【美联社】孔子故乡教堂计划引发抗议

美联社报道：孔子故乡教堂计划引发抗议

（北京）2010年12月26日：中国无神论政府要在孔子故乡兴建基督教堂以图促进古代哲学思想和该国快速发展的宗教之间的关系。但是忽然间，事情变得不平静了。

儒家团体和十位著名学者要求曲阜停止建造哥特式教堂，认为该教堂的规模超过世界上最著名的儒家庙宇，是外国（宗教）入侵圣地的象征。

星期三在博客上发布的一份公开信说“如果在耶路撒冷、麦加或梵帝岗建造一座超大规模的孔庙，超过当地的宗教建筑，当地的人民会是什么感受？（当地）的政府和人民会接受吗？

陷身争议之中的是教堂的牧师，一位孔子75代后裔。孔祥铃本月对国家新华社说，因为建在作为中华文明象征的哲学家故乡，教堂的意义重大。

在毛泽东时代被批判为落后的（思想）之后，孔子正在复活。今年上映了政府支持的由周润发主演的传记电影。政府以这位哲学家的名义在海外提升它的“软实力”，建立了大量教授文化和语言的孔子学院。

现在中国官员在推动将他在东部省份山东省的出生地作为他的哲学与基督教思想进行交流的场所。他们说这个教堂将建有两个文明对话的交流中心。

但是学者们的抗议提出了关于什么是中国价值的深切文化忧虑。

儒学强调道德、伦理和礼仪被视为一种哲学思想，而不是宗教。但是被认为是中国影响最广的指导思想。在中国官方所承认的五大宗教中—佛教、道教、伊斯兰教、新教和天主教，道教是唯一中国本土的（宗教）。

中国执政的共产党接受孔子用以打造所谓“和谐社会”，但是这也同时激发了反对在曲阜教堂的民族主义。

首都师范大学的儒家学者陈明是公开信的一位联署者。尖锐地评论说一个世纪前山东的西方教徒与农民的摩擦导致了著名的波及华北的义和团运动，并引发北京对西方帝国主义的民族主义愤怒。中国学生仍然被教导说这是被列强欺凌的屈辱时代。

陈说： “当然，我不同意拒绝外部世界，但是我同时认为必须对本土文化的保持基本的尊重。”

十位学者和十个儒家团体本周的公开信说抗议者并不反对基督教，而只是对教堂本身提出异议。新华社报道说，这座
教堂高度超过41米（135英尺）并将容纳3000人，将于两年后完工。官员们说曲阜有大约10000名基督徒，现在的简易教堂只能容纳800人。

学者们抗议说教堂高度超过孔庙，而且距离只有2英里（3公里）。虽然孔庙的建筑群范围更大，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）。

曲阜宗教宗教事务局局长孔伟星期五晚没有做任何评论。

曲阜今年秋天在承办了政府主导的尼山世界文明论坛以缓和旧有的（文化）对立。国际基督教和儒学学者，包括美国福音派电视传教士罗勃特•舒勒参加了这个主题为“和谐、仁爱、诚信、宽容”的大会。（按：中方宣传的主题是“和而不同与和谐世界”）

但是本周这份抗议信的联署者中就有一位论坛的组织者，山东大学教授儒家学者颜炳罡。根据中国哲学博客网上论坛简介，他在论坛期间批评了“19世纪基督教传教士的蛮横行为”。

一名西方与会者说公开信不是反对基督教，“但是就曲阜作为与早期儒家密切相关的地方具有特殊地位，因而另有一番意味。”

美国康涅狄格州卫斯理大学史蒂芬•安格尔教授写信给美联社说中国的城市和建筑“考虑到建筑物不同地位和相关功能真的有理由认为由于它的位置教堂的设计是不适宜的。”

附美联社报道原文

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."

来源：儒教复兴论坛http://www.rjfx.net/dispbbs.asp?boardID=4&ID=12244&page=1

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