佛教與基督宗教社會關懷的神聖對話

The Sacred Dialogue of Social Care between Buddhism and Christianity

鄭志明(Zhi-Ming Zheng)

《新世紀宗教研究》 10卷4期 (2012/06) Pp. 65-91

摘要

基督宗教與佛教是台灣社會福利的重要推手，滿足民眾社會變遷的服務需求，其貢獻有目共睹，但是二者所面對的生存挑戰也是相當艱鉅，處在價值迷亂的文化斷層地帶，在物質化與商業化的社會風氣導引下，各種救濟的關懷活動，夾雜著失序的人性糾紛與社會亂象，惡化了神聖與世俗相互調適的轉化能量，在現實的操作下經常帶有墮落的可能與瓦解的危機。宗教的社會關懷有其正面的價值與意義，但是當宗教日益關心現世的生活事務，也可能造成宗教的世俗化，而背離了其原有神聖的信仰內涵。這種神聖與世俗衝突的文化現象，是宗教在積極推動社會關懷時，應進行自我深度的反省以調節出精緻性的對應方法。宗教隨著社會世俗化的發展，或許可以獲得不少宣教的便利與優勢，同時也面對著各種分化與挑戰，瓦解或誤導了宗教的神聖性格。學界在這方面的討論不多，本文以基督宗教、佛教等作為對話的基點，探討二者在現代化的文化情境下，共同面對現實環境世俗化的挑戰時，如何回到其神聖的義理系統中，以適應時代的變遷進行價值的調適與方法的更新，這是一種相當嚴苛的文化挑戰，基督宗教與佛教是否已做好萬全的準備？

關鍵字

社會關懷 ； 基督宗教 ； 佛教 ； 神聖化 ； 世俗化

並列摘要

Christianity and Buddhism is the major force behind Taiwan's social welfare, meeting the service needs for people under social change. Their contribution is obvious to all, but both meet great challenges of survival as well. Confused with the value of cultural fault zone in the material and commercialized social atmosphere, various relief activities are mixed with disorder of human disputes and social chaos, deteriorating the mutual adaption of conversing energy between the sacred and the secular. Influenced by the reality, they are often faced with the possible crisis of deterioration and collapse. While religious social care has its positive value and significance, it may lead to secularization when increasingly concerned about the secular affairs of life, and hence deviates from its original divine faith connotation. This kind of cultural phenomenon, the conflict between the sacred and the secular, should be tackled seriously through self-depth reflection when religions actively promote social care. As religious societies develop side by side with social secularization, they may get a lot of missionary convenience and advantages; however, they are also faced with a variety of differentiation and challenges, which damages or misleads the sacred character of religion. Since there are few academic discussions in this regard, this paper aims to explore how Christianity and Buddhism, both faced with the challenge of secularization in reality, get back to the divine moral principles to adapt to the changing times. As the basis of the dialogue, whether Christianity and Buddhism are ready for this kind of harsh cultural challenges through value adjustment and method renovation is also discussed.

並列關鍵字

social care ； Christianity ； Buddhism ； sanctification ； secularization

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