Toward Retrieving Early Oral Traditions: Some Ruminations on Orality and Textuality in Early Chinese Culture

Feminist scholarship sees African society as traditionally patriarchal, while the colonists saw traditional African leadership as lacking in values such as democracy, tolerance, and accountability, until these were imposed by Europeans. Using Afrocentricity as a theoretical basis, this article examines African leadership as portrayed in the Shona ngano [folktale] genre and concludes that, in fact, leadership was neither age- nor gender-specific and was democratic, tolerant, and accountable. It recommends further research into African oral traditions as a way of arriving at more positive images of traditional Africa and her diverse heritage.

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Contextualising ‘Sin’ in Chinese Culture: A Historian's Perspective

Studies in World Christianity ◽

10.3366/swc.2016.0145 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 22 (2) ◽

pp. 105-124 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Danny Hsu

Keyword(s):

Chinese Culture ◽

Actual Practice ◽

Religious Traditions ◽

Christian Teaching ◽

Practice Perspective ◽

History Of

Is the Christian teaching on sin a ‘stumbling block’ to Chinese accepting Christianity? This paper critiques the notion that Chinese have difficulty comprehending ‘sin’ because of the culture's long-standing belief in the humanistic potential for self-perfection without any reference to the divine. This view of Chinese culture has been too narrow and does not account for the fact that Chinese religious traditions have always had at their disposal a wide variety of resources to comprehend the Christian concept of sin. Incorporating a history-of-practice perspective can contribute to a more productive balance between the representation of Chinese culture and its actual practice and avoid the current tendency to posit Western theology against a narrowly constructed and idealised version of Chinese culture that is severed from both historical and present-day realities.

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