Introduction

I would like to thank Dr. Sientje Merentek-Abram for giving me this opportunity to participate in this important ATESEA gathering and to respond to Dr. Huang Po Ho’s presentation on theme “Theological Education’s Challenges Amidst the Changing Context of Asia.” I sincerely appreciate your presentation of Dr. Huang. You have raised so many compelling issues that need our attention as theological educators in Asia. This only demonstrates that he has a deep understanding of the situation of theological education in Asia. I resonate with you on the many issues you raised and affirm your observations especially on the plight of the theological institutions that are facing financial exigencies, on overloaded faculty, on the neglect of research and lack of creativity in teaching, among others.

Covenanting with the Churches: What Church?

Sunday School taught me that the church is people, the people of God. It is the body of Christ. These are basic, short but loaded statements. The title of your presentation is entitled “Covenanting with the Churches.” When we speak of the church and the Asian context, what church are we talking about? Indeed, there are communities in Asia that call themselves Christian, but they may not be truly Asian churches. Aloysius Pieris of Sri Lanka once called our attention to the reality that not “all local churches in Asia are necessarily local churches of Asia!” [1] Many of them are actually “local churches of mother continents” that are trying to adjust to Asian culture. The missionaries have ‘planted’ churches in Asian soil that is contained in a pot. Consequently, many of them failed to bear fruit that is truly local church of Asia. These churches continue to cherish the exclusivist theologies broadcasted by missionaries of the old type. These churches have internalized colonization, and they have difficulty appreciating contextualized theologies that responds to the challenges of pluralistic but suffering world of Asia. These churches continue to equate mission with convincing people to join their denominations. One may say that these “local churches in Asia” failed to become “local churches of Asia.”[2] In other words, these “local churches in Asia” are geographically located in Asia, but they refuse to engage with Asia’s religious plurality and turn their gaze away from the reality of imposed poverty that vast number of Asian people suffering.

I affirm your observation Dr, Huang: there is a reality of “alienation of theological education from ecclesial concerns.” (4) However, we need to understand the politics that operates in both the church and in theological education. The issue of power play within these institutions is a reality. Power struggles inside these institutions diminish their witness to the world for peace, and indeed, certainly create “illness for Christian faith and irrelevant leadership within the church.”(4) This condition begs that we ask familiar questions once again to clarify the direction of theological education. Who established theological education and for what purpose? What is theological basis for doing theological education? In other words, who sets the agenda? What theological underpinnings lie behind the acts and words of those who have the power to say and do things in the church and in theological education? What are the questions that beg to be asked?

At once, by the title of your paper, Dr. Huang, you tell us that theology and theological education must be done within the framework of a covenant with the church. This covenant views theological education as a “bridge” between Christian mission and theological formation. (4) I like bridges, and its image is beautiful. However, a bridge also points to a dualism. It symbolizes the recognition that Christian mission and theological formation could not be truly one because of the physical barrier posed by the river. They could meet only at some point – at the bridge.

I would like to see theological education and mission from a holistic perspective. Mission must have a theological foundation and theological education must have a vision of mission. There may be distinct expressions of each one but only on the programmatic level. Thus, I would go beyond your metaphor of the bridge, Dr. Huang. I would rather like to see mission and theological education as inseparable and intertwining vines that grow from the stem that is Christ. As such, they intertwined partners in carrying out the task of articulating and incarnating the Christ. Both must embody the christic task of bringing prophetic love, healing and redemption to the suffering world. Moreover, the image of the intertwining vines gives us a sense of flexibility to the situation without losing its being a vine. The vines of church mission and theological education must therefore commit to each other to be flexible to go where the Spirit leads in order to be responsive to Asian realities. For it to be responsive to Asian realities, contextual theological education can only make a strong covenant with the local church of Asia,’ a church that truly embodies an Asian sensibility. Contextual theological education cannot do its task of de-colonizing theology and of accelerating the capacity building of theological education to respond to the challenges of Asian contexts when it is beholden to the ‘church of the mother continents’ that seeks to perpetuate Eurocentric, Western theology.

Theology/theological education must stand as a partner of the church of Asia, even as it maintains a cordial cooperation with the church located in other continents who are trying their best to leave behind the baggage of the “White man’s burden.” Partnership of equals as a condition for a covenant between theological education and the church is crucial especially in times when both are confronted with so many problems and difficulties.

