Taiwan Church News 3360 Edition July 18 - 24, 2016 Editorial From A Vivid Sketch On Paper To An Incarnated Cultural Life In Action A slogan, like "Root deep of our culture and beef up our national soft power!", is always chanted by every ministerof culture in the past. But our country folks' idea of culture, a multi-dimensional process, be it from taste to engagement, from observation to participation, or from reading to action, is actually a transformation: "from a vivid sketch on paper to an incarnated cultural life in action"! It means what were once put into print, be it local customs, folks habits, territorial history and oral literature, has been adapted as a part of our real life somehow. In other words, whatsoever, a piece of living literary artwork will go beyond its traditional bounds and breathe with the common people. Between the human and culture, the museum is always the most important media: collecting historical formats fromtraditional paper to e-book or versatile contents stored in sound, letters or images; standing out fearlessly as a public institute for the people, proclaiming the well-being of human being, and marching toward a progressive human culture; being proud of raising up the level and contents of scientific knowledge, democratic consciousness, aesthetic taste, historical memories, spiritual inheritance, the meaning of life and etc. Following the rapid social changes, unprecedented economic efficiency and imbalanced wealth accumulation,resulted from international power struggle, globalization and technological development, the museum after the 20th century has to face the incurred various social problems like ecological destruction, energy waste, war conflicts, asymmetry between human rights and ecological resources. Taiwan, as a country with a multi-layered colonial histories, the original function of a museum was designed toshow off the modernized glory of the imperial power. But now the issue of how to build up a true museum for the Taiwanese people, overcoming kinds of contemporary social challenges and tearing down the hegemony of state machine, is the most important job for us to proceed. Through the museum's various functions, like research and development, collection, exhibition, educational promotion and public service, our Taiwanese culture can be easily accessed by common people just like a natural breathe in the woods. The Taiwanese culture could be infused with the core confessions of our faith, which has demonstrated herselfin millennium history as an abundantly yielded tree consisted of language, culture, literature and cultural innovation: language as her root, culture the trunk, literature the leaves and cultural innovation the fruit. Only through a nutritious supply via faith, our Taiwanese culture could be rooted deep in language, expanded strong in culture, glittered dense in literature and harvested abundantly in cultural innovation! With a purpose to restore a historically outlook of Chû-tin-tông on 21st October, Taiwan Church Press(TCP) willrejuvenate her operation modeled on a museum. Not only TCP's management will be greatly facilitated henceforth, the ideal of justice and human rights will also be propagated through an extraordinary sale of fair trade coffee. Such a new mission of TCP, infusing Christian theology, religious faiths, humanistic knowledge and cultural event, is to build up a cross-cultural platform in Taiwan and enrich our dynamic and diverse cultural lives within the Christian faith and the kingdom of God! |