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第 5 期

Faith and Society: Spiritual Reflections of Global Age (I)

On the afternoon of November 2, Beijing Forum (2012) Panel II ―Faith and Society:

Spiritual Reflections of Global Age‖ held its first session at Four Seasons Hall, Eight Directions

Garden, Diaoyutai State Guest House. The theme of this first session is ―communication and

dialogue between Eastern and Western cultures.‖ Professor Zhang Zhigang from Peking

University and Professor ZhuoXinping from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)

chaired the presentations and discussions.

Professor Zhao Dunhua of Peking University considers the history of classic studies and the

formation of different traditions of Christian catechism. He suggests that Chinese scholars can

learn and benefit from this classics/text centered tradition.

Professor Stewart Brown of the University of Edinburgh discusses the influence of China,

especially the Confucian moral philosophy, on the moral and religious thought of the European

Enlightenment.

Michael Hudson from National University of Singaporereflects on the Arab Uprisings, the

nature(s), causes and consequences. He argues that more analysis should be made of the changing

nature of Islamic societies as well as relevant external factors.

ZhuoXinping from the World Religions Institute, CASS reflects on the history of the cultural

dialogue between China and the West, especially Christianity. He identifies and critiques a

practical and materialistic ethos on China‘s side in its communication with the West.

Jeffrey Jue of Westminster Theological Seminary looks into the Christian doctrine of

common grace and argues for the positive role Christianity can play in various societies in the

global age.

Professor Paolos Huang of University of Helsinki argues that Christianity as spiritual power

has been important in the construction of social order, including economic free market,

government and family in the West. He suggests it is similarly significant to China.

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Professor Zhang Qiaogui of Yunnan Nationalities Universityreflects on the case study of

harmonious co-existence of multiple religions in a multi-ethnic religion in Yunnan Province,

China, and explicates the dynamicsof religious harmony and conflicts.

Professor Dietrich Jung from University of Southern Denmarkconsiders the complexities of

―Islamic ways of life‖ and various tendencies toward functional differentiation in Islamic history,

arguing for a counter-narrative to the essentialist and anti-modern image of Islam.

Professor KunioHachiyaof Tokyo University examinesLaozi‘s theory of Dao and its

historical development and influences within and outside China. He recommends ―Dao‖ as a

shared idea for realizing human beings‘ harmony and happiness.

Professor Liu Jinguang, Deputy Director-general from Department of Religious Policy and

Law, State Administration for Religious Affairs of P.R.C., talks on the achievements, challenges

and the projections on the legalization of the administration of religious affairs in China.

Professor Alberto Melloni from John XXIII Foundation for Religious Studies in Bologna

introduces to the audience the Marco Polo Bible and the history of China-Europe cultural and

religious exchanges behind it.

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第 6 期

Faith and Society: Spiritual Reflections of Global Age (II)

The historic changes that have taken place in North Africa since the beginning of 2011 (the

so-called Arab Spring) brought new actors to the socio-political stage in the region, and Islamist

movement is the one that cannot be ignored. At such a period of change, how Islamic society

make its cultural tradition cohered with social progress and where it should go in the future are

concentrated on by many scholars.

The second session of ―Faith and Society: Spiritual Reflections of Global Age‖ Panel

(2012)—Religious Pluralism and Social Transition was held at the 8th Conference Hall, Yingjie

Exchange Center, Peking University, on the morning of Nov. 3, 2012. Scholars from China,

Middle East, Europe and America gathered here to launch heated discussions about some related

topics, such as "Islamism in the Post-Revolution Era", "Religious Belief and Secular State" and

"Sectarianism in the Middle East ", "the Democratization of Middle East Countries " and so on.

Based on the case of the Islamic Banks, the speech of Professor Magdi Youssef showed its

function of mediating contradictory relationship between Islamic principles forbidding Useary

(Riba) and free marketmotivated by interests. The speech set up a model of how political Islam

deals with socio-psychological challenges. Wang Yujie, from Institute of World‘s Religions,

Chinese Academy of Social Science, talked about the complex sectarianism in Middle East

politics. She pointed out that the emergence of sectarianism is closely related with political

claims of different sects. She perceived that the Middle East countries had strengthened

sectarianidentities, making it become a chip in the national political game. At the time, she also

considered sectarianism as a one-legged perspective to analyse the Middle East politics. Bjørn

Olav Utvik, scholar from University of Oslo, focused on the role of Islamist movements like the

Muslim Brothers in the social changes underway in the Middle East, and in the post-Arab spring

political set-up. He had three main arguments. The first is that while the uprisings collectively

known as the Arab Spring were by no means Islamist in nature, Islamists were in most cases

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integral and central to the movements from the outset. The second is that Islamists are, contrary

to the popular belief, to a larger extent, guarantors for a development in the direction of more

democratic rule. The last is that while opening the way for Islamists to enter positions of power

democratisation and liberalisation of political life more generally will have profound effects on

the Islamists themselves.The forth speaker is Abumohammad Asgarkhani of University of Tehran.

