Evangelism--Forcing Doctrine or Reflecting Love

Miguel De La Torre

Last June, I taught a class at the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies as a Fulbright scholar on the Gadjah Mada University campus.

The vast majority of my class is Muslim.  The class I am leading is on the discipline of postcolonialism; specifically the impact of the Christian missionary venture upon the people.

For the Indonesian people, the Christian missionary came in the form of Dutch Reform.  I came to teach; but instead am learning from those whom missionaries seldom bother to hear. 

The real question is not if the subaltern can speak; but rather, when she or he does, will anybody listen.  I, at least, am trying to listen. 

But to do so, I must suspend my religious and Western arrogance and exceptionalism, which assumes I know best.  In a very real way, I must carefully hear what the victims of colonialism are saying about me and my cherished Christian beliefs. 

As a Southern Baptist, with a Masters of Divinity from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, I learned that I have been called to spread the good news to the so-called heathen and pagans of the world—defined as anyone who is not a Christian, and in some cases, other Christian groups who don’t believe in the same doctrines and in the same way as I do. 
       
Matthew 28:19 is a foundational text of my and many fellow Baptists’ theological belief system.  “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

And yet, as I hear the stories and histories of the colonized, even those who are Christian, I hear how much damage Christian missionaries have done to the culture, to the self-worth of the people, and to the country as a whole. 

If I am honest with myself, the worst thing that could ever have happened to the Indonesian people was Christian missionaries washing up on their shores. 
     
How could the Gospel message of peace be so destructive?  Whenever the Gospel message of love is wed with the colonial message of conquest, what is produced is a satanic pseudo-religious offspring that justifies the thief of the indigenous people’s resources and labor. 

The Christian missionaries who came to Indonesia followed the economic conquerors that arrived to establish the spice trade in 1595. 

For evangelical conquest to occur, the indigenous Indonesians had to be constructed as inferior. 

The objectification of the indigenous people for their Christianization to occur motivated people like Rudyard Kipling to admonish the colonizer to “Take up the White Man’s burden . . . to serve your captives’ need . . . your new-caught sullen peoples, half devil and half child.”

As I previous said, the worst thing that happen to the Indonesian people (as well as all other colonized people of the world) was the preaching of this type of Christianity, which fused and confused Western Christianity with white supremacy. 

Rather than preaching Jesus (forcing of our doctrines and beliefs upon all nations), we should be Jesus (implementing the radical love shown to all through a deep commitment to the justice Jesus exhibited throughout his ministry).

St. Francis of Assisi has often been credited with stating, “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.” Whether he said this or not is unimportant. 

What is crucial is that evangelism must cease to be an exercise designed to get the “unbeliever” to believe the same doctrines the evangelist believes, and instead becomes sharing the Good News that the one who is made non-person by the colonizer has personhood because they are created in the image of the Creator. 

All that has life they possesses worth and dignity. The Good News is that both the dispossessed who have been stripped of humanity and the possessor of oppressive power need to hear a word about liberation and salvation. 

Such a liberative word can move them from being the colonized “other” or the colonizer toward the discovery of their redemption, even if that faith identity is based on a different religious or spiritual worldviews than the one bringing the good news.

If indeed a tree is known by its fruits, then they should know we are Christians by our love; not by the love we say we have while contributing to the dispossession and disenfranchisement of many of Earth’s inhabitants.   

Maybe the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19 has less to do with getting people to accept the same belief we hold and more to do with sharing – through action, not words – similar acts of love and compassion as Jesus. 

Maybe spreading the good news is not doctrinal but rather revealing the message of love, the same way Jesus did: by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick.

Let us who call ourselves disciples of Christ learn to be Jesus, not talk about him.

*This blog first appeared in Ethicsdaily.com.

The Global en lo Cotidiano

Loida I. Martell-Otero

One of the characteristics of US Latina theology is its understanding of the importance of lo cotidiano—the spaces of the everyday—for theological reflection. It is in such spaces that one sees both the evidence of sin as well as the experience of grace come full circle. My last blog was meant to demonstrate how I do Christology from the spaces of lo cotidiano. I wanted to demonstrate an evangélica theological locus and method that I believe I model in the classroom. In that sense, that reflection was very much related to the question of pedagogy. Here I seek to explore explicitly the relationship between lo cotidiano and transnational pedagogy.

