In Search of True-ness: Dialogue Between Political Localism and Theological Ecumenism in Post-Umbrella Movement

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lap Yan Kung
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Political Structure ◽  
The Core ◽  
The People ◽  
Universal Suffrage ◽  
The Church

Abstract Seeking for true-ness is the core concern of the people of Hong Kong during the Umbrella Movement. That search starts from the political structure (true universal suffrage), and continues through into the formation of identity (true Hongkongese). This article illustrates how the Umbrella Movement has provided the people of Hong Kong with an experience of a truthful politics which is different from the current realpolitik. It sets out to see Hong Kong as their homeland, while developing a new language in terms of political localism. Nevertheless, there is a tendency for such political localism to become too narrow, exclusive and sentimental. The ecumenicity of the church interpreted in the light of Wolfhart Pannenberg’s theology is a different social imaginary. It can challenge both the inclination to narrowness and exclusivism of political localism, and the authoritarianism of the Chinese authorities. It possesses the potential to enrich the people of Hong Kong by allowing them to see that the unity of humankind (creation) is the ground of politics.

Remarks on the Relationship between State and Religion in Hegel [1982]

2020 ◽  
pp. 199-219
Author(s):  
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde ◽  
Mirjam Künkler ◽  
Tine Stein
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
God's Will ◽  
The Core ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

Is and can religion be seen as a foundation of the modern state? In this article Böckenförde discusses the relationship between state and religion while reviewing Hegel’s main writings on this question. Reconstructing Hegel’s concept of the state, Böckenförde points out that for Hegel, the state is simultaneously universal and historical. It is more than the political system or government—it is the polity in general and the structured form in which the people exist. Moreover, the state is the materialization of the ethical idea as such and the manifestation of how ‘truth’ in history became reality. In Hegel’s view, ‘truth’ is ultimately God’s will in the world. Further, for Hegel, state and religion are two forms of the same substance: reason. Morality and reason are closely intertwined in Hegel. Religion is a source of morality for the people, and the state and the Church are the institutional manifestations of reason. Böckenförde shows that Hegel identifies individual conscience as the core of each person’s freedom; however, Hegel denies a right to an aberrant conscience, indicating a very limited notion of freedom. Finally, Böckenförde discusses Hegel’s philosophy in light of the state today with its separation of state and religion. Since today’s state does not consider religion as part of its foundation, in Hegel’s view it would ‘stand freely in the air’. Böckenförde concludes, contrary to Hegel, that only the democratic process and the people’s agreement on the things that cannot be voted upon can form the basis of the state.

scholarly journals THE FUNCTION OF INFORMAL GUANXI CIRCLE IN ANCIENT CHINA POLITICAL STRUCTURE

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 80-87
Author(s):  
Ruihui Han
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ancient China ◽  
Political Structure ◽  
Previous Researcher ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Common

Guanxi circle play a critical role in ancient China politics. Based on guanxi, two kinds of guanxi groups formed: formal guanxi circle and informal guanxi circle. The former refers to the group centered the emperor; the latter refers to the groups with the powerful and charismatic figures as the core, except for the emperor. In order to consolidate the political power, the emperors in different periods would try to prevent the informal guanxi circle in political structure. Besides, various scriptures also denounce the informal guanxi circle, deeming such circle as harmful. The judgement of informal guanxi circle appeals to research, as there is no previous researcher has address such problems. This study set out to examine whether the informal guanxi circle is harmful to the whole political structure. Results show that the informal guanxi circle, in the antecedent of satisfactory communication, can be extremely meaningful to the whole political structure. This study implies that the fact of informal guanxi circle is on the contrary of the common sense derived from the scriptures and the superficial ancient political activities, such as the emperor’s order to prevent the informal guanxi circle. The findings can contribute a better understanding of the ancient informal guanxi circle in ancient political structure in China.

