Just realized that Thu night was our first time ever celebrating Hari Raya with Muslim friends since we left SG.
A month ago, I made friends with our postie and discovered he's a recent SG migrant and a Malay, and this week he texted to invite us to his place for dinner.
How good is that?
We got to meet his wife and daughters, his sis and her husband, his friends and their kids. One of the friends there recognized hubby from an encounter at the Migrant Hub before MH moved to Recreation Close. Small world!
Over home-made sardine puffs, potato puffs, mee rebus and chicken wings, we talked HDB, COE, homesickness, elderly parents, kids' schooling, public transport, winter...all the stuff migrants from SG love to talk about when we get together.
For our new friends, the sense of dislocation and homesickness and the sadness of being away from their families at such a significant time of year is particularly intense.
We know and trust that with time, they will be able to see also the goodness, the opportunities and the gifts that come into their lives just by being here in AUS.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Did the Ancient Chinese Know the God of the Bible?
Just finished reading 先贤之信 Faith of our Fathers: Discovering God in Ancient China, by Chan Kei THONG with Charlene L. Fu.
One of the thorny issues faced by Chinese Christians is their families' view that they have somehow abandoned their heritage and are no longer filial because they refuse to worship their ancestors and ancestral deities.
What the author's research shows is that in the early years of the Chinese empire, the emperors and the people knew and worshipped 上帝, the nameless Supreme One who was worshipped above all gods. The Emperor (or Son of Heaven) actually acknowledged that he himself was but a servant of 上帝 and had a duty to rule with wisdom, justice and mercy.
If you are intrigued by
I love this quotation from the 道德经:
故失道而后德， 失德而后仁，失仁而后义, 失义而后礼。
Despite my mediocre command of the Chinese language, I am instinctively drawn to this book and its message.
In particular, by the possibility - why not? - that a long time ago, our ancestors knew and worshipped the One True God. This was also when China was at its strongest and most magnificent, when it was ruled by Yao, Shun, Yu and a succession of other much-loved and inspirational Emperors who were known for their virtues.
Over the years the Emperors fell away and turned their attention from 上帝 to idols and the worship of self.
Isn't this consistent with modern China's rampant consumerism and materialism, communism and the rejection of the religious and spiritual, the yawning rich-poor divide, and the sense of a country that has somehow lost its former glory?
One of the thorny issues faced by Chinese Christians is their families' view that they have somehow abandoned their heritage and are no longer filial because they refuse to worship their ancestors and ancestral deities.
What the author's research shows is that in the early years of the Chinese empire, the emperors and the people knew and worshipped 上帝, the nameless Supreme One who was worshipped above all gods. The Emperor (or Son of Heaven) actually acknowledged that he himself was but a servant of 上帝 and had a duty to rule with wisdom, justice and mercy.
If you are intrigued by
- how China was first God's Country 神州 before it became the Middle Kingdom 中国
- how the dragon came to be so strongly representative of China, the Emperor and the Chinese identity,
- clues in the Chinese characters that suggest the Chinese knew and worshipped the God of the Bible,
- the attributes of 上帝 and how amazingly similar they are to the God of the Bible,
- the Great Sacrifice that the Emperor carried out every year on the boundaries of the capital that is reminescent of Old Testament sacrifices,
- how the 道德经 suggests 老子 was writing from the perspective of someone who had a knowledge of The Truth, you have to read the book yourself.
I love this quotation from the 道德经:
故失道而后德， 失德而后仁，失仁而后义, 失义而后礼。
Despite my mediocre command of the Chinese language, I am instinctively drawn to this book and its message.
In particular, by the possibility - why not? - that a long time ago, our ancestors knew and worshipped the One True God. This was also when China was at its strongest and most magnificent, when it was ruled by Yao, Shun, Yu and a succession of other much-loved and inspirational Emperors who were known for their virtues.
Over the years the Emperors fell away and turned their attention from 上帝 to idols and the worship of self.
Isn't this consistent with modern China's rampant consumerism and materialism, communism and the rejection of the religious and spiritual, the yawning rich-poor divide, and the sense of a country that has somehow lost its former glory?
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