2017 考博英语 阅读题源经济学人文章每日精析（二十三）

考博英语阅读大部分博士研究生招生院校都使用《经济学人》杂志文章作为题源，考博信息网|http://www.kaoboinfo.com教育考博频道为考博生们将其中的文章进行深度分析，希望能提高大家的考博英语阅读水平，读懂长难句。

导读

基督教是一种信仰一神和天国的宗教，发源于中东以色列地区。在人类发展史上，基督教具有非常重要的地位(尤其中世纪的欧洲地区)。近代以来，虽然经历了宗教改革、科学革命和工业革命的冲击，基督教仍然具有广泛的影响，在欧美地区被普遍信仰。基督徒相信人类具有原罪，而耶稣作为神(天主或称上帝)唯一的儿子(圣子)，通过牺牲自己为人类的救主(弥赛亚，即基督)。基督教与伊斯兰教、佛教并列为当今三大世界性宗教，提倡的是上帝的爱，救赎人类的罪和灵魂体。

Christianity and history

基督教及其历史

The search goes on

探索继续

The West has gained a lot from Christianity. There is still more to learn

西方从基督教中收获颇丰，仍有更多值得去学习。

Nov 5th 2016 | From the print edition

2016年11月5日|摘自印刷版

IN THE early years of the Enlightenment, a few brave philosophers challenged the Christian order—an apparently hopeless task. But their efforts paid off, and tomes have since been written, by authors from Diderot to Richard Dawkins, about the triumph of secular man. What, after all, has Christianity ever done for us

在启蒙运动的前几年，几位勇敢的哲学家挑战了基督教秩序——显然，这是一项毫无希望的任务。但是他们的努力奏效了，自此，从狄德罗(狄德罗(Denis Diderot ，1713年10月5日 —1784年7月30日)，生于郎格勒。平民出身，法国启蒙思想家、唯物主义哲学家，作家，百科全书派的代表人物。)到理查德·道金斯(理查德·道金斯(Richard Dawkins，1941年3月26日-)，英国著名演化生物学家、动物行为学家和科普作家，英国皇家科学院院士，牛津大学教授，是当今仍在世的最著名、最直言不讳的无神论者和演化论拥护者之一，有“达尔文的罗威纳犬”(Darwin's Rottweiler)的称号。)，这些作家开始撰写一本关于凡人的巨著。那么基督教究竟为我们做了什么贡献

Triumph： n 巨大的成就

paid off ：取得成功

Secular ：a 世俗的

Rather a lot, argues Nick Spencer in an excellent new book, “The Evolution of the West”. Mr Spencer, who is research director at Theos, a religious think-tank in London, picks up from Larry Siedentop’s epic work from 2014, “Inventing the Individual”—a reassertion of how much the Western world owes to Christianity. It is not a popular thesis but, like a prophet crying in the post-modern wilderness, Mr Spencer provokes reflection that goes far beyond the shallow ding-dongs of the modern culture wars. He wants to make sure Westerners know where they came from as a way to illuminate where they are going.

尼克·斯宾塞在他的知名新著《西方的革命》中认可了基督教的卓越贡献。斯宾塞先生是伦敦一家宗教性的智囊团——“领英”的研究室主任，他借鉴了拉里·西登托普2014年的长篇巨著《发现个体》，此书重申了基督教对西方世界的影响。这不是一个热门的话题，但是，就像一个在后现代旷野哭泣的先知，斯宾塞先生激起的反响远远超越了浅显激烈的现代文化战争。他想让西方人清楚他们是从哪里来的，同样也照亮他们未来的路。

Reassertion： n 再主张

Starting with the ancient world, he takes the reader on an extravagant journey to meet, among many others, Augustine of Hippo and John Locke as well as Thomas Piketty. The author believes that the fact that Christianity became the religion of the European establishment has blinded people to what a revolutionary doctrine it was (and is). And he clearly believes it can still play a role. The Christianisation of Europe, he says, was not a bunch of reactionary clerics trying to shut down a noble, free, secular ancient world, but a new idea of “a voluntary basis for human association in which people joined together through will and love rather than blood or shared material objectives”. Christianity declared that humans “have access to the deepest reality as individuals rather than merely as members of a group”.

