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CONCERNS OF "LIVING THEOLOGY" IN ASIA

Feliciano V. Cariρo

 

The Story of an Inauguration

 

By the government's standards, the last inauguration of Ferdinand E. Marcos as the first president of the Fourth Republic of the Philippines (the New Republic as the Philippine government is now called as differentiated from the New Society by which it was called since Martial Law was declared in 1972) was simple, inexpensive and unpretentious. It had, of course, all the accoutrement of a Marcos event. There were the hordes of media people giving full coverage of the event (all TV and radio stations were mobilized to give coverage of all the proceedings) and heaping praises on the achievements and promises of the New Republic and of Marcos as its progenitor, architect and undisputed leader. There was the First Lady, Imelda Romualdez-Marcos, ubiquitously by the side of her husband and leading the popular props on which the New Republic stands (several days before the event, Mrs. Marcos was shown on TV personally rehearsing the mammoth choir that was to sing at the inauguration rites). There were the songs and poetry that were composed specially for the event, and the host of celebrities from the entertainment world who were commissioned to perform and who added popular appeal to the ceremonies. There were the thousands of T-shirts, emblazoned with the colors and the name of the ruling party, distributed to and worn by the thousands who came to watch the program. And, of course, there was the large crowd, estimated by one enthusiastic government media person as around five million, the largest, she said, that has ever gathered in the history of the country, but which was estimated by some others as at most about one million. Some came spontaneously, but others, perhaps most, were bused in from various sectors of the population.

There were naturally some special ingredients to the occasion; it was, after all, the inauguration of a newly elected president and a newly instituted republic. There were, for example, the trumpeteers perched on the roof of the grandstand who blared their trumpets to welcome the arrival of the President and his family, and there were the mounted horses, marching in ordered parade, ridden by some of the country's top business executives and commercial and economic leaders. The occasion was clearly orchestrated and planned to serve as a symbol of national unity – of "one nation and one race" – and as an expression of the celebration of the people over their choice of government and of the political leader who is to lead them to the beckoning light of a bright future.

What was however really most special and most unusual about the event, especially when seen in the Asian context, was the infusion of Christian symbolism

 

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and liturgy into the program of the inauguration rites, presumably to give to the event not just popular credibility but religious sanction as well. Shortly after the inaugural speech of the President, given in his usual oratorical style (the editor of one of the largest circulated weekly magazines of the country was fired recently because she dared to comment, among other things, that the speech of the President would have been a good entry in a high school oratorical contest on patriotism), a one-thousand-voice choir rose to sing the "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's "The Messiah." Earlier in the program, a group of religious leaders drawn from the major religious traditions of the country, mostly Christian, read in unison an ecumenical prayer for the unity and progress of the nation, and for the health and prosperity of the ruling powers. And then after the singing of the "Hallelujah Chorus," with its classic oblation to the "Prince of Peace... Lord of Lords and King of Kings," who "shall reign forever and ever..." a selected soloist sang "The Lord's Prayer," with its clear intercessory lines that "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" and its longing for the coming of God's kingdom.

The use of Christian liturgy and practice in public events in the Philippines is not new. Being the only so-called "Christian nation" in Asia, where ninety per cent of the population are baptized Christians, eighty five per cent of whom are Roman Catholics, it has been common practice to start public events with prayers, as it has been a common sight to see Christian clergy sitting side by side with political and civic leaders in various political functions. Even the relatively common-place event of inaugurating a commercial building, for example, a shopping center, a department store or a cinema house, often starts with the priestly act of sprinkling "holy water" and giving religious blessing upon the enterprise that is about to be opened. Indeed, not too long ago at a reception that was tendered for the evangelist Billy Graham in Manila, Mrs. Marcos described the program of the New Society as the effort to build a "City of Man" upon the foundations of the "City of God." The linking of the inauguration of the New Republic on June 30, 1981, with the reign of the "Prince of Peace... the King of Kings and Lord of Lords... who shall reign forever and ever," however, has been a new high in the effort to extract a sense of religious approval and obedience to the polities, programs and powers of a particular government, and of one particular leader. It clearly added a sense of theological pretension to the announced political and economic simplicity of the inaugural rites, and it insinuated a purposive sense of religious messianism to the political messianism that has characterized the politics of Ferdinand E. Marcos.

