Christianity and Political Engagement in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Abstract

This paper focuses specifically on the impact of the Christian churches on the social, cultural and political contexts of South Africa. It considers the political role of the mainline Christian churches and their ecumenical bodies during the apartheid era. In post-apartheid South Africa, the social and political context has changed and the Christian churches relate to this new context in varied ways. The rapid growth and proliferation of Christian churches under forces of globalization to some extent undermines social cohesion and development. The traditional practice of the public gathering, or imbizo, is particularly threatened. This article therefore seeks to address the question of whether Christian institutions in a rapidly globalizing Africa are an asset or liability for promoting identity and belonging, social cohesion, and the development of social capital.     

文化传播与文化变迁

为了解释文化因素的发展过程,本文首先回顾了19世纪以来文化演变和文化传播的研究历史,然后概括了贸易、迁徙和文化扩散作为文化传播的三种方式,并对其作了具体分析。而且对文化变迁的动力,作者也提出了见解。     

Christianity and Justice in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission: A Case Study in Religious Conflict Resolution

Abstract

Historically, international conflict resolution theorists have largely adopted the position that organized religion is an instigator of violence. As a result, these theories have tended to exclude religion as a force for peacebuilding. Recently, however, scholars have suggested that religion can contribute constructively to a theory of conflict resolution. Their general thesis is that, if religion played a significant part in people's lives, and if religion played a part in fuelling the conflict, then when resolving the conflict, religion must be at least taken into account. An example of a conflict resolution process in which religion, specifically Christianity, played a central role was South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). In dialogue with leading critics of the TRC process, particularly Richard Wilson, this article examines the ambiguous role that Christianity played in influencing concepts of justice in the TRC.     

冯玉祥与基督教关系研究

冯玉祥皈依基督教。是他追求救国救民和扩张个人权势的双重目标交织在一起的产物。对基督教的实用主义态度和皈依基督教而不媚外。是他最终科学取舍基督教的思想基础。由“基督将军”到三民主义信徒的演变,既是社会的产物．也反映了他在追求救国救民和扩张个人权势的双重目标下力图追赶中国近代政治发展潮流的复杂性和曲折性。     

Christianity in the Gulf during the first centuries of Islam

This article re-examines the ceramics of SBY-9, a church and monastery site on the island of Sir Bani Yas, Abu Dhabi emirate, U.A.E. It then explores other archaeological evidence for Christianity in the Arabian Gulf and compares it to the textual data, resulting in a reconsideration of the history and activities of the Church of the East. The pottery of SBY-9 indicates that the monastery complex was occupied some time between the second half of the seventh century and the mid-eighth century AD and not, as previously believed, the sixth–seventh centuries AD. Other excavated churches and monasteries in the Gulf region should also be redated to the eighth and ninth centuries AD (al-Qusur, Kharg). These findings cast a new light on the history of Christianity in the Arabian Gulf after the Muslim conquest.     

Handling Sorcery in a State System of Law: Magic,Violence and Kastom in Vanuatu.

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the consequences of a local sorcery accusation that came to the attention of Vanuatu state police, courts and media. The paper discusses what happens to sorcery practices when these become absorbed into a modern, bureaucratic context. The argument revolves around the national imaginary formed by state power and the mass media in people's contemporary lives. In formulating new forms of opposition to sorcery, they also create a new imaginary space of national belonging.     

改革开放以来的中国基督教史研究

改革开放以来,中国历史学发展的新景象之一就是中国基督教史研究的兴起。这一新兴领域的发展,首先,体现于多种研究范式的存续和转移,文化侵略、中西文化交流、现代化、全球化等范式下的研究成果体现了各自不同的解释力与学术影响。其次,则体现于研究焦点的流变,从基督教与中国社会的现代性变迁、基督教与中西关系,直到关注中国基督教自身的个性化发展,呈现了从研究基督教外围向内部移动的趋势。最后,体现于这一领域的开放性和成长性。基于中国基督教的区域史、性别史、宗教史、宗派史及人物史仍有相当的研究空间,同时随着网络资料和海外档案的获取能力加强,跨文化史料与视野下的研究,将成为这一学科新的增长点。     

