{"id":1540,"date":"2017-10-03T00:24:10","date_gmt":"2017-10-03T07:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.asiamissions.net\/?p=1540"},"modified":"2018-09-09T00:02:00","modified_gmt":"2018-09-09T07:02:00","slug":"christian-transformation-of-ru-confucian-leadershipa-historical-and-comparative-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ewcenter.org\/?p=1540","title":{"rendered":"CHRISTIAN TRANSFORMATION OF RU (CONFUCIAN) LEADERSHIP:A HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS"},"content":{"rendered":"

This paper asks the question: What does Jesus Christ give to Ru (Confucian) leaders that enables these leaders to re-envision, reform and revive their role as stewards of the Chinese people and to exercise their important responsibility of bringing the people\u2019s concerns to the awareness of those working at the political center who establish and promulgate instruction\/policy for every sphere of human life?
\nTo answer this question well, we must think within Chinese categories without blindly imposing Western categories and terms on the Chinese people. Thus, in section one of this essay, three critiques of Western modern thinking about religion suggest that the Western term religion is not necessarily helpful in answering the above question. The essay\u2019s second section presents an overview of the developing complexity of human worship traditions, which lends support to the view that Jewish and Ru (Confucianism) traditions, among others, are better understood as reform movements within already well-established worship traditions. The third section presents significant parallels between monotheistic moral reform in ancient Israel and in ancient China in order to provide a shared context for appreciating what Jesus Christ brings to reformers of both these ancient heritages. The final section illumines what actually happens when Jesus Christ is received into the lives of those of Ru moral cultivation: enhancing their ability to lead as minister-advisors, on behalf of the people, to political centers today.[1]<\/a>
\nTHREE CRITIQUES OF WESTERN MODERN THINKING ABOUT RELIGIONS<\/strong>
\nRoman Polytheism and Latin Religio:[2]<\/a><\/em><\/strong> The modern expressions religions (in the plural), world religions, and religions of the world, which Western people have been using for only the last two centuries, bear three, not-often-recognized, connotations of polytheism, secular humanism, and nation-state rivalry\/war.
\nFirst, within the ancient Roman polytheistic context, the term religio referred to ritual observances or worship owed to different deities. Obligatory rituals were performed either to get or not to get something from a deity (to get success in war, cure of illness, birth of a child; or not to get a flood, pestilence, drought). In this polytheistic context, humans make offerings to deities from the best humans have in order to get something even better back from a deity. In short, obligatory rituals or worship take place within a context of pragmatic exchange between human beings and a deity, with the human purpose of requesting a favor from a deity.
\nSecond, as modern European peoples explored and colonized vast parts of Asia, Africa, and the Americas, they found groups of people engaging in worship in ways both similar and different from Christian ways of worship. To bring great pluralities of worship practices under some kind of rational control as they colonized, Europeans fabricated names like \u201cHinduism,\u201d \u201cBuddhism\u201d, \u201cMohammedanism\u201d, and \u201cConfucianism.\u201d For example, the Western, fabricated label of Hinduism refers to vastly different ways people of India worship 330 million deities. The term Buddhism refers to one path of yoga among many different paths of yoga practiced by people of India for release from the cycle of death and re-birth. The label \u201cMohammedanism\u201d was fabricated and modeled on the name \u201cChristian\u201d: just as Christians follow Jesus, so also Mohammedans were presumed to follow Mohammad. Similarly, the term Confucianism is the Western, fabricated name for those who follow Confucius (Chinese: Kong Fuzi).[3]<\/a>
\nThese Western, fabricated names became popular during the Western Enlightenment period (late 18th and of 19th centuries). However, those whom Westerners have labeled with their fabricated names have their own names for themselves\u2015names that are quite different in meaning from those Westerners have imposed.
\nMoreover, just as there is enormous variety among Christians, so also is there enormous variety among those labeled Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and Confucian. Thus, to speak about Hinduism or Buddhism or Confucianism as a single religion or single anything is not only a Western colonial thing to do, it is also an enormously misguided thing to do. Thus, we need to be greatly cautious when we engage Western names for so-called \u201cworld religions.\u201d Third, the Western colonial tendency to fabricate and to impose often misleading names on others went side-by-side with the Western, modern movement to lift up human reason as universally able to solve all human problems. As reason was promoted, obligatory ritual (worship) offered in exchange for favor from a deity has been gradually demoted, with four negative consequences:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Whole worship-centered ways of living were reduced to mere belief systems and deemed illogical;<\/li>\n
  2. Second, as universal reason was deemed to govern the public square, mere belief systems were pushed to the margins, to what people think privately, not publicly;<\/li>\n
  3. Third, mere belief systems were linked with ethnic groups and as ethnic groups come into conflict, conflicting mere belief systems are blamed. In other words, mere belief systems cause war.[4]<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Fourth, since mere belief systems are linked with ethnic groups, just as one cannot change one\u2019s ethnicity, so also voluntarily changing one\u2019s mere belief systems makes no sense. So also mission to convert others to one\u2019s mere belief systems makes no sense.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    To summarize, in the past two-hundred years, the coined expressions \u201creligions,\u201d \u201cworld religions,\u201d as well as the individual names for each religion all bear connotations of being: 1) non-rational belief systems, 2) private, non-public, 3) the cause of war, and 4) missional for the sake of political\/economic colonization.
    \nUnfortunately, it was precisely with this polytheistic, illogical, contentious, colonizing understanding of the modern term religion, with Christianity as one of many world religions, that Western, Christian missionaries took passage aboard European ships, setting sail for the four corners of the world. Adopting this new Western, modern understanding of religion, many missionaries set out to promote Christianity as \u201cthe one true religion\u201d (all other religions labeled false), rather than to offer Jesus Christ,    [5]<\/a> who would not harm a bruised reed,[6]<\/a> as the \u201cwounded healer\u201d[7]<\/a> and humble servant of every person in the world.
    \nIf we are to fathom God\u2019s intentions in Jesus Christ who comes to every worshipful people, we must move beyond Western, modern ways of thinking about religion, world religions, and Christianity as one of many world religions.<\/p>\n