 

Context and Predicament

 

The event is very clearly native to the Philippine situation. Its trimmings, and especially the personalities involved, are peculiarly Filipino. There are not, after all, very many places in the world where a conjugal regime such as the one Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos hold in the Philippines exists. I have narrated it nevertheless as the backdrop of what I want to say about "living theology" in Asia not only because it is a cardinal dictum of Asian theological thinking

 

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that one should be very clear about the concrete situation out of which reflection occurs, but also because there are features of this situation which are common to the political context and predicament of theological work in Asia. "I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility," wrote Mahatma Gandhi, "that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is."1 One can add that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what politics is all about. Indeed, it seems to me that as one surveys the theological scene in Asia today, it is somewhere in that area where religion and politics meet that the creative edges of Asian theology are emerging. What are the components of this political context and predicament of theological reflection in Asia today?

The Asia in which most, if not all of us, live and do our work is dominated by the notion of an avowed humanist transformation of society under government auspices that is oriented along developmentalist lines. Its presumed humanism gives to it its moral and encompassing fervor, and its developmentalist goals give to it its economic and political legitimation. Thus, the political machinery is mobilized and concentrated at facilitating rapid economic and industrial growth that includes as a component to it a warm hospitality to transnational business as an instrument of quick development. Thus, also, its developmentalist orientation is accompanied by technocratic, nationalistic and militaristic ideological elements that together look at the State as the primary agent of development in the light of which the State assumes enormous and centralized powers, systematically eliminates any or all sources of possible countervailing centers of power and influence in the hope that it is only in this manner that its presumed human, social and economic goals can be attained.2

The form of political organization which emerges is clearly authoritarian (the spokesmen of the Philippine government purposely emphasize the use of "authoritarian" as opposed to "totalitarian") in character, and quite messianic in its claims for the renovation of society. It looks at itself in part as an extended and comprehensive welfare institution and, in part, as the progenitor and bearer – the mater et magistra – of an encompassing social and political revolution that is neither from the top nor from the bottom but from the center. To use the words of Ferdinand E. Marcos, government is "the power center surrounded by the people, to whom it proposes and whom it leads – standing in front of them but not above them."3 All aspects of life in this sense are subject to the orchestration and control of government in the name of that humanist transformation of society which it initiates and leads. All must cooperate and remain in place or be subjected to political and other forms of sanctions. Technocratic planning and military power combine to give rationality and muscle to the controls that are required and the subservience that is asked for.

The role that is allocated to religion in general and to Christianity in particular in this context falls along two general lines. The first is to seek, if not require, from it a form of subservient allegiance to the goals and programs of the government. While direct legitimation is not always possible, and while

 

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occasions for the manipulation of religious symbols for the sanctioning of the premises of authoritarian regime do not always occur, it is nevertheless expected and demanded that where key programs of government are involved and where the highest political leadership is concerned, the Christian community must be a part of that "supervised and managed" spontaneous support that must come from all sectors of society. The "freedom of the praise" – as some have facetiously put it, in contrast to the "freedom of the press" – is what is really guaranteed. Little else beyond that is allowed to be expressed.

The second is very much akin to the first. "There are two revolutions," said a military chaplain before a large gathering of Church leaders, "that must take place at the same time. The first is external (i.e., social, political, economic). The other is internal (i.e., spiritual, psychological). The former belongs to government and is being done by government. The latter belongs to the Church and must be done by the Church." The expressions of Christianity, in short, must be privatized. Christianity is allocated a domain in the inner sanctuaries of the individual soul, presumably to bring about those internal changes in individual persons that would make them less obviously complaining and concerned about the external and "material" conditions of their lives and the structures that control them. A new dualism is prescribed, buttressed less by metaphysical arguments and more by the enticements and dictates of political power. The political powers, in this context, are freed from the disturbance of theological and religious criticism without appearing to be irreligious, and Christian spirituality is made into civil religion.

Much more can be said about this political context. The political and economic structures through which the authoritarian regime is perpetuated can, for example, be unpacked in greater detail, so that the structural relationships within the current system can be seen more clearly. The performance of government in regard to the actual plight of people's lives and the state of people's welfare can be assessed more critically in order to judge the validity of official ideology and the rhetoric of good political intentions. What has been described, however, is enough on the basis of which one may now raise the question of the vocation of theological reflection and of the orientations of the life and witness of the Christian community. Why in fact are governments worried about whether the religious communities in their respective constituencies may or may not willingly cooperate with them in the undertaking of the presumed human enterprise they have projected? And why is it that a government such as that of the Philippines has openly admitted that Christian groups are among the few remaining bastions of resistance and non-cooperation to its total rule?

