Scriptural Reasoning as a Method of Interreligious Dialogue in China (original) (raw)
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www.SinoWesternStudies.com, No. 17, 2019
Abstract: This article includes the following parts: 1) Surprises in Study Sessions; 2) Further Surprises: The Spread Globally, into Other Spheres of Society, to Other Religions; 3) Some Lessons for the Future; and 4) Some Hopes for Scriptural Reasoning in China. 5) At last, there is an Appendix “Foreword for Peter Ochs’ Religion without Violence. Teaching and Practicing Scriptural Reasoning (Cascade Books, Eugene OR, 2019) ” by David F. Ford. Key words: Scriptural Reasoning, The Spread Globally, some lessons for the future, some hope for SR in China, Peter Ochs. Author: David Ford, Emeritus Regius Professor of Divinity Fellow, Selwyn College, University of Cambridge, tel: 01223 763031; email: dff1000@cam.ac.uk; Professor Ford has been Founding Director, Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) in the Centre for Advanced Religious and Theological Studies (2002- ); Co-founder, Society for Scriptural Reasoning (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim academic philosophers, text scholars and theologians from Africa, America, Asia and Europe) (1996- ); and Co-Chair, Education Commission of C-1 World Dialogue (2009- ).
In contemporary China, interreligious dialogue remains limited in scope. Government intervention and religious revivalism both define and limit the way various religious traditions interact among themselves. This essay tries to assess resources coming from the Asian religious experience taken as a whole so as to map the issues facing the actors engaged in interreligious dialogue and cooperation in China. Asian countries have been marked by the diversity of their languages, narrative modes and hermeneutical traditions. These linguistic and narrative matrixes have shaped religious approaches to reality, while being themselves reshaped by the encounters taking place among concepts and stories. Remembering and making sense of these encounters provide communities with a web of resources that may help them to make interreligious dialogue a creative endeavor reshaping and deepening the understanding of one's religious experience. At the same time, current religious revivalism offers an array of new challenges that redefine the frontiers of interreligious dialogue and call for a greater reliance on prayer and grassroots initiatives. Finally, the burgeoning of Chinese civil society offers new opportunities for meaningful religious encounters, provided all the actors concerned use them with caution and wisdom.
Religions, 2019
In this paper, I will propose an intertextual theology of religions from a non-Western cultural perspective through the works in The True Light Review, an official magazine of Chinese Baptist churches, and Yue Hua, a prominent and long-lived Muslim magazine. My aim is to show that the religious discourses in these Chinese religious periodicals inform us of an alternative understanding of literary construction of religious plurality and challenge the current versions of theology of religions. With the concept of intertextuality, the differentiation and integration of religious identities indicates that language-constituted realities are multi-dimensional and multi-directional. In some respects, religious believers would like to differentiate themselves in the search for an authentic and meaningful life, but, they are nonetheless already interconnected and interrelated. In some other respects, they approach and embrace each other for integration to assert a common identity among religions in that area, but that could transform their religions with new meaning. Our case study will also further theological reflection of the nature of Christian life in predominantly non-Christian societies as an intertextual religious reality.
SHS Web of Conferences
Recent developments in Indonesian society show an alarming growth of religious intolerance. The paper proposes that one of ways that can contribute to remedy the situation is an Inter-faith dialogue in classroom using Cambridge Scriptural Reasoning (CSR) texts. The texts provide a primary source for understanding fundamental beliefs and focus on less controversial issues. Acknowledging the sensitivity of handling religious texts, the paper reports an exploration of the possibility and challenges of doing interfaith dialogues in a classroom using CSR texts. Based on several class experiments and qualitative interviews of the participants, the approach results in positive experience of the participants. The paper, thus, recommends three pedagogical principles. The use of the texts must have the consent of all students; the conclusion of textual meaning gives a prominent authority to the insights of its adherent; and at the end of each session, students from other religions provide tes...
2017
While Matteo Ricci inaugurated a fruitful dialogue between Christianity and Confucianism, today this dialogue must account for all of Chinese culture, including Daoism. Church Fathers, such as St. Augustine of Hippo, made great contributions to theology out of their profound experience of God and the encounter between Christianity and Latin culture that has its roots in Greek philosophy. In this article, the author attempts to read the mystery of the Trinity using categories of Chinese thought. He finds helpful for understanding the Trinitarian
Limits of Scripture and Limits of Reason: On Confucianism and 'Scriptural Reasoning'
Sino-Christian Studies: An International Journal of Bible, Theology and Philosophy, 2012
This article is about scriptural reasoning, a relatively new trend in philosophical theology, and more specifically about the possibility of including Confucianism in this endeavor. Scriptural reasoning is an explicitly normative endeavor arguably claiming value at three different levels: (1) a better understanding of one’s own scriptural tradition, (2) increased wisdom through inter-faith dialogue and (3) redemption for all humanity. The question whether Confucianism could be participating in scriptural reasoning may accordingly be answered differently relative to these three normative levels. To approximate an answer, I proceed by subjecting the notion of a “Confucian scripture” to a conceptual analysis based on the English word “scripture” and based on the Chinese character jing 經, which is frequently said to be the classical Chinese equivalent of English “scripture.” The conceptual analysis will allow for some comparative observations and will prepare the ground for a critical assessment of the possibility of including Confucianism within practices of scriptural reasoning.
Religions, 2023
Philosophies in the East and West have favored wisdom in their search for truths. The Chinese civilization has sought holistic wisdom in its long history of absorbing the Abrahamic faiths since the seventh century. This paper aims to investigate how the Abrahamic faiths have interacted with ancient Chinese culture. In particular, this paper will examine the earliest written records in Chinese of the Luminous Religion (or Jingjiao), the earliest Jews in Kaifeng, and the earliest Muslims in China. By analyzing their theology of creation with reference to the Holy Spirit and qi (wind/breath/pneuma), this paper attempts a constructive Chinese natural theology based on a sympathetic and critical assessment of Alister McGrath’s natural theology but makes up for his spirit deficit. This paper argues that the holistic wisdom achieved in the early integration process of the Abrahamic faiths with the Chinese culture is closely intertwined with the Spirit and qi, which provides a fruitful ground to construct a Chinese natural theology. The contribution of this paper lies in its original research into the earliest written records of the three Abrahamic faiths in China from the perspective of the doctrine of creation and its relationship with the Spirit and qi.
Scriptural Reasoning and Interfaith Hermeneutics
Interreligious Hermeneutics in Pluralistic Europe (ed. Cheetham et al, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2011)
My task here is to answer the question: How fruitful might Scriptural Reasoning be as a model for intereligious hermeneutics? This question arises, in part, because of the perhaps surprising intensity with which scriptures are now at the heart of much interfaith encounter. Making sense of this phenomenon requires us to consider different forms of this intense focus on scriptures, to describe them as fully as possible, and to consider the ways in which they present opportunities and challenges to relations between members of religious traditions. I will claim that Scriptural Reasoning addresses certain quite specific needs among specific participants who share certain specific assumptions about their own traditions and their relations with others. Part of my task will be to elaborate those assumptions. The first part of my argument describes some of the features that I take Scriptural Reasoning to display. The second part discusses is sues of world-disclosure and problem-solving, and suggests why this way of thinking about interreligious hermeneutics might be fruitful. I argue that Scriptural Reasoning offers an important contribution to interfaith encounter in three ways. First, it offers a model for privileging understanding above agreement; second, it enables the pursuit of collegiality without requiring consensus; third, it embodies the right relation between world-disclosure and problem-solving.