    \u201cREFORM MOVEMENTS,\u201d NOT \u201cWORLD RELIGIONS\u201d<\/strong>
    \nAmong modern scholars of religion(s), many have sought to describe discrete stages in the origin and development of religion. Some have affirmed linear progress. Others have affirmed that spiritual evolution runs ahead and informs material evolution.    [8]<\/a> Others have affirmed that material evolution will ultimately out run religion as the rational mind solves all problems.[9]<\/a>
    \nBy way of example, I list my own discernment of four significant moments in the developing complexity of \u201cworship\u201d (a term I use instead of \u201creligion\u201d) and correlate (not causally) these moments with methods of subsistence and social organization.    [10]<\/a><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Paleolithic age, half a million years ago up to 10,000 BCE: Evidence of ritual treatment of skulls, of various burial practices, and of cave paintings suggests that ancestors of family clans\/tribes in small groups were associated with animal power. Hunting and gathering are the main means of human subsistence.<\/li>\n
    2. Neolithic age, starting 10,000 BCE: Worship of the sky and patterns of the stars takes place alongside worship of clan\/tribal ancestors of people living in larger groups. There is also worship of local rivers and mountains. Subsistence depends more upon agriculture.<\/li>\n
    3. Age of town civilizations, beginning circa 3,500 BCE: As different people groups gather in towns, deities\/spirits associated with these groups become ranked in a hierarchy that mirrors the political hierarchy among groups. Worship is aided by specially trained priests, sometimes kings serving as priests. The invention of writing gives more permanent record to worship practices involving mythic story enacted in rituals, among other practices. Existential questions as to the meaning of life and suffering emerge. Subsistence is aided by inventions, notably the plough, metals, and sturdy wheels for travel.<\/li>\n
    4. Age of Reform, beginning circa 11th century to 6th BCE: Within already established worship traditions, monotheistic moral reform of polytheism takes centuries, even millennia, with the following results:
      \nNot only priests or kings but individual persons have direct access to divine or transcendent power;
      \nAccess to divine or transcendental power is not only for the purpose of securing favor from a deity, including good life BEYOND this world, but also for the purpose of acting morally now IN this world;
      \nAccess to divine or transcendental power of one group is opened out to others of other groups.
      \nFrom these reform movements have come what modern Westerners label world religions: Judaism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam (formerly Mohammedanism), among others. Moreover, by continued focus on the above three aspects of monotheistic moral reform, these reform movements themselves have undergone continuous reform over 2,500 years.
      \nTrade, through increased means of travel, increases as greater numbers of people migrate from place to place looking for better means of survival. Towns and cities greatly expand and are occupied by a growing diversity of clans\/tribes. Bloody war also marks this period as military power gathered feudal towns into unifying states, states into unifying alliances, and alliances into unifying empires.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      PARALLEL REFORM MOVEMENTS OF ANCIENT ISRAEL AND ANCIENT CHINA<\/strong>[11]<\/a>
      \nAncient Israel and Reform of Leadership by Primogeniture: <\/em><\/strong>As the Torah, prophets, and wisdom books of ancient Israel narrate, God takes initiative, through Abraham, to inform humanity about who God really is. God of Abraham is not to be considered one of many gods. Nor is he to be worshipped in the manner of worshipping many gods, by offering expensive sacrifices in order to request some favor in return from a god. Instead, God of Abraham affirms the later concept of \u201cI am who I am\u201d, and that relationship to God is not about what humans will ask God to do for them, but rather about what God is asking humanity to do for God. Put simply, God of Abraham is asking humanity to represent God, to be God\u2019s ambassador here in the world. How? \u201cBy loving one another as God loves us\u201d, by taking the interests of others as important as one\u2019s own, by taking care of widows, orphans, and anyone marginalized, by releasing captives and redeeming the enslaved, by loving justice, showing mercy, and walking humbly with God.      [12]<\/a>
      \nIn asking humanity to love like God, to serve as God\u2019s ambassador of love here in the world, God of Abraham was calling for a massive reform of polytheism, ancestor worship, and leadership based on blood-line patriarchy as follows:
      \nGod affirms there is but one God over all peoples and the earth and, thereby rejects polytheistic worship of ancestors and nature spirits;
      \nGod builds a trans-tribal unity, by asking all peoples under God to love those of other tribes as though they are of one\u2019s own tribe;
      \nGod gives preference to the second son over the first-born son, and, thereby rejects leadership by primogeniture (right of succession to the first-born male child).
      \nWe now examine carefully each of these three reforms.
      \nFirst, to affirm God over all peoples and all the earth, God of Abraham gives new understanding to an ancient, pre-Israel, political practice called \u201ccovenant\u201d. Contemporary Jewish scholar, David Novak, in his book entitled Covenantal Rights: A Study in Jewish Political Theory,      [13]<\/a> cogently expresses this new understanding of \u201ccovenant\u201d as follows:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. God of Abraham creates and sustains just, right, and life-supporting order of the world. [35-39]<\/li>\n
