Mangoes or Bananas?: The Quest for an Authentic Asian Christian Theology

Commendations for the First Edition

This book should have been written long ago! The author has lived and struggled with his theme for more than 20 years. That authentic theology must be grounded in mission and pastoral practice is absolutely vital. By a judicious handling of the different views discussed, Hwa Yung has produced a book which will help the Asian church, and others as well, forward in mission, pastoral care and theologising.

The Rt. Rev. Dr John Chew Hiang Chea, Bishop of Singapore (2000-2012); formerly Principal of Trinity Theological College, Singapore

The contribution of Hwa Yung’s excellent work is to suggest that we have as yet hardly seen the beginning of an authentic Christian theology for Asia. He shows with great clarity how both radical and conservative Asian theologians have so far failed to break out of Western captivity, and points the way to a fresh and powerful recovery of authentic Christianity in a genuinely Asian mode. This book is a hugely welcome contribution to a discussion on method in Asian theology, which is rapidly becoming more and more sophisticated and interesting.

Lord Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury (2002-2012) & Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge University.

From Reviews for the First Edition

Readers of this book will discover that Hwa Yung is not only a fine theologian, but a pastor who is deeply concerned for his flock. Missionaries, pastors, and students of both theology and mission will find Mangoes or Bananas? a welcome addition to their reading list.

Daniel J. Adams, Missiology

This is a superb study, well-researched, clearly outlined and presented, balanced in judgments, and committed to the mission and faith of the Christian church. While there are always caveats, this reviewer appreciated Hwa’s consistent reminder that theology at its best is not speculative and theoretical, but a habitus practicus, which addresses concerns unique to each culture, but which also eventuates in deepened doxology, diaconia, koinonia, and mission. Producing such a theology is Hwa’s challenge to every people, and particularly to the people of Asia – and that in turn becomes each people’s finest contribution to the faith of the church catholic.

Henry Rowold, Missio Apostolica

REGNUM STUDIES IN MISSION

Mangoes or Bananas?

The Quest for an Authentic Asian Christian Theology

Second Edition

Series Preface

Regnum Studies in Mission are born from the lived experience of Christians and Christian communities in mission, especially but not solely in the fast growing churches among the poor of the world. These churches have more to tell than stories of growth. They are making significant impacts on their cultures in the cause of Christ. They are producing ‘cultural products’ which express the reality of Christian faith, hope and love in their societies.

Regnum Studies in Mission are the fruit often of rigorous research to the highest international standards and always of authentic Christian engagement in the transformation of people and societies. And these are for the world. The formation of Christian theology, missiology and practice in the twenty-first century will depend to a great extent on the active participation of growing churches contributing biblical and culturally appropriate expressions of Christian practice to inform World Christianity.

Series Editors

A full listing of titles in this series appears at the end of this book

REGNUM STUDIES IN MISSION

Mangoes or Bananas?

The Quest for an Authentic Asian Christian Theology

Second Edition

Hwa Yung

Copyright © Hwa Yung 2014

First edition published 1997 by Regnum Books International

Second edition published 2014 by Regnum Books International

Regnum is an imprint of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies

St. Philip and St. James Church

Woodstock Road

Oxford, OX2 6HR, UK

www.ocms.ac.uk/regnum

09 08 07 06 05 04 03 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The right of Hwa Yung to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a license permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licenses are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-908355-47-8 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-908355-53-9 (ePub)

ISBN: 978-1-908355-54-6 (Mobi)

Typeset by Words by Design

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In memory of my parents

Contents

Preface

Preface to the Second Edition

Abbreviations

Chapter 1

Introduction

Reasons for Dissatisfaction with Western Theology

The Development of Asian Theology

Approach Proposed

Methodology

Chapter 2

Toward a Theology of Mission

Mission Theology Today – Convergences and Divergences

The Roots of Divergences in Mission Theology – The Enlightenment and Western Dualism