The fact of the matter is that there is an alternate expression of Christian existence in society that has given rise to a body of theological reflection which not only runs counter to the officially prescribed role for Christian spirituality but also provide some thematic and practical directions for the reconstruction of the theological enterprise. It is this which is often called "living theology" because it is theology that arises out of a concrete situation of human struggle and of the participation and involvement of the Christian community in it. It is this kind of theological reflection to which I would now want to draw your

 

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attention, in part describing its main features, and in part suggesting some concerns to which it might give more substantive attention.

 

Living Theology as Protest and Criticism

 

What seems to be most palpable and most obvious about the emerging "living theologies" of Asia is their affirmation of Christian faith and life as a countervailing locus of allegiance, and therefore also of perceptions, affirmations and priorities in the social and political order. They are, in short, a re-affirmation of the basic critical and "protestant" dimensions of theological reflection. As it has been in the history of Christian thought, so it is now that it is precisely at the points where there is a recovery of the critical and "protestant" dimensions of Christian faith that there occurs also a concerted struggle to grapple with what is central to that faith and its implications for life and practice.

The roots of the dimensions of social protest and criticism in theological reflection go very deep into the heart of Christian faith itself. Indeed, they are embedded in the primal meaning of faith as that state of understanding and quality of practice that is grounded in the affirmation of the sovereign majesty of God's lordship over all of life and history and all that this implies for human life and aspirations and for the shape and destiny of human beings in their relationship with each other. Theology as protest, in other words, is the theological expression of the true relation between God and humanity, and recovers for theological reflection the vocation of serving as a guardian against any attempt by any human institution, any historical entity, to usurp the place of God in the life of the world. It comes in the political plane, therefore, as a rebellion against false gods, as the refusal to accept any unconditional claims for the manipulation and management of the human future, and as a judgment against and resistance to any form of arrogance and self-sufficiency – ecclesiastical or secular – in the determination of human welfare. As such, it contains within it the seeds of perennial criticism of the social order as one that can claim only a conditional and relative allegiance from the human beings that make it up and as one that can not claim the name of God for its projects. This is what Sebastian Kappen of India is alluding to when he insists that the matrix of theology is an encounter with "the Other" that is so encompassing and so totally gripping that all aspects of life become relativized, including and more importantly the aspects of human wealth and power.4 This is also what a declaration at an Easter Sunrise Service during the Martial Rule of Park Chung-hee in Korea was pointing to when it said "the resurrection of the Lord means the restoration of democracy." Not that democracy as a political system is identical with the will of the Lord, but that the witness to the resurrected Christ can only mean resistance to the authoritarianism and political messianism of Martial Rule.

The thematic implications of this for theological reflection and for the life and witness of the Christian community are numerous. Two seem to me to be of critical importance for the Asian context at this time:

A.   There can really never be too strong a theological protest against the

 

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privatization and internalization of Christian faith and life that is increasingly being prescribed by the political powers in Asia today. The privatization and internalization of Christian faith and life trivializes not only human life and history, but above all and more importantly trivializes the relationship of God with His world and His creation. On the one hand, it reduces the relationship of God with the world in terms of His relationship with the individual and reduces in the process His Lordship to the private and internal domains of the individual soul. It gives, in short, a limit to God's activity in the world and prescribes a restricted boundary to His sovereignty over His creation. On the other hand, it gives trivial consolation to people in their misery, makes them meek and patient in the midst of their suffering and travail, and as a result gives protection and stability to the existing social order. Such internalized and privatized religion is inevitably and unavoidably ideological and political. The irony of it all is that the political powers who prescribe it know this, while those Christians who espouse it do not always realize it to be so. The first task of a "living theology" in Asia here as in all aspects of the life of the Christian community is to offer a continuing and relevant protest against the privatization of Christian faith and life and to provide the vehicle for the de-internalization of Christian spirituality.

B.   The dimensions of protest and criticism recaptures for theological reflection and for Christian life and practice the central meaning of the Gospel as the message and gift of freedom: the amazing freedom of God in his redemptive work for us and for the whole of creation, and the gift of freedom which has been bestowed upon the whole of humanity, which is ours as Christians in faith, and which is our task to share and to make known to all. Theological reflection in this light recaptures and embodies the potency of a new language about God, less the language of abstraction and static dogma, and more the language that recollects and describes the events in which God acts, e.g., the Exodus, as bearers of a new freedom, as events that contain the challenge of a new creativity and the opening up of a new future. Theological reflection in other words becomes caught in the power and activity of a will, which is not human will, whose purpose for humanity and the world is the bestowal of freedom. It becomes the unceasing creation and re-creation of those symbols which keep alive the memory of those freedom-giving events of God's redemptive work for the world.