      2. As creator and sustainer, God has claim over every person and thing He creates. [77]<\/li>\n
      3. God gives power to created persons and things, enabling them to respond to God\u2019s claim upon them. [40-41, 45]<\/li>\n
      4. God\u2019s claims on humans and human claims upon God constitute an interactive covenant relationship that is rational, moral, and freely chosen. [73-84, 100].<\/li>\n
      5. Like the covenant relationship between God and humans, covenant relationship between human persons also involves claims of persons on other persons who are created with power enough to respond to these claims.[84]<\/li>\n
      6. In covenant relationships, under God\u2019s created, just, right, and life-supporting order, there is one basic claim: love your neighbor as yourself. God has empowered all human persons with ability to respond to this claim. [117, 152]<\/li>\n
      7. Covenant relationships are broken in two ways: a) first, when a person does not respond to a claim that God or another human person makes upon a person, even though that person has God-given ability to respond to that claim and b) second, when a person claims from God or other persons that which God has not intentionally established in the just, right, and life-supporting order of the created world. [40-45, 75-76]<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Importantly, the ontological ground of all covenant relationships is God\u2019s creating and sustaining just, right, and life-supporting order here in the world. [101, 116]
        \nSecond, God\u2019s just, right, and life-supporting order requires all groups\/tribes to recognize each other as equally under God, equally without privileged access to God, and equally enabled to love others. To build a trans-tribal unity under one God, as those of one tribe learn to love those of other tribes, God requests his people to establish in Canaan, a union of tribes, sometimes called a \u201cconfederation\u201d, wherein no one tribe is to dominate over the others (Exodus). To lead this confederation of tribes, all in some sense equal under God, God sends leaders, known as judges (see Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra), whose decisions in governing the contentious tribes result in prosperity.
        \nThird, to uphold this new moral understanding of covenant that privileges no one by bloodline birthright to lead God\u2019s people known as Israel, God of Abraham, in a series of exemplary God-human interactions privileges the second or a younger son to lead, rather than the first-son, who would have become leader based on bloodline birthright. Consider the story of God preferring Abel\u2019s offering to that of Cain (Gen. 4). Consider Abraham\u2019s relating to Ishmael and Isaac, wherein the covenant of Abraham is passed not to Ishmael the first-born (as the Muslims understand it) but to Isaac (Gen. 16-17). Consider Isaac\u2019s blessing going to Jacob (later named Israel), not to Esau, the first-born (Gen. 25-27). Consider the story of Joseph, Jacob\u2019s younger son, who is sold into slavery in Egypt where he rises to become second in power (Gen. 37). Like Jacob himself, blessing is given to Joseph\u2019s second son Ephraim, not Manasseh, Joseph\u2019s first-born (Gen. 47). In all of these biblical stories, God of Abraham overturns leadership by bloodline birthright that privileges the eldest son. In so doing, by side-effect, God puts an end to ancestor worship.
        \nCovenantal reform of the whole of life was difficult. Over time God\u2019s people abandoned covenant relationship and the confederation of tribes; they reverted back to bloodline right to lead, primogeniture, ancestor worship, and polytheism. God\u2019s people asked for a king, and God gave them a succession of kings, who in pursuit of self-interest did not lead the people well, until finally all were led captive to Babylon (587 BCE). In captivity, with the help of teachers who give instruction in God\u2019s law, the remnant of Israel, God\u2019s people, endeavored to live in accordance with God\u2019s law. But in time, right relationship with God and neighbor \u2212 motivated by love, justice, and mercy in one\u2019s heart \u2013 was replaced by ritualistic legalism, rigid hierarchy, and increasing, privileged access to God.
        \nInto such ritualistic legalism came Jesus of Nazareth, like judges and prophets before him, to lead God\u2019s people back to right relationship between God and neighbor by loving others as God loves us and to serving as ambassadors of God\u2019s love here in the world. But there is something new with Jesus, who is unlike other teachers of the law. For by what Jesus does, he offers two free gifts of grace by which alone humanity is put in right relationship with God and neighbor and able to lead, not by relying on one\u2019s own power and works, but by relying on God\u2019s grace in these two free gifts.
        \nWe shall return to Jesus\u2019 two free gifts and to Christian leadership on the basis of these two free gifts shortly. For the moment, we turn to a reform movement in ancient China that, in parallel ways to ancient Israel, moves in a similar direction of affirming leadership based on care and concern for others, not primogeniture, and upon loving others beyond those of one\u2019s own group. This reform movement over 1000 years will give rise to what modern Western scholars have labeled \u201cConfucianism\u201d (the English term that translates the Chinese term \u201cRu\u201d).        [14]<\/a>
