Teaching Global Theologies: Power and Praxis

Teaching Global Theologies

Power and Praxis

Kwok Pui-lan, Cecilia González-Andrieu, and Dwight N. Hopkins

Editors

Baylor University Press

© 2015 by Baylor University Press

Waco, Texas 76798

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 in writing of Baylor University Press.

Cover Design by Nita Ybarra

Cover Art: La Cruz de la Habana, Alfredo González Cardentey, 2015. 24 x 24 Acrylic on Canvas.

978-1-4813-0286-9 (ePub)

978-1-4813-0484-9 (Mobi)

Library of Congress CIP data

Teaching global theologies : power and praxis / Kwok Pui-lan, Cecilia González-Andrieu, and Dwight N. Hopkins, editors.

224 pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4813-0285-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Theology—Methodology. 2. Theology—Study and teaching. 3. Globalization—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Kwok, Pui-lan, joint editor.

BR118.T43 2015

230.071—dc23

2015006697

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part 1. What Is Global Theology and Why It Matters

1. Teaching Theology from a Global Perspective

Kwok Pui-lan

2. Listening for Fresh Voices in the History of the Church

William A. Dyrness

3. Teaching Global Theology in a Comparative Mode

Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen

Part 2. Identity, Power, and Pedagogy

4. The Good of Education: Accessibility, Economy, Class, and Power

Cecilia González-Andrieu

5. Identity Cross-Dressing While Teaching in a Global Context

Miguel A. De La Torre

6. Teaching Global Theology with Local Resources: A Chinese Theologian’s Strategies

Lai Pan-chiu

7. Pedagogy for Being Human in Global Comparison

Dwight N. Hopkins

Part 3. Praxis and Responsibility

8. Teaching to Transform: Theological Education, Global Consciousness, and the Making of Global Citizens

Teresia Hinga

9. Hablando Se Entiende la Gente: Tower of Babble or Gift of Tongues?

Loida I. Martell-Otero

10. The Geopolitical and the Glocal: Situating Global Theological Voices in Theological Education

Eleazar S. Fernandez

List of Contributors

Notes

Acknowledgments

The idea of this book began when William A. Dyrness and Kwok Pui-lan were invited to speak at the University of Chicago Ministry Conference at the Divinity School in the spring of 2009. With Dwight N. Hopkins they discussed the critical importance of initiating conversations on teaching theology in the global context with colleagues in the field. We want to thank Matthew Richards and other students who helped organize the conference and sowed the seeds for this project.

We are grateful to the Wabash Center for a grant to support contributors in the United States while they met during the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) in 2011 to exchange ideas and find ways to broaden this conversation. In the fall of 2012, the group gathered again at Fuller Theological Seminary to concretize the book project. The Wabash Center, Santa Clara University, and two local churches provided the necessary financial support. Loyola Marymount University helped with local logistics, and Fuller Theological Seminary offered spaces and facilities. To these organizations, we offer our sincere gratitude.

As we worked on the book project, we had the opportunity, under the auspices of the Theological Education Committee of AAR, to organize two workshops on Teaching Theology in a Global and Transnational World and Teaching Global Theologies: International Perpsectives at the annual meetings in 2013 and 2015. We thank John Thatamanil, Jeffrey Williams, and other members of the committee for their enthusiastic support, and we thank the panelists for their participation. The workshops generated new pedagogical insights, collegial support, and international conversation on the topic.

This book has been a collaborative project from the beginning, and we thank the contributors for their commitment to this project. Several members battled illnesses, and one had to care for a family member who was seriously ill during the writing process. Eleazar S. Fernandez flew from the Philippines to join the AAR workshop in 2013 after Typhoon Haiyan ravaged his country. Lai Pan-chiu agreed to contribute at a later stage and added a valuable international perspective.

We are very grateful to Carey C. Newman, director of Baylor University Press, for his enthusiasm for the book and for shepherding with great care the production and marketing processes. We are indebted to Taylor Hall for editing the manuscript and to the University of Chicago Divinity School for the funds supporting her work. The staff at Baylor University Press offered timely, professional help every step of the way, and we want to thank them for their meticulous work on the book.

Last but not least, we thank our families for their support and generosity. Their love and their care for what we do gives us the necessary space to dream new dreams for doing theology in our global age and for teaching it to the next generation. We are grateful to Spencer Bogle for preparing the index with care. We thank the Episcopal Divinity School for support from the Theological Writing Fund.