One of Palmer Theological Seminary’s faculty members, Dr. Al Tizon, links the global with the local by using the term “glocal.” I believe that we make a grave mistake to think that transnational or global only occurs “out there.” The erasure of fixed borders, the economic collapse that has taken place in so many geographical spaces, military incursions, colonialism, and neocolonialism, together with the immigration laws of this country that have more to do with xenophobia and economic greed than with legal concerns have led to the formation of islands of the “global” in our local communities.

We have whole communities of people who live in the USA, often without documentations required by federal immigration laws, in fear of being violently deported. They do not speak English well or at all, nor interact fluidly with US-dominant cultures. They tend to form isolated havens where they maintain their linguistic, cultural, religious, and social traditions. Their children live in porous spaces—seamlessly crossing the borders between their parents’ territory and that of the US location they now call home. These are the new “glocal” communities.

Many of them are not pastored by clergy from our Christian churches because seminaries are too busy preparing ministerial leaders under the old paradigms of either/or: either they serve in the US or they serve overseas as “missionaries.” Theological education needs to begin to pay attention to what is happening in lo cotidiano and realize that there are new paradigms to which it must respond. How can we better prepare our seminary students to become transnational leaders who can effectively care for the international communities that reside in our midst as well as overseas?

Lo cotidiano makes me aware of another aspect of global pedagogy. It is one that cannot take place simply as part of a curriculum that is attentive to the lesson plan of a given professor in a given classroom space. Such an approach can isolate the “global” into a reified and isolated space, reducing it to an “issue” that takes place among a laundry list of other “issues,” such as racism and poverty. It can be an overwhelming experience that leaves students feeling powerless.

By the time they graduate, many of these students, while conscious of the issues, feel ultimately that they can do very little that is effective. It is akin to their experience of learning about the Trinity—a formula they repeat, but not something that they believe ultimately transforms their lives or their ministerial praxis. It seems to me that to be effective, a pedagogical approach that engages a global and transnational world must be more than a class, or a book list, or even just a “mission trip.” It must be all of these, and more. It must engage students at the level of lo cotidiano. The whole of their seminary journey must be permeated with awareness of global realities, much as we have made students aware of inclusive language: it must be done in a way that changes not just how they think about the global and the local, but how they live this out in the very fabric of their lives.

Such a pedagogical approach cannot be the purview of solely one interested faculty member. It must be part of the commitment of the whole institution; it must be in the institution’s DNA! Palmer’s motto has been “the whole gospel for the whole world for whole persons.” The “whole world” part of our motto has made the global part of our DNA. Students are made aware of global issues not just in the classroom, but also in chapel worship services, through special events that include sharing of meals, in mission trips, and in special faculty presentations. A number of our faculty are from international communities, and keep us abreast of particular events from their countries. Our international students are also an important part of our community whose conversations in our common dining area make “the global” part of our daily lexicon/ nuestro hablar diario in lo cotidiano.

These then reinforce the shape of the overall curriculum along with specific courses focused on global and contextual theologies. Some entail trips—thus far to Nigeria, Israel, Palestine, Central and South America—while others use film and documentaries. Students who enter Palmer often graduate acutely aware of global concerns, and how those global concerns impact the local and vice versa. A few have changed their concentration tracks or upon graduation, adjusting their vocational goals to align with these global concerns. As I watch my colleagues and hear our students, I am grateful that I have learned from them as much as, or perhaps more, than I have taught. I realize once again how much wisdom there is when one pays attention to the spaces of lo cotidiano. It is in those spaces that I have learned to reflect not only upon Christology, but also to be acutely aware of the global in the midst of our local communities.

* Professor Loida I. Martell-Otero is Professor of Constructive Theology at Palmer Theological Seminary, the Seminary of Eastern University at Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, and is coeditor of Teologia en Conjunto: A Collaborative Hispanic Protestant Theology with José D. Rodriguez.

Try Jesus

Loida I. Martell-Otero

Last Christmas season, a sign at a store caught my attention. It simply read, “Try Jesus.” Yet what do the words of this oft-repeated phrase mean? The word “try” itself can mean a variety of things. It can mean to put on trial. Perhaps it is when one tries another’s patience. Then again, “try” can mean testing something or putting on a garment to see if it fits, as in “try it on for size.” And what of that catch-all name “Jesus?” It seems to me that the phrase requires one to ask: “which” or “what” Jesus? Thus “try Jesus” is not as innocuous or self-evident as the shopkeeper who placed that sign might have originally thought.

