Authors & Affiliations: Ou L.-J., Graduate School of Religion, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan

Pages: 127 - 158

Abstract: The purpose of the present essay is to discuss Bonhoeffers anti-Nazistic thinking by expounding some important papers and addresses he composed in 1933. These too easily neglected documents, in fact, play a significant role in Bonhoeffer's thought and become the foundation of his constant concern for church and society. Firstly, the present essay shows how Bonhoeffer reveals the danger of Hitler's misuse of the "Führer Principle." Secondly, the essay highlights Bonhoeffer's positive attitude towards Jews during the Nazi regime by analyzing the classic article "The Church and the Jewish Question," which was one of the first public objections against the Aryan clause. Due to his positive attitude towards and rescuing actions for Jewish people, Bonhoeffer has since been highly applauded. However, recent years have seen in Bonhoeffer scholarship increased negative opinions on his dealing with the Jewish people of his day It is, hence, worthwhile comparing and contrasting both sides of the question in the third of the present essays prior to the present writer's own arguments and conclusions. Copyright © Chung Yuan Christian University.

Keywords: Aryan clause; Bonhoeffer; Church; Führer Principle; Jewish Question

Authors & Affiliations: Ying F.-T., Divinity School of Chung Chi College, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Pages: 87 - 126

Abstract: Y. T. Wu (Wu Yaozong, 1893-1979) is the so-designated key figure of the Christian Three-self Patriotic Movement (TSPM). Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, Wu's discontent with the current conservative Christian theology led him to way of radical identification with communism. Alongside this intellectual struggle and exploration, the relationship between Christianity and communism became the major theme of his theological concern. This paper aims to investigate the theological re-orientation of Wu between 1949 and 1954. For example, in order to restore the revolutionary spirit of Jesus Christ, Wu believed that current Christian theology should undergo a complete and thorough reform. However, Wu's proposal for theological reform aroused strong protests among the conservative and fundamentalist wings of the Christian church. His understanding of the relations of Christianity with communism also contradicted with the policy of the Communist party of China towards Protestant Christianity. To archive the Party-state's agenda of Christian unity under the TSPM, Wu reluctantly suspended his blueprint of theological reform. Copyright © Chung Yuan Christian University.

Keywords: Christianity and communism; Socialist China; Theological re-orientation; Three-self Patriotic Movement; Y T. Wu

Authors & Affiliations: Hsieh L.-C., Holy Light Theological Seminary, Taiwan

Pages: 7 - 32

Abstract: This paper is a study of the concept of and how Paul employs this concept in his letters. Michel Foucault argues that involves five different elements: frankness, truth, danger, criticism, and duty. Among the many dangers that threaten shame stands out as the most threatening of all. Frank speech is highly valued by Greco-Roman intellectuals and orators. Paul is of no exception. Like all other Greco-Roman orators, Paul presents himself as a parrhesiastes, i.e., a practitioner of parrhsi, a in the exordium part of his speech-letters. He practices in the public setting of the ekklesia. He speaks fearlessly and frankly about the truth out of a sense of duty for the well-being of his brothers and sisters in Christ. Copyright © Chung Yuan Christian University.

Keywords: Greco-Roman political philosophy; Greco-Roman rhetoric theory; Michel Foucault; Pauline ethics

Authors & Affiliations: Tao X., Department of Religion, School of Philosophy, Wuhan University, China

Pages: 181 - 202

Abstract: In both the Christian philosophy of Augustine and the Neo-Confucianism of Zhu Xi, reflections on the mind-body problem necessarily involved their understandings of individuality and relationship in human existence. Augustine regarded the human soul as a different subject from the material body, and he defined the inherent human nature as arising solely from the vertical relationship between each individual soul and God, so his thinking of individuality is characterized by the subject-object dichotomy between soul and body, ego and other, human and nature, which as a result brings about the loss of relationship. In Zhu Xi's view, the individual person is a spirit-body unity in harmony with heaven and nature, but he fails to discover the relative independence of spiritual existence and its difference from material existence, so his understanding of the relationship between body and spirit, human and heaven, diversity and oneness are finally replaced by the absoluteness and exclusiveness of "Li Yi" (the Unique Principle). Copyright © Chung Yuan Christian University.

Keywords: Augustine; Body; Mind; Relationship; Zhu Xi

Authors & Affiliations: Li Z., Research Center of Chinese New Literature, Nanjing University, China

Pages: 159 - 180

Abstract: Our essay discusses Y. V. Rozanov's Dostoyevsky and the Legend of the Grand Inquisitor (1891) in which readers find Dostoyevsky's unique critique of Modernity. Dostoyevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov, along with Rozanov's interpretations in his book, provide an outstanding answer to the question of how modern people came to atheism. For them, this position is not so much a "superficial treachery" as "something that revolts against God but is nevertheless divine in itself." This revolution is a reflection of something great within the human spirit However, it, nonetheless, betrays the inability of humans en route to finding their beliefs. So this atheistic turn dialectically reveals the inability of human spirit which actually negates the basis of human life. Hence, the following issue: atheistic humans change their institutional principles and the bases on which they arrange their lives. In other words, humans seize the "authority" of the world from God. Dostoyevsky's "legend of the Grand Inquisitor" provides a revelation about modernity and modern society; and it generates a metaphor for the authority and "legitimacy" of the modern system, a metaphor which take its roots in the substrates of different nations and cultures. Dostoyevsky's "legend" and Rozanov's interpretations help us to rethink the critique of modernity from a religious perspective. Copyright © Chung Yuan Christian University.

Keywords: Critique of Modernity; Dostoyevsky; Dostoyevsky and the Legend of the Grand Inquisitor; Modern institutions; Rozanov

Authors & Affiliations: Oseka M., Concordia Theological Seminary, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Pages: 33 - 86

Abstract: The present paper examines Kant's redefinition of Protestant theology primarily perpetuated in his lectures on philosophy of religion. The Socinianism and the Wolffianism were succinctly presented as far as their impact upon the Enlightenment philosophy of religion is concerned. The survey of Kant's legacy begins with his division of theology and with his criticism of traditional theological paradigms (i. e., ontotheology, cosmotheology and revealed theology). Subsequently, the Kantian project of moral theology and the relationship between the natural religion and the statutory religions are explored. Finally, Kant's hermeneutics, which is aimed at reinterpreting classical biblical doctrines (cf. eschatology, Trinity) and religious practices (cf. prayer, worship, sacraments) in view of the new moral theology, comes to light. Copyright © Chung Yuan Christian University.

Keywords: German Enlightenment; Hermeneutics; Immanuel Kant; Philosophy of religion; Protestant Systematic Theology