The Population Numbers Challenge

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yue Chim Richard Wong
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Warm Water ◽  
The Political ◽  
Long Period ◽  
The People ◽  
Important Challenge ◽  
World Class ◽  
Metropolitan Center ◽  
Population Numbers

What is the most important challenge Hong Kong is facing? It is not the political elections in 2017. It is not the saturation of our landfills. It is not Hong Kong Television losing its bid for a license. Rather, it is the serious population challenge that could have consequences up to the end of this century if best policies are not adopted soon and sustained for a long period. Inaction would mean the gradual demise of Hong Kong as a world-class metropolitan center. The people of Hong Kong have not fully recognized the seriousness and urgency of this challenge. The best analogy is the classic scenario of “slowly boiling a frog in warm water.” The frog is not aware of the water warming up until it is too late to reverse its fate.

scholarly journals Philip Neri and Charles Borromeo as Models of Catholic Reform

Perichoresis ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 119-136
Author(s):  
Charles D. Fox
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Institutional Reform ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
The Core ◽  
The People ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
The Face ◽  
Catholic Reform ◽  
The Church

AbstractIn the face of the external challenge of the Protestant Reformation, as well as the internal threat of spiritual, moral, and disciplinary corruption, two Catholic saints worked tirelessly to reform the Church in different but complementary ways. Philip Neri (1515–95) and Charles Borromeo (1538–84) led the Catholic Counter–Reformation during the middle–to–late sixteenth century, placing their distinctive gifts at the service of the Church. Philip Neri used his personal humility, intelligence, and charisma to attract the people of Rome to Christ, while Charles Borromeo employed his gifts for administration and his experience as a top aide to the pope to promote needed institutional reform. Both men achieved great personal holiness and moved others to holiness of life. It is their response to and sharing of the ‘universal call to holiness’, then, that constitutes the core of both of their approaches to ecclesial reform. Their focus on holiness, expressed in an emphasis on either the ‘charismatic’ or ‘hierarchical’ dimensions of the Church’s life, also provides a model for today’s Church, scarred as she is by scandal and in need of a new movement of reform.

Hong Kong government cannot ignore protester demands

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Chief Executive ◽  
The Political ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Independent Judiciary ◽  
Universal Suffrage ◽  
The Government ◽  
Selection Of

Subject The demands set out by anti-government protesters in Hong Kong. Significance Mass protests have forced the government to withdraw an unpopular bill allowing extradition to mainland China. However, the protesters’ agenda has broadened to include four more demands: repudiation of the government’s designation of the protests as ‘riots’; amnesty for all protesters; an independent probe into the police’s use of force; and universal suffrage for the selection of Hong Kong’s chief executive. Impacts Investigations, trials and lawsuits will drag on for years, poisoning the political atmosphere and hindering cooperation between camps. Hong Kong’s independent judiciary may be a moderating influence. Replacing Lam would not be a fresh start; the process would spotlight Hong Kong’s lack of democracy.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 206-208
Author(s):  
Andrew Chittick
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Core Region ◽  
The Political ◽  
Central Plains ◽  
The Core ◽  
The People ◽  
Merchant Class ◽  
Primary Driver ◽  
The Military

Section 2 has demonstrated that the political culture of the Jiankang Empire was sharply different from that of the Central Plains, which was the core region of all other large medieval East Asian empires. Jiankang’s political culture can be seen as a distinctive expression of the proto-ethnic identity of the people who dominated the empire, mostly Churen and Wuren. Elite Zhongren migrants from the Central Plains dominated the court only during a part of the fourth century, and their influence waned from then straight through to the end of the sixth century. Instead, the locally rooted garrison culture of the military and the merchant class was the primary driver and innovator in both politics and the economy....

The ‘New Nazis’ or the ‘People of our God’? Jews and Zionism in the Latin Church of Jerusalem, 1948–1962

2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-107
Author(s):  
MARIA CHIARA RIOLI
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The People ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Changing Attitudes ◽  
State Of Israel ◽  
The Church

In the aftermath of the Holocaust the elaboration of Catholic perceptions of the Jewish people has been particularly problematic. The weight of a long tradition of Christian antisemitism and its influence on the Nazi extermination programme, as well as the revision of this attitude before and after the Shoah in various Catholic circles as a means of promoting a rapprochement, made it difficult to redefine the image of Jewish people in the Catholic imagination, and gave rise to different and conflicting interpretations. Some members of the Latin Catholic Church of Jerusalem began to argue for an analogy between Nazism and Zionism. This assertion took different forms as the political situation in Palestine evolved and in response to changing attitudes within the Church towards the Jews. This paper will reconstruct the ‘new Nazis’ paradigm in the Jerusalem Church, analysing three key periods: the 1947–9 Arab-Israeli war; the consolidation of the State of Israel in the 1950s; and the Eichmann trial of 1961–2.