Consider, for example, the Jesus represented by the consumer spirit that is so heavily espoused by corporate interests: the blue-eyed, aquiline-nosed papier-mâché product pasted on Hallmark card sentiments. This is the Jesus that is pushed upon us through incessant commercials and propaganda that say that if we buy enough merchandise we will be blessed with a stronger economy and brings work to a nation with a growing unemployment rate.

Of course, these subliminal and overt messages that push us to higher debt and to continuous cycle of purchasing bigger and better things for less and less cost do not encourage us to look too closely at the labels or the consequences of what we purchase. One day I decided to go into my closet and look at the labels of all the articles of clothing in there. They indicated that they were made in Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, China, and so on. What we do not understand is that purchasing these items does not help our economy. What it does do is continue to enrich corporate interests that exploit the nameless and faceless in maquiladores south of our borders and the women and children who work inhumane hours in inhumane conditions in sweatshops in the Pacific Rim and Asian countries. This is one way of “trying Jesus.”

Jon Sobrino in Jesus in Latin America compares the “crosses” of the millions who die daily in Latin America due to poverty and oppression to the cross of Christ. We try Jesus—that is to say, we put Jesus on trial—when we participate mindlessly and are complicit in the continued exploitation of the world’s poor as we continue in this mindless consumer mentality that has become such an integral part of American life.

Perhaps the Jesus to whom the slogan referred is the Jesus that became the justification for the colonization and exploitation of so many countries by the “Christian” nations of the North Atlantic. The assumption of Manifest Destiny, the bombing of Hiroshima, the war with Mexico and later with Spain, the continued incursions into Latin America, and the continued wars against people of color in the world—including Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq—are all claimed and done under the cloak of religious language.

The post-Enlightenment hubris that justified the racist and xenophobic policies that led to the genocide of Indians in the Americas, the exploitation of brown people south of the border, and the colonization of peoples in the Caribbean has not abated in the postmodern world. Postmodernism has not erased colonialism or neocolonialism, nor has it helped abate sexism or other -isms. These are not separate issues but intertwined. In But She Said, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza refers to them as “multiplicative pyramidal oppressions.” It is part of the language and posture of empire.

In a 2004 essay in the New York Times Magazine, Ron Suskind reported on how President George W. Bush’s administration used religious rhetoric to squelch any debate or opposition to the decision to invade Iraq. Bush believed himself to be “on a mission from God.” Suskind further reported that a Bush aide described the US as “an empire now” which created its own realities. If the report is accurate, such a blatant malformation and misuse of the foundational principles of Christianity to justify war and empire-building also “tries Jesus.” It must try Jesus’ patience to see his name used in vain in such destructive ways.

Perhaps what we need to reflect upon is the Jesus of the Gospels, the one who walked with the poor and the forgotten. This is the Jesus who sought out people at the margins—those rendered invisible by the social structures of their time. Gustavo Gutiérrez in We Drink from Our Own Well defines spirituality as “following Jesus,” by serving the poor and forgotten of our time.

Orlando E. Costas echoed this spirit of trying Jesus in his book, Christ Outside the Gate. Written in 1982, his book already protested the use of Christianity as “Christendom,” as a cloak for empire building. In the book’s epilogue, he cited the scriptural text Hebrews 13:12 to remind us that “Christ remains outside the gate” where the forgotten, the oppressed, and the marginalized reside, where there is no justice and where often there is no hope. It is there that Jesus beckons us to join him. It is there that we are invited to “try Jesus.”

* Professor Loida I. Martell-Otero is Professor of Constructive Theology at Palmer Theological Seminary, the Seminary of Eastern University at Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, and is coeditor of Teologia en Conjunto: A Collaborative Hispanic Protestant Theology with José D. Rodriguez.

A Cautionary Tale of Theological Education in a Global and Transnational World

Nami Kim

Under the banner of globalization, some mega-sized churches in the Republic of Korea (South Korea) have invited charismatic, bilingual (Korean and English) male ministers in their forties and early fifties who have been leading congregations in the United States as the successors of senior pastors upon their retirement.  The large to mega-sized churches have also sent out pastors and missionaries to the United States for the purpose of “planting” churches that bear the name of their mother churches in Korea as well as for further missionary training in various mission organizations.  