The Changing Context of Asia

Context indeed is complicated. Dr. Huang says “it involves aspects of ethnicity, culture, religion and politics.” (6) In defining context, however, theological education must not overlook the category of race or gloss over the reality of racism. Racism is the discourse and practice of inferiorising ethnic groups, and the practice of cultural imperialism even among dominant groups of Asians. Ethnocentrism reinforces racism when a particular group of people thinks that their society is the norm by which other societies should be evaluated. Even if race is largely a social construct, racialization, or the “representational process whereby social significance is attached to certain biological and/or cultural characteristics”[3] is real in Asia. Race is a label that a person or a group imposes on the less powerful or the disadvantaged or the “stigmatized identity.” To some degree, ethnicity has gained more positive connotation, as the “inferiorized” reclaimed and used it positively to identify themselves as different,[4] e.g. Muslims in Mindanao reclaimed the term Moro to signify to a people who refused to be subjugated. However, along with racism, theological education must also resist ethnocentrism.

Definitely, you do not ignore gender issues, Dr. Huang, yet you exclude it as a category in defining context. One may rightly place gender under the rubric of identity. However, I will argue that gender also shapes context because it involves people’s sexed bodies and it plays a big role in the sphere of power relations in society. In Asian cultures, male domination over women and the Queer – the lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgendered - is the norm. Violence against women and children is glaringly increasing and theological education has ignored the matter of sexual desire that intertwines with power relations.[5] The face of poverty and of HIV/AIDS virus is becoming more and more feminized.

Certainly, the contexts of Asian countries have changed. Some countries have democratized, or at least, show a semblance of democracy. Dr. Huang’s observation is correct, that postmodern and postcolonial discourse have entered into the arena of theological education. These critical theories have become so compelling especially for those who come from once-colonized countries but have emerged as economic tigers and dragons. Other than culture and gender, variable factors such as social class allow people to shuttle between worlds and talk of their hybrid and fluid identities. However, countries that are stuck in the contexts of backward economies and massive poverty brought about by neolocolonization impelled theologians to continue to talk of liberation from day-to-day struggle to keep body and soul together.

Two days ago, a woman in Cebu province planned to commit suicide but killed her children first to save them from suffering. A man in Manila went berserk and hostaged his family because he lost his job. One jumped attempted to jump from a tall billboard frame because he could not find a job. A man died after jumping from the bridge into the murky water of Pasig in Manila. More and more women and children are forced into prostitution. The cruel hands of imposed poverty strangled people’s hopes and lives. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is dangling the official declaration of martial law. As I write this paper, Bishop Labayen of Infanta read a statement of protest on television. The 2004 tsunami, earthquakes, and flash floods have left a harrowing condition to thousands of people in Thailand, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Philippines and other neighboring countries. These events of ecological disaster should compel theology to speak of liberating the earth from people who use power to plunder and ravage the earth. In the span of thirty years, nothing much has changed really, in terms of the situation of the greater number of Asian people are concerned. In fact, life has become more difficult with the new forms of oppressive structures and monoculture. How will theological education make a difference in this context?

Revisiting the Function of Theological Education

Social location and experience shape my response to Dr. Huang. I got my basic theological education in a seminary that is part of a university but remains to be associated with a Protestant denomination. Until I finished the course, I heard none of the contextual feminist voices and the voices of Third World theologians, except that of Gustavo Gutierrez’s. Course outlines listed books written by White men, and except in Christian education courses, the teaching method was and is not far from what Paulo Freire called ‘banking method.’ Stressing on dogma, no course on constructive theology had been offered. Nothing much has changed with the state of theological education, at least, from where I am located. That is why the surfacing of the thirty-year old document called Critical Asian principle came as a surprise to me. I must say Dr. Huang is right when he pointed out that theological education structures have not taken seriously, the “methodology of ‘from below’ introduced by [Asian] contextual theologies.” (12)

I have to say that theological education that refuses to be contextual run the risk of becoming instruments of colonization by proxy. This happens especially if professors, though they may be politically progressive, seemingly have difficulty shaking off the dust of Euro-American paradigms and theologies that are misconstrued as ‘neutral’ and ‘universally valid.’ One, for example, takes Barth’s theology as classic and regard Asian theologies as ‘local theology,’ making it sound as if the latter is second-class theology. In fairness to these professors, I can see their struggle with identity crisis. Can I be a Christian and remain Asian? The strong influence of Western liberal and neo-orthodox theologies have on theological education and the church created this crisis. It holds that religion and culture, other than Christianity, is not compatible with revelation and that there is not continuity between grace and nature.[6] Consequently, theological education turns out graduates who continue to carry Western theological paradigms in their mind. It is therefore not surprising that the churches that these graduates serve remain ‘churches of the mother continent in Asia.”