Toward a Theology of Mission

Chapter 3

Criteria for a Missiological Theology – Part One

Contextualization: Some Basic Considerations

Contextualization and Sociopolitical Concerns

Contextualization and the Church’s Evangelistic and Pastoral Ministries

Contextualization and Inculturation

Chapter 4

Criteria for a Missiological Theology – Part Two

Contextualization and Faithfulness to the Christian Tradition

Contextualization and Faithfulness to the Christian Tradition: A Critique of Religious Pluralism

Concluding Comments

Chapter 5

Asian Theologies up to World War Two

Accommodation to Chinese Culture: Matteo Ricci

Contending for the Faith: The Beginnings of Indigenous Chinese Theology

The Rational Refutation of Hinduism: Nehemiah Goreh

‘The Water of Life in An Indian Cup’: Sadhu Sundar Singh

Beyond the ‘Latin Captivity’ of the Indian Church: the Trinity as Sacchidananda

Holistic Evangelism and Prophetic Social Witness: Toyohiko Kagawa

Concluding Remarks

Chapter 6

Ecumenical Asian Theologies After World War Two

D. T. Niles and Ecumenism with Evangelism

M. M. Thomas and a Christian Karma Marga

Kosuke Koyama and ‘Waterbuffalo Theology’

C. S. Song and the Theology of Transposition

Minjung Theology and Political Liberation in Korea

Chapter 7

Conservative Asian Theologies After World War Two

ATA and the Evangelical Response

Vinay Samuel and Holistic Mission

Cho Yong-gi and the Pentecostal Challenge

Concluding Remarks on Some Trends Observed in Protestant Asian Theologies

Chapter 8

Toward an Asian Christian Theology

Literary Genres Required in Asian Theology

Some Important Concerns in the Contextualization Process in Asian Theology

Postscript

Chapter 9

A Personal Journey

Bibliography

Index of Names

Preface

This book was originally a dissertation submitted under the title Theology and Mission in the Asian Church. Here it has been re-titled for the purpose of expressing more adequately its central thesis. Any perplexities that readers may have with the symbolism, hopefully, will be removed by the time they have read through it. Further, for the present purpose, some minor modifications together with additions have been made to the original.

This work is the result of a long pilgrimage which formally began when I first embarked on academic theological studies in Britain some twenty years ago. In some ways I enjoyed my studies then immensely, but in others it was extremely frustrating. On the one hand, it opened my mind and heart to many deep truths of God. On the other, I found that again and again, the Western theologies that I was learning often failed to answer the questions that I was consciously and sub-consciously asking from within my own spiritual, cultural, and sociopolitical context. There was a very real sense of disappointment and exasperation in those years.

Later I read more of what Asian theological writers had produced. But again, there was a sense of disappointment with what I found because I felt that much of the material was only superficially contextual. They often failed to really address the questions that the Asian church at the grass-roots was wrestling with. The writings also tended to be too academic. And there was simply too much captivity to the Enlightenment framework.

So I struggled on. At times I almost lost confidence in my own pilgrimage, and despaired of finding genuine answers. For whatever it is worth, this dissertation is the product of that struggle. The task of putting it together has brought me personally some light. I offer it as a contribution to the wider Christian community, in the hope that it will bring some fellow pilgrims, especially those from the Two-Thirds World, some light too.

I am indebted to many people for making this project possible. I am grateful to the Council of Seminari Theoloji Malaysia, for granting me the one year’s sabbatical during which much of the groundwork for this was done. I am also grateful to the E. Stanley Jones School of World Mission and Evangelism of Asbury Theological Seminary, the World Evangelical Fellowship, and the Sungei-Way Subang Methodist Church in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, for financial assistance for my doctoral studies.

My mentor for this dissertation, Dr. Everett N. Hunt, Jr., has been a real friend, source of encouragement, and model of pastoral oversight for over-pressurized students. The other two members of my dissertation committee, Dr. George G. Hunter III and Dr. Stephen A. Seamands, have both been valuable sources of wisdom and encouragement also. I am deeply indebted to them and to the other faculty members, and Mrs. Pat Richmond, of the E. Stanley Jones School of World Mission and Evangelism. They gave me space to find both God and myself in my pilgrimage, without losing touch with the deepest yearnings of my culture and my heart.