Along with heteropatriarchal male prerogatives, fluency in English has become a prerequisite for leading a large to mega-sized church, or for getting a full-time teaching position in a theological institution in South Korea, a “regional Protestant superpower.”* This is a reflection of the larger Korean society in which the command of English is considered to be one of the most valuable skills for an individual to climb up the ladder of success.  

Accordingly, having a degree, or at least a certificate, from a U.S. academic institution on one’s resume is often considered a ticket to a higher rung in the social hierarchy. Networking among Korean alumni of U.S. universities, including graduates of U.S. theological schools and seminaries who have settled in Korea, has also become crucial social capital for advancement.  When deans or professors of their alma mater visit, all alumni are mobilized to welcome them. A few U.S. seminary professors even proudly share how much they enjoyed visiting Korea because of the level of hospitality they received from the alumni. Transnational connections and networks are firmly established in the name of advancement of theological and pastoral education.

Some critical voices have been raised regarding the function of U.S. higher education in producing transnational elites in the financial sector. What about U.S. theological education? What are the responsibilities of U.S. theological institutions that have inadvertently contributed to producing transnational elites who have become a privileged class in a postcolonial society and who would carry church ministries and theological education in the global South in ways that continue to support neocolonial, heteropatriarchal, and homophobic practices of dominant Christianity rather than resist and challenge them?

Reportedly, accredited theological institutions in South Korea annually graduate about 6,000 ordained or ordination-track people, and many of them are left wandering in the so-called clergy job market. In a heteropatriarchal church context, it means that qualified heterosexual women (not to mention LGBTQ individuals) are rarely considered to be viable candidates for pastoral leadership. Religious power and privilege wielded by a small group of (male) ministers and those who benefit from such power have become enormous in Korean Christianity.** As the number of ethnic minority churches and students in theological institutions grows in the U.S., this question of accountability of U.S. theological education seems equally applicable to the American context as well.

Theological educators both in the U.S. and from/in the global South need to critically rethink what are the ways in which theological education can become liberatory instead of serving as a tool of reinforcing hegemony in a global and transnational world.  Theological education should be able to contribute to transforming church power structure that is governed by a neoliberal market economy, hypermasculine developmentalism, and heteropatriarchy. It is not enough to emphasize the importance of critical theological education that can serve as a critical voice and as an emancipatory praxis in a global and transnational world.

Certainly, it is not fair to lump all ministers and professors educated in the U.S. into one group as if there were no power differentials among them and as if the kinds of theological education they have received were homogeneous. No doubt there are people who seek to make prophetic changes in current church politics, theological education, and the larger society in both the U.S. and in South Korea through their ministry, teaching, and activism.  However, those of us who have been educated in the U.S. academy are all implicated in the complex web of this power structure. Therefore, it is our responsibility to ask where we stand, while critically examining our complicity, and assess how we can commit to challenging the dominant power structure from which we have benefited. This is the crucial yet difficult, and even painful, task that we face; but before it’s too late, let us remind one another of the necessity of our task.    

^*Paul Freston, Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 61.

**See Nami Kim, “S(e)oul Search: The Changing Religious Landscape in Seoul and Its

Implications for Defining ‘Asia,’” ASIANetwork EXCHANGE: A Journal for Asian Studies in the Liberal Arts 18, no. 1 (Fall 2010): 40-52.

*Professor Nami Kim is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Spelman College at Atlanta, Georgia.

Studying Chinese Christianity: From a Transplanted Foreign Religion to an Indigenous Chinese Religion

Jonathan Y. Tan

"Numerical expansion in Chinese Christianity in the last couple of decades has occurred at an unprecedented rate. A rate which continues to surprise and alarm some of those observing it. It’s surprising partly because of the ambiguous history of Christianity in China, a history marked both by a high level of cultural and political engagement by the Jesuits in the 17th century, and by a very unashamed alliance with foreign interference and colonial power in the 19th century. In spite of that, China is moving towards having the largest Christian population in the world. A safe guess would be 50-80 million Protestants in China today."*

Contemporary China is experiencing a big revival of Christianity, despite strict governmental controls on religions. At its current pace of rapid growth, China could have the world’s largest population of Christians, as Archbishop Rowan Williams noted in an article that he penned after visiting China to see for himself Christianity’s rapid growth. Self-initiated Chinese efforts have led to an impressive growth of Chinese Christians, with the majority of converts belonging to newly emerging independent house churches that are primarily Pentecostal or Charismatic in orientation. Indeed, China is on track to be the country with the largest number of Evangelicals and Pentecostals, albeit in numerical terms rather than as a percentage of its total population.