He quoted the Chinese story of ―the Blind Men and the Elephant‖ in order to introduce two

concepts, deontology and consequentialism, which are often chosen as moral stancesupporting

intervention of great powers in the Middle East. He vividly illustrated the ―Double Standards‖ by

enumerating some cases happened in the Middle East. A scholar of Al Akhawayn University,

Jeremy Gunn, an excellent researcher in anthropology and sociology, gave his speech regarding

the relationship between economic development and secularization, Islamic factors involved in

the political struggles after 1979, how religious factors affect politics and how religion is affected

by politics. He also reminded people to pay more attention to the role of religion in society.

The second half of this session began with Professor Alberto Tonini‘s speech, and he is from

University of Florence, Italy. From theoretical perspective, he studied the feasibility of

coexistence of religious freedom and secular state in the Islamic world, and how could Islamist

groups cope with the accompanying challenges when they became the ruling power. Based on

these analytical outlooks, he pointed out that only if these states could incline the Islamists and

secularists‘ hearts to pluralism will they eventually achieve real democracy. There is no doubt that

Islamist Party taking office is a pandemic phenomenon in the current Middle East. Mrs Wang

Feng ,from Institute of West Asia and Africa Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Science,

decomposed the shared characters of Tunisia‘s ruling ―Al-Nahda‖ Party and Egypt‘s ruling

―Justice and Freedom‖ Party, according to which, she pointed out that in the post-revolution age,

Islamist movement will pursue more secular and more pragmatic foreign and domestic policies

rather than Islam-oriented ones. Wang Suolao, the director of the Center for the Middle East

Research in Peking University, gave a report about Egyptian Islamists‘ Challenges to Al-Azhar‘s

Religious Authority. He thought the challenges involved three aspects, namely challenges to

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Al-Azhar‘s sheikhs, challenges to Al-Azhar‘s religious verdicts (fatwa) and challenges to

Al-Azhar‘s religious traditions, with the conclusion that the conflict between Al-Azhar and

political Islam in the period of transition is unavoidable. The next speaker is from one of the

birthplace of the so-called ―Arab Spring‖ Egypt. He is the editor in chief of the newspaper

Alwafd. He illustrated the various political inclinations and forces during the anti-regime

revolution, and the political ambition and fragility of Egyptian middle class liberals. As for the

relation between Arab countries and the world‘s new order, he emphasized the potentiality of

enhanced relationship with China, Russia, Japan, the UN and other regional powers. When it

comes to Egypt‘s political Islam, people always talk about the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood,

but Professor Stéphane Lacroix considered more conservative Salafi movement as important as

the former. He analysed the political imbroglio between Salafi groups and Muslim Brotherhood,

especially how does this affect Salafi -backed Hizb al-Nur‘s political stance during power

struggles inside Egypt. Much more emphasis was on the experiment of political-institutional

three kinds of Salafism, and its future role in Egypt‘s political field.

At the end of each speech of the participants, the chair made a short commentary and guided

all of participants to discuss some questions.

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第 7 期

Faith and Society: Spiritual Reflections of Global Age (III)

The Philosophical Panel session of Beijing Forum 2012 was held on the afternoon of Nov.

3rd

at the Yingjie Exchange Centre of Peking University, with the topic of ―Faith and Society:

Spiritual Reflections of Global Age‖. Scholars and experts from various countries and students

from Peking University attended the meeting, among which ten scholars have given their

speeches according to the themes of the forum and also each person‘s research interests. The

meeting was divided into two parts, over which Prof. Yuet Chau of Cambridge University and

Prof. Fang Wen of Peking University presided respectively.

Prof. Joel Carpenter of Calvin College gave the first speech on ‗New Christian Universities:

Communities of Learning for a New Reality‘. According to the data, he found that higher

education increased rapidly in the world, and many were ‗private‘. However, within the scholarly

literature on private higher education, there were very little said about a trend, the rise of new

Christian universities. And that is the work done by Prof. Carpenter.

Education is connected with man, and religious studies are the same for it needs to deal with

man‘s life. Peof. Fang Wen‘s report investigated the minimal consensus in religious embodiment

among non-believers and Protestants in China. The result shows that both the no-believer group

and the Protestant group understand religious themes through concepts that are related to

embodied experiences, social analogies and cultural representations, though the way they

represent the themes varies.

Prof. J. Gordon Melton brought us back to the Chinese history. He investigated the

Pentecostal movement in China from the end of 19th

century to the beginning of the 20th

century.

