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Jacob
Kavunkal, SVD Asia, spread over a large area, is a continent with varied cultures and many dimensions. It has some of the finest specimens of historical, spiritual and cultural heritage. The cradle of many world religions and nurturing innumerable forms of primal religions, Asia proudly displays its splendid, majestic temples. Asia boasts of its first written prayers in the world as well as its ancient philosophical and mathematical achievements. Though Christianity reached the shores of Asia already in apostolic times, less than three per cent of Asians find their salvation through the Christian faith. Notwithstanding all its ancient glory, Asia today is the home of more than two thirds of the poor of the world. What is specific to Asian poverty is that economic poverty is very much interpolated with what can be described as anthropological poverty, i.e., despoiling human beings not only of what they have but of everything that constitutes their very being and essence: their human identity and dignity. Aloysius Pieris has aptly summarized the Asian predicament as one of mass poverty and the religiosity of the masses. With isolated exceptions, theology in Asia has been academic, focusing on Western concerns and using Western noetic models. Hardly any attempt was made to develop a theology in touch with the Asian reality. It was an alienated and alienating theology in so far as it had nothing to say to the Asian context and the concerns of the peoples of Asia. Most Asian theology was translations and adaptations of a supposedly "universal theology" developed in the West. Following the Western method, in Asia too theologizing was done in comfortable seminaries and theological centres far removed from the toils and tears of the Asian masses. Beginnings of Liberation Theology: Under the impact of many sources — theological, philosophical, economic and above all, Vatican II, divine Providence led the Latin American Church to the transforming event of Medellin in 1968. "The aim of the Medellin Conference" in the words of Penny Lernoux, "was to examine the situation in Latin America in light of the conclusions of Vatican II, a situation greatly worsened since the start of the decade and the subject of intense theological and sociological debate".1 Medellin gave birth to the first local theology in modern times, chrisened as the theology of liberation. What gave a specific Latin American content to this theology was its methodology based on the reality of Latin America, the reality of poverty and oppression, an insistence on the integral liberation of human beings, both temporal and spiritual, and an approach to God through humanity. Medellin clearly and unambiguously asserted that the church should exercise a "preferential option for the poor", a thought that became not only the hall-mark of Liberation Theology, but also revolutionalized the church’s evangelistic vocation in general. Medellin’s prophetic commitment to the poor and the oppressed was reaffirmed by the Third Latin American Bishops’ Meeting at Puebla in 1979, which contains "the letter and spirit of the Medellin Conference".2 Medellin and Puebla together contributed to the growth of the Latin American Theology, which for the first time in the history of the subcontinent was incarnate in the situation of the persons and peoples of Latin America. The Latin American reality, subjected to an in-depth reflection in the light of faith by the theology of liberation, has furnished theologians with a reorientation and has rejuvenated the task of Christianity and the church in Latin America.3 For the first time in history a theological creation of the third world acquired relevancy and meaning throughout the rest of the world including the first world. In the following pages we shall concentrate on its impact on Asian Theologizing. Theology is Local: To begin with, the liberating awareness arose on the Asian theological horizon that there is no such thing as a universal theology but that every theology is local.4 Asian theologians pointed out how the theology that was imposed on Asia as a perennial theology was nothing but a local theology developed in response to a particular historical and cultural context. In so far as it was incapable of responding to the specific Asian concerns it remained largely irrelevant in Asia. What Asia needed was not so much a local theology imported from elsewhere, but a local theology of Asia, evolved from Asian concerns. The Latin American lead in mapping out a theology that was not just a translation or further elaboration of European theology fanned Asian interest in developing a theology for Asia. In this process the greatest contribution of Latin American theology, I would say, is the method of theologizing that Latin America developed, a methodology based on the reality of Latin America, a reality of poverty and oppression. The Latin American starting point of theologizing, the analysis of the social reality, "the pastoral overview of the socio-cultural context" that Puebla spoke of, left an indelible mark on Asian theology. Since 1970 Asian theology began to be more in touch with the Asian reality. Since Asia shares with Latin America in the "third-worldness", the Asian reality is very much similar to its Latin American counterpart in its experience of the dehumanizing oppression that threatens the very existence of the people. This new perception of the experience of struggle for liberation is the point of departure for Asian Theology. "The concern of the church is not Christians but the poor; its struggle is not for itself but for the liberation of all men and women who are held captive", observes Samuel Rayan.5 The Historical Context: The merit of Latin American theology is its emphasis on the role of history in theologizing. It pointed out the significance of the historical context of the theologizing community. Asian theology began to respond to the socio, economic, religious and political context of Asia. Latin American writings found resonance among Asian theologians. They began to listen to the groans and cries