RSS 1.0Ching Feng : a journal on Christianity and Chinese religion and culture
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Originally published under the title Quarterly notes on Christianity and Chinese religion since 1957, Ching Feng journal is one of the major publications of the Christian Study Centre on Chinese Religion and Culture (CSCCRC), Chung Chi College, Shatin, Hong Kong, by which it seeks to promote critical and constructive studies of all aspects of Chinese Christianity, Chinese religion and culture, and inter-religious dialogue between Christianity and other religious traditions in Asia.
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The Globethics library contains vol. 4(2003) to current (1 year embargo).
Recent Submissions
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Saving the nation through character development : David Z. T. Yui’s Christian approach to national Salvation [人格救國 - 余日章的基督教救國論]In the 1920s, through the advocacy and leadership of David Z. T. Yui, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in China adopted “saving the nation through character development” as its slogan. Scholars tend to discuss the origin, development, practice or influence of Yui’s idea of national salvation through character development, or the controversy about it. This article, instead, examines the content and implications of the abovementioned slogan and argues that it constituted a Christian approach to national salvation. Yui extended the scope of Christian education from the religious aspect to the political aspect. He advocated that Chinese Christianity should inculcate Christ’s character in the Chinese public so that a public opinion based on Christian principles would be formed to achieve political reformation.
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The semantics and pragmatics of translating the CUV BibleIn his 1934 overview of Chinese Bible versions, Marshall Broomhall observed that the translators of the Chinese Union Version (CUV) into Mandarin surprisingly found Wenli easier to work with than vernacular Mandarin. Their struggle in using Mandarin is belied by the fact that the Mandarin CUV produced by the translators is a work of literary beauty which Chinese Christians still esteem today. However, it also means that its linguistic limitations in using Mandarin have remained an under-examined area of research. Thus, this article explores the CUV’s translation methodology at the intersection of semantics and pragmatics, particularly in its renderings of irony, sarcasm, and rebuke - three communicative devices which require consideration of both semantic and pragmatic elements to understand correctly.
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A consequential evaluation of a Christian approach to international Human RightsIn Christian ethics, the concept of imago Dei provides a moral foundation for dignity and human rights. Nevertheless, there are still gaps to fill in explaining the connections between Christianity and human rights. Based on the consequential evaluation of international human rights, this paper shows that Christian ideas, such as imago Dei and ideas from the Reformed tradition, can help us develop a more complete normative account of international human rights, of which two prominent examples, political rights and human rights to health, are discussed in detail.
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Reformed traditions and Human Rights : friends or foes?This paper reviews the influence of Reformed traditions on the doctrine of human rights. By surveying the historical work done by quite a few able and respectable scholars (religious and non-religious), a serious case for this claim can be made. If religious sources of human rights cannot be discounted completely, then the dialogue between religious thought and human rights should not be unidirectional. In the final sections of this paper, reflections will be made on how the dialogue between Christian thought and human rights may be conducted.
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The early accommodation of German sacramental theology in China : a case study of the confession, translation, and commentary of the Rhenish missionariesDuring the nineteenth century, German missionaries developed the earliest sacramental theology in China, a theology that survives in the Chinese Rhenish Church to this day. The implementation process of this theological trend can be divided into confessional, translational, and commentarial stages. In this article, we will present the Lutheran views on sacraments adopted by Rev. Karl Gützlaff, followed by the theological standardization of Rev. Ferdinand Genähr (Ye Naqing 葉 納清, 1823–1864). Lastly, the incorporation of Chinese culture by Rev. Ernst Faber (Hua Zhi’an 花之安, 1839–1899) will be discussed.
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Culturally transformative impacts from the reformation in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment (1530s) and Liang Qichao’s New People Theory (1902)Normally when we think of the Reformation, we consider matters re- lated to German and French movements in the sixteenth century, among other places in western and northern Europe. Nevertheless, there were other “reformations” as well that took place in southern Europe, and their total impact left a refracted impact even in tradi- tional China at the beginning of the twentieth century. Consequently, in this article, I explore the impact of the Italian Reformation on the special mural work dealing with The Last Judgment painted by Mi- chelangelo on the altar wall within the Sistine Chapel and consider how the well-known Ruist reformer, Liang Qichao, interpreted the life and work of Martin Luther.
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The ecological heritage of Protestantism from a Chinese Christian perspectiveThis essay argues that the Protestant theological heritage is ambivalent regarding its potentialities for ecological theology in terms of its “letter” or doctrinal formula, including particularly its anthropocentric soteriology. Here three areas are analyzed: (1) the prevalent evaluations of the Protestant ecological heritage in the Western context; (2) Chinese perceptions of the Christian heritage; and (3) Chinese Protestant discourses on ecology. However, despite its ambivalence, the Protestant spirit of continuing reform is valuable for the formulation of Christian ecological ethics in the contemporary world, including the Chinese context.