Given this situation, I understand why Dr. Huang prefers to use the term “re- target.” He wants to stress the effort to reach the goal of making clear the role of theological education and its main tasks. Indeed, theological education exist to train the enablers to equip “the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” (Eph. 4:12-13) Theological education in Asia must move away from being consumers of theologies produced in Europe and North America. Thus, one of its important tasks is to construct theologies that truly emerged from Asian contexts.

Indeed, one can no longer do contextual theology without taking “the global perspective of local issues and the local relevance of the global issues.”[7] Today, we need to understand that contextual theologizing cannot anymore isolate the categories of Asian and indigenous cultures, religion and spirituality. In doing contextual theology, the problem of language also needs to be considered. Language shapes culture and it was used by colonizers “to establish colonial identity and domination” and “replaces the world view” of the native with the colonizers’ worldview.[8] Thus, Asian feminists insist that when we use English, or in our own languages, we have to use inclusive language and concepts in our discourse.

Academic Excellence or Formation for Mission?

Theological education needs to keep a balance between academic excellence or the intellectual dimensions of theology and the cultivation of spirituality and missiological concerns. Giving weight to intellectual excellence apart from the cultivation of values and spirituality will be disastrous. Yet, a spirituality that is not able to articulate its foundation will also be shaky. If redemption is understood as eternal life or fullness of life, and is the ultimately the vision of Christian life and faith, then, theological education must pay attention to the law of Love. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with your entire mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” (Lk. 10:27, NRSV) Thus, theological education must be holistic. It must nurture people in a kind of piety and deep spirituality that is engaged with the challenges of the world, and at the same time, takes the rigors of theological scholarship and critical thinking. The church of Asia must be a teaching church. As such, it must have the commitment to prepare women and men who choose to go through the formation in theological education.

Dr. Huang hailed the rising popularity of university-based religious studies and distinguish it from seminary-based theological education by pointing out the latter’s missiological orientation. I understand, however, Dr. Huang’s dilemma about religious studies’ claim to resources that could have gone to theological education. Yet, Antonette Palma of Ateneo de Manila insists that teaching theology in college must also be taken as values formation, rather than teach it from purely academic perspective.[9] How, then, shall we look at college-based theological education and religious studies? Can we not see it as part of formation of the lay people? Isn’t equipping the lay within the vision of theological education as formation?

The ‘Must” and the “How” of Contextual Theologies

Dr. Huang, your worry that theology that is responsive to the life and death of people is “withered” and is “fading” worry seems to arise from the influx of postmodern theory that poses the danger of reinforcing individualism. I think we must not ignore these emerging theories. However, we need to be critical of these. I resonate with R. S. Sugirtharajah’s critique of postmodern theology as “Eurocentric in its conceptual and aesthetic thrust,” that “it lacks a theory of resistance,” and “fails to cultivate a transformative agenda.”[10] Critical thinking is a must in contextual theology.

You said that “[a] theology driven by the sentiment of ‘must’ function when there is a target, namely, missionary theologies, against which to rebel.” (9) I do not agree with your view that the condition that drives the sentiment of ‘must” no longer exist. The challenge to “counter the western theologies imposed by the missionaries” is not a passé. The rise of an unrivaled Empire needs our resistance. The challenge remains because the context that breeds all forms of violence, and especially violence against women and children is not only about the economic condition. Theologies shaped by patriarchy and sexism that normalizes violence are very much alive and these are what Argentinian Marcella Althaus-Reid call “indecent theologies.”[11] Theological education must now take into consideration sexuality and the body as theological categories and see how patriarchy and globalized capitalism are entrenched in Asian societies.