of the dispossessed tribals, of the caste-ridden poor subject to margina-lization and untouchability, of the women discriminated against, of the children who have to pass their childhood working hard, of the minjung and "no-people" of Asia. The Korean theologian Kim Chung-Choon compares the Christian theologian to the Korean Shaman whose role is to appease the spirits of the dead. Similarly Christian theologians must identify themselves with suffering humanity. "The ministry of the church must accent the appeasement of ‘Han’ so that all the rejected, despised, imprisoned, exploited, alienated and the poor may have joy and satisfaction".6 The Korean notion of "Han" means the accumulation of grief and oppression. Those who are under the weight of Han are the minjung and this in turn has given rise to what is called the Minjung theology, arising from their struggles for basic human rights. The minjung are the have-nots. They are farmers, fishermen, labourers, unemployed, soldiers, policemen, small shop-keepers, small producers, etc. They suffer from political suppression, economic exploitation, social humiliation and cultural alienation. The Minjung theology, incorporating the Korean shamanic tradition and growing out of the grass-roots, the minjung, is a typical Asian theology which has sprung up under the impact of Liberation Theology. New Biblical Hermeneutics: Asian theologians became convinced that the Word of God is to be read in the context of their history — with its gaping wounds of untimely death caused by hunger, malnutrition, violence, lack of health care, etc. As opposed to the economic and political oppression from which the Latin American church seeks liberation, Asian theology has the added burden of ushering in liberation from the vice of caste distinction. Theologians began more and more to use the context of the poor and the marginalized as a source of interpreting the word of God. Biblical scholars like George Soares-Prabhu have commented how liberation theology sensitized exegetes to the social, economic, and political dimensions of the Bible and it has made them aware of the extent to which their scientific exegesis is inevitably coloured by cultural and class prejudices.7 Soares-Prabhu, applying the same principles to the Indian context has affirmed that "the poor of the Bible are all those who are in any way, and not just economically, deprived of the means or the dignity they need to lead a fully human existence; or who are in a situation of powerlessness which exposes them to such deprivation. The poor of the Bible are thus the ‘wretched of the earth’, the marginalized, the exploited, all those who are actually or potentially oppressed".8 Poverty in the Bible is not a natural phenomenon, but it is always the result of the avoidable and undesirable consequences of injustice and exploitation. The context-based hermeneutic of the biblical text, developed by Juan Luis Segundo, has raised quite a following in Asia.9 To quote Soares-Prabhu again, "an Indian-Christian reading will be a reading of the bible by an interpreter sensitive to the Indian situation and true to the biblical text. It will be, that is, a true-to-the-text reading made with an Indian pre-understanding and responsive to Indian concerns".10 Naturally it is not a slavish reproduction of the Latin American hermeneutics but it is an interpretation of the text responding to the social concerns of Asia with an Asian sensibility, i.e., respecting the cosmic orientation and inclusive attitude of the Asian mind. Thus biblical interpretation began to be an intersection of the Asian social reality and the Asian religious reality. While the former shares the features of the Latin American liberation theology, the later stresses the personal liberation from the psychological compulsions. Context of Religious Pluralism: Unlike Latin America, Christians in Asian countries — except the Philippines — are a small minority surrounded by persons inspired by other living traditions. Asian Christian theology has viewed the rich and multifaceted religious heritage of Asia in a new light. It is trying to integrate the religious wealth of its neighbours of faith through dialogue with them, a dialogue that looks for the liberating factors that these religious traditions contain and to discover new insights into its own biblical tradition that may come from the encounters with these age-old religions. In Asia theologians reflect to further the humanization of the society most of which finds God outside the Christian revelation. This in no way discourages the Asian theologian as he/she is aware that Jesus was not a "Christian" and that strictly speaking he did not give rise to a new religion. Not only Jesus but also the community of his disciples at its earliest stage was Jewish with its religion centred around the temple and the synagogue (Acts 3:1-3). The only thing that differentiated it from the rest of the Jews was that while the Jews still looked forward to the coming of the promised messiah, the new sect believed in Jesus as the Messiah that has come already. According to the Gospels what Jesus wanted was the right living of any religion, in the light of the experience of God as the intimate and loving parent. Hence Asian theologians are increasingly advocating a ministry-centred, and an incarnational theology of mission rather than the atonement theology of the West. In this, Asian theologians are on the same wave length as their Latin American counterparts in so far as the latter advocate a shift from the mediator to the mediation that Jesus brought about through his ministry. Asian theology became aware of the many poor and of the many religions of Asia. It would not be an exaggeration to say that these two questions resonate in most of the theological output in Asia since the 1970s. It is not that the Asian church was not aware of these two realities earlier. In fact most of its mission was directed against the followers of other religions, to win them over to the church and to save them! What is new is that the Asian church has realized that these two realities should be combined, i.e., to