Egyháztörténeti Szemle 18. (2017)
2017 / 3. szám - SUMMARIES IN ENGLISH - Rajki Zoltán: Relations between the Historically Established Churches and the New Protestant Entities in Hungary in the 19th-20th Centuries - Kasznár Attila: The Role of Taoism in the Chinese Political Culture
Summaries in English Relations between the Historically Established Churches and the New Protestant Entities in Hungary in the I9th-20th Centuries Rajki, Zoltán The emergence of new Protestant entities brought novel challenges for the historically established churches. Earlier, the people who posed a challenge for the historically established churches in the i9th-20th centuries were those who either turned from the traditional Christian faith, or interpreted it differently because they were under the influence of the Enlightenment and new political and scientific ideas. Though these seekers criticized traditional faith, they nominally remained within the institutional framework of the church. Others considered church life as hollow. However, they did not officially leave their church, either. Until the Communist takeover or Socialist secularization, the people (seekers) who primarily (apart from devoted Marxists) crossed denominational boundaries, were ones who joined the new Protestant entities. The difference is that the majority of the seekers who joined the new Protestant entities were religious church-goers. Decades before, their piety was the dominant one in the Protestant churches. In other words, the former dwellers became ’seekers’ abandoning their church, which then became an important social basis for the emerging new Protestant entities. Therefore, the complex system of relations between historically established churches and the classic new Protestant entities is to be reconsidered in a way that bears in mind not only the contemporary socio-historical and church- historical conditions, but also the ’seekers-dwellers’ concept, and we also utilize Peter Berger’s religious market approach and the church-sect- denomination-cult system of concepts in this study. The Role of Taoism in the Chinese Political Culture Kasznár, Attila The role of the Taoism establishing balance perfectly fits the fundamental principle set up by the ancient Chinese religious perception and completed by the Universism, according to which keeping the balance at all the levels of the life and existence is the basic aim. In the Confucianist, community- oriented Chinese world the Taoism is the classic scene of individualism’s manifestation, where the individual can find himself in certain dimensions. The stabile and conscious social place of the individual provides the possibility of the stabile existence of the society. The Taoism teaches the individual to keep the distance from politics thus it helps the stratum in power to maintain firm and constant the frames of the state(hood). That is because the individual following the Taoist belief wants less drastic social changes or does not want it at all, than his individualist counterpart socialized in the Western culture. The stability of power, the possibility of the long-term sustainability may be the key moments of building an empire. In other words the balance created by these two religions supports the political elite to maintain its power both in the domestic and international area.
