Book Review Part 4: Ed. J.P. Greenman and G.K. Green, "Global Theology in Evangelical Perspective," IVP, 2012.

Global Theology - Asian Perspectives

Review:

(This last review of Global Theology features 3 Asian perspectives from K.K. Yeo, Ken Gnanaken and Amos Yong.)

For those interested in connecting Chinese culture and contextualizing it to the Christian gospel, K.K. Yeo offers an interesting approach.  In his article, “Christian Chinese Theology, theological ethics of becoming human and holy”, Yeo makes the link between Confucian ethics and Pauline ethics in the New Testament.  He says of himself: “I, as an interpreter, have the Chinese DNA, I also have the Christian DNA – one who has been shaped by the Bible and by the Chinese tradition”(p. 106).  He promotes “Christian Chinese Theology as a way to maintain Chinese cultural identity and Christian theological identity concomitantly”(p. 103). He says: “The intertextual reading that is inherent in the Confucian classics and biblical canon via a Christian Chinese approach extends itself into the interscriptural reading between these two texts with the hope that the Bible will be expressed using Confucian language and the Confucian ethics will be fulfilled by the gospel” (pp. 106-107). For those working among Chinese peoples, his approach bears careful exploration and discussion.       (Reviewed by M.L. Codman-Wilson, Ph.D., 4/17/12)

1.      “Christian Chinese Theology, theological ethics of becoming human and holy”. K.K. Yeo.
“Both the evangelical Christians and the Confucianists treasure their respective scriptures as authoritative rules of life.  But for the Christian Chinese who are familiar with both texts, CCT will seek to fulfill the Chinese text with the Bible…I hope the proposed thesis of theological ethics in CCT will benefit both parties: on the one hand, the Chinese culture that awaits its fulfillment from Christian theology and on the other hand, a global theology that is often dominated by a Eurocentric mindset and thus such ‘normative’ theology is in need of critiques from global theologies.  A truly CCT will maintain a Chinese cultural identity and a Christian theological identity concomitantly.” (pp. 102-103)

“The key concept in Confucius’s ethics can be seen in his usage of Dao – Dao is the vision of life to be practiced…The way of Tian is the divine paradigm for culture…Confucianists seek to follow the pattern of heaven and earth and hope that they will be led by the rightness of the heavens and the benefits of the earth so that all under heaven might be in harmony” (pp.107-108). The word dao connotes the universal way or cosmic moral principle. Just like tian, Dao is eternal in its existence and creative in its power…

“According to Confucius it is the ethical life that actualizes the creativity and goodness of heaven (tian). Confucius seeks being human as loving others and that loving others fulfills the mandate of heaven… Freedom results from following the right course and being in tune with how things are as ordered by Dao, the cosmic way. Paul’s ethic of freedom is rooted in God’s act of forgiving love in Jesus Christ that liberates, through faith, those enslaved by the power of sin and death” (pp.109-110). “Both Confucius and Paul include the ethical quality of the eternal power and nature of God, the ethical demand implicit in the self-revelation of God’s righteousness and the universality and clarity of God’s self-revelation in creation” (p. 111).

“The shared concern of the Confucianists and the Christian texts for Christian Chinese lies in their concern for the formation of a community rule that leads to freedom and integrity.  As a Christian Chinese I find that Confucius’s ethic teaching can be enriched by Paul’s understanding of God’s Spirit – that which give birth to and enables the ethical life…

“There are subtle differences between the ethics of Confucius and Paul but the end result of CCT may be the same.  According to Confucius to be human is to be a holy person...He approaches anthropology from a cosmological and sociopolitical perspective; Paul’s anthropology is Christologically defined and is subsumed under divine grace…Paul believes the power of God’s Spirit is essential for believers to live a life of holiness, a life pleasing to God. ..There are ethical imperatives Christians must carry out…Being in Christ moves toward being like Christ. This understanding of ethics, of course, is distinctly Christian though to my Chinese ears the language sounds Confucianist with respect to a life of holiness as a process of obedience”…Both Pauline and Confucian ethics understand that the process of sanctification is aimed toward loving one’s neighbor…Paul speaks most clearly of sacrificial love” (pp.112-113).

"I believe that Christ completes or extends what is merely implicit or absent in Confucius; with Christ, the Confucian ethic too quickly generates into a system of ritualistic behavior. But the Confucian ethic amplifies various elements of Christian theologies (for example community, virtues) that are underplayed in Western Christianity” (p.114).