从古代世界开始，斯宾塞先生将读者带入了一次极其奢侈的旅行，其中包括希波的奥古斯丁、约翰·洛克以及托马斯·皮克迪。作者相信这样一个事实，基督教是欧洲人建立起的一个宗教体系，这让人们忽略了基督教曾经(当下)是一个革命性的学说。而且他清楚地相信它仍然可以发挥作用。他说欧洲的基督教化，不是一堆反动神职人员试图关闭一个高贵、自由、世俗的古代世界，而是一种新思想：“人们自愿加入的组织，在这里人们通过意志和爱相聚，而不仅靠血缘或者享有共同的物质目标联系在一起”。基督教宣称人类“作为独立的个体能体会到最深刻的现实，而不仅仅是作为群体的一员”。

Reactionary： a 反动的

Out of this, with a reinjection at the Reformation, came the origins of the modern world: a belief in equality of status as the proper basis for a legal system and the assertion of natural rights leading to individual liberty, as well as the notion that a society built on the assumption of moral equality should have a representative form of government.

由此可见，在改革的回注下，形成了现代世界的起源：人人平等的信仰，是法律制度坚实的基础，自然权利的主张催生了个人自由的追求，以及建立在道德平等假设上的社会的概念，应该有一种有代表性的政府形式。

Assertion: n.主张

Assumption: n.假设

The book is not a tragic lament for lost Christendom. Mr Spencer is frank about the sins of the church. But too often, he says, they blind people to the communal, psychological, educational and creative benefits that have flowed from Christian belief. And he worries about how the absence of deep cultural norms will play out in the West. Can secular creeds bind people together now that there is plenty of pluribus but not much unum

这本书不是为失去信教徒而发出的悲惨的哀歌。斯宾塞先生坦言了教会的罪恶。他指出，很多时候，基督教宣扬的共同、心理、教育、创新的利益蒙蔽了人们。

Tragic: adj. 悲惨的

Frank:adj. 坦率的

Secular creeds:世俗主义

Shorn of its establishment baggage, Mr Spencer argues, Christianity still has much to say to an amnesiac world about human dignity, political freedom and economic inequality. And, quoting William Wilberforce, he warns that Christian values are inseparable from Christianity itself.

斯宾塞先生认为，除去基督教的确立，基督教常常论及一种遗忘了人类尊严、政治自由与经济多元化的世界。而且，引用威廉·威尔伯福斯的话，基督教的价值观离不开基督教本身。

Amnesiac:adj. 记忆缺失的

Inseparable:adj. 分不开的

After the aggression of the God v science debates, Mr Spencer’s book is a gentler, though no less provocative, contribution to the discussion. It is beautifully written, too. The author believes that not everyone in the West is disenchanted with religious faith, and that the end of religion is no nearer than Francis Fukuyama’s end of history. Lurking everywhere in the secularised West is what he calls a “disenchantment with disenchantment”. People still want more than just freedom and choice. They want to belong, they want community rooted in something shared and they want to find meaning beyond themselves. “Having arrived at the secular self,” says Mr Spencer, “we kept on searching.”

在上帝与自然激烈的辩论之后，斯宾塞先生的书是一场温和但不张扬的讨论。而且写的十分优美。作者认为在西方，不是每个人都有宗教信仰的幻想，宗教的结束与法兰西斯·福山(法兰西斯·福山(Francis Fukuyama)生于1952年10月27日，日裔美籍学者。哈佛大学政治学博士，现任约翰霍普金斯大学、保罗·尼采高级国际问题研究院、舒华兹讲座、国际政治经济学教授，曾师从塞缪尔·亨廷顿。)的历史结束不同。潜伏在世俗化西方的各个角落，他将其称为“清醒的觉悟”。人们想要的不仅仅是自由和选择。他们想要有归属感，他们想要共同立足共享之地，他们想找到超越自我的意义。“找到了世俗的自我之后”斯宾塞先生说，“我们仍将继续寻找。”

Aggression:n. 侵略

Provocative:adj. 挑衅的

Disenchanted：adj. 不再抱有幻想的

Disenchantment: n.醒悟