Crimes against the State

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Callie Williamson
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Structure ◽  
The Public ◽  
State Security ◽  
The People ◽  
Roman People ◽  
The Republic

During most of the Republic, the Romans viewed only perduellio as a threat to state security. Other threats were dealt with through institutionalised mechanisms of stability in Rome’s political structure, above all through the public lawmaking assemblies. Only when the political system wavered in the late Republic did the Romans criminalise “diminishing the superiority of the Roman people” maiestas populi Romani minuta (maiestas) as a crime against the state. Inherent in maiestas is the authority of the Roman people to negotiate consensus through the public lawmaking process in which the people voiced their commands. During the Empire, the emperor embodied the superiority of the Roman people and through him, as the chief lawmaker of Rome, were channelled the commands of the people. The scope of maiestas was altered to adapt to changing ideas of the state, but the idea that maiestas constituted the chief crime against the state persisted.

scholarly journals Crisis and Belonging: Protest Voices and Empathic Solidarity in Post-Economic Collapse Iceland

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Heffernan
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Democratic Reform ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The People ◽  
Economic Collapse ◽  
The Government ◽  
International Identity

This article explores the politics of belonging in Iceland in the context of an ethico-political project focused around increased transparency following the country’s 2008 banking collapse. By employing literature on autochthony (i.e., a return to, and interpretation of, “the local”), it examines the tensions that are reignited within and between nation-states during economic crisis. Through ethnography with ordinary Icelanders and the members of two protest movements, this research shows how Icelanders are cultivating a public voice to navigate the political constraints of crisis and reshaping Icelanders’ international identity from below in the wake of the collapse. To this end, the article accounts for the role of populist politics in re-embedding Iceland into the European social imaginary as an economically responsible and egalitarian nation. It then turns to highlight the push for meaningful democratic reform through collaborative, legislative exchange between the government and the people that resulted in a new—if not actually implemented—constitution. By exploring protest culture in Iceland, the article highlights the importance of public witnessing and empathic solidarity in building intercultural relations in an era of globalized finance and politics.

scholarly journals THE SCRIPTURE IN THE PUBLISHING PLANS OF THE MOTHER SEE HOLY ETCHMIADZIN

2018 ◽  
pp. 219-231
Author(s):  
AZAT BOZOYAN
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The People ◽  
Classical Condition ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Short Time ◽  
Work Done ◽  
The Church ◽  
Publishing Business

The Armenian Church from the beginning had a great interest in publishing the Holy Bible. However the political conditions until 70-ties of XVIII century didnt allow to develop the publishing business neither in Western, nor in Eastern Armenia. Exactly because of this reason the Armenian catholicoses tried at any cost to support the publishing business abroad. In this period the activity of printer's ''Holy Etchmiadzin and st.Sargis'', which was established in Amsterdam, became a new phenomenon in the Armenian book-printing. By virtue of work of this printinghouse and the efforts of former chancellor of the Mother See Voskan Yerevantsi the first Armenian Bible came into being. In the XVIII-XIX centuries the political conditions didnt allow the Mother See to focus on the research and preparation of the text of the Bible.It seems that Mother See Holy Etchmiadzin yielded to Mekhitarists the primacy of research in this field. The catholicoses Macar Teghutetsi and Khrimean Hairik, lived in the late 19th - early 20th century, focused attention of the congregation of Vagharshapat on the republication of the biblical texts. Unfortunately the work was interrupted. As it was unclear how to present the text of the Bible to the reader. If Karapet Ter-Mkrtchean set a goal to restore the classical condition of the text, the greater part of the spiritual estate required in a short time to publish a Bible that satisfies the religious needs of the Church. Another part of the believers and Church ministers hoped to have a Bible translated into a language understandable to the people. I suppose that these opposite goals also contributed to the termination of the work. One should regret that to this day it is not known where are kept the results of the work done under the leadership of K. Ter-Mkrtchean. From the standpoint of stimulating the publication of the Bible important was the celebration of the 300th anniversary of publication of the Bible of Voskan, which was initiated by catholicos Vazgen I. The rather serried phalanx of armenologists got down to work, and thanks to their efforts in 1996 the Bible was translated into the Eastern Armenian language. The most important achievment of the last decades was the publication of dozens of scientific biblical texts. Today the preparation of the scientific text of the Bible remains one of the most important tasks facing modern Armenology and the Mother See Holy Etchmiadzin.

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