        \nAncient China and Reform of Leadership Determined by Primogeniture:<\/em><\/strong> To understand Ru (Confucian) teachings, we need first an understanding of Chinese \u201cfamily-ism\u201d, the glue that holds all of Chinese society together. The Chinese family has always been ordered by xiao, sometimes translated as \u201cfilial piety\u201d, but better translated as \u201crightly ordered family-clan affection.\u201d When a person is born into a Chinese family, he or she is born into a vast array of relationships ordered in accordance with one principle: in each relationship, one person (the older or the male or both) is in the upper (superior) role and the other person is in the lower (inferior) role. The person in the upper role has responsibility to provide food, clothing, shelter, and education to the person in the lower role. The person in the lower role has responsibility to be obedient, loyal, and grateful in response to receiving what the person in the upper role has provided. In every interaction, given that particular circumstance, each person must make careful discernment of and take action in accordance with one of the two roles. For over five millennia, learning role discernment and appropriate action accordingly has been the most important learning of any child.
        \nThere are five paradigmatic interactions between persons in these two roles:<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. Parents (upper role) and children (lower role);<\/li>\n
        2. Husband (upper role) and wife (lower role);<\/li>\n
        3. Older brother (upper role) and younger brother (lower role);<\/li>\n
        4. A friend who is older or male (upper role) and a friend who is younger or female (lower role); and<\/li>\n
        5. The leader, like a parent (upper role) and the people, like children (lower role).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Today, leaders of China, like parents, have responsibility to provide food, clothing, shelter and education for 1.4 billion people and the people who receive these provisions are to be obedient, loyal, and grateful in return.
          \nThe above-described family-ism is at the core of Ru, but Chinese family-ism existed long before Kongzi (Confucius) (551-479) walked the earth. What Kongzi brought to this tradition of family-ism was increased focus on moral innovative changes that began with the founding of the Zhou dynasty (circa 1025 BCE), roughly the time of God\u2019s call to Abraham.
          \nZhou innovative changes moved away from leadership based family-ism and primogeniture towards leadership based on moral character. The first of these Zhou innovative changes argued for the right to lead the people based not on bloodline, but on cultivating \u201cillustrious de (a power that can accrue through beneficial acts on behalf of others).\u201d The second Zhou innovative change inverted the hierarchical family order by allowing a teacher in the role of minister-advisor to serve in the upper role giving instruction to the political leader at the center of power in the lower role. A third Zhou innovative change involved extending care and concern for others beyond one\u2019s own family. These three innovative changes of the Zhou that affirm moral character as the basis of leadership, not on primogeniture, are the distinguishing characteristics of the Ru tradition, not family-ism. We now detail each of these three Zhou innovative changes.
          \nAs to the first innovative change, namely, leadership based on moral character not bloodline, towards the end of the 12th century BCE, the Zhou Ji clan waged battle against the last degenerate ruler of the Shang Zu clan and won. The Zhou Ji clan claimed the victory was the victory of Tian (Heaven), which \u2013having seen the plight of the people under the last oppressive Shang rulers, who were given to liquor and wasting of the people\u2019s labors in useless wars\u2013 moved its mandate (ming) to lead from the Shang Zu clan to the Zhou Ji clan. The Zhou Ji clan had already demonstrated its care and concern for the people 1) by ordering of the people\u2019s labors in accordance with Heaven\u2019s seasons, 2) in restrained use of wine, 3) in provision for widows and orphans, and 4) in light use of punishment. In these benevolent acts, the Zhou Ji clan had rendered its \u201cillustrious and bright\u201d its de, which wafted up to Heaven as though a sweet fragrant offering. Although King Wen died in battle, his son, King Wu took victory, as Tian removed its mandate to lead from the Shang house and gave it to the Zhou house, as the records of the Zhou house carefully describe.          [15]<\/a>
          \nThe second innovative change, which inverts the normal family\/hierarchical order by allowing a minister-advisor to take the upper role as teacher over the center of political power (in lower role), is paradigmatically portrayed in the relationship the Duke of Zhou had over King Wu\u2019s son, King Cheng, who, at the age of eight or nine, succeeded his father as king. At the time of King Cheng\u2019s succession, the remnant of the overthrown Shang Zu clan had initiated a counter-rebellion. The Duke of Zhou, brother to King Wu, serving as regent (minister advisor) to the young King Cheng, gave instruction to the young King Cheng as to how to quell the rebellion. The Duke of Zhou\u2019s advising of young King Cheng in suppressing the rebellion was so decisive that some feared the Duke of Zhou was perhaps seeking to take hold of political power for himself. To these concerns expressed by the Duke of Shao, another brother in the clan, the Duke of Zhou responded as follows:<\/p>\n

