Evangelicals and the Encounter with Islam: Changing Christian Identity in Multi-Faith Britain
Evangelicals and the Encounter with Islam: Changing Christian Identity in Multi-Faith Britain
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福音派与伊斯兰教的相遇：在多信仰的英国改变基督徒身份
作者：
Greg Smith
在过去的50年里，英国社会已经从一个基督教世界的模式，默认的宗教身份是英格兰教会，到一个宗教多元化的社会，宗教身份是人口中少数民族的一个重要标志。在基督徒中，强烈的宗教信仰和归属感最有可能由那些认为是福音派的人表达。在世界上许多地方，特别是在美国，福音派关于非基督教信仰，特别是伊斯兰教的讨论，表明了对“其他”信仰的深刻反感，有时甚至是对其信徒的敌意。相比之下，本文提出的证据来自福音联盟最近的一项小组调查，表明英国福音派基督徒社区存在一系列细微差别的观点。虽然超过80%的人肯定耶稣是唯一的救赎之路，84%的人认为基督教是通往上帝的唯一道路，但更多的评论表明，存在着各种各样的观点，从偏执或排斥到宽容和广泛包容的观点。本文将研究这些观点与各种人口和神学因素之间的关联，并试图解释当代日常信仰间相遇模式的数据，特别强调亚伯拉罕信仰，特别是伊斯兰教。这一局势是在动态和稳定的框架内讨论的，在这个框架内，信仰社区之间的宗教接触既使信仰和身份具体化，又为反对世俗世界的联盟开辟了新的可能性。
Over the last fifty years, British society has changed from a Christendom model, where the default religious identity was Church of England, to a religiously diverse society, where religious identity is a significant marker for minorities in the population. Among Christians, strong religious belief and belonging is most likely to be expressed by those who identify as evangelical. In many parts of the world, and especially in the USA, evangelical discourse on the subject of non-Christian faiths, especially Islam, suggests profound antipathy to ‘other’ beliefs and sometimes hostility to their adherents. In contrast, evidence presented in this paper from a recent Evangelical Alliance panel survey suggests a range of nuanced viewsin the community of evangelical Christians in the UK. Although over 80% affirmed that Jesus is the only way of salvation, and 84% thought Christianity is the only path to God, more extended comments show that a wide range of views exist, from the paranoid or exclusive to a view that is tolerant and broadly inclusive. The paper will examine the associations between these views and various demographic and theological factors and seek to explain the data in terms of the patterns of contemporary everyday inter-faith encounters, with specific emphasis on the Abrahamic faiths, especially Islam. The situation is discussed in a framework of dynamics and stability, where religious contact between faith communities has both crystallized beliefs and identities and opened up new possibilities for alliances against the secular world.