I am also grateful to my friend, Florence Ma, who gave much time to edit this manuscript, and helped sort out my English. But the ones I owe most to are my three children and, especially my longsuffering wife, Bee Teik. They have all been looking forward to its completion so that I can get on with some of my duties as husband and father!

Finally, a word of explanation is necessary with respect to Asian names and transliteration. With one or two exceptions, I have consistently written Chinese and Korean names (including my own) with the surnames first – as they should be done in their own cultures. I hope Western readers will bear with this. With respect to the transliteration of Chinese terms, I have tried as far as possible to use the Pinyin system, except when the Wade-Giles system is used in quotations.

Hwa Yung

Malaysia Theological Seminary

Petaling Jaya

August 1996

Preface to the Second Edition

It has been some time since this book first came out in 1997. Some reviewers were not entirely enthused with it. One from a conservative evangelical background was not quite certain that the contextualization agenda is meaningful in modern fast-changing Asia. Another of a more ecumenical bent actually labeled it negatively as a contra book, although he never quite said to what it was being contra. At the same time, others were much more positive and welcoming, including some Catholic scholars. In particular, it has been most heartwarming to have friends and fellow scholars teaching in other seminaries, both in Asia and elsewhere, telling me of its being used as a textbook in many places.

Over the years, since this was first published, I have continued to write on the subject of Asian theology and mission. Alas, because of church responsibilities, far less has been produced than I had hoped. However, when Dr. Wonsuk Ma, Executive Director of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies suggested that we should do a new edition of this book, I did wonder whether it would be worthwhile at all for two reasons. First, although my thinking on the subject has not fundamentally changed, I really felt that more than merely another edition, a new book needs to be rewritten today. And if I were to write a new book, it probably would take a somewhat different structure and shape.

Second, there have been quite a substantial number of new books, not to mention articles, since the mid-1990s related to Asian theology. Here I can only mentioned briefly some of the more significant ones from Protestant writers. On the ecumenical side, Asian Faces of Jesus, edited by R. S. Sugirtharajah (1993) is a useful compendium of theological reflections on Christology from a more liberal perspective. Two useful volumes on Japanese theology are found in A History of Japanese Theology, by Yasuo Furuya (1997), and Vitality of East Asian Christianity, edited by Hidetoshi Watanabe, et. al. (2004). Further theological explorations on Korean Minjung theology from the conservative to a more radical perspective, and by both Asian and western scholars are found in Asian Contextual Theology for the Third Millenium, edited by Paul S. Chung, et. al. (2007). From India, further contributions to Dalit theology include Revisiting and Resignifying Methodology for Dalit Theology, edited by James Massey, et. al. (2008).

On the conservative evangelical and Pentecostal side, there certainly has been a proliferation of writings compared with the previous generation. Two volumes by Samuel Jayakumar (1999 & 2002), Dalit Consciousness and Christian Conversion and Indian Models of Wholistic Mission are significant contributions to the Dalit theology debate from the perspective of holistic mission. Ivan M. Satyavrata (2011) has done a fine study on fulfillment theology from the Indian context in God has Not Left Himself Without a Witness. Asia Theological Seminary in Philippines has been running their ATS Forum annually since 2005, much of which deals with theologizing in the Filipino context. The first two volumes are Doing Theology in the Philippines (2005) and Naming the Unknown God (2006). At least three recent studies on Korean Pentecostalism have emerged. These are History and Theology of Korean Pentecostalism by Ig-Jin Kim (2003), The Holy Spirit Movement in Korea by Young-Hoon Lee (2009), and a compendium on David Yonggi Cho, edited by Wonsuk Ma, et. al.(2004).

It should be noted that western scholars are increasingly paying attention to significant Asian figures of the past. In Building Christianity on Indian Foundations, Timothy Tennant (2000) has produced an invaluable study of the Indian Christian, Brahmabandhav Upadhyay, on his efforts to produce an indigenous Indian Christianity using Indian philosophical and cultural categories. In the Shadow of the Mahatma by Susan Harper (2000) on Bishop V. S. Azariah is the first critical study on India’s first native Anglican and probably most well-known bishop. The two chief protagonists of the Chinese church of the last generation were Bishop K. H Ting and Wang Ming-Dao who stood on opposing sides of the theological and political divide. Acquainted with Grief by Thomas Harvey (2002) on Wang, and Reconstructing Christianity in China by Philip Wickeri (2007) on Ting, together shed much light on the context and the reasons for the clash of views. John Howes (2005), in Japan’s Modern Prophet: Uchimura Kanzo, 1861-1930, has given a comprehensive study of Uchimura Kanzo who advanced the concept of mukyokai, ‘non-church,’ as a particular approach to indigenizing Japanese Christianity.