Introduction

An important challenge for theological education today is to educate and form leaders of faith communities who are prepared to lead in a global and transnational world. The global society is formed because of increased connectivity as a result of the neoliberal economy, the Internet and mass media, technology, mass consumerist and popular culture, and migration and travel. Transnationalism refers to social, economic, cultural, and political relations and activities that transgress the boundaries of the nation-state. As the world grows closer through instant communications, technology, and easier travel, we discover new knowledge from a variety of theological scholars and religious communities. Although there has been a growing body of literature on global theology and the construction of theological doctrines from an intercultural or global perspective, theology is still largely taught in the same old way, which privileges the European and Euro-American traditions.

Theology is also often taught to the same communities that have historically had access to education, and less often to those who represent the complex world realities of the Christian church. Currently there are very few resources available on how to teach theology that specifically take into serious consideration the changing global situation and how this might affect the theological curriculum as a whole. This book aims to identify texts and resources, successful pedagogies of inclusion, and best practices in order to teach theology in a global and transnational age, and to stimulate further conversations in the wider academic community.

Some of the questions we will explore include: What are the possible sources for a global theology? How can we teach theology while bearing in mind the cultural diversity within the long tradition of Christian thought? Whose voices are missing, and how do we pay attention to the power dynamics of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality in the classroom? What are the successful pedagogies and best practices that promote students’ global consciousness and prepare them as global citizens? Where today are connections being made by Christians and people of faith from multiple settings that might have potential for raising (new) theological questions? How can we approach the task of teaching theology in a global context from the perspective of comparative theology? How shall we situate global theological voices in pedagogy and across the curriculum?

The majority of the contributors to this volume are from the United States, with one from Asia and one from Europe to enrich the discussion by raising issues from other cultural contexts. A significant feature of the book is the collaboration of theologians and scholars from Catholic, mainline Protestant, and evangelical traditions. Those from the United States come from different racial and ethnic backgrounds and each of them has sustained connections with other parts of the world. They teach in theology departments in liberal arts colleges and universities, divinity schools, and seminaries. The plurality and diversity of the contributors increase the book’s relevance because, true to the vision the volume espouses, the global condition is examined from many vantage points.

All along this has been a collaborative project. The various authors based in the United States met twice and also presented panels on the book’s questions and findings at annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion. Through engaging these public conversations, we were able to identify common concerns and generate ideas in shaping the text you now hold in your hand. These encounters helped sharpen the arguments of the book, avoid unnecessary overlap, and hopefully make the book more coherent and useful to our readers.

Part 1 falls under the heading Global Theology and Why It Matters. In chapter 1, Teaching Theology from a Global Perspective, Kwok Pui-lan discusses the challenges of globalization to the teaching of theology with attention to the expansion of capital, the relation between the global and local, and cultural and religious diversity. She analyzes the context for the globalization of theology and different approaches to the conceptualizing of global theology. The changing Christian demographics and the shift of Christianity to the Global South require teachers of theology to be aware of Eurocentrism (i.e., presupposing Europe as the default position for theological education) and to attend to the new expressions of Christian identity and faith, coming especially from the formerly colonized peoples. The shift of geopolitics necessitates a new way of conceptualizing the teaching of theology and imagining the theological curriculum. This chapter argues that teachers of theology need to increasingly pay attention to the identity and politics in the classroom, the relation of intellectual work with community, and the promotion of global consciousness.

In chapter 2, Listening for Fresh Voices in the History of the Church, William A. Dyrness recalls the cultural diversity within the long tradition of Christian thought, from the multifaceted patristic period with its Alexandrian, Antiochene and Gallic accents, through the medieval centuries in its Eastern and Western forms, to the modern period of missionary and colonial expansions. The chapter examines ways the development of church authority often conspired to exclude marginal voices. This would include the manner in which Monophysite Syriac and Egyptian churches were silenced by imperial rule and Nestorian and Arian voices, to say nothing of women and cultural minorities, have been systematically omitted from major histories. But it also points to how denominational histories, whether in their Catholic or Protestant forms, frequently leave vast sections of the church out of account. If we take into consideration the histories that have been suppressed, we will see that the church has been post-Western for quite some time. Recovering these missing voices may help us see that global theology is not, after all, a new reality, but part of the broader heritage of the Christian church.

Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, in Teaching Global Theology in a Comparative Mode, approaches the task of teaching theology in a global context from the perspective of comparative theology. Chapter 3 focuses on the teaching of systematic/constructive theology in a way that puts key Christian doctrines, such as the Trinity, salvation, and theological anthropology, in dialogue with other living-faith traditions. Rather than attempting a neutral correlation of teachings of faith traditions (as in religious studies), comparative theology usually is confessional in nature (in this case, from the point of view of Christian tradition) and seeks to engage particular relevant teachings of the religious Other in a hospitable, inviting, and instructive way. This chapter explores questions such as: Are there any resources in Christian tradition to facilitate such a pedagogy? What are the specific challenges or opportunities? What does it take for the teacher to carry on such a task? How does it shape Christian self-understanding?