This growth in Chinese Christianity has generated a lot of interest in the study of Chinese Christianity. However, much of the mainstream Western scholarship on Chinese Christianity has lagged behind the current growth in Chinese Christianity, focusing on Chinese Christianity as an “export” of Christianity by foreign missionaries, e.g., the Syrian missionaries who introduced Christianity as the “Luminous Religion” (景教 Jingjiao), Jesuit Catholic missionaries such as Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), and Protestant missionary endeavors in the 19th or early 20th century (e.g., James Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission). Indeed, Kenneth Scott Latourette’s monumental classic, A History of Christian Missions in China (1929) defines the study of Chinese Christianity as a Western missionary enterprise in China, and his approach has been adopted in subsequent studies on Chinese Christianity.

Moreover, many of the existing titles on Chinese Christianity are written by missionaries from an uncritical Eurocentric missiological perspective, that is, focusing on issues that are of interest or concern to missiologists, mission societies, or denominational headquarters in Europe or North America (e.g., the success of missionaries such as Matteo Ricci or James Hudson Taylor). Nonetheless, history is not written within a socio-historical vacuum. A critical understanding of history reveals the fact that supposedly “objective” historical perspectives which are narrated by missionaries are in reality biased toward the perspectives of their institutional denominations or sponsoring mission societies.

           

What is needed in the study of Chinese Christianity is a fresh look at Christianity through Chinese eyes, away from the entrenched model of foreign missionaries and scholars peering into the Chinese landscape from their Eurocentric social locations, writing to explain their missionary endeavors and document their successes and failures. To put it more bluntly, what is needed is new scholarship that will locate the history of Chinese Christianity within its Chinese social location, that is, a “history of Chinese Christianity” rather than a “history of Christian missions in China,” in which Chinese Christians are the subjects of study rather than objects of missionary evangelization by the European and North American missionaries to China.

           

For example, new studies would take a fresh look at how the Chinese perceived the missionaries, what they thought about the Gospel message as presented by these missionaries, why they reacted to the missionaries’ missionary enterprise the way they did, and how they appropriated and transformed Eurocentric presentations of Christianity that the missionaries preached to them. They will also explore indigenous forms of Chinese Christianity that are often regarded as marginal by Western missionaries because these indigenous forms do not conform to European models of Christianity, or are independent of European missionary control. This includes Hong Xiuquan 洪秀全(1814-1864)’s synthesis of Chinese/Daoist and Christian millennialism into a potent mix, sparking the Taiping Rebellion, as well as the emergence and spread of indigenous forms of Christianity that are completely independent of European missionary control, e.g. Watchman Nee 倪柝聲 (1903-1972) and the Little Flock Movement 地方教會 that he started, as well as the massive evangelical revival movement that was initiated by John Sung 宋尚節 (1901-1944).

In conclusion, Christianity’s fate in China is no longer tied to European or North American churches. It is slowly but surely becoming a Chinese religion in the same manner as Chinese Buddhism, which evolved from a foreign religion to become a Chinese religion. Christianity, once foreign, has now become a truly Chinese religion, in the same manner as Buddhism is now deeply rooted in the Chinese socio-religious and cultural landscape, and accepted as an indigenous Chinese religious tradition, rather than as the foreign religion of Indian Buddhist missionaries. This development has important implications. What this means is that the classical missiological framework of the traditional sending churches in Europe and North America and emerging receiving church in China is no longer relevant. New lines of scholarly enquiry that focuses on Chinese Christianity not as an “export” of Christianity by European missionaries to China, but the reception and transformation of Christianity in a new social location, viz., China, will be needed. Kwok Pui-lan’s Chinese Women and Christianity,1860-1927 (1992) and Daniel Bays’ A New History of Christianity in China (2011) are steps in the right direction. Hopefully, other scholars and researchers will come forward with new critical studies of Chinese Christianity as an indigenous Chinese religion and a legitimate form of World Christianity.

