Christianity: HK: Ng, Wai Hang wins The John Templeton Award For Theological Promise

[Alex]

http://www.fiit.uni-heidelberg.de/award/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=1

Ng, Wai Hang

Current Position 
Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at the Hong Kong Baptist University

Email: [e-mail]

I was born and grew up in Hong Kong when it was still a colony of the United Kingdom. I received my Master's Degree of Divinity at the China Graduate School of Theology in Hong Kong. After working in a church as an assistant pastor for a short while, I came to Germany to further my studies and was granted my Doctorate in Theology by Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg in 2008.

Award Winning Publication
Die Leidenschaft der Liebe. Schelers Liebesbegriff als eine Antwort auf Nietzsches Kritik an der christlichen Moral und seine soteriologische Bedeutung, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2009.
(The Passion of Love: Scheler's Concept of Love as a Response to Nietzscheís Critique on Christian Morality and Its Soteriological Significance)

Nietzsche successfully creates a modern atheistic critique rooted in a radical stream of the Enlightenment, above all by deserting shallow comforts furnished by old gods in the form of love and laying a new foundation for spirituality in a modern world, i.e. an affirmation of being conspicuously manifested in his Übermensch. The first part of this book tries to show that Max Scheler, entirely cognizant of the depth of Nietzscheís dare to Christianity, meets Nietzsche's challenge, though not by thoroughly repudiating his arguments. Instead, Scheler finds that Christian love is not at variance with the disposition of the Übermensch, particularly in regard to agape distancing itself from modern altruistic love. In taking issue with altruistic love, which is accused of being riddled with sensual mediocrity and thus occasioning the degeneration of life, Scheler incorporates some traits of Nietzsche's Übermensch into a Christian understanding of love and spirituality as well. The second part seeks to indicate that Scheler's phenomenological analysis of love unearths an intrinsic relationship between love and suffering, eventually shedding light on our understanding of salvation, i.e. regarding love as a power extricating us from suffering. Such a new perspective on love is definitely of profound significance in the religious practice of modern humanity.

Current Project
My current research interest concentrates on joy as a fundamental emotional mood in Confucianism and its comparison with a Christian understanding of love. At the moment I am also co-editing a book concerning Christianity and the environment.



 Congratulations!

[Alex]

A report in Chinese:


伍偉亨獲鄧普頓神學獎
首位華人學者得此殊榮
（www.christiantimes.org.hk，時代論壇每日快拍，2010.3.3）
http://christiantimes.org.hk/Common/Reader/News/ShowNews.jsp?Nid=58310&Pid=5&Version=0&Cid=220&Charset=big5_hkscs
 
華人神學工作者伍偉亨榮獲鄧普頓神學[潛質]獎（John Templeton Award for Theological Promise）。伍偉亨為今屆十二位得獎者唯一的華人，也是首為華人神學工作者獲得此項殊榮，獎項將於五月在德國海德堡大學頒授。

伍偉亨，生於香港，在中國神學研究院取得道學碩士後，曾於教會擔任教牧工作，其後遠赴德國進修，於二○○八年獲德國海德堡大學神學博士學位，將於本年九月上任香港浸會大學宗教及哲學系助理教授一職。他的得獎作品名為《Die Leidenschaft der Liebe. Schelers Liebesbegriff als eine Antwort auf Nietzsches Kritik an der christlichen Moral und seine soteriologische Bedeutung》（英譯《The Passion of Love: Scheler's Concept of Love as a Response to Nietzscheís Critique on Christian Morality and Its Soteriological Significance》），主要探討馬克思謝勒（Max Scheler）的愛的觀點及其對救贖概念的意義──謝勒認為尼采的「超人」學說與基督教的愛的觀念並不對立，而愛與苦難也具本質性的關係，由此豐富對救贖概念的理解，即視愛為救贖我們從苦難中釋放的力量。

鄧普頓神學獎是由鄧普頓基金會（John Templeton Foundation）及德國海德堡大學國際與跨學科神學研究中心（FIIT Heidelberg）於二○○五年合作創立...