Speech at the opening meeting of the 1st Plenary Session of the 2nd Committee of CCRP by Bishop Ding Guangxun（2004）

Speech by President Ding Guangxun at the Opening Meeting of the First Plenary Session of the Second Committee of CCRP

（March 13, 2004）

Dear all members:

Today, we are gathering here to have general election of CCRP. The report presented by Scholar Sheng Hui just now on behalf of the first session of CCRP is fine and I agree with it. We can discuss and summarize the work of CCRP in the past, and find shortcomings in order to give better advice on the work in the future.

Here, I want to make two points.

The first is the position and role of CCRP in world religious circles. I remembered, in early 1990s, WCRP held a world assembly in Princeton University in the United States, which attended by Scholar Zhao Puchu with a large Chinese religious delegation including me. At that assembly, carrying out a ceremony in particular to welcome Scholar Zhao and Chinese delegation, the host said “for having had Chinese delegation, our assembly finally became a true world assembly of WCRP; otherwise, we are just holding an international meeting”. This word gave Chinese people great encouragement. All of us present there that day were delighted and proud for being Chinese people. That indicates with our motherland as backup, Chinese religious circles are of important position in world religious circles. Scholar Zhao was equal to member of presidium and I as executive committee member then. We could make full use of this platform to make friends with those from world religious circles with a view to safeguarding world peace and to develop friendly exchanges with ACRP and WCRP for the sake of resisting all anti-China forces including “Taiwan Independence” Powers and accelerating the peaceful unification of our motherland.

On the other hand, we should give full play to the advantage of CCRP domestically and strengthen the unity and cooperation among religious groups and believers to achieve common advancement.

It has been a decade since the establishment of CCRP. Except for making friends through friendly exchanges internationally, we should also consolidate the unity and cooperation among religious groups domestically. Nowadays, it is the best period in history for five major religious groups to develop exchanges. We should cherish more this hard-won unity based on before and all domestic religious groups should also keep pace with the times and facilitate the exchanges more in the future.

I would like to quote two words ever expressed by Scholar Zhao Puchu. One is “Religion is culture”, which puts forward high demands for us working on religions, especially when there are many anti-culture phenomenons existing today. We should actively carry out more cultural exchanges among religious groups and foreign communications so as to facilitate understanding, friendship and cooperation. Meanwhile, we should integrate religions with Chinese history and culture. For example, it is not good to build more and more, bigger and bigger temples or churches. We should bear in mind our country’s culture and improve the literate ability of believers, making religions more adaptable to socialist system and culture.

The other one is “engaged religion”. Aiming at developing “engaged Buddhism”, Scholar Zhao Puchu did a lot of constructive work before his death and now the construction of “engaged Buddhism” has had a fine beginning. On the occasion of general election of CCRP, I would like to extend Scholar Zhao Puchu’s wish of “engaged Buddhism” and call on five major religious groups to unite more to build “engaged religion”.

This is my wish for your reference and thank you all for your time.