A Journey Together with Joseph Wresinski Towards a New Axial Age – Chen Yueguang

Posted on 12 June 2017

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Chen Yueguang is the former vice president of the foundation for the development of Chinese Youth, Vice-Director of the China Culture Institute, and secretary general of the Dunhe Foundation in China.

Beginning with the book The Poor are the Church, Chen Yueguang inquires about two different paths of underlying logic: sectarian and inter-sectarian.

The sectarian logic comes from the fact that Joseph Wresinski was Christian and it is the basis of his religious thinking. The fundamental proposition of his religious thinking is that “the poor are the path to Christ” – but is this tenable?

In fact, Chen Yuegang says, in this world where two thirds of the population are not Christian, to say that two thirds of humanity who are not Christian see themselves in the poor and recognize the Christ there is not obvious. Why would they have to see Christ? A Buddhist wouldn’t agree with such an idea, an atheist wouldn’t believe it, a confucian would not accept it.

Chen Yuegang invites us then to explore what in Wresinski’s thinking is inter-sectarian.