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We Do Theology

Our Women’s Way

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Doing Theology from Our Own Stories

Angela Wong

The creation of the phrase "doing theology" is an important milestone in theology. It does not only declare that theology is something to be sought, but it also signifies a process which people from different walks of life and historical contexts all undergo. It is therefore an unfinished and open process.

However, as Asian women, before we are able to engage in doing theology, we have so much to "undo." In the words of Marianne Katoppo ("Compassionate and Free"),

For a long time, theology has been "European theology;" and for many people, "to be Christian" meant being a "European Christian." ...Asian experience, being so different from the European, is also denied validity.

When she became a Christian, Katoppo experienced her alienation from her own culture - the Indonesian culture. She was then cut off from her cultural identity.

I believe we have similar experiences. We may recall how we, among our multi-religious communities, are labelled "westernized" along with our being Christian. And indeed, how we have become more acquainted with the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament than our own cultural classics. Yet doing theology is premised on the fact that theology is founded on our life experience. And our cultural heritage not only constitutes a very profound part of our experience; they are essential to our very being. Denying our experience is denying the validity of our Asianness,

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and therefore our very identity. And thus, as Asian women, to do theology we do not only have to engage in undoing the patriarchal theology but also the alienating West-centered theology.

Recognizing our own culture is essential to our doing theology as Asian women. It means that rather than emphasizing some Greco-Roman interpretations of the Bible, or European philosophizing of theological treaties, we must highlight our own experiences as women in our Asian settings. Out of this recognition of our own culture arises a new method, a new genre, as well as a new substance in doing theology – women sharing our life stories or retelling folk stories that we treasure in the setting of our Asian cultures.

Let me tell one story, one that represents the plight of many of our Asian sisters:

Ah Ching was a little girl who lived in a village in China. Her parents were hard-working peasants. Ah Ching's father liked the little girl but he wanted to have a son. One night, when Ah Ching was asleep, she suddenly felt a heavy blanket being pulled over her and she could hardly breathe. She struggled and yelled: "Mama, Mama, help, help me!" To her amazement, she found that the one who tried to suffocate her was her father! She cried and prayed that her father would let her go and she promised to be a good girl.

Ah Ching was so afraid that when dawn broke she escaped from the farmhouse and went to seek refuge with her old grandma. When the grandma heard the story, she was so sad that tears began to run down her wrinkled cheeks. The night came, and grandma put Ah Ching to bed and comforted her. But at midnight, grandma, summoning all her strength with her trembling hands suffocated Ah Ching with an old blanket...

This is one of the many tearful stories told under the one-child policy in present China. The most trembling part of it is that

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it is still happening to many other girls in China. And it is happening everyday in many other parts of Asia.

If we live with stories like this everyday in our home countries, how can our theology be numbed and unaffected? If we cannot forget stories of Asian women's agonies because we know so much and we know them too well, why can they not become a part of our process of theologizing?

Kwok Pui Lan, a feminist theologian of Hong Kong, suggested that instead of looking at the Bible as the sole source of faith, we should look into our own cultural stories including lullabies or myths of our folk cultures because they are the most touching sources that give meaning and orientation to women's lives.

Similarly, Chung Hyun Kyung, a Korean feminist theologian, looked into her Korean heritage and stories of other Korean women for a living faith. In a moving story in the book "Inheriting Our Mother's Garden," she shared her own struggle with her two mothers – the one who raised her and the other who gave birth to her. Chung discovered that while both mothers were victims of a male-defined family system, both used all the life-giving resources they could find around them to survive their plight. The mother who raised her struggled with a Strained marriage that did not acknowledge her humanity; the other who gave birth to her fought to retain her dignity in the context of continuous poverty and social ostracism. But rather than be overwhelmed by their struggles, Chung's two mothers incorporated together Christianity, Buddhism, folk religions and the support from peer groups to keep their lives going.

I consider Chung's life story, which has woven together the pains and hopes of three women, a masterpiece of Asian feminist theology. Her telling the story itself has not only revealed the general plight of Korean women but also of how they express their life-enhancing spirituality in a struggle to become the agents rather than objects of their history.

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Stories such as these powerfully question the legitimacy of existing structures in Asian socio-political realities which have continuously ignored or suppressed women's humanity.

Listening to authentic life stories of Asian women as our way of doing theology challenges us to face one critical question: What is the criterion for theology? These stories do not tell us anything about God, Christ or the Bible. Instead we hear about human sufferings, a lot of tears, a lot of pain, and women struggling, confronting or surviving. What do these have to do with theology?

In "God Weeps With Our Pain," Kwok Put Lan wrote, Asian feminist theology will be a story of suffering. It is a cry, a plea and an invocation. It emerges from the wounds that hurt, the scars that do not disappear, the stories that have no ending. It is inscribed on the hearts of many who feel the pain, and yet dare to hope.

It is the hope and the strong will to struggle on despite suffering that is the most powerful message of our Asian sisters. If there arises in theology a conflict between certain doctrines or beliefs and the experience of our Asian sisters' struggle, I suggest that we follow Chung's contention – that the "life-giving power" in women be the final criterion by which the validity of any religion is judged.

I believe that every story of Asian women is a story of pain and hope, and therefore a testament of faith. As women doing theology in Asia, our own stories or the stories of our sisters, whether old or new, are going to be the most profound resources we can draw on for the articulation, cultivation and sustenance of a living faith.