*Archbishop Rowan Williams, “Christianity in the Reinvention of China,” China Review 40 (Autumn 2007): 1.

* Dr. Jonathan Y. Tan is Senior Lecturer at the Australian Catholic University School of Theology in Sydney, Australia, and is the author of Introducing Asian American Theologies (Orbis Books, 2008).

Why Don’t We Hear Much from the Global Church?

William A. Dyrness 

Everyone by now is aware the global shift that has taken place in Christianity. Whereas in 1900, 80% of all Christians were Caucasian and 70% lived in Europe, today the situation is almost exactly reversed. More Christians worship in China than all of Europe; there are more Anglicans in Kenya than in the US and Canada combined, and so on. More importantly, because of globalization, these various groups do not exist in isolation but in increasingly complex relationships. They all participate in the transnational flows of people, goods, and ideas.

Yet despite this reality, and in the face of these transnational connections, the teaching of theology and the formation for ministry dominant in North American institutions is adapting very slowly to this new situation. It is safe to say that we theological educators are mostly not hearing much from what is sometimes called the majority church—and this is happening at precisely the time when North-South connections are more critical than they have ever been, and, ironically, given the Internet and email, more easily promoted.

Why is this so? Let me list very briefly a few of the reasons I think important.

1. We hear little from the majority world because the screen of western media and popular culture rarely lets voices from abroad be heard. The lopsided flow of information is almost entirely from North to South. For example in 2006 (according Bowker.com statistics) there were 292,000 books published in the U.S., of which 18,000 were religious titles. Compare this to 300 published in Kenya, of which 76 were religious and some 1200 in Nigeria, of which 203 were religious  (figures from 1994, 1995 the most recently available UNESCO statistics). And try ordering any of these books from Kenya or Nigeria—they are not available through Amazon!

2.  While we owe much to scholars like Philip Jenkins or Andrew Walls, they also illustrate the fact that voices from abroad, even when they are called to our attention, are mostly interpreted for us by western scholars. Andrew Walls, for example, focuses on historical factors that led to the expansion and growth of Christianity, rather than the theological (or ideological) impulses this represented. Try as we might the different voices escape us.

3.  Behind these factors lies what I think is the most important reason: the

formation we have experienced of the western self screens out too much. While there are significant differences between liberal and evangelical versions of Christianity in the West, in this respect there is a tacit agreement: western Christianity is indelibly shaped by the “liberal self,” in which the individual exists prior to and apart from society, so that the primary locus of religion is the individual.

In contrast, most places in the world experience the world in various pre-modern, modern, or even in some cases post-modern ways, and their churches are mostly untouched by this western liberal self. For them and for most people outside the West, community and relationship are pre-existent, involuntary, and constitutive (as Roberto Goizueta puts it). This means that actual relationships take precedence over abstract dogmatic declarations, whether these involve the physical form of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico or the overwhelming presence of the Spirits in Africa.

           

So here is our problem: that which has determined our fundamental attitude toward truth and knowledge—the Enlightenment, simply does not exist for many people. This led the late Ogbu Kalu in his installation address a few years ago to the Luce Chair in World Christianity at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago to wonder: can real exchange be possible when western intellectual assumptions deny fundamental African beliefs about God and the spirits? As he put it: “Church historians who are in bondage to the tyranny of modern world  view and secular social-science models…collude by diminishing the geist of the profession and ignoring the miraculous and experiential dimensions [of the Church].”* How, he wonders, can intellectual exchange negotiate this difference?

           

There is much more to be said, about economic disparity and inequality for example, but this is enough to show that hearing from the other is not as easy, or as pleasant as we sometimes wish it could be. It leads us to ask: How might we work to change this situation?

*Ogbu Kalu, Clio in a Sacred Garb: Essays on Christian Presence and African Response, 1900-2000 (Trenton NJ: Africa World Press, 2008), 16.

**William A. Dyrness is professor of Theology and Culture at Fuller Theological seminary, co-editor (with V. M. Kärkkäinen) of Global Dictionary of Theology: A Resource for the Worldwide Church (IVP Academic 2008). A longer version of this essay was given at the Ministry Conference at the University of Chicago Divinity School, May 1, 2009, and has been published in Fuller’s Theology, News and Notes, Fall, 2011.

