

Evolutionism influenced the study of religion long before Darwin. Histories of religions feature prominently in the metaphysical philosophies of history of the Romantic period; these philosophies of history, in turn, draw on an essence-and-development concept of evolution constructed within eighteenth-century biological preformationism and theosophy.¹Preformationist and theosophical evolutionisms posit physiological and spiritual development of humanity. Ballanche and Schelling show how Romantic philosophers of history applied essence-and-development evolutionisms to history, to humanity and to God. For both Ballanche and Schelling, history is the unfolding in time of the essence of humanity; for both, the history of religions provides empirical corroboration for the metaphysical order underlying history. Eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century essence-and-development evolutionism historicized, and thereby reconceptualised, Christian providentialism, soteriology and theodicy. Historians of the study of religions have insufficiently appreciated this fact, both historiographically and methodologically.     

Celibacy and Free Love in Early Christianity

Abstract

Mainstream Christianity places the defence of marriage and the household at the centre of Christian identity. It is therefore noteworthy that in the first two centuries of Christianity marriage was attacked from a variety of standpoints as incompatible with full Christian commitment. The best documented attack came from the Encratite movement, which held that all Christians are called to a life of sexual abstinence. It first surfaces in the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians, where Paul defends the right to marriage but treats his opponents with notable respect. It can be argued that Encratism follows from the Pauline Gospel, and that Paul, in refusing to follow the logic of position to this conclusion, was guilty of inconsistency and timidity. Marriage was also attacked by those who wished to replace marriage with sexual communism. Epiphanes, On Righteousness, attacks marriage as part of a system of exclusive property rights that contradicts the original will of the Creator. Epiphanes was much indebted to the Cynic movement, as Encratism was also. Both Encratism and so-called ‘libertinism’ shared the same rejection of the narrow interests and the traditional family, and dreamt of a recovery of Paradise. Whether this recovery was attained by renouncing sex or by liberating it can be seen as a secondary question, where opposite views could be held in the context of the same radical interpretation of the Gospel, an interpretation that deserves serious attention even today.     

Jung and Gnosticism

Carl Jung interprets Gnosticism the way he interprets alchemy: as a hoary counterpart to his analytical psychology. As interpreted by Jung, Gnostic myths describe a seemingly outward, if also inward, process which is in fact an entirely inward, psychological one. The Gnostic progression from sheer bodily existence to the rediscovery of the immaterial spark trapped in the body and the reunion of that spark with the immaterial godhead symbolize the Jungian progression from sheer ego consciousness to the rediscovery of the unconscious within the mind and the integration of the ego with the unconscious to forge the self. For Jung, Gnostics are the ancient counterpart to present-day Jungian patients. Both constitute a psychological elite. Where most persons are satisfied with traditional means of connecting themselves to their unconscious, Gnostics and Jungians are sensi tive to the demise of those means and are seeking new ones. Where, alternatively, most other persons are oblivious to the existence of the unconscious altogether, Gnostics and Jungians are preoccupied with it. Gnostics project their unconscious onto the cosmos and are therefore striving to connect themselves to something external, not just, like Jungians, to something internal. Interpreting in Jungian terms the Gnostic myth Poimandres, I argue that Jungian psychology makes enormous sense of the myth, but not in the way that Jung envisions. Upon rediscovering his spark, the Gnostic seeks to reject his body altogether rather than to mesh the two. He does strive to reunite with the godhead, but the godhead is immateriality itself rather than, like the body, matter. Indeed, the godhead, taken psychologically, is only a projection of the unconscious onto the cosmos, so that the unconscious is thereby reuniting with itself. The Gnostic's uncompromising rejection of the body and, more, of the whole material world therefore symbolizes not, as Jung assumes, the Jungian ideal of wholeness but the Jungian nemesis of inflation or, worse, psychosis. I suggest that Jung misconstrues Gnosticism because he parallels it to alchemy, which does fit the Jungian ideal.     

早期共产党人的宗教观

从五四新文化运动的兴起到大革命前夕这十多年间，早期共产党人的宗教观--从倡导“科学与民主的宗教观”到“历史唯物主义宗教观”的形成，反映了中国近代思潮发展进程中的一个侧面。80多年过去了，今天研究党的宗教政策，如果离开当时的现实社会背景，便很难有一个深刻的理解。     

人生苦难与宗教——以基督教和佛教为例所作的一个初步考察

苦难是人生在世不可避免和消除的一种“边缘处境”。宗教对这种处境的关注和揭示尤多。本文以基督教和佛教为例,力图表明宗教在这方面所具有的积极意义。     

基督宗教、马克思主义和"历史终结"--以解放神学为例串起的历史分析

本文以解放神学为例考察了基督宗教与马克思主义的内在关联性,对中国基督宗教的处境化作了初步的分析。     

Teaching the History of Christianity: Critical Themes and Challenges

At the November 2008 meeting of the American Academy of Religion, the History of Christianity section sponsored a panel around the question: “What are the key challenges, opportunities, and goals in the History of Christianity classroom today and how best should teachers respond to them?” Beginning with brief sketches of institutional context and identification of one or more pivotal choices each makes in the course they teach, the panelists explored critical themes and issues that arise in teaching the history of Christianity, first with each other and then through interchange with the audience.