The above are but a mere sampling. Much more have been published, in English and also in Asian languages, especially Korean and Chinese. Big gaps still exist in our understanding of the subject and the personalities involved. But to round off, two books in particular need noting. If one wishes to know what Asian academic theologians have been and are thinking, the best one-volume study probably is Christian Theology in Asia, edited by Sebastian Kim (2008). But if one wishes to know where the Asian churches at the grass-roots are, Asian and Pentecostal, edited by Allan Anderson and Edmond Tang (2011), would be as good a place to begin as any. Whereas the former informs us of the intellectual and scholarly issues that Asian theologians are addressing, the latter shows that probably most of the fast growing churches in Asia are broadly Pentecostal or charismatic in character, though not necessarily by denomination. As in the book of Acts, many of these churches at the cutting edge of Christian growth take the demonic as well as the signs and wonders of the Holy Spirit seriously.

Given the vast amount of material that has come online since this book was first published, it would be simply impossible to incorporate them into a revised edition. I have therefore decided that the wisest course of action is to leave the book as it was without alterations, apart from typos and a few word changes. However, a new preface has been added with the above brief survey of some more recent literature, plus a new concluding chapter. The latter is a slightly revised version of an earlier published article wherein I shared my personal journey to explain how I came to the conclusions arrived at in the book, together with some pointers for further developments for the future. Being a story, it is probably more interesting than the rest of the book. My hope and prayer is that God will use this new edition to further the usefulness of this book for a few more years, and contribute to the shaping of many godly and mature churches throughout Asia!

Hwa Yung

Seremban, Malaysia

January 2014

Abbreviations

Chapter 1

Introduction

Over the last few hundred years the Church in the Western world has not only brought the gospel to Africa, Asia and Latin America, but it has also done so in a deeply enculturated Western form. Whereas this may have often been welcomed in the past by Christians in the Two-Thirds World, because of its associations with a more advanced technology and an apparently more advanced civilization, increasingly this perceived imposition of alien cultural categories and forms is being questioned and even rejected. The two main reasons for this are, first, an increasing dissatisfaction with a ‘western’ Christianity as against an indigenous variety, and second, a quest for a clearer sense of self-identity on the part of Christians throughout the Two-Thirds World. This is particularly so in the realm of theology.

Reasons for Dissatisfaction with Western Theology

The increasing sense of dissatisfaction with Western theology is not without good reasons.

Different Histories and Realities Presupposed

To begin with, Western theologies are the products of the histories, cultures and realities of the West. They cannot, therefore, adequately address the existential realities of the rest of the world because these differ so much from those of the West. The Asian theologian, Kosuke Koyama (1989:217), lists the six themes characterizing Asian theological concerns as follows: the relation or relevance of Christ to revolutionary social change, widespread poverty, ethnic and economic minorities, both the positive and negative aspects of culture, the plurality of religions, and ecclesiastical divisions.¹ While some Western writers may have worked with some of these issues, the majority of Western theological writings can hardly be expected to deal with these issues in detail or with the same degree of sensitivity of those who wrestle with these as daily existential realities. They do not and they cannot.

To take but one example, consider the German theologian, Jurgen Moltmann, who is often perceived as one who does seek to identify at least to some extent with Two-Thirds World issues. In one of his most important books, The Crucified God (1974), he powerfully expounds the notion that Christ by dying as a blasphemer, subversive and godforsakened, identifies himself with the oppressed, unrighteous and abandoned of this world. This interpretation of the death of Christ naturally would have a great appeal in Asia against the background of its political and socioeconomic realities. Yet it is clear that one of the key driving forces behind his exposition is the concern for a ‘theology after Auschwitz’² which can deal adequately with the problem of evil and suffering and gives us hope ‘for the future of man in God’ (Moltmann 1974:278). His concern here is easily understood when it is remembered that during World War Two he was a member of the German Air Force.

