Out of the Antagonistic Destiny — A Peacemaking Initiative in China s Employment Class Struggles A Comparison of Kuyper, Leo XIII and Stassen

Out of the Antagonistic Destiny — A Peacemaking Initiative in China’s Employment Class Struggles: A Comparison of Kuyper, Leo XIII and Stassen
By Agnes Chiu

Introduction

   My teacher, the late Glen H. Stassen, was passionate about the 10 practices of just peacemaking. Stassen’s just peacemaking initiatives are applicable to my comparison of Abraham Kuyper and Pope Leo XIII on the topic of employment class struggle within the context of China’s employment relations. Such a comparison of Kuyper, Leo XIII, and Stassen in the area of employment relations would initially seem unlikely. After all, what do Kuyper, a Neo-Calvinist politician, Leo XIII, a Catholic Pope, and Stassen, a Baptist theologian, have in common, even without the fact of their living in different time frames? And what does the 19^th century European society in which Kuyper and Leo lived have in common with 21^st century China? The common theme that unites these three theologians is their passion in engaging their theology within the context of contemporary social issues. Each refused to limit his theology only to academia, but sought to make his theological discourse relevant to current social contexts and to apply that theology in response to the social injustices of his times. Both 19^th century Europe and 21^st century China have experienced a robust economic growth preceding a widening gap between the rich and the poor. The economic disparity and the natural antagonistic nature of the employment relationship form a similarity between the two different continents of two different time frames.  

   In this paper, I will first define conflicts in an employment context. Then, I will compare and contrast the theological discourses of these three theologians, from the cause of employment problems to the solutions they propose. Kuyper’s propositions were delineated in his address to the First Christian Social Congress in 1891 and later compiled into a book by the name of Class Struggle, which was later translated under a different title, The Problem of Poverty.www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum_en.html (accessed November 6, 2014).

https://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/Stassen_Transforming.pdf (accessed November 6, 2014).

www.justpeacemaking.org (accessed November 6, 2014).

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