          Now it rests with me, the little child Tan. I am as if floating on a great stream. I shall go and together with you, Shih, cross it. I, the little child, am just the same as when not yet in high position. Do not request me to retire, without encouragement I shall not succeed. If men who are old and of illustrious de do not condescend to help, to us of the Zhou then no singing bird will make itself heard; how much the less shall we be able to succeed\u2026. The mandate which we have received, limitless is its beauty, but great are its difficulties\u2026. You should brightly exert yourself to be a helpmate to the king and to the utmost carry on this great mandate. \u2026I thereby exert myself for Heaven and the people. (Shujing [Book of Documents,\u201d section entitled \u201cZhun shi\u201d)[16]<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

          The Duke of Zhou\u2019s defense of his actions bears important themes for later Ru:<\/p>\n

            \n
          1. Tian (Heaven) is transcendent\/immanent order that is good, right, peaceful, harmonious, life-supporting, and provides for the people.<\/li>\n
          2. Heaven mandates (ming) family order: first son, second son, third son, and so on.<\/li>\n
          3. Family order is expressed in learned, prescribed rituals (li) that restrain emotion, thought, word, and deed.<\/li>\n
          4. De is the presence of Heaven in a leader that enables him to provide for the people and all things as a good parent would.<\/li>\n
          5. If a leader provides for the people and all things as a good parent would, he cultivates\/enhances de.<\/li>\n
          6. One studies the oral-written record of those of illustrious de in the past in order to cultivate\/enhance illustrious de in oneself.<\/li>\n
          7. Anyone of cultivated, illustrious de has responsibility to assist a leader in providing for the people as a good parent would.<\/li>\n
          8. Although lower in rank, a person of cultivated, illustrious de, for the sake of assisting the king in his provision for the people, can serve as a teacher (in upper role) over the king (in lower role).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            Emulation of the Duke of Zhou in his inversion of hierarchical order in order to give instruction to the king about how to provide for the people as a good parent would is a distinguishing mark of the Ru moral tradition. To those who serve as minister-instructors to the political center, a highly challenging role that often requires courageous critique of the political center, I have given the name \u201cminister of the moral order.\u201d[17]<\/a>
            \nThe third innovative change of the Zhou, namely, extending care to others beyond one\u2019s family, involves cultivation of ren (benevolence, goodness, kindness). Kongzi (Confucius) gave cultivation of ren primary focus and is remembered as China\u2019s greatest teacher. Kongzi emphasized:<\/p>\n

              \n
            1. One must cultivate the \u201cinterior side\u201d (later called \u201cthe heart-mind\u201d [xin]) of ritual as well as the \u201cexterior side\u201d (visible actions) of ritual.<\/li>\n
            2. A lifetime of effort to practice putting aside self-interest for the sake of the larger whole cultivates ren.<\/li>\n
            3. A person of ren is a true noble person (junzi), able to assist by giving instruction to those at the political center, who are responsible for providing for the people as a good parent would.<\/li>\n
            4. Anyone able to offer a dried piece of meat, who, when shown one corner comes back with the other three, may be instructed in ren.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

              With these four emphases in the cultivation of ren, Kongzi inspired his students to study the record of former sage-kings, to examine inwardly their motives, to think rationally through how to apply old principles in new situations, and to take courage in assuming the role of instructor over the political center.
              \nImportantly, Kongzi\u2019s instruction did not involve coercion of any kind:
              \nThe Master said, \u201cLead the people with government regulations and keep them orderly using penal law, and sure enough, they will avoid punishment but be without a sense of shame. Lead them with de and keep them orderly with ritual, and they will develop a sense of shame and moreover, will order themselves.\u201d (Analects 2.3)
              \nTrusting, resting, and relying on Heaven\u2019s way already in everything, already present in all prescribed ritual action, Kongzi did not fabricate any man-made order to impose from the top down. Seeking instead to align with Heaven\u2019s \u201cgood, right, life-supporting, providing for the people, peaceful and harmonious\u201d way, Kongzi taught that all that is needed to cultivate ren is 1) access to records of the moral way of ancient sage-kings,              [18]<\/a> 2) intelligence, 3) will to practice vigilantly, and 4) courage when one\u2019s life is threatened. Heaven does the rest.
              \nOver a lifetime of effort and practice, ren on the inside increasingly motivates outward, prescribed, ritual actions. Inner character expressed outwardly in appropriate, learned ritual action mattered most to Kongzi as the one effective way to restore manifestation of Heaven\u2019s order in the world.
              \nTo summarize, in similar ways, God\u2019s call to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants and Heaven\u2019s call to the Zhou Ji clan, as transmitted by the Duke of Zhou, Kongzi, Mengzi, Xunzi, and their followers inspired \u201cinnovative, monotheistic, moral reform movements,\u201d within polytheistic worship traditions already in place. These two reform movements share several elements in common. First, transcendental power was discerned as one, not many. Just as God called Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to worship God alone, so also leaders of the Zhou Ji clan, especially the Duke to Zhou, Kongzi, Mengzi, Xunzi, and their followers focused on Heaven and put worship of spirits at a distance. Second, God and Heaven were discerned to be concerned with the greater welfare of the people, whom leaders were called to serve. Third, leaders called to serve the people needed the help of instructors (prophets in the case of Israel and minister-advisors in the case of China) to put aside self-interest for the sake of the people and the kingdom.
              \nHowever, with the passage of time, these two 1000-year-old, monotheistic moral reform movements (roughly 1000 BCE to 0 BCE) that innovatively moved away from royal-blood primogeniture as the basis of leadership and towards moral character as the basis of leadership, devolved back into bloodline-based primogeniture, family-ism, rigid social hierarchy, and ritual legalism, for which the Jewish tradition and the Ru tradition are misunderstood and rejected by many today.
              \nInto Jewish primogeniture, family-ism, rigid social hierarchy, and ritualistic legalism came Jesus of Nazareth, like judges and prophets before him, to lead God\u2019s people back 1) to right relationship between God and neighbor through loving others as God loves us and 2) to serving as ambassadors of God\u2019s love here in the world. But there is something new with Jesus, for by what Jesus does, he offers two free gifts of grace by which alone humanity is put in right relationship with God and neighbor and able to lead, not by relying on one\u2019s own power and works, but by relying on God\u2019s grace in these two free gifts.
              \nIn the next section, we explore some ways that receiving Jesus\u2019 two free gifts enable Ru leaders to re-envision, reform, and revive their role as stewards of the people and to exercise their important responsibility of bringing the people\u2019s concerns to the awareness of those working at the political center who establish and promulgate instruction\/policy for every sphere of human life.<\/p>\n

