Woah, I just googled
[quote=“Spack”]Woah, I just googled
Off Topic
Yeah, well God slew thousands of innocents with the jawbone of an ass in the Old Testament, too. So if you go by Jehovah’s teachings in the Old Testament, God says it’s alright to commit genocide against the enemies of the Jews.
Nah.
That’s why Christians have the NEW and IMPROVED Testament, to supersede and make irrelevant the pre-Jesus Old Testament. Christians are not obligated to obey the goofy little rules of Leviticus and Deuteronomy about refraining from pork & shrimp; never trimming your beard; stoning to death adulterers, homosexuals, rebellious children; don’t eat the fruit from a tree until three years; don’t drink blood; exile if you have sex on her period; and at the end of every seven years, you have to cancel debts. Actually, I like that last one, if we followed Biblical law I wouldn’t have to worry about paying back my student loans.
The problem came about because the whole Western religious thing was explained to the Chinese by people who cared. Thus some first got the version where only this group is really Christian, and the Catholics are superstitious Mary worshippers. Others first came into contact with Roman Catholics, and were taught that this or that Protestant group was in league with the devil, or whatever. No wonder Asians ended up a bit confused.
Surley the best thing we can do for our students is to try to explain Western religion objectively, trying not to pass on our own prejudices. Maybe impossible, if you really do believe group X is not Christian, but I’ve got the impression that most Westerners aren’t really all that religious anymore.
If you explain that among the great religions are those named, for example, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, and that Christainity comprises three great streams: Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and the Eastern Orthodox Churches, it should be fairly clear. Just like explaining that Islam is divided into two great groups (Shiite and Sunni) is more helpful for people who don’t really understand the religion than saying that the Sunnis are evil heretics and the only true Muslims are the Shiites, or vice versa.
The same goes for politics. An objective as possible explanation that there are basically two political parties in the United States of America, the Democrats and the Republicans, and a quick overview of how the two differ, is far more helpful to Taiwanese students than a rant by someone like Fred Smith about how the Democrats are all idiot communist sympathizers intent on handing America over to the Islamofascists, or the equivalent rant by someone on the other side.
The Taiwanese students I’ve met barely understand the basics of non-Asian religions (or Western politics.) Confusing them by discussing, or raving about, whether “Catholics are really Christians” does not help them at all.
[quote=“Spack”] I admit I didn
I recall reading somewhere (Jonathan Spence??) that the Jesuits in China got a lot of negative reaction from the Crucifixes with the very realistic depictions of a tormented Jesus on them, and quickly shifted emphasis to pictures of Madonna and Child; a mother and plump baby boy being a lot more likely to win approval from a Chinese audience.
More importantly, the Jesuits were aiming at converting educated scholars and officials, so were trying to tie together the Christian God with Confucian “Heaven”.
Later arriving Protestants probably spent a lot more time talking about Jesus,
which is still the case - especially among fundamentalists.
Apropos of Madonnas, I was working for a Buxiban owner who was trying to set up a school in a deconsecrated Catholic chapel; he pulled down a picture of a (highly- Sinicized) Mary and Baby Jesus and , very puzzled, asked me what a picture of Kuan-yin was doing in a Catholic Church.