Teaching the Bible in a Different Culture

Yung Suk Kim

Ellen Ott Marshall wrote in a blog: “Transnational pedagogy is learner-centered teaching. It takes into account the varied experiences of students in the classroom, recognizing and utilizing expertise and also accommodating different backgrounds.” Her words struck a chord in me.

I am teaching in the area of biblical studies, and New Testament in particular, at the school of theology where I am the only faculty member of Asian (Korean) heritage and my students are predominantly African-American. They are thirsty for the “living waters” so to speak.

Most of my students, full-time employees in the private or public sectors, come to study in the evenings during the weekdays or on weekends. In this unique environment, teaching the Bible or theology is a daunting task, partly because I am a cultural stranger to the students and partly because my students are divergent even within their African culture.

Some are more marginalized than others. There are also issues regarding gender and class. More importantly, their theological spectrum is broader than I had assumed, ranging from liberationist to fundamentalist positions. However, one thing I have discovered again and again is that I could share my own marginalized experience with them.

I also found that the students are very open to new learning and challenges in biblical studies. Over the years, as I wrote in my Web site, I have come up with the following teaching philosophy that tells who I am or what I am doing in this vocation of theological education:

I teach to engage in the knowledge of who we are in this world where we see one another as diverse. Diversity is not taken for granted but utilized as a source of critical engagement with others. I value both a critical and self-critical stance toward any claim of knowledge, truth, and reality and emphasize the following as pedagogical goals: learning from others, challenging one another, affirming who we are, and working for common humanity through differences. All in all, the goal of my teaching is to foster critical diversity and imagination in their learning process.

Most recently, I taught Introduction to Biblical Studies to first year students. The contents and design of the course focused on helping students to become critical contextual biblical theologians. I explained the processes and complexities of biblical interpretation in which the reader takes the center stage. I also emphasized three elements of critical contextual interpretation: how to read (the text), what to read (textual focus or theology), and why to read (contextuality of the reader), which will be the topics of my future book.

In my teaching, I reiterate the importance of the role of the reader, who has to engage not only the text but also his or her life in a particular life context. At the same time, I help students to be critical of all readings because not all are equally valid or helpful. The oft-cited verse in my classroom is: “Test everything; hold fast to what is good” (1 Thess. 5:21).

We not only unpack the texts from many perspectives, but also deconstruct our familiar readings and reconstruct them in new life contexts. Students are refreshed because of their new learning experience in biblical studies. They also find themselves loving the scripture not simply because of what has been written there but also because they can engage it critically and faithfully for their lives. Oppressive theologies are rejected and the students are reaffirmed as the people of God. In this way the Bible is deconstructed and reconstructed through their lives, because God is the God of all. God is not the God of the past alone, but of the present amidst their turmoil.

In one of my classes, I asked each group (made up of six or seven people) to discuss and answer this question: “Who is Jesus to you and your community? Portray him, using all kinds of methods or approaches that you have learned so far.”

Each group worked hard, and all were genuinely engaged. They used pencils, colored pens, and poster board. Afterward, members of each group stood alongside each other and presented their works creatively and faithfully. I was very impressed by their comprehensive understanding of Jesus in context and by their skills in portraying him from their particular life contexts.

One group said Jesus is water because he is the source of life for Africans and others. After the presentation, I added one thing: Water is a great metaphor since I could relate to my experience of water in my culture. I briefly talked about the image and metaphor of water in Daoism and my cultural experience. The experience here is cross-cultural, spiritual, and contextual.

The other group said Jesus is the sun, because he shines upon all people, showing God’s love to all in the world. The idea here is that Africans need the light and that they become a light for others. I added one more thing: Jesus as the sun is like the power plant, which runs with nuclear fusion, giving energy and light to others (centrifugal). In contrast, the Empires gather power for them at the expense of others (centripetal). There are three more groups that presented nicely. I could see all of my students were engaged in the exercise and they were excited by what they had done. Finally, all said amen. 

  

*Professor Yung Suk Kim is Assistant Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology in Virginia Union University in Richmond, Virginia. He is the author of A Theological Introduction to Paul’s Letters: Exploring a Threefold Theology of Paul (Cascade, 2011) and Christ’s Body in Corinth: The Politics of a Metaphor (Fortress, 2008).