              WHAT HAPPENS WHEN RU LEADERS RECEIVE JESUS AS SAVIOR AND LORD?<\/strong>
              \nTo understand how reception of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord can reform and revive Ru moral cultivation for leadership, we first present what Jesus\u2019 two free gifts are:
              \nThe First Free Gift: Resurrection and Justification:<\/em><\/strong> Through Jesus Christ\u2019s passion on the Cross, death, and resurrection, we who by God\u2019s grace receive Him are justified, that is, put in right relationship with God:<\/p>\n

                \n
              1. \n
                  \n
                1. We have been declared not guilty or \u201cnot shamed\u201d, for by His sacrifice, He has taken our sin<\/li>\n
                2. into death once and for all, remembered no more \u2013 \u201cit is finished\u201d (Jn 19:30);<\/li>\n
                3. We are liberated from slavery to sin, death, and evil as Jesus Christ\u2019s resurrection declares victory over Satan, and<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                  We are healed as we are taken up into new life in Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

                  The Second Free Gift: Pentecost and Sanctification:<\/em><\/strong> At Pentecost by God\u2019s grace, the Father, through the Son, sent the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, the second free gift, and sanctification begins whereby the salvific change that has taken place invisibly inside us begins to manifest visibly on the outside \u2013 to reveal itself through the clay of our lives: in feelings, thoughts, words, gestures, actions, buildings, institutions, and every manner of stewardship.
                  \nThe Chinese call this clay, this material stuff of our lives, qi, meaning the entire range of physicality from the subtlest form of energy to giant boulders of rock. In sanctification by the power of the Holy Spirit, the life-offering love of God increasingly manifests in qi, the material clay of our lives, in the way we breathe and feel, in what we say, do, build, organize, and steward.
                  \nSanctification by the Holy Spirit in some ways is parallel in movement with what Chinese people call dao (way), which moves from inward invisibility into outward visibility. Not only this, just as Jesus Christ is both the \u201cway\u201d and the \u201cword\u201d of God, so also the Chinese term dao means both \u201cway\u201d and \u201cto speak.\u201d In Chinese discernment, dao, the true, living way of Heaven, is moving from invisibility to visibility, moving from inaudibility into greater audibility.
                  \nAs has been the story around the world for the last 2,000 years, when Jesus Christ is received as Savior and Lord, inherited and precious heritages of ways of living are not destroyed, but corrected, reformed, and transfigured. The same is true for Ru leaders who receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. As Jesus Christ incarnates \u2212gently and non-impositionally\u2212 into Ru ways of living, there is rectification, transfiguration, and fulfillment through rebirth of the human heart-mind (xin).
                  \nIn Chinese discernment, manifesting (making outwardly visible) Heaven\u2019s good, right, life-supporting, harmonious way already within one is the responsibility of the human heart-mind (xin). If Heaven\u2019s way is not visible here in the world, the problem is with the human heart-mind. So what is the difficulty? Does the human heart-mind lack focused reflection? Is the lack of focused attention due to a lack of will? And is the lack of will due perhaps to something lacking in human nature?
                  \nOver 2500 years, Ru have pondered these questions with regard to the human heart-mind and offered every variety of answer giving rise to multiple schools within the Ru tradition. Common to all Ru schools is instruction on how to cultivate the human heart-mind, first, by pruning away self-interest for the sake of the larger whole and second, by practicing vigilantly the moral way of the ancient sage-kings, making the old way new in today\u2019s world. Study, effort, practice, study, effort, practice. No special divine assistance here.
                  \nBut what if there were divine assistance?<\/em><\/strong> What if Jesus Christ takes the lack of focused reflection, the lack of will, the burden of choices one never wanted to make, the overwhelming grief over what has been lost through one\u2019s choices, the continuing agony that one did not do better for one\u2019s family, for one\u2019s friends, for one\u2019s community, for one\u2019s people, although Heaven knows how much one tried? What if Jesus Christ takes all this fallenness into death upon the Cross, and it is remembered no more? The first free gift.
                  \nA new heart shall I give you, and will put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and give you a new heart of flesh. And I shall put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes (Ezek. 36:26-27).
                  \nAnd what if God the Father, through the Son, Jesus Christ, sends the Holy Spirit to strengthen and to hold steady the human heart-mind made new in Jesus Christ? With the Holy Spirit aligning human heart-minds with the heart-mind of Christ, Ru ways of living are corrected, reformed, and transfigured in Jesus Christ. The second free gift.
                  \nRomans 12: 1-21 (NIV) describes precisely how by God\u2019s grace the two free gifts of Jesus Christ correct, reform, and transfigure the whole of human life:<\/p>\n