Theological reflection as a result becomes also the embodiment of a new language about human development. Humanity is not a finished product that is simply to be provided with new material and technological resources; it is an unfinished experiment, an open horizon, in the undertaking of which each human being must be given the responsibility and freedom to share his or her creativity. It is a language that inverts the logic of development because it requires as the center and organizing principle of that development the freedom of all to share in its undertaking and its benefits. While it recognizes that human beings live with bread, it recognizes even more importantly that human beings do not live with bread alone. Any society or political order which creates or purports to create the hypertrophy of the stomach but requires the

 

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atrophy of the will is violent, irrespective of its economic success.

What all of this really means for a "living theology" in Asia is that there is a correspondence, a correlation, between the redemptive work of God and the active struggle for human freedom. God's redemptive work as it were is to be verified or can be verified only through the fulfillment of the promise of human freedom from bondage and of human freedom for new life. It is the task of such a theology to continue to explore further the meaning of this correspondence and to impress upon Church and society that the freedom of God and God's gift of freedom for humanity are of crucial importance to the struggle for freedom from all forms of oppression that is being waged in Asia today.

 

Living Theology as Praxis and Advocacy of People

 

One can, of course, easily point out that the intimate correspondence between the Christian gospel and the struggle for human freedom is not a discovery of contemporary theology, certainly not of Asian theology. It is however important to point out that at critical points in the history of Church and society it becomes more crucial that the Christian community becomes more fully aware of, and extend further the boundaries of this correspondence and make it the organizing center of its life and witness. I would like to suggest that the Christian community in Asia today faces such a critical point in its history and that the challenge to get hold of a new dimension of human freedom is being posed to it by those Christians who make their witness and do their theological reflection in terms of their praxis with and advocacy of people.

A.   The emergence of praxis as a basic ingredient of theological reflection is of recent vintage in the Asian scene. It presupposes, above all, that one's encounter with God and with reality is mediated not through the speculations of rational thought or the ritual and symbols of religious cult, but through one's involvement in the contemporary situation, i.e., in the realities of practical life, individual and social, whose texture is made up of all that we do and of all that happen to us. The historical process, that web of actions and activities which engulf our lives and whereby we transform ourselves in the process of transforming our environment of things, persons and structures (economic, social, political and cultural), becomes the primary focus of theological reflection. In discovering the world of praxis as the primary focus of its attention, theological reflection affirms not only the superceding of thought by action but also the insertion of passion and commitment into the life and witness of the Christian community. The new demands of human freedom which are the historical corollary of God's redemptive work for humanity are to be encountered and then mediated principally, not through new theoretical formulations and renovations of the inner life of the Christian and the Church but through the Christian's active and passionate commitment and solidarity with those whose freedom and development are being curtailed and aborted in the present situation, and by which the prevailing natural, economic, social and political environment is transformed and made more serviceable to the needs and aspirations of all.

 

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B.   Thus, the discovery of the world of praxis as the locus of theological reflection opens up also the inevitable and corollary recognition of a new subject of freedom and development and a new critical principle for the theological enterprise. It is noteworthy in this regard that the emergence of praxis as an important ingredient of intellectual and political culture coincided with the ascendancy and recognition of "the people" as the subjects of history, and, of that freedom without which history becomes meaningless. If praxis becomes the primary locus of theological reflection, in other words, "people" become the critical principle by which Christian praxis is judged and evaluated. It is only that praxis which emanates from and is involved in the sufferings and aspirations of "the people" that can mediate in our time the potency of that new dimension of human freedom and development which must be grasped as the historical corollary of Christian salvation and as the organizing center of theological reflection.

What this means above all is that theological reflection perceives both the reality of God's redemptive work and the dynamics of the present historical process from a concrete and specific social angle. Both are seen less from the top and more from the bottom of social life; less, in other words, from the angle of those who rule and exercise power and those who benefit from the spoils of that exercise of power, and more from the angle of those who are victimized by and who bear the burdens of the present.

