内外有别:美国华人基督徒研究中观察主体身份特点的学术意义

论文运用参与观察法分析,认为族裔身份、宗教信仰、移民背景等是影响美国华人基督教信仰研究中研究者内部人还是局外人身份及其学术观点形成的重要因素。研究显示,运用参与观察法进行社会研究,观察者是内部人还是局外人往往会影响到与被观察者之间的交流沟通,从而进一步影响到研究素材的搜集整理和研究结果的形成。区分参与观察者内部人还是局外人的身份有助于更好地理解这种方法的情境特点以及观察结果的相对意义,也有助于从多角度分析和衡量这种方法所产生的学术作品。作为一种实证研究方法,参与观察法尽管有自己内在的局限性,却在针对华人基督徒的研究中发挥了重要作用。     

Nationalism,civil society,and the revolution of 1989

Relying heavily on the work of Edward Shils, this paper argues that a robust sense of national identity among the peoples of East Central Europe played a crucial role in the revolutions of 1989 and the subsequent emergence of civil society in the region's countries.     

构建民族国家：辛亥革命前后的中国边疆

本文着重从民族国家构建的角度探讨辛亥革命前后蒙、藏等边疆地区的政治变迁。辛亥革命使“五族共和”、“中华民族”学说从思想变成了政治实践,实际上成为梁启超政治思想、价值体系的代行者。可以说,因辛亥革命而昌盛的“五族共和”、“中华民族”观念作为民国初期政府整合中央与边疆地方的意识形态,对边疆地方的民族国家之认同影响极深。     

辛亥革命与中国共产党的成立

中国共产党的诞生,是近现代中国历史发展的必然产物,是中国人民在救亡图存斗争中顽强求索的必然产物。这种必然性,内在地反映了中国共产党的成立这一“开天辟地大事变”与辛亥革命这一“开启了中国前所未有的社会变革”间的关系。辛亥革命为中国共产党的成立准备了条件,即从一定意义上讲,它为中国共产党的成立奠定了阶级基础、思想基础、组织基础与政治基础。     

The Netherlands in the constellation of the eighteenth-century Western revolutions

In the constellation of the eighteenth-century revolutions, the French events have always occupied a dominant position. Consequently the other European upheavals have been considered as being provoked or strongly influenced by France. Yet, the Dutch revolutions in the 1780s and 1790s provide some important nuances to this interpretation. Before the French took over the Bastille, there was already a Dutch revolution with devoted Patriots, speaking about rights of man and constitutions. The Patriots had to flee abroad in 1787. In 1795, thanks to the French Army, they were able to return to their drawing boards, eager to think anew their government and society. This paper investigates how they did it and whether the American and French precedents were so influential after all in the construction of the Batavian Republic.     

一个时代性、历史性重大课题的百年求解——辛亥革命100周年祭

辛亥革命以来的100年,是对＂民族、民权、民生＂这个时代性、历史性重大课题求解的100年。孙中山、毛泽东、邓小平是3位站在时代前列的伟大人物,他们的理论与实践,分别为求解这个课题做出了伟大的历史性贡献。今天,我们要在百年求解的基础上,沿着中国特色社会主义道路继续求解,并做出无愧于前人的解答。     

Saddam Hussein,Islam, and Just War Theory: The Case for a Pre-emptive Strike

Abstract

America and its allies face a world that has become more and more dangerous with its weapons of mass destruction and a shadowy world of terrorists more than willing to use them. The wisdom of the past does not have the prescience or universal insight to deal with this new threat. America and its allies must change direction if they wish to respond to the challenge in an effective manner, even if it means employing policies that seemed dubious in the past. The state is called to protect its citizens in a Machiavellian world, filled with depravity and compromise. The church is called to submit to the superior wisdom of those who have the special intelligence, experience and expertise to handle the current crisis.     

Reinhold Niebuhr and Richard John Neuhaus on Religion and Democracy in the United States

Abstract

Richard John Neuhaus, like Reinhold Niebuhr before him, understood the vital civic role that religion plays in democratic society. As pastors and public intellectuals, both men were committed to public or civil forms of religion that, at their best, could inform, inspire, or chasten American political thought and action. There are crucial differences, nevertheless–between Niebhur’s and Neuhaus’s historical contexts, theological outlooks, political positions, and attitudes toward the American project–that help to explain their distinctive legacies and different receptions within the academy. However much Neuhaus admired Niebuhr, these differences suggest why Neuhaus was not the Reinhold Niebuhr of his day.     

The Purpose-Driven Darwinist: Henry Ward Beecher and the Theology of Progress

Henry Ward Beecher's sermon series on evolution in the summer of 1885 reconciled Christianity to the new science in a way that asserted far more than the mere compatibility of natural selection and divine providence: The Brooklyn preacher appropriated Darwinism to support a uniquely bourgeois political theology, one that envisioned the spiritual progress of humanity through commercial republicanism, aided by a morally assertive (but emphatically modernist) church. Coming from so prominent a clergyman, this early adaptation of evolution theory highlights the liberal and postmillennial tendencies of American Christianity in the late nineteenth century, as well as the pliability of Darwin's scientific insights to diverse social agendas. Beecher's sermons, however, also open a window onto the philosophical dilemmas that preoccupied early progressives. Addressing both the ontological revolution of Darwinism and the social realities of industrialization, Beecher articulates an account of progress that succeeds without the supervision of government, that prizes the liberty and property of the individual, and that arches toward a télos of moral perfection – a perfection that conforms, more or less, to the Protestant ethic.     

A Time to Speak

Abstract

This article explores the significance of resonance as a mode of social causality in response to William Connolly's book, Capitalism and Christianity, American Style. While applauding Connolly's identification of "affinities of spirituality" as effective in forming American politics, it suggests that the character structure of ressentiment that is encountered in right-wing Christianity and politics may be the result of instability. Examining the economic basis for growth and instability in the creation of dollars in the form of debt lacking an underlying guarantee, it suggests that this instability is felt throughout American society in everyday experiences of credit and debt.