see the poor as religious and the religious as the poor. As Aloysius Pieris has argued we cannot adequately address the problem of Asian poverty unless we do it in the context of the dialogue with the Asian religions and at the same time there cannot be an authentic inter-religious encounter without the concern for the poor.11 While the integral approach to spirituality, secular involvement and liturgy in the light of the historical Jesus and his humanity is a contribution of Latin American theology, the Asian theology of liberation takes shape from the Christian encounter with Asian religions. Elsewhere Aloysius Pieris emphasizes the need to include other religions in our theological purview. Thus a Christology of Asia is not one of Christ against religions, but a "Christ of religions" which unites all persons of all religions in a quest of liberation from all sorts of oppression: political, social, economic, racial, sexual, and spiritual.12 Another Sri Lankan theologian, Tissa Balasuriya wrote: "As an Asian I cannot accept as divine and true any teaching that begins with the presupposition that all my ancestors for innumerable generations are eternally damned by God unless they had been baptized in or were related to one of the Christian institutional churches".13 In fact from the biblical concept of a liberator God Tissa advocates an ecumenism of all religions to combat all forms of injustice on a global basis. Similarly he spoke of a cosmic Christ whose message is one of "integral liberation — of the persons, of society, and of the world in truth, authenti-city, social justice, and peace".14 From what is said above it is implied that in contrast to Liberation theology in Latin America, the church in Asia is aware that it has no exclusive claims for liberation, as Asian religions too advocated the liberation of humans, the Buddhist nirvana being a classic example, not to speak of the liberational elements of the Bhakti traditions in India. Hence Asian liberation theologians advocate collaboration with other Asian religions in effecting the liberation of the poor of Asia as a common mission. Already at the beginning of the century the great Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore expressed Asia’s aspiration: "This is my prayer to thee, my Lord — strike at the root of penury in my heart: Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knee before insolent might".15 Similarly Mahatma Gandhi derived inspiration from the Bhagavadgita for political action against the colonial rulers, as a religious deed. Active nonviolence for Gandhi was Satyagraha — the fight for truth. Gandhi advocated a return to the pristine past of Rama Rajya, the rule of a myth-ical hero, Rama, who symbolized justice, peace and equality. For this, on the one hand, he had to unite the Indians who were divided by the colonial policy of "divide and rule" and on the other had to dissipate the Indian masses’ fear of the State violence which in turn had reduced all Indians to submission. This he accomplished through the civil disobedience movement, with the inspiration of the Bhagavadgita. Commitment to Transformation: Latin American Liberation Theology is aimed at the transformation of society by getting rid of the oppressive structures that keep the masses in perpetual dependency and exploitation. Asian theologians too began to take up the burning issues of today. Theology was seen in its service to change the sinful situation in which we are. Many in Asia are realizing how our faith commitment must make an impact on the aspirations of the millions in Asia, the poor and the exploited, irrespective of their religion, sex, caste or class. Though, as Felix Wilfred has highlighted, the Asian church in general has, by and large, kept aloof from the ferment of liberation movements and clung to its traditional activities and services like education, medical care, relief works, etc., theologians are attracted and influenced by the Latin American experience.16 Though social injustice, exploitation and oppression of the poor have been present down through the history of the Asian church, a prophetic stand and action on the part of the Church in Asia is more recent. Writers emphasize the actualizing character of the teachings of Jesus Christ, especially, that of the Kingdom of God. It is not solely a matter of a personal decision, rather it stands for God’s definitive liberative intervention in human and cosmic history. It leads history to its fulfillment in the end-time community in which all alienation will be overcome and all exploitation and oppression ended.17 The teachings of Jesus, according to Soares-Prabhu, "is a pedagogy of the oppressed, with a strong commitment to societal liberation".18 This liberation, according to Asian Tradition, is not only socio-economic but an emancipation of the individual human being from his or her psychic conditioning. It is a liberation from the kama (passionate desire for pleasure), krodh (the aggressiveness that comes from frustrated ambition, and lobha (the compulsive urge to possess things), described as the gateways to hell in the Bhagavadgita (XVI:21). The liberated person is in a state of sama, i.e., equanimity to the pairs of opposites that qualify life. Ultimate liberation in the Asian tradition can only come about through the process of awareness (meditation) that leads to "seeing the Self in the self" (Bhagavad-gita VI:20). This awareness, both macrocosmic (conscientization) and microcosmic (meditation) will be basic to the Asian theology of liberation and, according to Soares-Prabhu, the teachings of Jesus lead us to this awareness.19 Needless to insist, due to the religiously pluralistic context of Asia, theology in Asia is not just a critical reflection on Christian practice in the light of the Word, but on the practice of the broader community comprising people of different religious persuasions. Asian theology cannot be done in isolation and aloofness but as Sebastian Kappen has rightly pointed out, it is rooted in the shared commitment to the humanization of society.20 In recent times many priests and religious, in alliance with