                  12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God\u2019s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God\u2014this is your true and proper worship. 2Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God\u2019s will is \u2013his good, pleasing and perfect will. 3For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. 4For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; 7if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. 9Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13Share with the Lord\u2019s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. 14Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. 17Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God\u2019s wrath, for it is written: \u201cIt is mine to avenge; I will repay,\u201d says the Lord. 20On the contrary: \u201cIf your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.\u201d 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

                  Generations of authentic, ecclesial community sorting through former ways of living \u2013saying \u201cyes\u201d to this and \u201cno\u201d to that\u2212 gradually incarnate Jesus Christ in inherited ways of living being ever corrected, reformed, and transfigured by the Holy Spirit.
                  \nIn this Holy Spirit-led transfiguring process, two areas of Ru leadership need particular attention: earning and spending.
                  \nAs to the first, in all regions where Ru learning and practice have gained sway, there is a pervading message that one can and should \u201cearn\u201d one\u2019s way to merited positions of power and responsibility. By contrast Luke 15, with its three parables, affirms that God\u2019s love and salvation cannot be earned nor merited but are simply given by God\u2019s grace alone.
                  \nRelatedly, how does one \u201cspend\u201d God\u2019s graciously given love and salvation? Here, Luke 16 has important instruction: with gratitude in our hearts toward God for what He has done for us in Jesus Christ (which we have not merited), we are to offer compassion, mercy, and forgiveness to others, again without regard to merit.
                  \nAs Christian love transfigures Ru leadership, those who lead in an upper role walk more humbly with those in lower role for whom they are responsible to provide food, clothing, shelter, and education. They do so by listening and responding to those whom they serve, taking others\u2019 interests to heart, rather than imposing policies merely from the top-down. Reformed in Jesus Christ, Ru leadership is less vertical and far more horizontal as leaders share responsibilities rather than allowing one person to dominate from the top down. Instead, from the bottom up, encouraging harmonious offering of gifts, talents, and wisdom that God has given His people brings out their best and their grateful, responsible stewardship of others. Love extends beyond the natal family to all members of one family in Jesus Christ.
                  \nImportantly, receiving the two free gifts of Jesus Christ enables Ru leaders to rely on God\u2019s grace as they re-envision, reform, and revive the minister-advisor role as stewards of the people and to exercise their important responsibility of bringing the people\u2019s concerns to the awareness of those working at the political center who establish and promulgate policy for every domain of life. Prior to receiving Jesus as Savior and Lord, Ru leaders rely on the own vigilant study, cultivated will, practiced courage, and cumulative ren as they face possible demotion, exile, even death when, for the sake of the people, they dare to give wise counsel (in upper role) to those of political power (in lower role).
                  \nReceiving and resting in the two free gifts of Jesus Christ, Ru \u201cminister-advisors of the moral order\u201d no longer depend solely on themselves to cultivate moral character. Receivers of Jesus Christ not only have ancient sage-kings and ministers as models, they have Jesus Christ, who is the original servant leader (Eph. 2) in whom all servant-leaders by the Holy Spirit live, move, and have their being. Moreover, it is not mere contentment in good times or bad that characterizes a Christian \u201cminister-advisor of the moral order\u201d but overflowing gratitude for what God has done and continues to do to enable each and every person to be the person God intends her\/him to be.
                  \nWhereas Kongzi (Confucius) was innovative in his seeking frugality and selflessness in the practice of ritual, which for him mirrored Heaven\u2019s way, Christian \u201cminister-advisors of the moral order\u201d go further: by the Holy Spirit they abound in compassion and mercy, seek justice and the release of captives. Whereas the masses of people have depended on Ru leaders to speak on their behalf, they also have despised these same leaders who, having entered the circle of self-centered political power, often turned from the people and even against the people in pursuit of profit. By contrast, Christian \u201cminister-advisors of the moral order,\u201d alive in Jesus Christ, surrender pride, arrogance, merit, prestige as they partake of their Savior\u2019s \u201cwounded healing,\u201d steer away from primogeniture, rigid hierarchy, legalism, and ritualism, and are beloved, cherished, and remembered for their deep sacrifices on behalf of others, just as He.<\/p>\n

