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Sage for the ages makes a comeback

BEIJING — Confucius is coming out of retirement.

Nearly 2,500 years after the sage’s death, China is dusting off his teachings to help tackle the travails of the 21st Century.

“Our economy has grown, but our spirit has dwindled,” said Feng Zhe, the 36-year-old founder of a new private school in Beijing that immerses middle-class children in Confucian discipline.

The scene at Feng’s school is more akin to China a millennium ago than to the country today. Each pupil bows to the teacher and settles behind a desk laden with nothing but a bottle of water, a note pad and a book of ancient sayings. Students recite each passage aloud no fewer than 600 times, memorizing the texts just as imperial scholars did for centuries.

Meanwhile, a string of modernized Confucian lectures became a surprise television sensation last fall. And those collected lectures produced “Insights on the Analects,” China’s best-selling book in recent memory — more than 3 million copies at last count — though purists deride it as well-packaged self-help, a kind of “Tuesdays With Confucius.”

Even Chinese authorities are embracing him, though it has been less than a generation since communist Red Guards denounced him as a symbol of a feudal past. China President Hu Jintao has incorporated the Confucian emphasis on unity and respect for authority into his signature call for a more “harmonious society” that is free of the peasant protests roiling the Chinese countryside.

Chinese authorities are keen to supervise the Confucian revival. Some wary local officials, for instance, have shut down Confucian schools for failing to meet national teaching guidelines, though other cities have allowed schools to operate quietly.

The search for solace in ancient ideas is a notable crosscurrent beneath China’s drive for modernization. Even as China becomes more prosperous and connected, it is groping for a coherent ideology that goes beyond the late leader Deng Xiaoping’s exhortation that “to get rich is glorious.”

“People can say, ‘China is rising and we’d like to be proud of our culture,’ but what is that culture?” said Steve Angle, a Fulbright scholar at Peking University and a philosophy professor at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. “Is it liberalism? Or, do we go back and have some kind of revived Confucianism?”

Two decades after China began dismantling communism, the vacuum is filled by every ideology and subculture from Christianity to Amway, yoga to conspicuous consumption, hip-hop to nationalism.

It can be hard to see where one ends and the other begins. One young Beijing office worker accepted an invitation to a Bible study and, afterward, asked a friend if Methodism is another of China’s many pyramid schemes.

Chinese young people know that communism, as embraced by their grandparents and revolutionized by their parents, thrives nowhere today outside the minds of the orthodox. By contrast, Confucianism is a homegrown set of values that, so far, do not run afoul of the ruling party.
FOR THE FULL STORY (EVAN OSNOS IN THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE) CLICK HERE

Malaysia rejects bid for Christian convert to remove Islam ID tag

The highest court in Malaysia yesterday rejected a Muslim-born woman’s appeal to be recognised as a Christian, ending a six-year legal battle that will heighten concerns over discrimination of the country’s religious minorities.

Lina Joy, 42, had fought the decisions of Malaysia’s lower courts in an effort to have the word “Islam” removed from her identity card, arguing that the constitution guaranteed her religious freedom.

But the panel of three judges decided, in a majority verdict, that it had no power to intervene in cases of apostasy. These cases fall under the jurisdiction of Malaysia’s Sharia courts, which run in tandem with the country’s civil courts.

However, it has never been made clear which branch of the court takes precedence. The Malaysian constitution guarantees freedom of worship, but ethnic Malays must be Muslim by law. “She cannot simply, at her own whim, enter or leave her religion,” Judge Ahmad Fairuz said during yesterday’s ruling. “She must follow rules.”

But Judge Richard Malanjum, the only non-Muslim on the panel, said it was “unreasonable” to ask Ms Joy to turn to the Sharia court as she could face criminal prosecution because abandoning Islam is punishable by a fine or jail. Critics of the verdict expressed dismay and said it failed to uphold the legal rights of Malaysians.

Two-hundred Muslim protesters who gathered in a prayer vigil outside the court yesterday greeted the verdict with cries of “Allahu Akbar” (God is great).

Islam is the official religion in Malaysia, where 60% of the country’s 27 million people are ethnic Malay.

The woman, born Azlina Jailani, started attending church in 1990 and was baptised eight years later. She was given permission to change her name, but “Islam” remained as her religion on her identity card.
SOURCE: GUARDIAN UK

LOVE ON EARTH — ‘Saving themselves’ for gay marriage
Justin Lee grew up with the notion of saving sex for marriage. When he realized he was gay, that could have thrown a wrench into his plans.

But with a growing acceptance of gay relationships inside and outside the gay community, and even a movement to recognize them legally, he knows it’s a viable option to wait.

There are no hard numbers, but gays and lesbians aren’t precluded from a recent surge among people choosing pre-marriage chastity. They aren’t necessarily holding themselves back until states start granting licenses to same-sex couples, though.

“When I talk about waiting for marriage, I’m talking about marriage in a religious sense,” says the 29-year-old executive director of the Gay Christian Network, a national group based in Raleigh, N.C. “I’m not waiting for Uncle Sam to give me a piece of paper so I can have sex.”

Even so, the trend toward civil unions and marriage for same-sex couples might encourage some people to wait, those in the know say.

“I think for those folks that embrace or adopt a traditional marriage-first attitude,” it’s more likely, says Steven James, an associate academic dean at Vermont’s Goddard College and founder of the school’s sexual orientation concentration in psychology and counseling.

In the days before the 1969 Stonewall riots, a turning point in the gay civil rights movement, the gay identity revolved around sex, and lots of it, Lee says.

“To suggest that you could be gay and not be having sex still seems to some people to be a contradiction in terms,” he says.
FOR THE FULL STORY (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION) CLICK HERE

Coming of the antichrist:
Banned 666 preacher on his way to Ireland for converts
A preacher who claims he is the “Antichrist” and has the number 666 on his arm could be on his way to Ireland.

Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda has two million followers who are convinced he is the new Jesus.

De Jesus thinks he is the messiah but calls himself the Antichrist, even though the traditional meaning is a person or force opposed to Christ.

The US-based religious leader who has already been banned from three countries is now planning to visit Ireland.

De Jesus has declared war on other organised religions and even encourages children to have the “mark of the beast” 666 tattooed on their bodies.

His followers are largely in the US and Columbia but the Irish Daily Mirror has learned his message is spreading to Europe and he has supporters in Ireland, Britain, Spain and Italy.

It is known he wants to visit Europe, and in particular to speak in Dublin, and claims nations which refuse him entry will be hit by natural disasters.
FOR THE FULL STORY (UK GUARDIAN VIA RELIGIONNEWSBLOG) CLICK HERE