A Comparative Study Of Jen In Confucianism And Agape In Christianity

This dissertation aims at analyzing the similarities and differences between Jen in Confucianism and Agape in Christianity, exploring their theoretical and practical common areas and searching for the foundation of interpersonal relationships of different faiths and cultural environments, in order to establish a platform for the dialogue between the two thoughts.The first two chapters introduced the contents of Jen and Agape. 1. Jen in Confucianism is a deep and universal feeling extracted from our life experiences. This feeling is not only manifested in individual psychological experiences, but also in a universal sense that is transcended from kinship to the whole human generation, so that the modes of thinking, beliefs and behaviours of people had greatly been influenced by it over decades. 2. Agape is love of the highest level in Christianity. It is initiated by God—God loves human beings, who respond God with love, and then learn to love one another with the universal love. People are able to experience and share Agape by accepting Agape. In this way, people are motivated by Agape to love the others.'The Jesus Family'stated in Chapter 3 was a perfect example demonstrating the union of Jen in Confucianism and Agape in Christianity in practice. By examining the social life and behaviours of its family members in terms of economy, ethics and religion, the historical experiences of exchange and union between Jen and Agape in our daily life could be concluded.The final chapter integrated the theoretical and practical points of view of our comparative study, and summarised the similarities and differences between Jen and Agape. We further uncovered the factors enhancing in-depth communications between Eastern and Western cultures and hoped this would contributes to the establishment of a harmonious interpersonal relationship in our cross-cultural exchange.