                  ENDNOTES<\/strong><\/p>\n

                  \n

                  [1]<\/a>This presentation weaves together in significantly new ways several themes from my earlier writing; please see: Diane B. Obenchain, \u201cRevelations of the Dragon: Observations on Christianity and Ru (Confucianism) in China Today\u201d, the Henry Neumann Lecture presented at Princeton Theological Seminary on April 14, 1999 and published in The Princeton Seminary Bulletin, July 2000;
                  \n—–\u201cJewish and Ru Moral Community: Compatibilities and Contributions to the Modern Era,\u201d Edition Ch\u014dra: Verlag Fur Philosophie und Kulturwissenschaften (Series for Asiatic and Comparative Philosophy), edited by G\u0171nter Wohlfart and Rolf Elberfeld (Cologne, Germany: Spring 2002);
                  \n—–\u201cYoutaijiao \u2013 Jidujiao shengyue shehui yu rujia shehui: yu tian tong gong\u201d (\u201cJudeo-Christian Covenant Community and Ru [Confucian] Community: Co-partnership with Heaven\u201d), trans. by Shin Yun, in Jidujiao Wenhua Yanjiu (Christian Culture Studies), August 2003;
                  \n—–\u201cReformed Perspectives on Christian Faith in a Multi-Religious World: Jesus Christ as Salt, Light, and Yeast for Reform\u201d, for international conference on \u201cReformed Mission in an Age of World Christianity\u201d, June 15-17, 2010 in conjunction with the Uniting General Conference (UGC), an assembly held Friday, June 18\u201327, 2010 to unite the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Reformed Ecumenical Council into one ecclesiastical body, at Calvin College;
                  \n—–Reverend Dr. W. Donald McClure Endowed Lectures (3) and Chapel Service, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Sept. 28-29, 2009: Lecture #1 \u2013 What is the Problem with \u201cReligion\u201d? Lecture #2 \u2013 Why is \u201cReligion\u201d Especially Suspect in China? Lecture #3 \u2013 Who is a \u201cChristian Minister of the Moral Order\u201d? Chapel Service – Chinese Calvinism Today: Partners in Prayer\u201d;
                  \n—–“If he really loved her, he would not have worried about the distance (Analects 9:30),” Guest Speaker at the Creative Arts Program Seminar “Eye on the World: Changing Landscapes,” at the National University of Singapore and the Gifted Education Unit, Ministry of Education, May 26-30, 1992;
                  \n—–\u201cMinisters of the Moral Order: Innovations of the Early Chou [Zhou] Kings, the Duke of Chou [Zhou], Chongni [Zhongni] and Ju [Ru]\u201d, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, 1984.
                  \n                  [2]<\/a> See Wilfred C. Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (NY: Macmillan, 1963; Fortress Press edition, 1991), primarily Ch. 2. This section is based on Smith, with updates from my own research.
                  \n                  [3]<\/a> Diane B. Obenchain, —–\u201cMinisters of the Moral Order: Innovations of the Early Chou [Zhou] Kings, the Duke of Chou [Zhou], Chongni [Zhongni] and Ju [Ru]\u201d, op. cit.
                  \n                  [4]<\/a> Samuel Huntington\u2019s much criticized The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Simon & Schuster, 2011 edition) is a convenient example.
                  \n                  [5]<\/a> E. Stanley Jones, Christ of the India Road (Abingdon Press, 1915).
                  \n                  [6]<\/a> Isaiah 42:3
                  \n                  [7]<\/a> Henry Nouwen, The Wounded Healer (New York: Doubleday Books, 1972).
                  \n                  [8]<\/a> Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, for example.
                  \n                  [9]<\/a> Karl Marx, for example.
                  \n                  [10]<\/a> This overview follows but substantially expands upon that of Frank Whaling (ed.), Theory and Method in Religious Studies: Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion, (Walter de Gruyter, 1984), Vol.1.
                  \n                  [11]<\/a> Many scholars have compared ancient Israel and ancient China 1100-100 BCE. For a contemporary study, see Galia Patt-Shamir, To Broaden the Way: A Confucian-Jewish Dialogue (Studies in Comparative Philosophy and Religion, Lexington Books, 2006).
                  \n                  [12]<\/a> Micah 6:8.
                  \n                  [13]<\/a> David Novak, Covenantal Rights: A Study in Jewish Political Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).
                  \n                  [14]<\/a> Obenchain, op. cit. The Chinese term ru (meaning \u201cweak\u201d) refers to well-versed scholars of the \u201cFive Classics\u201d in contrast with those of military expertise and prowess.
                  \n                  [15]<\/a> Ibid.
                  \n                  [16]<\/a> Shuching (Book of Documents). Translated by Bernard Karlgren in reprint of Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 22 (1950), 16, 18, 22, pp, 59-62, cited in Obenchain, op. cit., p. 92.
                  \n                  [17]<\/a> Ibid.
                  \n                  [18]<\/a> Since the Han dynasty (circa 200 BCE-200 CE), record of the moral way of ancient sage-kings is called the \u201cFive Classics\u201d (wu jing), consisting of 1) leaders\u2019 pronouncements (Shu), 2) court poems (Shi), 3) codes of prescribed rituals (Li), 4) annals of noteworthy political events (Chunqiu), and 5) manuals for divining Heaven\u2019s way (Yi).<\/p>\n

                  * This paper was presented at the 2015 Forum of the Asian Society of Missiologists in Thailand. It is also published in the compendium of the same Forum.<\/em><\/p>\n

                  ============================
                  \nDr. Diane B. Obenchain is Professor of Religion and Director of the China Initiative in the School of Intercultural Studies (SIS) at Fuller Theological Seminary. A comparative historian of religion (PhD, Harvard University), her work has four foci: 1) Christian engagement with people of other faith, 2) East and Southeast Asian traditions of faith, with a focus on the Ru (Confucian) heritage, 3) the global, interactive history of faith from the Neolithic period to the present, and 4) cross-disciplinary methods in the study of faith and worship Her current work includes four book projects 1) Confucian Confusion: What\u2019s in a Name?, 2) For China: Comparative Essays on Moral Leadership and Individual Responsibility, 3) Rethinking Mission, and 4) The Garden of a Spoonful of Water: Beloved Terrain of Emperors, Foreign Missions, Yenching University (Christian), Peking University , and China’s “Silicon Valley” Today. <\/em><\/p>\n

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