Few Asian Christians who have read Moltmann’s book can fail to be impressed with its passionate wrestling towards a ‘theology after Auschwitz’. But the question they would ask however is: Does this address directly the six issues that Koyama raises? Even if it does, are not the imagery used and historical background presupposed rather foreign and distant from the Asian mind? Would not a wrestling towards a ‘theology after the Rape of Nanjing’, a ‘theology after the Death Railway’, or a ‘theology after Hiroshima’, to use images from the same historical epoch, stir up more passionate cords in the Asian context? As it is, even when Western writers deal with concerns similar to those in the Asian scene at the rational level, the very approaches taken have tended to leave the treatment emotionally cold to the Asian heart.

A Different Worldview Presupposed

A second reason for dissatisfaction with Western theology is that it presupposes a worldview which has been heavily influenced by the Enlightenment. The anthropologist Charles H. Kraft (1989:27-34) characterizes the Western worldview as naturalistic, with the supernatural largely disregarded; as being governed by materialistic values; as being humanistic, thus making God largely irrelevant; as being rationalistic, thus rejecting anything that appears to fall outside the purview of rigorous rational analysis; and as valuing individualism and independence above community and group-identity. These have inevitably strongly shaped Western theology. That being the case, how can such a theology adequately address the concerns of Asian and other Two-Thirds World cultures which are generally much more holistic, without the sharp separation between the natural and the supernatural with its emphasis on the world of spirits and the dead; decidedly less materialistic; no less humanistic, but not so at the expense of denying the divine; no less rational but nevertheless open to knowledge through intuition and other non-rational media; and group and community-oriented rather than ruggedly individualistic?

Missionary anthropologists have noted that it is often the different worldviews presupposed by the Western missionary and the non-western recipient of the missionary’s message that have resulted in the concerns of the latter’s worldview being inadequately addressed by the missionary’s gospel. This is one of the key hindrances to the genuine indigenization of the gospel in non-western cultures. For example, Paul Hiebert (1982), has noted that the religious worldview of the non-westerner includes both a level of ‘high religion’, e.g. Hinduism, Islam, etc., and another of ‘folk religion’, related to magic, astrology, and spirit worship. The Western missionary, accustomed as he is at dealing with only questions of ultimate truth and meaning, effectively addresses only the ‘high religion’ level of the non-westerner’s worldview, but excludes the other. Similarly, Darrell Whiteman (1983:411-443) notes that the Western missionary, in failing to take the non-westerner’s worldview and culture seriously, often ends up converting others to a ‘Western Christianity’ rather than to a Christianity within their own indigenous culture. At best, this leads to a ‘split-level’ religion wherein only the rational belief level of the indigenous Christian’s mind is Christianized, but the sub-rational level of consciousness remains decidedly pagan (Hiebert 1985:222-224). This type of nominal Christianity is prevalent in many parts of the Two-Thirds World, including that of the present writer’s home country.³ At worst, it paves the way for the eventual reversion to various forms of Christopaganism, like that of Melanesian Cargo Cults (Whiteman 1983:436-439).

The above being the case, what sensitive Asian Christians are asking for today is a genuinely indigenous or contextual Christianity and theology that is firmly rooted in the Asian soil, and not one premised on the Western worldview, even if it has been given an Asian dress.

The Negative Impact of Enlightenment Thought

This leads to the third point which is closely related to the second. Much of Western theology have been controlled by Enlightenment rationalism and empiricism, which together have combined to produce a climate of skepticism that hampers the genuine expression of biblical faith. The manner in which Enlightenment thought has given rise to this is complex. We shall examine this in greater detail later. For the moment I merely wish to delineate the negative consequence of its anthropocentric rationalism and narrow empiricism.