 

It is the intertwining of this active perception of the historical process and the meaning of the Christian gospel from this concrete social angle that gives to theological reflection both its "living" quality and its most challenging vision of what Christian life and witness can become in the Asian context. It is this challenging new vision of the Christian enterprise which such theologies as "Minjung" theology in Korea5 and the theology of homeland in Taiwan are trying to embody, and which gives to them their sharpest critical and formative edge. A few lines from one of the "Minjung" theologians illustrate this well:

'Minjung' is a term which grew out of the Christian experiences in the political struggle for justice over the last ten or more years. Theology of minjung or minjung theology is an accumulation and articulation of theological reflections on the political experiences of Christian students, laborers, the press, professors, farmers, writers and intellectuals as well as theologians in Korea in the 1970s. It is a theology of the oppressed in the Korean political situation, a theological response to the oppressors, and it is the response of the oppressed to the Korean church and its mission. Theology of minjung is a creation of those Christians who were forced to reflect upon their Christian discipleship in basement interrogation rooms, in trials, facing court martial tribunals, hearing the allegations of prosecutors, and in making their own defense.

 

Towards a New Theological Idiom

 

The recognition of a new focus and a new critical principle for theological reflection inevitably raises in a new way the question about the idiom of theology. This is by no means identical with the issue of indigenization, and it

 

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is much more than the question of linguistic transliteration. Reynaldo C. Ileto, a historian from the University of the Philippines, posed this issue rather sharply at a theological dialogue in Manila when he pointed out that while the dialogue had constantly alluded to a theology of people and to people as the subjects of history, little effort had been exerted to discover and to use the idiom – the peculiar form and mode of expression – by which the people themselves perceived their own sufferings and projected their hopes, and by which they mobilized themselves to act for their own social redemption. Ileto went on to say that in his historical studies of popular revolutionary movements in Philippine history, he has come to discover an idiom of social change among the people which was quite different from either the calculated and rationalistic idiom of the educated social analyst or the "materialistic" and supposedly scientific idiom of the ideologue. The popular idiom, he continued, was that of social drama and narrative in which social analysis was blended poetically with religious symbolism in such a manner that both political predicament and political vision were projected far beyond the sophisticated but cold and logical language of the intellectual.6

The question is not a matter of agreeing or not with Ileto's description of the popular idiom. It is more a matter of affirming that if people are indeed the subjects of history they must also be the subjects of that idiom by which their predicament and their aspirations are described and acted upon. To the degree that theological reflection affirms and accepts the organizing and critical principle of praxis with and advocacy of people, to that degree also it must open itself up to a wider variety of idioms than the ones through which and with which it has been traditionally associated. It is this which Henriette M. Katoppo is refering to when she longs for the time when theologians might be poets again, and theology can be looked upon as aesthetics.7 It is also this which the Commission on Theological Concerns of the Christian Conference of Asia is pointing to when it speaks of theological reflection as narrative, as the fusion of "two stories," the story we have inherited from Biblical narrative and Christian tradition and the story of the people with whom and in whom the Christian lives in the present. And it is because of this that some of the most potent theological reflection that have emerged in the Asian scene in the present have taken on a wide variety of shapes and methods commensurate to the shape and method of the action and solidarity with people out of which they have grown: beautiful and polished poetry, as in the case of Kim Chi Ha in Korea; songs of suffering and hope, as in the case of the Philippines; of passionate and symbolic longings for a homeland where one's head may once more rise above the clouds so that one's eyes could once again see the sky, as in Taiwan; and very simple worship services and prayer meetings in which prayer and cult become a form of social and theological commentary, again as in Korea. Indeed, the springtime of "living theology" will have come when Asian theology is able to make a consistent and complete break from the rationalism of Western theology and evolve a manner of discourse about God and his relationship with the world that is drawn from the life of Asian peoples in their struggle for freedom and development.8

 

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Towards an Alternate Political Vision

 

This leads to a final point I want to share with you: a living theology in Asia must begin to give sustained attention to the task of providing the conceptual and symbolic vehicle for the articulation of alternate visions of political community. It is on purpose that I use the word "begin" for the simple reason that I think that this is a question that has been given very little attention, if any at all, by the Christian community in Asia. I find such a situation strange. It seems so natural that to the extent that we embody a critical outlook upon the current systems and orders of society, to that extent too we should have already been exercising our resources of thought and imagination to project alternative patterns of human community and to envision qualitatively different structures of the common life. The fact that we have not done this has, I think, affected the credibility and challenge of our political activism and involvement.