people of other faiths and ideologies, have taken to organizing slum dwellers, the rural poor, the tribals, etc., to strengthen their causes. Asian attempts to liberation have an added dimension of the social element ingrained in it. The Asian poor, as we mentioned earlier, suffer also from social marginalization. Almost 95 per cent of the poor in Asia belong to the social out-castes and tribal population. Their poverty is not just a question of economic deprivation, rather it flows from their social marginalization. Liberation in this context has more to do with the affirmation and acceptance of their human dignity and their right to participate in decision making. The table-fellowship of Jesus in his Kingdom-practice is a great challenge to Asian liberation. Liberation becomes social transformation. Local Church of Asia: Asian theologians strive to integrate their pluralistic experience with their faith and mission which differentiates Asian theology from the rest of the local theologies evolved in the context of one culture and one religion. Asian theology is the interface of religious and cultural pluralism with the Gospel. Any suggestion that Christian theologizing is valid only when it is done within a particular cultural framework is a sort of theological snobbery for Asian theologians. As opposed to the fear of "syncretism" and "horizontalism" that kept the Asian church away from giving rise to an Asian theology that responds to the Asian context, since the 1970’s Asians are realizing that the plurality of expressions in theology points to the richness of the mystery on the one hand and the diversity of the contexts on the other. Thus the complex and diverse Indian situation has given rise to many new elements in the understanding of the mystery of Jesus Christ.21 The Theology of liberation caused the Church in Asia to realize that the question of becoming a mature local church is not only a matter of having an indigenous clergy and episcopate, but even more it is an issue of the Church’s involvement in the cultural history of Asia and of responding to this cultural history. The process has often been described in terms of inculturation in a restricted sense as it was mainly concerned with the traditionally handed on symbols and meaning systems. Under the impact of the contextual theologies the concept of culture has broadened to include any aspect that has to do with the way in which a particular group of people lives and dies. Its joys, hopes, aspirations, struggles, agonies, fears, etc., are all part of its culture. Only when the church in Asia has assimilated these aspects of the Asian people, can it be described as the local church of Asia. Only then can the church in Asia claim to produce an Asian theology, reflecting an Asian praxis of liberation. Naturally this will imply that the church in Asia takes into account the religiousness of the Asian poor and works for the liberation of this Asian poor through basic human communities which in the Asian context are genuine theological communities in so far as the members are poor and religious. As Aloysius Pieris has suggested such a practice will give birth to a true local church of Asia.22 The Filipino theologian Carlos Abesamis, while advocating the need for Asian theologians to free themselves from the Western theological models stresses equally that they should be free also from the Asian middle-class model. They should learn from the theology drawn by the grass root Christians’ prayers, liturgy, dreams, songs, etc., as indicators of a new religious culture in the living journal of their peoples lives.23 Another Asian theologian Albert Widjaja describes how Asia has grown from theological begging to develop at least a "beggarly theology". A beggarly theology identifies itself with the poor and dispossessed. It demands that the claims of the Gospel be linked with the cries of the poor. A beggarly theology, as opposed to theological begging, depends on the Asian context and Asian realities.24 Concluding Remarks: The foregoing reflections enable us to conclude that while Medellin and Puebla cannot exclusively account for the theological developments in Asia, their impact on Asian theology is undeniable. Though the Asian church has not come up with a typically Asian local theology parallel to the Latin American Liberation theology, several liberational theologies such as the Minjung theology of Korea, the Dalit theology of India, the theology of Struggle in the Philippines, the Homeland theology of Taiwan, the Pain of God theology of Japan, and the Feminist theologies of Asia, have given expression to an Asian theology. These theologies took their inspiration from Medellin and Puebla, in such areas as social transformation and the struggle for political change, the realization that the poor and the marginalized are more subjects of their own destiny than objects, finding God’s presence in the struggle and suffering of the people, and a new hermeneutics of the Bible in the context of the present. The vitality and productivity of Asian theology can be gauged from the proliferation of new journals and publications in Asia. Indeed Asia has become a force creating unrest for the former exclusive centres of theology. The increasing list of Asian writers incurring Vatican censors in recent times shows that Asia has come of age in its theological exercise. Some of the problems that Asian theologians face could be attributed to the lack of clarity in their writings or due to the lack of understanding and appreciation of the Asian context on the part of their European counter-parts. Medellin and Puebla have shown that the days of a monocultural theology are over and they invite us to a synodal spirit of listening to each other respecting the context and problems of each one, and calling for different expressions of the Gospel response. Notes: 1.
Penny Lernoux, "The Long Path to Puebla", in Puebla and
Beyond, John Eagleson and Philip Scharper (Eds), Maryknoll, N.Y.,
Orbis Books, 1979, p.11. English version: from author French version, SPIRITUS, Sept. 99, No. 156.
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