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Pineapple and herring : how the Roman Catholic church adapted Protestant reform principles to create a global missionary presenceThe two centuries after 1517 witnessed a historic global expansion of Christianity, a movement that has largely shaped the modern-day map of the faith worldwide. That movement, however, was largely undertaken not in obedience to Reformation principles, but in reaction to them, and by highly active Catholic missionaries and reformers. Across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, missionaries and church builders exemplified and implemented some key Reformation principles, especially in terms of the use of vernacular languages. The ex- traordinary commitment to the vernacular permitted Catholic Chris- tians to operate within the otherwise closed Chinese environment, and actually to achieve a degree of cultural hegemony in Vietnam and the Tamil areas of southern India. These vernacular successes continued long after the notorious Chinese rites controversies of the early eighteenth century, which notionally restrained such immersion in local cultures.
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"How the revelation of God transcend the “confinement of fate” : reflections on Mou Zong-san’s a treatise on the perfect good [ 上帝啟示對命限觀念的超越 ―對牟宗三《圓善論》的再思]"The concept of fate has long been a topic of concern since ancient times. Mencius proposed the concept of “confinement of fate,” stating that the well-being of individual is “confined” by his predestined “fate.” Though the virtuous man does not necessarily receive good fortune, an upright man will refrain from improving his life through immoral means. Contemporary Neo-Confucianist Mou Zong-san connects Kant’s philosophy with Mencius’s idea and points out that God alone judges the virtue of an individual and the corresponding fortune one receives in life. However, The Book of Job indicates that God does not always guarantee the consistency of virtue and happiness, and the world is full of paradoxes. Job’s fate illustrates that only when human beings establish a relationship with the divine can they successfully transcend the paradox."
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"A Chinese Protestant female model in Southeast Asia : the “Confucianizing” of Leona Jingling Wu in 1970s Singapore"This study draws on recent scholarship about Chinese Christian textual traditions to analyze the posthumous biographies of Leona Jingling Wu (1897–1974), the prominent leader of John Sung’s evangelistic bands in Singapore and founder of the island’s first Chinese Protestant higher education institute, Chin Lien Bible Seminary. The essay argues that these biographies “Confucianized” Wu by re-casting her as a Chinese-Christian female spiritual model. First, a survey of literary productions from the pre-1970s demonstrates that Wu was initially portrayed as an evangelical rather than a female Confucian model. Second, the process of “Confucianizing” Wu only becomes apparent in her biographies written in the 1970s. Three strategies were employed to highlight Wu’s Confucian attributes—the re-telling of her Chinese-Christian genealogy, an emphasis on her filial piety before she moved to Singapore, and the re-imagination of her as a spiritual mother. In all, her biographers re-casted her as a Chinese and Christian who successfully melded the key values of both traditions.
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Theological Discourses on Idols: A Study of “On the Ten Commandments” (1881) [「偶像」的神學論述 - 以〈上帝律法十誡注釋〉(1881)]This article analyzes two commentaries on “The Ten Command- ments” written by two Chinese Protestants, He Yuquan and Wang Bingkun, in order to understand their views on idolatry. Both concern the problem of inner idolatry. He Yuquan ties idolatry with abandon- ing man’s origin and forgetting God’s grace. Wang Bingkun proposes to distinguish the problem of idolatry between believers and non- believers. This article also pays attention to the indigenous interpreta- tion of Chinese Protestants.
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The Chinese church and its mission : a dialogue with Moltmann’s ecclesiology"In this paper, I will discuss Jürgen Moltmann’s eschatological ecclesiology with reference to two themes so as to explore the mission of the Chinese church in the contemporary context. They are, firstly, eschatological hope and the exodus church; and secondly, the Holy Spirit and the mission of the Chinese church for a deeper integration of Christian faith and Chinese culture. I will start by arguing that the present political combination of ancient Chinese culture and the communist revolutionary idea of “leading everything” are at odds with Moltmann’s ecological conception of equilibrium and progress. It is a realized eschatology rather than Christian eschatological hope. By becoming an exodus church with eschatological hope, the Chinese church can keep a critical distance from any version of realized eschatology while demonstrating solidarity with its neighbors. In Moltmann’s thought the eschatological messianic hope of the church is realized in a charismatic ecclesiology. Prioritizing an ecclesiology of eschatological hope in the Holy Spirit over an ecclesiology heavily shaped by Logos Christology can help the church gain new perspective and vision for its mission in Chinese society."
