【美聯(lián)社】孔子故鄉(xiāng)教堂計劃引發(fā)抗議
欄目：曲阜建耶教堂暨十學者《意見書》
發(fā)布時間：2010-12-26 08:00:00
標簽：
美聯(lián)社報道：孔子故鄉(xiāng)教堂計劃引發(fā)抗議
（北京）2010年12月26日：中國無神論政府要在孔子故鄉(xiāng)興建基督教堂以圖促進古代哲學思想和該國快速發(fā)展的宗教之間的關系。但是忽然間，事情變得不平靜了。
儒家團體和十位著名學者要求曲阜停止建造哥特式教堂，認為該教堂的規(guī)模超過世界上最著名的儒家廟宇，是外國（宗教）入侵圣地的象征。
星期三在博客上發(fā)布的一份公開信說“如果在耶路撒冷、麥加或梵帝崗建造一座超大規(guī)模的孔廟，超過當?shù)氐淖诮探ㄖ?，當?shù)氐娜嗣駮鞘裁锤惺?？（當?shù)兀┑恼腿嗣駮邮軉幔?
陷身爭議之中的是教堂的牧師，一位孔子75代后裔?？紫殁彵驹聦倚氯A社說，因為建在作為中華文明象征的哲學家故鄉(xiāng)，教堂的意義重大。
在毛澤東時代被批判為落后的（思想）之后，孔子正在復活。今年上映了政府支持的由周潤發(fā)主演的傳記電影。政府以這位哲學家的名義在海外提升它的“軟實力”，建立了大量教授文化和語言的孔子學院。
現(xiàn)在中國官員在推動將他在東部省份山東省的出生地作為他的哲學與基督教思想進行交流的場所。他們說這個教堂將建有兩個文明對話的交流中心。
但是學者們的抗議提出了關于什么是中國價值的深切文化憂慮。
儒學強調道德、倫理和禮儀被視為一種哲學思想，而不是宗教。但是被認為是中國影響最廣的指導思想。在中國官方所承認的五大宗教中—佛教、道教、伊斯蘭教、新教和天主教，道教是唯一中國本土的（宗教）。
中國執(zhí)政的共產(chǎn)黨接受孔子用以打造所謂“和諧社會”，但是這也同時激發(fā)了反對在曲阜教堂的民族主義。
首都師范大學的儒家學者陳明是公開信的一位聯(lián)署者。尖銳地評論說一個世紀前山東的西方教徒與農(nóng)民的摩擦導致了著名的波及華北的義和團運動，并引發(fā)北京對西方帝國主義的民族主義憤怒。中國學生仍然被教導說這是被列強欺凌的屈辱時代。
陳說： “當然，我不同意拒絕外部世界，但是我同時認為必須對本土文化的保持基本的尊重。”
十位學者和十個儒家團體本周的公開信說抗議者并不反對基督教，而只是對教堂本身提出異議。新華社報道說，這座
教堂高度超過41米（135英尺）并將容納3000人，將于兩年后完工。官員們說曲阜有大約10000名基督徒，現(xiàn)在的簡易教堂只能容納800人。
學者們抗議說教堂高度超過孔廟，而且距離只有2英里（3公里）。雖然孔廟的建筑群范圍更大，但是它最高建筑只有45米（147英尺）高。（按：大成殿只有20多米高）。
曲阜宗教宗教事務局局長孔偉星期五晚沒有做任何評論。
曲阜今年秋天在承辦了政府主導的尼山世界文明論壇以緩和舊有的（文化）對立。國際基督教和儒學學者，包括美國福音派電視傳教士羅勃特?舒勒參加了這個主題為“和諧、仁愛、誠信、寬容”的大會。（按：中方宣傳的主題是“和而不同與和諧世界”）
但是本周這份抗議信的聯(lián)署者中就有一位論壇的組織者，山東大學教授儒家學者顏炳罡。根據(jù)中國哲學博客網(wǎng)上論壇簡介，他在論壇期間批評了“19世紀基督教傳教士的蠻橫行為”。
一名西方與會者說公開信不是反對基督教，“但是就曲阜作為與早期儒家密切相關的地方具有特殊地位，因而另有一番意味?！?
