Meditations on the Birth of Christ: Reflections for Advent in the Context of Chinese Culture
Ebook
Overview
This series of meditations on the birth of Christ encourages the reader to relive the miracle of Christmas. Through reflecting on Scripture, Church tradition, and Chinese culture the reader may experience afresh the Word becoming flesh. The reader travels to ancient Bethlehem in a spiritual sense to contemplate the meaning of the incarnation for the past, the future, and the present. As the reader recalls the first coming of Christ into history, he or she may also direct the heart to the future, looking forward to the second coming of Christ at the end of the age, and simultaneously experience his transforming presence in the present. The reader could develop a spiritual formation in the Advent season with the inspirations from the Chinese cultural and wisdom resources.
“Prof. You Bin has offered a series of advent meditations drawing together various resources from the Bible, Christian traditions, and Chinese cultural-wisdom texts. This is a handy and meaningful book that makes a perfect gift for the season and to world Christianity.”
—K. K. Yeo, visiting professor, Minzu University of China
"Grounded in his biblical scholarship, You Bin's profound meditations on the lives of Mary and Jesus offer an invitation to find ourselves in the Advent story and see Christ born in us. Reflections on the Beatitudes intertwine Chinese understandings of Heaven and earth and the nature of divinity, and call us to a faith that is active and ethical as it is reflective and spiritual.”
—Chloë Starr, professor of Asian Christianity and theology, Yale Divinity School
“Featuring twenty-one short chapters of scriptural passages, questions, meditations, and prayers, each exploring a theme relating to the birth of Christ in the world and us, You Bin’s Meditations on the Birth of Christ offers an inspirational companion and resource for the Advent season and beyond.”
—Timothy D. Knepper, professor of philosophy, Drake University, and director of The Comparison Project
You Bin 游斌 is Professor of Religions at Minzu University of
China (Beijing, China),
where he directs the Academy of Religions and leads research
projects on Comparative Scripture and Interreligious Dialogue. He
is the founding editor of the Journal of Comparative
Scripture and the author of Introduction to the Hebrew
Bible (2007), Social Memory and Ethnic Construction of
Ancient Israel (2011), Chinese Catechism on Apostles’ Creed,
Lord’s Prayer, and Ten Commandments (2018–2020), Religions
of Beijing (2020).