英文自修112：纵然新生儿洗礼，“罪恶”该提也得提

本系列内容英文原文取自BBC Thought for the Day节目网站，朋友们也可以下载节目录音收听。

译者：王宥轩

审读：武太白

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Thought for the Day 20140623 Rev Dr Jane Leach

The baptismal liturgy of the Church of England is in the news again. After consultation it seems that evil will not be disappearing after all. To many, this controversy may be a side show, but it does raise a central question for any family and any culture: what kind of promises do we want to make to our children about the world they will grow up in, and what kind of people will we strive to be in order to help create that world?

英国国教的洗礼仪式再次出现在新闻报道中。经过审议，看来“罪恶”一词终于不会再从洗礼仪式上消失（批评者认为洗礼仪式上避免提及“罪恶”、“魔鬼”等词是不应该的，纯粹的福音式洗礼就应该有这样的词）。对许多人而言，这一争议或许是一次余兴表演，但它确实提出了对任何家庭和任何文化而言都十分核心的问题：对于孩子们即将在其中生活的世界，我们要对他们做出什么样的承诺；我们要努力成为怎么样的人来创造向往的那种世界？

Evil is a strong word. And not at first sight, perhaps, one that seems to belong in a celebration of the life of a new baby. Rather it is precisely evil things and evil people that we want to keep away from a precious new life.

罪恶是个刺激性较强的词，或许第一眼看来，它并不是属于新生儿生命庆典的词。不如说，我们恰恰想让罪恶的事情和罪恶的人远离一个珍贵的新生命。

In some strands of Christian thought though, evil is conceived as having no existence in itself, but as the privation of good – the destruction and corruption of the abundant life that God has made. When we look at the evils from which we want to protect our children: the violence of gang culture or of the bullying of the internet, or the misery of drug addiction, we can see clearly that these are evils that destroy and corrupt life, but beyond these obvious manifestations there are other, perhaps more hidden forces at work, that might also be considered evil because they eat away at the abundant life we want for our children.

尽管基督教思想的某些分支认为罪恶没有自身的存在，而是对善良的剥夺——是上帝创造的丰盈生命的毁灭和堕落。我们想保护自己的孩子不受罪恶的伤害，当我们审视这些罪恶——帮会文化的暴力，或者网络暴力，亦或是毒瘾的痛苦，我们可以清楚地看到正是罪恶毁灭侵蚀了生命，但是在这些明显的罪恶形式之外还有其他的、或许更加隐蔽的力量可以看作罪恶，因为它们同样侵蚀了我们想为孩子们创造的丰富人生。

Recently I attended an education conference about peace, human rights and reconciliation. One of the themes that came through was the link between peace and justice, or in other language, the way in which gross inequality can fuel violent conflict. A strong recommendation made from the platform, was that western nations should encourage our children to have at least one in depth experience of life in a poor part of the world, and an American contributor spoke powerfully of the effect on his son’s career ambitions of three months spent in sub-Saharan Africa, that helped him to realise both the deprivation in which so many people live, and the fact that his own life can have a meaning and impact beyond the acquisition of the latest smart phone upgrades.

最近我参加了一个关于和平、人权与和解的教育大会。大会所传达的一个主题是和平与公正之间的联系，换言之，就是严重的不平等会引起暴力冲突。大会强烈建议西方国家应该鼓励孩子至少有一次在贫困地区的深入生活体验。一位美国的发言者谈起他的儿子在撒哈拉以南非洲过了三个月，这段经历对儿子的职业抱负影响深远，帮助他意识到有许多人生活困顿，而他自己的人生在购买最新升级版智能手机之外还有更大的意义和影响。

The New Testament describes the root of all evil as the love of money. Money itself and the things it can buy – even smart phones - are not considered evil, but a family life or a cultural life which becomes about nothing more than our own convenience, ambitions and entertainment, runs the risk of the twin evils of depriving others of what is good – and so contributing to the world’s instability – and of depriving our own children of a life worth investing in.

新约认为万恶之源是爱财。金钱本身和用钱能买到的东西——甚至智能手机——都不是罪恶，但除了我们自身的便利、野心和娱乐之外再无其他的家庭生活或文化生活有双重风险：既剥夺了他人的利益，从而加剧社会不安定，也会使我们的孩子丧失值得为之投入的生活。

In such a cultural context, having a language of goodness and evil at our disposal is not a marginal matter but one of critical importance. So, although I am though not a member of the Church of England, I am glad to see the language of evil back in their baptismal liturgy. And I would value a more broad ranging public discussion about how we identify the evils against which we, in the west, need to turn our faces, if we are to create a safer, more sustainable and more inspiring world for our children.

在这样的文化语境下，拥有对善恶加以谈论的权利，这并非无关紧要的事情，而是至关重要。所以，尽管我不是国教的一员，我也很高兴见到洗礼仪式重提罪恶。而且如果我们要为孩子们创造一个更安全，更持续，更振奋人心的世界，我觉得更为广泛地公开讨论如何认定我们西方世界需要反对的罪恶也就更有价值。