The Evolution of the Ecumenical Vision in the Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Context: A Case Study of the Church of Christ in China (1927–1937)

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-34
Author(s):  
Marina Xiaojing Wang
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Church Of Christ ◽  
Local Context ◽  
The West ◽  
Chinese Context ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Church Unity ◽  
The Church ◽  
Christian Message

This paper focuses on the Church of Christ in China – a visible fruit of the church unity movement in early twentieth-century China – as a case study. Through examining its formation and development from 1927 to 1937, especially its progress in the advocacy of ecumenism in China, this paper aims to explore how the idea of ecumenism had been transplanted, rooted, accommodated and applied in the Chinese context during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This paper argues that, although the Chinese vision of ecumenism was derived from the West, it had taken a rather different path and reflected an indigenous understanding of ecumenism and ecclesiology. The case of the CCC demonstrated that national requirements played a significant role in reshaping the universal Christian message. The Christian message, in this case the vision of ecumenism, would always have to revise and incarnate itself in the local context which it encountered.

scholarly journals SACRALISATION AND THE COLONIAL-INDIGENOUS ENCOUNTER IN SOUTHERN AFRICAN CHRISTIAN HISTORY: THE MEMORY AND LEGACY OF JOHANNES DU PLESSIS AS CASE STUDY

2015 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 82-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Retief Muller
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Biblical Scholar ◽  
Christian History

The role of the Dutch Reformed Church’s mission policies in the development of apartheid ideology has in recent times come under increased scrutiny. In terms of the formulation of missionary theory within the DRC, the controversial figure of Johannes du Plessis played a significant role in the early twentieth century. In addition to his work as a mission theorist, Du Plessis was a biblical scholar at Stellenbosch University who was found guilty of heresy by his church body, despite having much support from the rank and file membership. This article asks questions regarding the ways in which his memory and legacy are often evaluated from the twin, yet opposing perspectives of sacralisation and vilification. It also considers the wider intellectual influences on Du Plessis such as the missiology of the German theologian, Gustav Warneck. Du Plessis’s missionary theory helped to lay the groundwork for the later development of apartheid ideology, but perhaps in spite of himself, he also introduced a subverting discourse into Dutch Reformed theology. Some of the incidental consequences of this discourse, particularly in relation to the emerging theme of indigenous knowledge, are furthermore assessed here.

The Old Rhetoric

2019 ◽  
pp. 27-68
Author(s):  
Anthony Ossa-Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Philosophical Analysis ◽  
Persuasive Communication ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
The West ◽  
The Third ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Persuasive Speech

This chapter discusses the Old Rhetoric, sketching the long persistence in the West—from Aristotle to the early twentieth century—of a ‘single meaning model’ of language, one that takes ambiguity for granted as an obstacle to persuasive speech and clear philosophical analysis. In Aristotle's works are the seeds of three closely related traditions of Western thought on ambiguity: the logicosemantic, the rhetorical, and the hermeneutic. The first seeks to eliminate ambiguity from philosophy because it hinders a clear analysis of the world. The second seeks to eliminate ambiguity from speech because it hinders the clear and persuasive communication of argument. The third, an extension of the second, seeks to resolve textual ambiguity because it hinders the reader's ability to grasp the writer's intention. The chapter then considers Aristotle's two types of verbal ambiguity: homonym and amphiboly. The solution to both—whether their presence in a discussion is accidental or deliberate—is what Aristotle calls diairesis or distinction, that is, the explicit clarification of the different meanings involved.

The significance of aesthetic landscape appreciation to modern geotourism provision

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Hose
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Lake District ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
English Lake District ◽  
European Engagement ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Nineteeth Century

Many of the stakeholders involved in modern geotourism provision lack awareness of how the concept essentially ermeged, developed and was defined in Europe. Such stakeholders are unaware of how many of the modern approaches to landscape promotion and interpretation actually have nineteeth century antecedents. Similarly, many of the apparently modern threats to, and issues around, the protection of wild and fragile landscapes and geoconservation of specific geosites also first emerged in the ninetheeth century; the solutions that were developed to address those threats and issues were first applied in the early twentieth century and were subsequently much refined by the opening of the twenty-first century. However, the European engagement with wild and fragile landscapes as places to be appreciated and explored began much earlier than the nineteenth century and can be traced back to Renaissance times. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a summary consideration of this rather neglected aspect of geotourism, initially by considering its modern recognition and definitions and then by examining the English Lake District (with further examples from Britain and Australia available at the website) as a particular case study along with examples.

Smoking Bans and Shop Floor Resistance during the Early Twentieth Century

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Wood
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Mass Production ◽  
Large Mass ◽  
Shop Floor ◽  
Smoking Bans ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Paper Company ◽  
Time Away

This chapter explores early-twentieth-century employers' opposition to smoking in the workplace, focusing on a case study of smoking practices and shop floor disputes at the Hammermill Paper Company in Erie, Pennsylvania, during the long, hot summer of 1915. Uniquely detailed reports of working conditions and workers' behaviors in this large mass-production factory, written by a pair of curious labor spies, documented nicely the ongoing efforts of many workers to circumvent the company's prohibition of smoking. In response to the refusal of management to allow smoking, workers improvised an assortment of surreptitious strategies that would allow them to smoke at work and enjoy time away from their jobs. As the Hammermill case illustrates, the wide extent of worker subversion made the no-smoking rule a dead letter, much to the constant frustration of management and the spies themselves.

Making a Space for Antisemitism: The Catholic Hierarchy and the Jews in the Early Twentieth Century

2003 ◽  
pp. 415-430
Author(s):  
Brian Porter
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Common ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Church

This chapter argues that as recently as the 1880s, Catholicism, as it existed in Poland at the time, was still somewhat resistant to expressions of antisemitism. Catholicism, in other words, was configured in such a way in the late nineteenth century as to make it hard for antisemites to express their views without moving to the very edges of the Catholic framework. Catholicism and antisemitism did overlap at the time, but the common ground was much more confined than it would later become. If one moves forward fifty years, to the 1930s, one sees a different picture: the discursive boundaries of Catholicism in Poland had shifted to such a degree that antisemitism became not only possible, but also difficult to avoid. The upshot of this argument is that Catholicism in Poland is not antisemitic in any sort of essential way, and that religion did not directly generate the forms of hatred that would become so deadly and virulent in the early twentieth century. None the less, Catholicism did become amenable to antisemitism in Poland, so much so that the Church in Poland between the wars was one of the country's leading sources of prejudice and animosity.

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