美國康涅狄格州衛(wèi)斯理大學史蒂芬?安格爾教授寫信給美聯(lián)社說中國的城市和建筑“考慮到建筑物不同地位和相關功能真的有理由認為由于它的位置教堂的設計是不適宜的。”
附美聯(lián)社報道原文
BEIJING — China’s officially atheist government wants to build a Christian church in the hometown of Confucius to help foster a relationship between an ancient philosophy and the country’s fastest-growing religion. But suddenly, it’s not going so smoothly.
Confucian groups and 10 well-known scholars are demanding that the Gothic-style church not be built in Qufu, saying its size threatens to overshadow the world’s most famous Confucian temple and represents a foreign invasion of a sacred place.
"If a super-large Confucius temple were built in Jerusalem, Mecca or the Vatican, overshadowing the religious buildings there, how would the people feel about it? Would the government and the people accept it?" says an open letter from the protesters that was dated Wednesday and posted on blogs.
Caught in the debate is the church’s pastor, a 75th-generation descendant of Confucius. The church means a lot because it will be in the philosopher’s hometown, a symbol of Chinese civilization, Kong Xiangling told the state-run Xinhua News Agency this month.
After being attacked as backward during the era of Mao Zedong, Confucius is experiencing a revival. A government-backed biopic starring Chow Yun-fat was released this year, and Beijing is promoting its brand of "soft power" under the philosopher’s name overseas, with a growing number of Confucius Institutes for culture and language learning.
Now, Chinese officials are pushing his birthplace in the eastern province of Shandong as a place where ideas on his philosophy and Christianity can be exchanged. They’ve said the church will include a center to host dialogues on the two civilizations.
But the scholars’ protest brings up deeply held cultural concerns about just what being Chinese means.
Confucianism, with its emphasis on morality, proper social relationships and ritual, is seen more as a philosophy than a religion, but it can be considered China’s most influential guide. Among the country’s five officially recognized religions -- Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism and Catholicism -- only one, Taoism, is native to China.
China’s ruling Communist Party embraces Confucius for use in shaping what it likes to call a "harmonious society," but it’s also stoked the nationalism that objects to the church in Qufu.
One of the protest letter’s signers, Confucian scholar Chen Ming of Beijing Capital Normal University, noted pointedly that the friction between Western religions and peasants in Shandong a century ago led to the famous Boxer Rebellion, which swept through northern China and into Beijing in nationalistic anger against Western imperialism. Chinese students are still taught to see the era as a time of humiliation at foreign hands.
"Of course, I don’t agree with rejecting the outside world, but I also believe the necessary respect to the local culture is essential," Chen wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press on Friday.
This week’s open letter -- signed by 10 scholars and 10 Confucian groups -- says the protesters don’t object to Christianity but take issue with the church itself. It will be more than 41 meters (135 feet) high and will be able to hold 3,000 people when it’s completed about two years from now, Xinhua reported. Officials have said Qufu has about 10,000 Christians and that the current makeshift church holds just 800 at most.
The scholars argue that the church’s size could upstage the Confucius temple, located less than 2 miles (3 kilometers) away. While its complex is more sprawling, the temple’s tallest building is about 45 meters (147 feet) high.
The director of Qufu’s Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau, Kong Wei, had no comment Friday evening.
In one recent step toward calming old tensions, Qufu hosted the first government-backed Nishan Forum on World Civilizations this fall, with international scholars of Christianity and Confucianism, including American televangelist Robert Schuller, meeting under the motto "Harmony, Love, Integrity, Tolerance."
But among the signers of this week’s protest letter was one of the forum’s organizers, Shandong University professor and Confucian scholar Yan Binggang. During the forum, he spoke strongly about the "coercion employed by Protestant missionaries in China during the 19th century," according to an account of the forum posted on a Chinese philosophy blog.
One Western participant in the forum said the letter should not be viewed as intolerant toward Christianity, "but rather specifically from the stance that Qufu, as the place most closely associated with early Confucianism, has a special status."
In an e-mail to the AP, Stephen Angle, a professor of philosophy at Wesleyan University in the U.S. state of Connecticut, said Chinese cities and architecture "take the relative statuses of buildings and their associated roles into account, and so there is indeed some ground for the concern that the church’s design may be inappropriate, given the location."
來源：儒教復興論壇http://www.rjfx.net/dispbbs.asp?boardID=4&ID=12244&page=1