我国改革开放以来基督教发展的原因探析

我国改革开放以来基督教得到迅猛发展,其原因主要有两个方面:从纵向看,共和国成立后的30年间,基督教经历了革新、联合、沉寂的曲折演进历程,这是它在改革开放以后得以复兴的内部因素;从横向看,改革开放后社会处于转型期,价值观念变迁、贫富差距拉大、腐败现象滋生泛滥等社会问题和基督教自身的特点对其发展亦产生了重要影响,这是促其发展的外部因素。总之,社会变革是基督教快速发展的根源,其自身的不断调适决定了它对社会正常运转发挥着积极的功能。与此同时,基督教发展的新形势、出现的新问题,也给党和政府处理宗教事务、加强自身建设提出了新的要求。     

Carrying the Cross,Caring for Kin: The Everyday Life of Charismatic Christianity in Remote Aboriginal Australia

ABSTRACT In this paper, I address the important yet under‐examined role of charismatic Protestant Christianity in the reconfiguring of personhood and social relations in the remote Yolngu settlement of Galiwin'ku. I focus in particular on the ways in which this form of Christianity, locally articulated, brings together indigenous concepts of personhood with those introduced by the market, the state, and evangelism to produce what I refer to as Christian individuality and Christian relatedness. These dialectical tendencies in postcolonial settlement life call attention to the ways Yolngu converts use their Christian practices both to continue kin‐based moralities in the present and to engage (if selectively) modern individualism. This paper addresses post‐colonial conditions where demands of state institutions and modern governance interact with changing ideas of personhood and sociality. It contributes to the growing anthropological literature on Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity.     

The Poetics of the Crocodile: Changing Cultural Perspectives in Ambonwari

ABSTRACT Ambonwari people from the East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea, had a rich repertoire of song‐dances, each of which was associated with specific events and the birth of something new. Together they represented the entire human life cycle as well as the cosmology at large. Visual, verbal and tactile modalities of singing and dancing were tightly interwoven; images and symbols were enacted by the dancers, in their decoration, arrangement, movements and in the whole ceremony and were firmly situated in their landscape. Accordingly, song‐dances were also an important practice in male initiation ritual. The first song‐dance of the ritual was the crocodile song‐dance. This article analyses different transpositions of images and meanings which can be decoded from the dance, from the objects that were part of the initiation rite, and from the parallelism and rich allegory of verses. These transpositions operate at different levels until they converge upon the existential facts of birth and death. In the new millennium and under the influence of a Catholic charismatic movement, however, Ambonwari broke off their relationships with spirits, abandoned the men's houses and stopped talking about male initiation ritual. Along with other traditional song‐dances the crocodile song‐dance has been taken over by the song‐dances of the Holy Spirit. These changes in social and cultural perspectives, which are still taking place, are at the same time products and producers of the changes in their relationship to ‘space’ and ‘time’ which are at the same time changes in visual and auditory perception and expression of their life‐world. All these changes should not be seen merely in some abstract or symbolic terms but as tangible processes generated by people's action.     

自养与本色之深入：1929年世界经济危机冲击下的华北基督教

1929年世界经济危机发生后,西方基督教差会被迫减少对华传教事业经费,裁减传教士人数,对华北基督教产生重要影响。华北教会为此提倡受托主义,鼓励教徒捐献,并减少职员薪金;同时,教会为减轻经济负担,还组织各种义工训练班,注意培养义务工作人员为教会服务;教会学校与医院在差会经费减少的形势下,通过裁员减支、增收学费与住院费及向政府、社会力量请求援助等多种形式维持运营。此次经济危机有利于增强中国教会及教会机构的自养,破除教徒的依赖心理,推动了中国教会的本色化进程,但不能从根本上使其摆脱对西方经费的依赖。     

Myths,missions, and mistrust: The fate of Christianity in 16th and 17th century Japan

This article examines accepted opinion regarding the persecution and demise of Christian/Catholic missions in 16th and 17th century Japan. Many of the key issues associated with the encounter of European missionaries and Japanese feudal systems of authority and power resonate with contemporary interest in transculturalism, semantic slippage, personal agency, and the intimate interplay between religion, politics, and economics. Burdened with rigid standards of belief, heresy, and race from European inquisitions as well as Mesoamerican conquests, the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries made numerous strategic blunders that contributed to their fates, both as recipients of expulsion orders and, finally, on the execution grounds.     

