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Taiwan Church News 3218 Edition October 28 - November 3, 2013 Editorial Editorial: In The Way Of Reformation, Search For The Image Of God October 31st is a significant date for us to remember about the religious reformation, initiated by Martin Luther in 1517 and culminated into a series of reformation movements inside or outside ecclesiastical worlds, by posting 95 theses critiques about sin retribution coupon on the front gate at Weddenburg University Chapel. Even though Martin Luther would had never imagined that his protest would incur such giant revolution and affect the world centuries ahead, due to his strong protest were only restricted to the discussion on theology and faith issues but just unfortunately got tried and finally excommunicated from the contemporary church, the reformation of church was amazingly launched without no return. Not only the Protestant succeeds this reformation asset and keep reforming until now, the Catholic church is also strongly affected to start her inner change. Within the dialogue of the Catholic Church, through three major appeals of "Sola Scriputure", "Sola Faith" and "Sola Grace" respectively, Martin Luther released the 'image of God" from the paralyzed liturgy and doctrine of the old Catholic Church practices and allow laymen to read the Bible using their own vernacular and languages to access God and establish the appropriate relationship between man and God. This is an important mile stone for both church and society. Today, when the Christianity reformation is commemorated, we have to ask the question that whether the image of God is manifested on this home land that Lord God granted to us? On many recent events in Taiwan, not only the image of God is absent but further be weakened and diluted. Be it the Daipu event of Chang Pharmacy, Hse-lin Wang Family, The 4th Phase of Taichung Science Park or The Event of Corporal Hung Chung-chiu, we have all seen the image of God was continually eroded away. While many people angrily threw their shoes against the President to display their extreme contempt and complain to this government, lawmakers still hardened their heart to pass the bill asking both National Security Office to strengthen the security force and the prosecutors to straight jacketed those protesters. This is to curtail the people's freedom of free speech and also destroy Taiwan's search of the image of God. Regarding the recent civil law modification strife between True Love Alliance and Taiwan Companion Rights Movement Association, where the issue is focused on the so-called "Multi-Way Of Family Formation Bill", referring to a modification of civil law code 927 to include "marriage egalitarianism", "companion institute", and "family system", all Taiwan churches seem to be mobilized in a grand scale expecting to stop this bill modification. Within this process of lobbying and anti-lobbying, what we saw is that both parties express their own standing position clearly, yet no way to engage a true dialogue. Evidently, this is an important issue that Taiwan church is greatly concern, but the more critical question is how to restore back the suppress image of God on this particular issue and not just flagging the moral banner to condemn and fight against LGBT groups orMulti-Way Of Family Formation Billl. In the witch hunting atmosphere against 927 civil code modification, we hope there can be more dialogue and mutual understanding at this moment. In addition, learning from the spirit of St. Ignatius, founding his Jesuit order in order to contest the Reformed Churches and pass the good news to east Asia thereafter, we hope Taiwan Church could really care about those real problems generated from the hetero-marriage and monogamy institution. Religious reformation is a journey to search a "true" image of God, yet we all are still walking in the way of it. We have to be clear and we should watch in a vigilant mind to reflect if "the image of God" could be manifest in our faith confession or just disappear without a trace? |