A good description of a non-Christian religious tradition

Here is a link a good description of Chinese religious traditions.  Click here.

Excerpts:

Teachings of Confucius

• Concern for others (the fundamental moral virtue).
• Honoring one’s parents.
• Right behavior.
• Treating others as you would wish to be treated.
• Ruling with moral standing and benevolence.  

Heaven and the Divine
Early Chinese writings refer to a supreme or highest god, named Heaven or Heavenly Emperor. Confucius shared this belief, saying: “He who offends against Heaven has no one to whom he can pray.” Heaven presided with moral law. Later followers regarded heaven as the divine moral power of the cosmos, expressed perfectly in harmony with humanity.

Some Basic Daoist Ideas

• Be amiable to everything in the universe, to help maintain universal harmony.
• Live a simple life uncluttered by extravagant ambition or dreams.
• Be modest rather than assertive and dominant. Such ideas have influenced the development of certain Chinese characteristics: “A person is afraid to be famous; a pig is afraid to be fat and strong.” (Chinese saying)
• That is, a healthy pig will be killed and eaten; a successful person will be a target. Many Chinese people keep their work and thoughts to themselves. Parents sometimes tell their children that if they are good at something, they should be modest, even hiding it.

Daoism also rejects competition, rank, luxury, vulgarity and boasting. Laozi said that the highest level was the least secure. Everyone wants to be at the top of the tree, but were we to achieve that, the tree would break. Instead, we should be like water, always seeking the lowest level.

Ancestor Veneration
Ancient belief included the veneration of ancestors. Souls reached happiness according to the conduct of their living descendants. Therefore one’s duty was to live a good and virtuous life. Ancestor worship is still practised. For many people it is simply superstition; something that is done “just in case.” For others it is more important. In many houses a small shrine can be found, usually photos of grandparents to which food and cigarettes are offered. The yearly qing ming festival celebrates ancestors with grave cleaning and firecrackers. Christians are taught not to venerate ancestors but this can be a source of family tension, even a barrier to belief.

Some reflections on different ways to see the world - Affluence, poverty, making a difference

Here are some reflections about how people in the West and those in low-income countries see things differently.

In the West, we want to see how we can make a difference. We want to see how we can fight injustice and alleviate poverty in the world. But for the poor in low-income countries, it is a matter of whether there can be any difference at all. If daily existence is a struggle, how can one find hope in the midst of injustice and poverty? Only a relationship with Christ and his identification with injustice and poverty can give us true hope and comfort.

In the West, we get to choose. Yes, we don't always get to choose, and there are those among use who are marginalised and disadvantaged. But comparatively, many of us get to choose - to study hard to go to university or work hard to learn a trade, save up for a holiday overseas, go to church and spend time with friends on the weekend, etc. Yet for many who live in low-income countries, the only choice is to keep staying alive and not to give up hope. They don't really get to choose in the way we do. There is no such a thing as a holiday overseas to see what the world is like. There is no such a thing as going to university - that is, for most of them because there aren't too many places at university, if there is one at all.

Many of us (not all of us, of course) in the West live in affluence. With our money and relatively high social status, we have the power to help the poor. We find satisfaction and meaning as we give to them. But for many who live in low-income countries, they learn to share with others with the little they have. Sharing resources out of poverty and powerlessness produces a profound sense of grace, hope and love that those living in affluence cannot fully understand.

None of the above means that living in the affluent West is wrong. Nor does the above mean that the rich should all become poor. It is not about guilt. But I hope the above helps us to learn from each other - to see the world from another perspective. I think God sees the world from all the different worldviews, and he knows exactly what the poor have to go through.

Reflection: Reading the Bible as stories

I wrote this recently, "When we read the Bible as stories - God's stories - we stop treating it as a set of rules or prooftexts, or treating God as a genie for our benefits. As we enter the stories in the Bible, we feel the pain and suffering of the characters, feel the wonders of God's deliverance, identify with God's people as they struggle and falter, and experience the amazing grace of God in all our failures and shortcomings. And as we enter those stories and allow the Holy Spirit to touch us, we enter into worship just as the ancients did - and by the empowerment of the same Spirit, we enter into the world to make those stories known through our lives and deeds."

Then I received a note from a missionary friend, Sarah, in Cambodia, which said, "Enjoying the privilige of leading a family to know God simply by telling the stories of the Bible chronologically. I was so thrilled to find yesterday that they have figured out how to talk to God just from hearing the stories."

Sarah has been using story-telling as a way of proclaiming the gospel. This is her response to what I wrote, "It is stories that shape our worldview and worldview that shapes our beliefs and values, which lead to our behaviour. God knew what he was doing when he set so much of his Word in narrative form."

Religion, economics, politics and salvation in the New Testament world

The following quotes are from Bruce Malina and John Pilch. Although I don't agree with them totally when it comes to interpreting Paul's letters, they help us to understand the New Testament world from a social science perspective.

There is no language implying abstract concepts of market, monetary system, or fiscal theory. Economics is "embedded," meaning that economic goals, production, roles, employment, organization, and systems of distribution are governed by political and kinship considerations, not "economic" ones. (p 393)

Ancient Mediterranean religion likewise had no separate, institutional exis­tence in the modern sense. It was rather an overarching system of meaning that unified political and kinship systems (including their economic aspects) into an ideological whole. It served to legitimate and articulate (or de-legitimate and criti­cize) the patterns of both politics and family. Its language was drawn from both kinship relations (father, son, brother, sister, virgin, child, honor, praise, forgiveness, etc.) and politics (king, kingdom, princes of this world, powers, covenant, law, etc.) rather than a discrete realm called religion. Religion was "embedded," meaning that religious goals, behavior, roles, employment, organization, and systems of worship were governed by political and kinship considerations, not "religious" ones. (p 393)

The temple was never a religious institution somehow separate from political institutions, nor was worship ever separate from what one did in the home. Religion was the meaning one gave to the way the two fundamental systems, politics and kinship, were put into practice.(p 393)

[A]ncient Rome elites did not have an idea of juridical relations among various peoples. Instead Roman statesmen dealt with other peoples in terms of good faith based on the analogy of patron-client relations. Rome was patron, not holder of an empire; it wanted persons to behave like clients. To behave otherwise was to be a rebel, an outlaw. (p 393)

Salvation means rescue from some difficult situation. The rescuer in question is called a "savior." As a rule, in antiquity the title was bestowed on persons and deities whose actions benefited a great number of people.(p 395)

Quotes taken from Bruce Malina and John Pilch, Social-Science Commentary on the Letters of Paul (Fortress: Minneapolis), 2006.

Looking beyond the labels

My friend Nils Von Kalm has written a new article. I highly recommend it. Here is a quote in his article.

"In our noble attempts to be Christ-like, we have tried to civilise the poor. Gardiner believes that the Spirit would say to the church today, ‘stop civilising and start discipling’. Or, as a pastor at a church I was at many years ago said, we are just one beggar telling another beggar where to find food."

Click here for the article.