Last but not the least, theological education must also acknowledge that Asian women are now doing theology. Women’s voices emerged when they found that the theological gurus in Asian theology who are men did not address the issues of class, race, gender, sexuality, religious plurality and weave these with ecotheology and ecofeminism as they reflect on the daily life-and-death struggles of Asian people. Marianne Katoppo, Aruna Gnanadasun, Sun Ai Park Lee, Kwok Pui Lan, Chung Hyun Kyung, Virginia Fabella, Mary John Mananzan have pioneered in Asian feminist theology. Moreover, the voices of Asian Queer/LGBT (lesbian, gay, bixesual and transgendered) women and men are also rising. They have broken new grounds in the “how” or methodology of doing theology. Thus, the theological voices of women and the LGBT people must be lifted up. In your paper, Dr. Huang, you missed to mention the pioneering feminist theological journal In God’s Image and the Asian Women’s Resource Center for Culture and Theology. In your list of emerging Asian theologies, you forgot to mention Dalit and Tribal theologies.

As I have said, Dr. Huang Po Ho you have raised a lot of issues. Space and time limit do not allow me to respond to all of these issues. However, I thank you once again for those thought provoking and compelling questions. May those questions and issues help us in charting the future of a theological education in Asia that envisions the fullness of life for all. Thank you everyone for listening.

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Althaus-Reid, Marcella. Indecent Theology: Theological Perversions in Sex, Gender and Politics. London and New York: Routledge, 2000.

Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics. Translated by G.T. Thomson and Harold Knight. Edited by Geoffrey W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance. 14 vols. Vol. 1. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1956.

Joseph, M.P. "Introduction: Searching Beyond Galilee." In From Galilee to Tainan: Towards a Theology of Chhut-Thau-Thin, 3-18. Quezon City, Philippines: Associaiton for Theological Education in South East Asia, 2005.

McDowell, Linda. "Ethnic/Ethnicity." In A Feminist Glossary of Human Geography, edited by Linda McDowell and Joanne P. Sharp, 79-80. London and New York: Arnold, 1999.

McDowell, Linda, and Joanne P. Sharp, eds. A Feminist Glossary of Human Geography. London and New York: Arnold, 1999.

Palma-Angeles, Antonette. "Implications for Teaching Theology and the Christian Religion in Asian Academies." Paper presented at the Critical Engagement in the Asian Context, Hong Kong 2005.

Pieris, Aloysius. An Asian Theology of Liberation. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1988.

Poerwowidagdo, Judo. Towards the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities for Theological Education. Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1993.

Sugirtharajah, R.S. Asian Biblical Hermeneutics and Postcolonialism: Contesting the Interpretations. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1998.

Walter, Bronwen. "Race." In A Feminist Glossary of Human Geography, edited by Linda McDowell and Joanne P. Sharp, 226-27. London and New York: Arnold, 1999.

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Notes:

[1] Aloysius Pieris, An Asian Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1988), 36.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Bronwen Walter, "Race," in A Feminist Glossary of Human Geography, ed. Linda McDowell and Joanne P. Sharp (London and New York: Arnold, 1999), 226-27.

[4] Linda McDowell, "Ethnic/Ethnicity," Ibid., 79-80. Ethnicity, a complex word usually used to refer to people of color or minority groups of migrants who are assumed different from their host on the basis of social characteristic, which include skin color and cultural identity. Ethnicity is distinguished from the term ‘race’ to emphasize the social constructivists nature of difference between people of different origins and identities.

[5] Linda McDowell and Joanne P. Sharp, eds., A Feminist Glossary of Human Geography (London and New York: Arnold, 1999), 106-07. We need to interrogate relationships and these are inherently Political questions should be raised relationships: are they consensual or coercive? Is pleasure equally given and received? These are important questions in feminist analysis of sexually in connection with heterosexuality and men’s position of social dominance.

[6] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance, trans. G.T. Thomson and Harold Knight, 14 vols., vol. 1 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1956), 280-81.

[7] Judo Poerwowidagdo, Towards the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities for Theological Education (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1993), 54.

[8] M.P. Joseph, "Introduction: Searching Beyond Galilee," in From Galilee to Tainan: Towards a Theology of Chhut-Thau-Thin (Quezon City, Philippines: Associaiton for Theological Education in South East Asia, 2005), 6.

[9] Antonette Palma-Angeles, "Implications for Teaching Theology and the Christian Religion in Asian Academies" (paper presented at the Critical Engagement in the Asian Context, Hong Kong, 2005).

[10] R.S. Sugirtharajah, Asian Biblical Hermeneutics and Postcolonialism: Contesting the Interpretations (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1998), 15.

[11] Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology: Theological Perversions in Sex, Gender and Politics (London and New York: Routledge, 2000).

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