To begin with, the European rationalist philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries like Rene Descartes (1596-1650), Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), and others were basically concerned to affirm the rationality of the universe and the ability of reason to grasp it. Behind the complexity of nature was a rational mind who could be understood through the proper use of reason. They were not ultimately concerned with debunking faith in God. But wittingly or unwittingly, some of their ideas, taken together with those of some other traditions like Deism, have paved the way for rationalism, understood in the narrower sense as, the attempt to judge everything in light of reason after which process ‘reason will have completely disposed of the supernatural, and that we will be left with nothing but nature and hard facts’ (Brown 1990:173).

Descartes, generally considered to be the founder of modern philosophy, obviously is the most important of the rationalists. His philosophy begins with the resolve to reject as false anything whose existence can in anyway be doubted. Thus he posited his famous ‘Cogito, ergo sum’ (‘I think, therefore I am’ (Descartes 1984:127). The net result of this is that, whether or not he is indeed guilty, Descartes has been often perceived as the one who led the shift to making the individual self-consciousness the final criterion of truth in philosophy, and to Cartesian doubt.⁴ Thus, among others, Helmut Thielicke (1974:34) states that ‘Descartes paves the way for making the relevance of the knowing self the center of thought.’

Thielicke goes on to argue that this focus on the individual self-consciousness is what characterizes ‘modern’ (in contrast to ‘conservative’) or, better, ‘Cartesian’ theology, which includes those of Lessing, Schleiermacher, Bultmann and Tillich. The dominant interest is on the addressee of the kerygma, the one who is to appropriate it (Thielicke 1974:38). Whereas before the so-called ‘modern’ period, theology was not focused on the individual addressed, the conditions of credibility or the understandability of the message, all that have changed. In Cartesian theology,

a general and pre-Christian self-understanding of man is a separate theme which must be dealt with before the theological agenda is tackled…. Since these matters concern man’s general situation, since they are pre-theological… the implied existential analysis can be left to secular philosophy; Bultmann, Tillich, and their predecessors all have philosophical sponsors. Even when the theologians do the analysis on their own, like Schleiermacher, they stress the fact that they have no privileges as believers but are in solidarity with the men of the world, even those who despise the faith. The whole point of Schleiermacher’s apologetic is to bring to light this solidarity and to make its own secular self-consciousness plain to these men without the aid of revelation (Thielicke 1974:50).

The problem with this is that theology is henceforth reduced to anthropology as the prior condition of credibility and appropriation, derived from analysis of the human self-consciousness. This effectively filters out parts of the kerygmatic content. Thus, as Thielicke (1974:53ff) notes, despite protestations of openness, the autonomy of the addressee in Cartesian theology ends up regulating the kerygma, and limiting what one is prepared to receive in it instead. Here we see the final consequence on theology of the shift set in motion by Descartes’ emphasis on the individual self-consciousness as the final criterion for truth. What began as an emphasis on the proper use of reason to understand a rational universe ended up in the elevation of instrumental theoretical reason into an autonomous principle by which the Christian message is judged. Inevitably, skepticism ensues.

A second stream of Enlightenment thought that has contributed to the skepticism in Western theology is the impact of empiricism, the view that the sole source of knowledge comes from sense perception. It arose in part out of the reaction to philosophical rationalism and its belief that reason was the basis of certain knowledge. David Hume (1711-76) is by far the most well-known exponent. Towards the end of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, he wrote:

When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit them to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion (1975:#132; cited in Brown 1990:257).

Colin Brown (1975:238f) has suggested that the unifying thought in Hume’s approach was what he himself calls ‘mitigated skepticism’. This combined with his brand of empiricism led to his skepticism concerning the human self, the denial of causation, the rejection of miracles and religious beliefs in general.

Over the years, those who have followed Hume in his narrow interpretation of empiricism have continued to maintain an unwarranted skepticism toward metaphysics and religious beliefs in general. Probably the most celebrated example in recent years was Logical Positivism, associated with A. J. Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic (1946). It advanced the ‘Verification Principle’ as the one criterion of meaningfulness and declared all statements, apart from purely logical ones, nonsensical unless they can be verified by sense experience. By one stroke the Logical Positivists thought they had succeeded in removing all metaphysical and ethical statements from the realm of meaningful discourse – until it was noted that the Verification Principle itself was unverifiable by its own criterion, and therefore is, at best, a piece of ‘useful nonsense’ (Brown 1969:166-176).