Not too long ago, I was invited to give a series of lectures at a large gathering of church workers (pastors, Christian educators, church administrators, and even bishops) in the northern part of the Philippines. The assembly was part of the initial attempts of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines to regularly bring its workers together for reflection and planning over the work of the church in the various spheres of contemporary national life. Among the other lecturers of the Assembly was a pastor who has become rather well-known as a leader of the so-called "Christian Left" in the country. His talk was expectedly a biting criticism of the current state of affairs in the country that was put in terms of a structural analysis of Philippine society — the classes who rule, their institutional linkages, etc. The response to the talk was, I thought, basically appreciative, not the least because the person who gave it had spent some time in prison for his opposition to Martial Law and his involvements in various people's organizations. His words were given credibility by his praxis.

At the question and answer period, however, one of the very first questions asked was if, indeed, the structure and pattern of the current political order was so bad, what alternative can we give or propose instead? The answer given was something to the effect that we should not worry about the question of alternatives; we are after all part of the middle class, and it must be the people in the grassroots who should and will provide the alternative structures.

The question is not only valid, but, I think, also extremely important. It is important because it is so native to and engendered by the critical outlook we imbibe with regard to the current arrangement of things. It is important moreover because the answer to it is crucial in sustaining commitment to, and, movement for, social and political change. One, in other words, can make people angry by describing the cruelties and inequities of the present. One can not, however, in the long run sustain and nurture the commitment of life and limb that is necessary to change the present without a consideration of goals, visions and alternatives. It is important, finally, because the horizon of Christian witness

 

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goes beyond acts of "political destruction" to acts of "political construction," beyond social iconoclasm to social imagination.

Given the importance of the question the answer that was given is, I think, a big cop-out. It is a cop-out, first, because no one really goes into the political struggle, from whatever class one might come, completely nude and devoid of some sense of value and priority, without some presuppositions, on the basis of which one makes judgments of what goes on in the present. Some occasion is necessary therefore – and this is especially true for the Christian – in which some sustained reflection is undertaken to indicate the meaning of these values and presuppositions in regard to the shape of the new society.

It is a cop-out, secondly, because refusal to do it usually means that party and not people will do it, and that is usually done even before the struggle begins.

It is a cop-out, finally, because there is a lot more in the Christian gospel and in the tradition of the Christian faith that needs to be unpacked in regard to the meaning and shape of the human community and the corporate life of society.

What I am alluding to really is that we as Christians have a responsibility to devote some concentrated attention to the task of giving a social account of "the hope that is within us." I do not mean, by this, the putting out of Christian blue-prints for society. That would be a new way of incarcerating both the freedom of God and the freedom of humanity which are, as I have indicated above, so central to the message of the gospel. I do not mean also the projection of Christian Utopias or futurologies. We should all know, by now, the dangers and incredulities of utopianism, although we have not always recognized that Utopias even in their incredulous forms have served as the lubricants of political theory and action. I mean more the task of providing penultimate directions, rooted in our involvement in the "story of our societies" and in the "story of our faith" which would give some substance to our hopes of what the future might be and some proximate criteria by which we might judge our actions and choices in the political struggles of the present.

I do not think that I have the time and space to say more within the purview of this paper. Perhaps, as a result, I have not made myself very clear. That is all the more reason for me to ask that, beyond this meeting, we remain with this question longer and in a more sustained manner. I know that the Christian Conference of Asia has set up a study commission on the question of "faith, ideology and political vision" as part of its theological concerns, and it is along the same lines that I am posing the issue here. All I want to emphasize here is that this is a question that must be a part of the agenda of a "living theology" in Asia today.

 

What About the WSCF?

 

I have been trying to point out the fact that there is a theological ferment going on in Asia today, a theological ferment that you should know about,

 

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although I suspect that many of you know about it already, even though it is not in a systematic form in which I have presented it. I have also tried to point out the fact that this on-going theological ferment contain within it issues that need to be explored further and some more issues that need to be raised in a new way. Where is the WSCF in all of this?

The question is by no means asked in a perfunctory manner. It is, in fact, a recognition of the historic role that the WSCF has played in expanding the frontiers of the life and mission of the Church in Asia. Indeed, even only a cursory look at the history of the ecumenical movement in Asia would reveal immediately the immense contribution that the WSCF has made in providing leadership for those efforts that explored new areas of life and thought for the theological enterprise.

