Reviews for Judicial Independence and the Rule of Law in Hong Kong

The average rating for Judicial Independence and the Rule of Law in Hong Kong based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-01-04 00:00:00 Mark Argires Part One: As someone with a considerable interest in the Protestant Reformation and as someone who wishes to better understand it in light of the approaching 500 year anniversary of the posting of the famous 95 theses [1], I thought this particular course would give me a moderately sympathetic viewing of Martin Luther.  And so it did.  It did something else, though, worthy of interest, and that was showing just how Nathanish of a person Martin Luther was, someone whose characteristic response to problems and issues was to write about them at length.  Luther was an anxious soul, and one who found life to be a good deal more complicated than he would have wished it to be, and sought to simply that existence through setting up an influential false dilemma between law and grace that still greatly affects Christian discourse to this day.  This particular course excels in putting Luther's actions into a context of late medieval Christendom that is both sympathetic as well as revealing.  We see Luther as a man, as a complicated but often fundamentally decent man, struggling to deal with the consequences of a complicated personality as well as a particularly difficult time, and we see how the papacy contributed to the division of the Reformation through its intransigence and strident appeals to authority. This particular course is made up of twelve lectures that provide a great deal of context to Luther and to the Lutheran Reformation.  Beginning with a look at Luther's gospel, the professor then turns to the medieval church and to its abuses and to efforts at reform.  Then there is a lecture devoted to the Augustinian paradigm of spirituality that would have been at least a little bit foreign to Luther's approach, which was based on his times.  The fourth lecture looks at young Luther against himself with a harsh view of God and of the word of God that we are to believe about ourselves.  After this we look at how Luther heard the gospel and sought to define the relationship between faith and works based on his own anxious lifetime of attempts to appease God through his own human efforts.  The professor then discusses the meaning of sacraments, the indulgence controversy that really started the Protestant Reformation, the way that the Reformation eventually went public, Luther's writing on the captivity of the Sacraments during the so-called Babylonian captivity, and closes the first part of this course on Luther with a look at the Reformation in Wittenberg as well as the work of the Reformer. The professor of this particular course has a great interest in the philosophy of Augustine, and one gets the feeling that he has a strong ecumenical spirit as well.  In his discussions about Luther's approach to abuses of power within the Catholic Church of his time, he notes that while Luther called the Roman Catholic Church the Antichrist, not an unfair description given the biblical record, contemporary Lutherans have not been so harsh, leading to a kind of identity crisis given the relative moderate position of Lutherans compared to the more radical denominations that sprang from the Reformed tradition.  In many ways, Luther's status as a follower of Augustine in many aspects and his high view of the sacraments kept Luther close to the Catholic tradition even after departing it, and led to a certain incompleteness about the Reformation when it came to restoring apostolic purity of religion.  Too much human tradition came along, with a lot of its baggage, and it should therefore not surprise us that the Reformation is discussed here in such ambivalent terms.  What we have in this course is a praise of Luther that comes off as a lament that it had to divide the Christendom of his day, and even a hope that Hellenistic Christendom may yet reunite. [1] See, for example: Part Two: As someone who has taken a fair amount of Great Courses [1] before, and who will likely take a great many more in the future given how many subjects I enjoy learning about and how easy and productive it is to listen to such courses via audiobook, I am always intrigued by how the professors approach their subject matter.  This professor shows both a great deal of respect and appreciation for Luther, which I can understand, as well as a certain deal of criticism, which I understand but have mixed feelings for.  Luther obviously had some blameworthy qualities when it came to his frequent conflicts with others and his tendency to dismiss the legitimacy of others by labeling them as being influenced by Satan, an obvious conversation stopper.  That said, I can recognize myself as a pretty fierce controversialist as well and definitely that is an area I am cautious about for myself.  The professor of this course shows himself as an ecumenical person and his statements about the desirability of the unity of the Hellenistic Christian denominations is something I view with a great deal of concern. This particular course contains the second half of the professor's lectures on Luther and his connection with the Gospel, law, and the reformation.  The lectures begin on Luther's writing against the spirit of rebellion of oppressed German peasants, as well as controversies over the Lord's Supper with Swiss Reformed believers and over infant baptism with Anabaptists.  The author then looks at the question of grace and justification, a matter of deep importance for Luther and for Protestants in general, in which the professor shows that Luther operated in a medial position between Catholics and other Protestants.  The rest of the lectures are taken up by the professor talking about Luther's relationship with the Bible, Erasmus, Predestination, Protestantism, Politics, his enemies, the Jews, and Modernity.  These lectures do a good job at placing Luther in a context that demonstrates his importance as a connection between the world of Augustine and the Middle Ages and our own contemporary modernism and even post-modernism.  The professor's explorations and his honesty about his own perspectives allows the listener to come to their own conclusions and address their own ambivalence and their own struggle with the quest for both truth and certainty, which involve us in many of our own contemporary struggles that show us to be people much like Luther was, for all of the differences between his time and our own. Overall, this course proves its worth to a wide audience in this particular part.  The professor not only does a good job at discussing Luther's own ferocious behavior towards those he considered enemies of the faith but also shows how Luther is deeply relevant to concerns of our own time as diverse as the ecumenical movement, anti-Semitism, and the relationship between modernity and post-modernism.  The author's thoughtful discussion of Luther's partial responsibility for the incubus of brutal anti-Jewish sentiment that flowered fully in Hitler's Nazi Germany is worth the listen of the entire course on its own, aside from the many other worthy aspects of the professor's discussion.  Likewise, whether or not someone has an interest in Luther personally or in Protestant religion, the author's discussion of Luther's own search for certainty and the self-critical roots of different threads of post-modernism is also worthwhile.  Although I have long been critical of the anti-truth aspects of post-modernism, I strongly identify with the professor's approach as a right-wing postmodernist with a belief in the importance of investigating truth while also recognizing the traditions I hold to and being somewhat self-critical about them.  It is a fitting end to a thoughtful examination of Luther's influence on our culture and on the divisions within Christendom. [1] See, for example:

Review # 2 was written on 2020-02-18 00:00:00 Jeffrey Kerata I picked this Great Course up on a whim-- while not religious myself, I enjoy learning about Christian theology because of its enormous impact on western civilization. I was blown away. Dr. Cary provides really thoughtful, in-depth analyses of Luther's theories, contrasting them to Catholic and Calvinist doctrine. Dr. Cary's expertise and enthusiasm really showed too. Highly recommended.