The book then turns to another emphasis in part 2: identity, power, and pedagogy of teachers and learners. With The Good of Education: Accessibility, Economy, Class, and Power, Cecilia González-Andrieu offers chapter 4 with a focus on students. While most people acknowledge education’s indispensability for a thriving human community, educational systems often protect asymmetrical power dynamics and replicate exclusion rather than challenging it. In theological education, issues of power and agency take on particular urgency as students prepare to serve and lead the future church. In the work of building up a church that makes a preferential option with and not only for the poor, transgressive pedagogical strategies must be developed. This chapter discusses educational access, as well as socioeconomic factors and relationships, and their effects on theological students and the institutions that are meant to serve them. The chapter explores practical challenges and the ways in which the theological classroom may become an effective engine for the transformation of the church by building up communities of theologians trained and committed to working with the disinherited of the world and those who may even come from their own ranks.

In chapter 5, Identity Cross-Dressing While Teaching in a Global Context, Miguel A. De La Torre investigates how the constructed identity of scholars of color, along with the power and privilege that come with cultural capital, impacts pedagogy within the global perspective. This chapter explores honorary white identity conferred upon U.S. scholars of color (especially those teaching abroad) and how the very act of instruction of the normalized canon, taught in the language of the colonizer, reinforces the very structures responsible for oppression. It is within the classroom—the room of class—that students are taught their class and, more importantly, their place in society. Which classroom one is relegated to attend—or teach from—will determine the extent of one’s own colonized mind. How, then, does the scholar of color engage in a liberative pedagogy, which decenters and dismantles the legitimized discourse? How do the disenfranchised resist the temptation of imitating the oppressive praxis of those from the dominant culture? By exploring these questions, this chapter elucidates the opportunities and pitfalls faced by scholars of color who engage the global context in their work.

Lai Pan-chiu then moves the conversation in chapter 6 into Chinese thought and traditions with Teaching Global Theology with Local Resources: A Chinese Theologian’s Strategies. Teaching at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the author presents three strategies for teaching global theology with Chinese theological sources. The first is to study the historical documents of Jing Jiao, which was conventionally called Chinese Nestorian Christianity, and to discover its Syrian roots from the Church of the East. This church was misidentified and pejoratively labeled by its opponents as Nestorianism for polemical purposes. Lai exposes the Eurocentric bias prevalent in most textbooks of the history of Christianity and introduces a broadened idea of global Christianity. With a second strategy, the author analyzes several of the theological texts of premodern Chinese Catholicism, some of which were shaped by traditional Chinese culture. These Chinese concepts, he claims, may be significant transnationally or globally. The task of Chinese Christian theology should include the interpretation of the meaning of its theological traditions in a transnational or even global context, rather than restricting itself to indigenization in China. The third strategy is to use strands of contemporary Chinese Christian theological treatises to show how comparative theology can be one of the possible ways to make a contribution to the development of global theology with Chinese sources.

Dwight N. Hopkins in chapter 7, entitled Pedagogy for Being Human in Global Comparison, asks how an educator teaches the idea of being human among different students from various nations sitting in the same classroom. The author begins by examining his experience of teaching theological anthropology for a year in Seoul, Korea. His class consisted of students representing five different countries. His pedagogical strategy presupposed the following: (1) all knowledge first arises from specific cultures, (2) the human communities in those cultures define the theological anthropology, and (3) consequently, theological anthropology lacks a universal essence or global applicability. His pedagogical techniques encouraged the students to claim their own voices by consistently and consciously using a comparative method. For instance, whatever claim a student made, he/she had to give his/her viewpoint in relation to a different culture in the class. In addition, each student was asked to pursue this comparative method by examining their views on different levels of being human—that is, on the family level, religion/spirituality level, space and time level, and so on. At the end of the class, each student was asked what being human meant in their particular country.

Part 3 makes a further turn, this time toward praxis and responsibility. With chapter 8, Teaching to Transform: Theological Education, Global Consciousness, and the Making of Global Citizens, Teresia Hinga recognizes the urgent need for conscientization about the global ethical issues of our time. She proposes that such consciousness-raising should become a major dimension of theological education since such awakening of consciousness is a necessary stepping-stone in the making and nurturing of global citizens who would be committed to mitigating said issues. The author refers analytically to two examples: (1) the Jesuit education system (exemplified by Santa Clara University, particularly in its new emphases on global matters in its newly minted Core Curriculum), and (2) the World Council of Churches, where such experimentations with education for transformation of consciousness and the making of global citizens are taking place in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Hinga makes the case for the adjustment of theological education to facilitate transformation of consciousness and also explores what we can learn from these two cases about the rationale behind, best practices, and strategies to adopt when scaling up curricular and pedagogical adjustments toward teaching theology in order to transform both the students and the world.