In Ken Gnanaken’s article “Some Insights into Indian Christian Theology,” he asserts: “To say that as Christianity gets embedded into India it should maintain Western forms would be depriving the gospel of its dynamic power.  The gospel that came into a Jewish setting has continued to adapt itself wherever it is making inroads” (P.118). He acknowledged the concern that “the search for an Indian theology was an objectionable exercise because it diluted the purity of the gospel and biblical theology” and briefly  surveys radical Indian theologies who did that in their effort at contextualization (i.e., Chakkarai, Panikkar, Fanquhar, M.M. Thomas, S. Samartha). But he moves to an evangelical perspective as he promotes “a theology of religion appropriate to our [Indian] context, yet true to the biblical claims” (p. 131). His insights lay a basic foundation for those Christians seeking to do evangelism or dialogue within a pluralistic religious context.              (Reviewed by M.L. Codman-Wilson, Ph.D., 4/17/12)

2.”Some Insights into Indian Christian Theology,” Ken Gnanaken

“As a theologian wanting to base conclusions on the facts revealed in the Bible, I find no problem in accepting that there is some commonness in all religions. Take, for instance, prayer and meditation… Christians in India, meeting men and women who truly desire to worship the true God but who still linger within idolatry face this situation [i.e., Paul’s distress in Athens with their many idols].  We are distressed by some practices but discern a longing for God.  The understanding of God and salvation are different but the desire is the same…Just like the Greeks (Paul addressed) there are many Hindus who search for the unknown beyond the known, the truth beyond all the falsehood, the light beyond the darkness.  Rather than defining the differences, it is best to build on commonalities.” (p.129). 

 “Although we may speak of God revealing himself to religious people even outside of Jesus Christ, this revelation does not directly bring salvation. It points toward, even leads toward, salvation. It has pre-salvific significance, preparing people to accept the grace and truth of God. A person or a community may genuinely experience the revelation of God outside of Jesus Christ, but the test of its genuineness is that the Holy Spirit will lead the individual or the community to an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom alone salvation is available for all who believe…Evangelism and dialogue based on this continuity will bring a more positive involvement in the lives of men and women searching for God in many different directions” (132).

3.      “Asian American Evangelical Theology” by Amos Young

Amos Yong’s article “Asian American Evangelical Theology” gives a brief survey of notable Asian American theologians who have written from an Asian perspective – i.e., C.S. Song, Andrew Park, Yung Young Lee, Rita Nakashima Brock, Peter C. Phan and K.K. Yeo.  But his dominant emphasis is a call for Asian American evangelicals to bring the dynamics of their cultural issues and background to the broad evangelical table:

He laments the paucity of publications by Asian American evangelicals saying: Asian American evangelicals [who are generally conservative] have “a cultural hermeneutics of suspicion that is always concerned about syncretism with the world.  They have thus usually understood their Christian conversion to involve either a turning away from their Asian cultural roots or a minimizing of such aspects of their identity, emphasizing instead their new life in Christ and as Christians” (p.203).  He believes “this fundamental worldview orientation is reinforced in evangelical seminary education” which resists pluralism and “insists on a biblical orientation that maps the totality of the human experience, regardless of cultural particularities.  Thus, for example, humankind suffers from one overall problem, that of sin against God, and that one problem demands basically one solution, the substitutionary atonement of the Son’s death of the cross. It does not matter that Asians have a shame rather than guilt culture, since, in this evangelical framework, there is no need to rethink the inherited theology of atonement from Asian perspectives” (pp.204-205).   

As a result he believes “If Asian Americans were to write their own theologies, these would be [seen as] parochial undertakings, with marginal relevance from the evangelical perspective only for “those  people (maybe immigrants, refugees or exiles) who have not yet assimilated into the broader American evangelical culture.  Little wonder, then, that few Asian Americans have ventured into this theological territory” (pp.205-206).

Yong’s plea is that “both my Asian American evangelical associates in particular and my evangelical colleagues in general take Asian cultural, philosophical and religious resources seriously in our global context…The forces of globalization, immigration and transnationalism have produced an Asian diaspora not only in the Wet but around the world….Theology cannot remain merely an exercise in philosophical speculation...but must be touched by and get its hands dirty” with the “practical realities of Asian American life in particular, including the travels of migration, the burden of being a moral minority, the challenges of ethnicity in a world of ‘whiteness,’ and the task of living betwixt and between, which oftentime means neither ‘here’ nor there’” (pp.206-208). 

He insists such “evangelical theology should also be fully trinitarian, which means Christ-centered and pentecostally oriented.” He chooses to “supplement the Christocentric emphases of much of evangelical theology with a Pentecostal and pneumatological accent” (p. 207).Yong’s believes the issues raised by relevant contextual thinking by Asian American Evangelicals “will enrich the evangelical theological conversation” (p.208) worldwide. 

Yong voices the critical plea for inclusion and openness that all the presenters from the Global South make consistently throughout  the Global Theology book. Westerners need to seriously ponder these perspectives.  As Yeo’s says: the current “ global theology is often dominated by a Eurocentric mindset and thus such ‘normative’ theology is in need of critiques from global theologies” (Yeo, p. 103).

- M.L. Codman-Wilson, Ph.D., 4/17/12