While few Western theologians would identify with the Logical Positivist school, yet the same sort of commitment to a narrow empiricism has led often to a similar skepticism. Thus miracles are denied because they are perceived to violate scientific laws in a closed universe – an unwarranted assumption to say the least.⁵ Concurrently, there is a rejection of much of the historicity of the biblical narratives, e.g. the Bultmannian school, and, consequently, many of the cardinal doctrines of faith based on these, because the former supposedly do not conform to the accepted norms of empirical history. Such a skeptical theology, quite apart from its own inherent weaknesses, is hardly able to address the concerns of the Asian worldview(s) which takes seriously not just metaphysics and theological truths, but also the whole spiritual realm of angels and demons, and of the miraculous as well.

We shall later elaborate further on the negative impact of the Enlightenment on Christian theology. For the moment it suffices for our purpose to draw attention to what Diogenes Allen (1989) says in his Christian Belief in a Modern World: The Full Wealth of Conviction. He notes the massive revolution taking place at the present moment as we enter into the postmodern world. The principles of the Enlightenment which formed the foundations of the modern intellectual framework are now rapidly breaking down (Allen 1989:2-6). Admittedly the future is rather uncertain, ‘but it is clear that a fundamental reevaluation of the Christian faith – free of the assumptions of the modern mentality that are generally hostile to a religious outlook – is called for’ (:2). He goes on to argue that, as the barriers to the Christian faith erected by the modern mentality collapse, both philosophy and science, which were once seen as inimical to religious belief, are now in some respects seen to be pointing the way back to it (:23-96).

Given the above, and the further fact that much of Western theology, especially of the modern or Cartesian variety, has been heavily shaped by the modern mentality which even Western scholars themselves are now beginning to seriously question, there is therefore even less reason for non-western Christians today to give a place of primacy to something which Western Christians themselves find increasingly dissatisfying.

An ‘Unengaged’ Theology

Finally, Western theology is often perceived as being built on an idealistic conception of truth which sharply distinguishes it from its practice. This leads to a theology which is ‘unengaged’ and, therefore, lacks the power for human and social transformation. This criticism was first raised sharply in recent times by the Latin American liberation theologians. As J. Miguez Bonino (1975:88) puts it, ‘there is no truth outside or beyond the concrete historical events in which men are involved as agents. There is, therefore, no knowledge except in action itself, in the process of transforming the world through participation in history’. At the heart of this criticism is also a question of hermeneutics, of how theology is done. Thus the traditional method of doing theology with its idealistic notion of a ‘pure theology’ deducible from a priori truths must be rejected. The proper view of truth is one which identifies truth with practice, and, therefore, every theology must be historically verified against its conformity to the salvific acts of God in the world. ‘Orthopraxis, rather than orthodoxy becomes the criterion for theology’ (Bonino 1975:81).

Liberation theology’s case is obviously overstated here.⁶ It is now increasingly accepted that neither theory nor praxis may be prioritized over the other. Even Gustavo Gutierrez (1988:xxxiv) himself has come to recognize this some fifteen years after the first publication of his book, Theology of Liberation, ‘Orthopraxis and orthodoxy need one another, and each is adversely affected when sight is lost of the other.’ Nevertheless, it is no doubt right in rejecting what Gutierrez calls the ‘epistemological split’ (cited in Bonino 1975:88) between truth and practice in much of Western theology. This being the case, it does not mean that Christians in the Two-Thirds World necessarily reject Western theology in total. However, as Bonino (1975:86) says, they will refuse to accept Western academic theology ‘as a sort of norma normans to which all theology is accountable’.

The perceived unengaged nature of Western theology leads to the related perception that it often fails to be pastorally and missiologically relevant. This is not surprising because much of Western theology in modern times has emerged out of the academic and speculative tradition, rather than pastoral and missiological practice. The Korean minjung theologian, Ahn Byung-Mu, makes this point emphatically in his criticism of European theology. He argues that the latter satisfies the intellect but has little or no relevance to the realities of life; that it is narrowly preoccupied with the Christ of the kerygma