To be sure, the ecumenical movement in the region has moved to such dimensions that it is no longer possible for the WSCF to recapture the grandiose roles that have been attributed to it in the past. I believe however that it can be and do, a lot more than being a "relevant minority" (to use the ascription currently in vogue in the WSCF), in the ecumenical story in Asia today. It certainly can not take over the plot of that story anymore, much less become its main character, but it can still write a chapter instead of being merely a footnote, as some have felt it has become over the past years.

It can do so in regard to the theological task I have described above, however, only if certain things begin to happen within its life. Here, I can only be very brief and generally suggestive:

A.   It can do so only if it sheds off the anti-intellectualism that has permeated a significant portion of its small constituency in recent years. I do not mean by this that it divests itself of its active engagement in and advocacy for various struggles for human freedom in different parts of the region. I do mean that active engagement cannot and must not, be viewed as a necessary antithesis to a healthy and still vigorous and disciplined reflection about society and about what Christian responsibility in it might be in our time. Rhetoric and jargon are not the intellectual corollaries of praxis. The struggle for justice and freedom demands as much, if not more, intellectual rigor as any other concern, and those who are engaged in that struggle must not give the impression that they can do with much less sustained thought and reflection than others.

B.   The WSCF can discover the intellectual corollary of its praxis only if it is able to tap and challenge more fully the intellectual resources of the academic communities of Asia and stimulate the use of these resources for the renewal of Christian life and thought in the region. Both Church and society need the intellectual resources of the academic communities, and the WSCF as a student movement is the one arm of the Christian community that must provide avenues whereby the critical acumen that is distilled in these communities can be mobilized for human justice and freedom. For this, the WSCF must root itself more fully in these communities, and must imbibe a pedagogy that is appropriate within them. The WSCF has always been and will probably be always a minority, but it can be a bigger minority of students and other members of the academic community than it is now if it puts itself seriously

 

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into the task of becoming one, and not merely repeat the rhetoric of "movement building" as its project.

C.   All of these can take place only if the WSCF can rediscover the full range of the meaning of its freedom as a Christian fellowship. This freedom is really much more than its freedom from the control of established Christian institutions, e.g., the churches, and from established Christian doctrines and preoccupations. It means, above all, the embodiment of that quality of life and outlook in which novelty and surprise in the midst of its service to, and solidarity with, the people are still primary ingredients so that any form of dogmatism whether in structure or in thought, whether in theology or politics, is constantly overcome in the light of the constant need for repentance and renewal and in the light of the demands of that new and more creative future which is the common concern of the ecumenical enterprise everywhere. It is this freedom from fossilized and structured life and thought, and freedom for new forms of engagement in the Church and in the world that has always given life and energy to the WSCF. It is only in recapturing this freedom and making it once more the organizing center of its rebuilding that it can play a more significant role in the Asian context today.

 

Notes

 

1. An Autobiography, or the Story of my Experiments with Truth (Ahmedabad: Navajivan 1948). p. 615

2. Cf., Herbert Feigh, "Repressive-Developmentalist Regimes: Old Struggles, New Vulnerabilities," in Escape From Domination (Singapore: Christian Conference of Asia, International Affairs Desk, 1980), pp. 49-52.

3. Today's Revolution: Democracy (Manila: National Media Production Center, 1971) pp. 11-12.

4. "Orientations for Asian Theology," in Asia's Struggle for Full Humanity: Towards A Relevant Theology, ed. by Virginia Fabella (MaryknoU, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1980), pp. 108ff.

5. David Kwang-sun Suh, "Minjung Theology and Korea: A Biographical Sketch of an Asian Theological Consultation" in Minjung Theology: People as the Subjects of History, ed. by Kim Yong-Bock (Singapore: Commission on Theological Concerns, Christian Conference of Asia, 1981), p.18.

6. "The Idiom of Change in Colonial Philippines: A People's Perspective," in Church, State and People, ed. by Feliciano V. Carino (Singapore: Commission on Theological Concerns, Christian Conference of Asia, 1981), pp. 45-60.

7. "Asian Theology: An Asian Woman's Perspective," in Asia's Struggle for Full Humanity, ed. by Virginia Fabella (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1980), p.148.

8. On this point, cf., D. Preman Niles, "Some Emerging Theological Trends in Asia," CTC Bulletin, Occasional Bulletin of the Commission on Theological Concerns, Christian Conference of Asia. Vol. 2, No. 1-2, March, 1981.