城市文化资本与文化旅游发展研究

城市文化与旅游发展的关系需要从文化资本即文化因素不断积累和文化价值增值的角度进行考察。城市文化资本传承和累积受到文化资本的基础差异、获取能力和保障力度三个方面因素的影响,其综合作用的结果,决定了城市文化资本的质量及其势能强弱。文化资本质量高的城市,文化旅游无疑会有更好的发展。作为文化资本价值实现的一种具体形式,文化旅游同文化资本之间存在着一种双向选择互动关系。由于文化所具有的公共属性以及市场选择的某些消极作用,互动过程中就需要公共调节机制的介入,以保障城市文化资本和文化旅游发展的永续性动力。从文化资本的视角来看,可以从城市文化资本积累、文化的传承与创新关系、文化旅游系统化开发、城市旅游形象整体定位等方面考虑旅游目的地建设的措施。     

先秦时期珠江三角洲环境变迁与文化演进

本文利用考古材料和多学科的研究成果,分析了先秦时期珠江三角洲的环境变迁与文化演进的关系。文章指出,如果自然资源丰富、种类多样互补和易于攫取,也能发育丰富多彩的、甚至是分层化的擢取经济文化,珠三角网河平原南部的渔猎采集和北部的渔捞采集经济文化,就是两个典型的实例。东周时期冲积平原火耕水耨经济文化的发展繁荣,促成珠江三角洲这个自然地理单元形成文化地理单元,又说明合理的区域文化也不可长久背离人类文化的发展方向。     

中国文化现代化与东亚合作

本文尝试将中国文化现代化与东亚合作议题结合起来进行整体性思考,以探讨区域文化传统的传承、大众文化与文化产业合作以及有益于共同利益的、面向未来的文化共同体建构。首先,提出了观察和思考中国文化现代化路径的三个维度:民族本源、地区基础和全球视野。其次,梳理了东亚文化传统的同质性内容和共同演进逻辑,讨论了以东亚文化传统为基石构建面向未来的文化共同体的可能性。其三,以全球范围内的文化同质化趋势为背景,提出应立足东亚三国文化产业领域的既有优势、合作基础和共同市场,构造一条成熟有序的大众文化生产与传播链条。     

Democratization and museum policy in South Korea

ABSTRACT

This article examines the two distinct historical policy paths taken by the South Korean government in the late twentieth century towards the democratization of museums. One was based on the creation of a museological public sphere as an extension of the political democratization movement of the 1980s. This demonstrated the potential to become a valuable component of the wider incipient national public sphere within which civic subjects could discuss their individual and collective historical memories. However, despite this potential, a museological public sphere failed to influence the general trajectory of national policy regarding the democratization of museums that had been in development since the early 1980s. This other policy path towards cultural democratization was triggered by the award of the Seoul Olympics in 1981. It was based on public participation and entitled the ‘cultural Olympics’. An important strategy of the cultural Olympics was the construction of a new institutional infrastructure to expand the public right to enjoy culture. This path facilitated an increasing entanglement with neoliberalism in 1990s. Finally, the 1997 IMF crisis furthered the association between a superficial idea of democratization through institutional expansion and the practices of neoliberalism, a trend which continues within South Korean museum policy today.     

英语语言学习与西方文化影响

语言与文化是相互依存的关系,文化对语言学习的影响重大,在英语学习过程中应注意对文化渊源的了解。语言和文化有着不可分割的关系,对语言学习而言,文化意识至关重要。古希腊神话和基督教思想是西方文明的源头,深刻影响着西方文明的发展。作为语言艺术的西方文学反映和代表着西方文化。所以,了解西方文化,广泛涉猎英美文学作品,对英语学习者是十分必要的。