构建和谐社会与重新审视宗教

在举国上下构建和谐社会的环境下,宗教值得重新审视。本文以作者亲历事件为例,论证了3个观点:第一,宗教的根本是长期性,应该用自由公民的世俗追求说明他们的宗教追求;第二,宗教的关键是群众性,应当努力引导宗教为祖国统一、民族团结、经济发展、社会稳定服务;第三,宗教有特殊的复杂性,新中国的宗教应当是积极、和谐的因素,为世界的和平发展、人类幸福吹来一股和风、带来一团和气。     

基督教发展问题的典型调查与思考

本文在对河北省藁城市基督教进行典型调查的基础上,就其基本情况、主要特点和发展原因进行了分析,并提出了怎样做好宗教工作的几点意见。     

'I'm Proud of the British Empire': Why Tony Blair Backs George W. Bush

This article considers the three main reasons behind Tony Blair's support for the post-9/11 foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration, especially the war on Iraq: first, Blair is on a neo-imperial mission, with deep roots in his personal development, to re-order the world to better suit British interests; secondly, Bush and Blair independently agree that the post-1989 period represents wasted time, years of drift that could have been used to press home Anglo-American dominance; and thirdly, an agreement that 9/11 opened the space for a radical restructuring of international relations and the setting of a more interventionist global agenda.     

“耶道对话”的新尝试--以傅圣泽《据古经传考天象不均齐》一文为参照

梵蒂冈图书馆藏有傅圣泽中文著作《据古经传考天象不均齐》一文，至今学界仍未对其进行解读。他合《易经》与道家经典，将“道”作为连接中西方文化的核心概念，不仅首创了以《易经》为载体的“耶道对话”模式，而且也为天主教在华传教事业开拓了新的理论方式。     

Somewhere else: social connection and dislocation of Ethiopian migrants in Johannesburg

ABSTRACT

The meaning of personal relationships for Ethiopian migrants to Johannesburg is shaped by individual connections, by imported social networks that are adapted in the host city, and by the particular conditions of livelihood creation in the emerging Ethiopian entrepreneurial enclave of ‘Jeppe’. In their migration individuals experience both rupture and reconnection – with relatives, as well as through relationships and networks that constitute social capital in Johannesburg. The social world of Ethiopian migrants in this entrepreneurial enclave is complex. Many social connections and dislocations are affected by the life choices in which income generation and economic relations are the primary aim and social relations are necessarily secondary. Others are influenced by the strength of informal social networks that serve the needs of Ethiopian migrants. And, far from ‘here’ and ‘there’ being connected through the use of technology and advanced connectivity, ‘home’ and Johannesburg are experienced as quite separate and different places.     

The return migration experiences of Ethiopian women trafficked to Bahrain: ‘ … for richer or poorer,let me be on the hands of my people … ’

ABSTRACT

This study draws upon the return experiences of Ethiopian women trafficked to the Middle East. Understanding these experiences is critical to informing the design of effective government policy to mitigate obstacles to return and reintegration. This study was conducted in Addis Ababa with five women who were trafficked to Bahrain and later returned to Ethiopia. Action research was used to establish an inquiry group of women in order to produce a viable vision for successful reintegration. Despite initial high hopes, the returnees did not see migration as producing positive returns. All five participants agreed that their experiences in the destination were devastating and thus they were relieved to have returned to their home country. Nonetheless, reintegration was a difficult process for them. In addition to not accumulating enough savings to enable them to reintegrate economically, they all faced misunderstandings and impractical expectations from their families and community. The women suggested that adequate protection from law enforcement, facilitation of income-generating activities, and improved access to rehabilitation and medical services are important elements of successful return and reintegration. Effective return and reintegration policy is needed to ensure that trafficked returnees can become productive citizens in their home country.     

