从陈荣捷和杜维明看儒学研究的世界化

文章通过回顾陈荣捷和杜维明对儒学世界化所作的贡献,讨论了在儒学研究世界化过程中儒学的"原汁原味"与"新的色香味"的关系问题、儒学的独特性问题等,试图以点见面,从个案研究中窥视儒学的世界价值。     

追寻“一只灵巧公正的手”——政府作用与市场公正的新思考

“市场公正”是指市场经济制度本身所蕴涵的，并渗透于各项市场制度制定、执行、监督等环节以及市场机制顺利运行过程中的一种价值或精神。然而，政府的不当作用与干预，极易引起供求、竞争、价格等市场机制的扭曲，造成不公正的利益分配过程和局面，降低市场经济公正程度，损害市场公正。所以，政府应充当一只灵巧公正的手，在确定好政府作用的范围、内容、方式及力度的前提下，对社会经济进行科学适度的干预，在实现市场公正与效率的基础上，追寻更理想的公正与效率。     

Revisiting the Antecedents of Interreligious Dialogue

This article looks critically at the trend to connect contemporary interreligious dialogue with certain events and developments that took place in Europe and India during the 19th and early 20th centuries: (i) the comparative study of religion, (ii) the 1893 World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, (iii) three World Missionary Conferences in the first half of the 20th century, (iv) renascent Hinduism in India, and (v) Indian Christian efforts for inculturation. These events/developments are often perceived as the formative factors of dialogue. But this essay argues that they had their own complexities, agendas, and targets and rarely had interreligious dialogue as their objective or focus. Uncritical reading of the history of interreligious dialogue ignores how colonialism and imperialism have shaped these “antecedents.”     

Ecumenism and Global Governance

On 21 June 2018, on his 23rd international journey, Pope Francis travelled to Geneva to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the World Council of Churches. The Swiss city also hosts a large number of representative international institutions dealing with global governance and the issues of peace, human rights, and migration. After reviewing the main highlights of the journey, this article discusses its significance: to appeal to the common commitment of Christians to proclaim the gospel and its power of salvation in a divided and wounded world. In this way, Pope Francis underlined that in the pluralistic society of today, harmony is not possible if we just ignore faith and focus on what it means to be human while excluding the transcendent. Indeed, it is the gospel that promotes harmony and commitment to a better world.     

Freedom,Love, and Justice

This article starts from love as being a fundamental value, guiding modes of behaviour that establish a reliable framework and basis for the recognition of the rights and dignity of everyone in the community. The affirmation of justice and freedom based on love leads to corrective and transformative action in cases where life is threatened and rights are being violated. Drawing on the experience and witness of Martin Luther King Jr, the article underlines that love empowers the oppressed to stand up and becomes a moral imperative for change, against the background of the many forces promoting conflict and violence, division, and polarization. The power of love is a message to the world, to the powerful, and to the powerless – to all who long for a different reality from what we see in today’s world. This needs to be expressed in the quest for the unity of the church and the unity of humankind, serving the sustainability and unity of God’s creation.     

What Is Transforming Discipleship?

In 2018, the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism of the World Council of Churches took place in Arusha, Tanzania, on the theme “Moving in the Spirit: Called to Transforming Discipleship.” This article considers how this injunction corresponds to the biblical call, namely to love God more than anyone else; to deny ourselves and to take up the cross; and to abandon all that we have. How well does The Arusha Call to Discipleship describe the ambitious demand of discipleship to which the apostles were called by Jesus Christ? This article offers a critical biblical assessment of the qualities a disciple should have; who can be a disciple; the conditions and requirements of being a disciple according to the gospel; and the path of transforming discipleship in the challenging world in which we live today.     

The Future of Multilateral Ecumenical Dialogue

This article offers an overview of work undertaken in multilateral ecumenical dialogue, as it has been conducted at the international level by the commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches (WCC), to clarify the issues discussed in this dialogue and the methods used. In particular, the article analyzes the statements on unity made at various WCC assemblies. While they demonstrate a certain continuity regarding the key points of church unity they identify, they clearly mark a shift in the overall understanding of how unity is conceived. The second part of the article examines the current ecumenical situation and its importance for this dialogue, to show how Faith and Order has responded and what further progress in multilateral dialogue might look like.     

Faith and Order from Today into Tomorrow

This article is an edited version of the director’s report given to the meeting of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Faith and Order Commission in Nanjing, China, 12 to 19 June 2019. After looking at the significance of meeting in China, and Chinese perspectives on ecumenism, the text reviews the work undertaken by three study groups set up following the WCC 10th Assembly in Busan, Korea, on ecclesiology, pilgrimage and ecclesial communion, and the understanding of disagreement on moral issues. It concludes by exploring a proposal to hold a World Conference on Faith and Order in 2025 to coincide with the 1700th anniversary of the first Ecumenical Council at Nicea.     

A Plea for Internormative Ethics

Plurality of life forms and value systems is a given (almost) everywhere on earth. Imposing on them a value system or individual values and virtues from an exterior position is rather counterproductive. Value systems are normative for individual communities but not the same. They are to relate to each other and to interact, negotiating with each other common goals and the validity and limits of values involved in their relationships and shared action. Anything else leads to tensions and violence. Internormative ethics reflect on such interaction of value systems.     

Women’s Ministry in Ecumenical Perspective

Although discussion about the ministry of women seems to have come to a standstill as a result of arguments that don’t seem to change, the actual practices of the churches have evolved beyond doctrinal positions. In the Roman Catholic Church, many women have been appointed to positions in pastoral care and education, and even to decision‐making bodies. In the Orthodox Church, prerogatives previously reserved for nuns are beginning to be applied to lay women. But if we can entrust women with pastoral responsibilities, why is it not possible to move to include them in priestly ministry? To answer this question, we need to analyze the implicit levels of refusing the priesthood to women.