He concluded that three steps gave birth to the Chinese self-governed church, the True Jesus

Church. In other words, there is the wake of the Pentecostal movement‘s separation from the

mainstream of the Protestant missionary movement and the subsequent separation of the Oneness

movement from the mainstream of Pentecostalism. In the last step, the Chinese founders of the

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True Jesus Church made the final break from Brent Brentsen‘s Beijing congregation and

established a textbook example of what would come to be identified in China as a three-self

church.

Dr. Gao Hui, based her discussions on a year-long field study through participation and

observations in Middletown, IN, USA. She analyzed the philanthropy and charity work in order

to understand the functions and impact from religious charity work in providing social welfare,

spiritual help and the meaning of life. She concluded that, God, so lively and transcendent, had

been personalized at the experiential level, and become a spiritual belief in life.

The first part of the meeting came to an end with Prof. Hsing-Kuang Chao‘s report. Based

on the data of Religious Experience Survey in Taiwan 2009 (REST), his investigation explored

the commonalities and differences of religious conception, religious experience, and life attitude

among different believers of the three traditional Chinese religions in contemporary Taiwanese

society. It also analyzed the impact of religious experience, conception, religiousness and

commitment on respondents‘ life attitude.

Prof. Graeme Lang‘s report was about religion, science, and governance. Widely to say, it is

about the relations between politics and religions. He stated that the ideal form of governance

uses secular master-themes which are independent of religions, but which can gain some energy

from inclusive, pluralistic, and egalitarian themes within both secular ideologies and within

religions. Such master-themes can also provide a warrant for religious and worldview pluralism,

and thus also a warrant for the potentially great contributions of religions to welfare and social

development.

Prof. Brett G. Scharffs provided us with the experiences of regulating religions in the U.S.,

namely, the formal and informal mechanisms of state and social oversight in an Easy-Entry

Registration System. He argued that religious freedom and regulation were not two things that

could not stand side by side.

Prof. Lu Yunfeng also took the topic of religion and regulation. He used the data from the

U.S. and Taiwan, with which he constructed four kinds of views on religion and three patterns of

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governance. In a plural society like the contemporary U.S. and contemporary Taiwan, he stated,

we needed a kind of plural governance centering on society.

However, Prof. Alberto G. Gomes brought us a story from a Malaysian Aboriginal people.

He said that the people owned a kind of knowledge that might be called ‗traditional ecological

knowledge‘ (TEK). He also found that the TEK of the people was embedded in their religious or

spiritual beliefs and cultural practices. The finding tells us that there is some kind of relation

between religion and ecology.

There is another professor whose issue is focused on Chinese popular religion. He is Prof.

Yuet Chau. Instead of saying that China has different ‗religions‘ such as Buddhism, Taoism, Islam,

Christianity, etc., he proposed to look at Chinese religious diversity from the perspective of five

different ‗modalities of doing religion‘: scriptural/discursive, self-cultivational, liturgical,

immediate-practical, and relational. In other words, it is more important to see how people live

out of their religious life.

Prof. Li Xiangping gave a report on ‗Two Kinds of Beliefs and their Concepts of Political

Power‘. Namely, there are two kinds of beliefs, beliefs of human-oriented and god-oriented. With

the changing of the kind of beliefs, the mechanism of power will also change. In a modern and

plural society, he concluded, we must transcend both beliefs for a public rationality.

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第 8 期

Faith and Society: Spiritual Reflections of Global Age (IV)

On the morning of November 4th, Beijing Forum (2012) Panel II ―Faith and Society:

Spiritual Reflections of Global Age‖ held its last session at Meeting Room No. 8, Yingjie

Exchange Center, Peking University. The theme of the 4th session is ―Religious Pluralism and

Cultural Development.‖ Professor Li Silong from Peking University chaired the session.

Professor Wang Xiaochao of Tsinghua University considers the development of Buddhism,

Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism in China. He argues that they have become integral parts of

Chinese traditional thought and culture, and that they can and should play more important roles in

the construction of Chinese culture.

Professor Tao Feiya from Shanghai University reflects on the uniqueness of faith traditions

with reference to secular culture. He argues that, from the perspective of social practice, China‘s

cultural construction can accommodate and benefit from many aspects of faith traditions.

Dr. Shi Yifa from University of the West reflects on her visits to and peace work in Palestine.

She argues for the need for spiritual reflection and peaceful coexistence in an interactive and

diverse world and presents a Buddhist perspective on the ethics for a new global era.

Professor Hiroto Yoshihara from Waseda University considers how Sugawara no Michizane

has become the Japanese God ―Bundo‖ as well as the contributing factors and its historical

significance. He pays special attention to its connection with the deification of Confucius and Bai

Juyi in the societies of China and Japan.

Professor Jin Xun of Peking University focuses on the use of the Internet in the development

of New Religions. He argues that ―Internet-enabled religions‖ are playing important roles in the

evolving global scape of religions, especially the New Religions.

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