Death and the erotic woman: the European gendering of mortality in times of major religious change

This paper explores the use of European erotic death imagery produced in the Death and the Maiden (D&M) genre in two time periods. It compares and contrasts D&M imagery produced by the Germanic-speaking proto/early-Reformation artists, Hans Baldung (alias Grien) (c1484–1545), Niklaus Manuel (known as Deutsch) (c1484–1530) and Sebald Beham (known as Hans Sebald Beham) (1500–1550) which highlighted the folly, futility and transience of earthly vanities during the transition from Roman Catholic to Protestant Christianity, with contemporary calendar art produced by Cofani Funebri (from 2003) and Lindner (from 2010) which advertise coffins manufactured in the increasingly secular countries of Italy and Poland. Drawing on Biblical narrative, Augustinian theology and European socio-cultural perceptions of gender, this paper argues that these D&M images are highly eroticised and place woman as signifiers of transcient life (vanitas) and earthly pleasure (voluptas), juxtaposing her with a masculine/male representation of death; Death being imaged as an individual in the sixteenth century, and as a coffin in the contemporary works. The paper also contextualises the imagery in terms of traditional European Christian notions of life and death, as informed by the Biblical Fall narrative, with its elucidations of sin, concupiscence and punishment. It thus asserts that both socio-cultural and religious attitudes towards gender are highly significant in D&M imagery and indeed in terms of the artworks, argues that the masculine signifier of Death can be placed as Adam, whilst the Maiden, as fecund life, represents Eve. However, the overt eroticism of both sets of artworks also allows for a reading that draws on Messaris' [(1997). Visual persuasion; the role of images in advertising. London: Sage] notion that visual images ‘make a persuasive communication due to iconicity; the emotional response to the visual image presented’. Thus, this paper contrasts D&M imagery produced over 400 years apart to examine consciously erotic gendered thanantological allegories of women as vanitas and voluptas, and the male/masculine as representations of Death.     

论儒家伦理的宗教功能及其文化作用——兼与基督教文化比较

如果说,西方伦理是从属于基督教、是基督教派生的,上帝之死会导致伦理价值的崩溃;那么,儒家伦理则是由现实的血缘关系出发的一种准宗教文化建构.虽然“儒教”并非宗教而是一种伦理教化,然而,这种伦理教化却具有宗教的功能.它既能够慰藉个体的孤独情怀,又能以伦理架构的整体性超越死亡.儒家的伦理本位与基督教的上帝本位导致中西文化很多方面的不同,无论是将个体生命融入家国族类的整体、追求现世的自我还善,还是五四反传统的传统动因,都打上了儒家伦理的深刻印记.     

无处不在的身影——东正教介入俄罗斯社会政治生活试析

东正教在俄国远不只是一种宗教,而是俄罗斯文化传承的重要载体,在后苏联成为俄联邦重构的重要社会资源、政治力量和精神动力,被视为是标示俄罗斯民族精神的最重要标志。在后苏联到来过程和重建过程中,东正教扮演了极其重要的角色,而且这种角色源于俄国的历史进程。其实,无论是就基督教神学理论还是就俄国史而言,缺少了对东正教因素的考虑,就无法描述俄国社会进程。近20年来,俄国社会进程和东正教紧密相关,因此,当代俄国人能基于东正教信仰,去批判性地面对后苏联社会变革所带来的各种重大问题。除此之外,东正教还积极介入俄罗斯的对外事务,成为影响俄对外关系的一个不可忽视的重要因素。     

Orthodox Identity as Traditionalism: Construction of Political Meaning in the Current Public Discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church

This article reviews the articulation of traditional political values in the contemporary discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). As an empirical basis, the article takes the ROC’s official documents reflecting its position on social and political issues, the statements of various Synodal departments and Church hierarchs, as well as the statements of those representatives of the Orthodox intelligentsia, who promote an alternative agenda for Church-state dialogue. The author analyses the discursive forms deployed for the use of two key concepts, related to two markers of traditionalist worldview (opinions about liberalism, and positions taken with regard to the rights of sexual minorities), and studies the context in which these confessional ethical norms are politicized. This allows the author to move from interpreting Orthodox identity as merely a confessional/religious affiliation, expressing itself in a range of practices (attending services, etc), to an interpretation of Orthodox identity as traditionalist in the political sense of that word, involving the formation of a distinctive political theology and the politicization of confessional ideas of morality.