Loida Martell-Otero in "Hablando Se Entiende la Gente: Tower of Babble or Gift of Tongues? investigates the concerns present when the classroom is populated by communities from oppressed and/or minoritized groups, as well as by those in places of privilege. This chapter 9 specifically asks the question: Does a diverse classroom necessarily create a conscientization of global issues or of the oppression of the Other"? How does one ensure that all students leave the institution with an awareness of global issues—and how these issues impact ministry locally, nationally, and across the world? How can our pedagogy create a space of hospitality that nurtures community amid its celebration of difference? Given these questions and concerns, the author offers an example of teaching an introductory course to illustrate collaborative dialogue amid diversity.

Eleazar S. Fernandez’ chapter 10, The Geopolitical and the Glocal: Situating Global Theological Voices in Theological Education, presents a way of understanding the global as an entry point in the discourse about transnational pedagogy in theological education. The term glocal, which is the interweaving of the global and the local, provides such an entry point in framing transnational pedagogy. Therefore, this chapter argues that a transnational pedagogy and a theological curriculum that takes account of our globalized world must (1) promote a way of thinking/reasoning that transgresses Eurocentric assumptions, (2) be multilingual—understood in a deeper sense to be inclusive of various ways of apprehending the world through language, (3) be transcontextual-transcultural, (4) take account of the multipositionality and shifting positions of social subjects in the power-knowledge nexus, and (5) be interfaith-engaged, hermeneutically dialogical, interdisciplinary, and integrative.

We hope you will enjoy this collaborative and expansive book and conversational journey. Though an invitation to all curious seekers, the book is intended especially for people who teach or are preparing as scholar-educators in the areas of theology, ethics, and world Christianity in theology departments in colleges and universities, as well as in seminaries and divinity schools. We especially hope it will prove useful for new instructors teaching in these contexts for the first time. We also wish to serve seasoned scholars wanting to know about the challenges and opportunities of pedagogy in a changing, globalized world. Our collaborative process has sought to generate fresh ideas for navigating an increasingly diverse and transnational classroom and to prepare global citizens. Finally, we direct this work toward religious practitioners and academics who are interested in the future of theological education in general. Since the book addresses issues from Catholic, Protestant, and evangelical contexts, we hope that along with being global and transnational, it may also promote Christian relationships built on effectively learning from one another.

1

Teaching Theology from a Global Perspective

Kwok Pui-lan

In the fall of 2012, I taught a course on liberation theology to a class of about twenty students in Boston. The students were highly motivated and wanted to learn liberation theology from different parts of the world and various social locations. The class drew students from my own Episcopal Divinity School, which has predominantly Euro-American students, as well as from other theological schools in Boston. As it turned out, one half of the students were Euro-Americans, while the other half consisted of racial and ethnic minority students and international students from several Asian and African countries. The diversity of the students’ backgrounds enriched the class discussion, making us more keenly aware of the contextual nature of doing theology.

Teaching the course raised several pedagogical questions for me: What does it mean to teach theology from a global perspective? How should one organize the course materials—geographically according to different parts of the world, doctrinally according to theological themes, or socially according to issues pertaining to class, race, gender, sexuality, colonialism, and so forth? How does the teacher help students who have relatively little knowledge of the Global South understand theology arising from these contexts? Would racial and ethnic minority students and international students have privileged knowledge of liberation theology because of their marginalization in society? How can we avoid treating students from marginalized communities as if they were native informants, especially when there are only a few of them in the classroom? How can we help Euro-American students feel that they have something meaningful to share and not feel isolated or silenced?

As we live in an increasingly interconnected world and face a growing diversity of students in our classroom, it is important to reflect on teaching theology from a global and transnational perspective, with its challenges and opportunities. This is important not only for a course on liberation theology, but across the theological curriculum. For too long, theology has been done for the church as a reflection of faith or in the academy as a highly specialized discipline. Today, theology must be done more intentionally in the public square, to promote dialogue for the common good and to educate global citizens. Theology must address social and political issues that concern the public, engage critical thinkers of our time, and articulate the public relevance of religious faiths and beliefs.¹ In this chapter, I discuss the context of globalization of theology, different approaches to conceptualizing global theology, and the challenges of teaching theology in a global world.

The Context of the Globalization of Theology

Globalization is often used to describe the interconnections of our world based on the neoliberal economy, the Internet and social media, mass and consumerist culture, and complex connectivity as a result of rapidly developing networks.² In a so-called global village, what happens locally is affected by events occurring far away (and vice versa) because of the intensification of global social relations.³ In fact, sociologist Roland Robertson has suggested replacing the term globalization with glocalization and argued that globalization is in actual fact a local process, and that the worldwide exchange or fusion of culture is done