Say you are teaching a class, and only two students sign up...

This semester, there are a few modules with only a handful of students. There was one class that I wanted to attend but was told that that class was for a postgraduate program. And last I heard, there was only one postgraduate student registered for the class.

Whether one is a teacher, pastor, lecturer or any educator, it is always disheartening to see poor turnout at one's class. Imagine you organize a course on an important theologian of your denomination, and only two persons sign up. 

What would you do? Cancel the class?

Here's what John Stackhouse wrote:

In an autobiographical sketch (in the fine collection of Kelly Clark’s Philosophers Who Believe), Yale University philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff recalls his student days at Calvin College in Michigan. Once, he writes, he signed up for a course on Immanuel Kant’s difficult Critique of Pure Reason. Taught by a senior professor, Harry Jellema, the course enrolled just two students. Nicholas Wolterstorff was one.

Guess who was the other student?

He was Alvin Plantinga, one of the greatest living Christian philosophers of our time. Stackhouse continued:

Wolterstorff delightedly notes that every student in that class has since been invited to give the prestigious Gifford Lectures in Scotland, defending the Christian faith. [...]

Harry Jellema, though, could not have foreseen any of that when he faithfully entered his classroom each time to teach just these two students. He simply wanted to teach anyone who wanted to learn.

At the University of Chicago they still enjoy telling the story of astrophysics professor Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. In the 1950s, Chandrasekhar was living in Wisconsin, conducting research at the university’s observatory. The university scheduled him to teach one advanced seminar that winter, however, so Chandrasekhar drove eighty miles each way to teach the course on the main campus to—you guessed it—just two students. He could have cancelled it, but he did not.

In the subsequent decades, both of those students, and Professor Chandrasekhar himself, won the Nobel Prize. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, however, could not have foreseen any of that when he faithfully entered that classroom every time to teach just two students. He simply wanted to teach anyone who wanted to learn.  

This perspective on formal education goes against the prevalent attitude to see the importance of certain subjects based on how much money one can make from it through student registration.

Of course this does not mean education should be operated regardless of monetary profitability. Sustainability is non-negligible. And in the present system, monetary profitability guarantees sustainability. 

What this means is for educators to not lose heart if your classes are not popular. On sustainability, there is always a market for the niche.

The Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks a Radical Orthodoxian? A specter of Radical Orthodoxy in contemporary Western public discourse

Jonathan Sacks presented a noteworthy speech to Benedict XVI late last year, addressing the European context in general, the economic challenges in particular. After going through the transcript, one finds it curious that the gist of the speech very much resembles with the thesis tabled by John Milbank et al in the Radical Orthodoxy project.

The rabbi cited works done by various researchers from diverse background such as Niall Ferguson, David Landes, Eric Nelson, Rodney Stark, and William Rees-Mogg in his highlight on the undeniable influence of the Judeo-Christian heritage on the present economic system:

"...the market economy and modern capitalism emerged in Judeo-Christian Europe and not in other cultures like China that were more advanced in other ways. The religious ethic was one of the driving forces of this once new form of wealth creation.

Equally however, this same ethic taught the limits of capitalism. It might be the best means we know of for generating wealth, but it is not a perfect system for distributing wealth."

In similar fashion, Milbank offered his "archeaological approach" with "inestimable advantages" to narrate the emergence of present western secular discourses, of which the economic system is one:

"…on my reading, secular discourse does not just borrow inherently inappropriate modes of expression from religion as the only discourse to hand, […] but is actually constituted in its secularity by 'heresy' in relation to orthodox Christianity, or else a rejection of Christianity that is more 'neo-pagan' than simply anti-religious."
(John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond secular reason [UK: Blackwell, 1990; Second edition, 2006], p.3. Emphasis original.)

The Radical Orthodoxy's offered solution to our present problems is to "re-envision" a "more incarnate, more participatory, more aesthetic, more erotic, more socialized, even 'more Platonic' Christianity," (John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, Graham Ward, eds., Radical Orthodoxy: A new theology [UK: Blackwell, 1999], p.3).

Notice the identical language in Sacks' solution below?

"Economic superpowers have a short shelf-life: Spain in the fifteenth century, Venice in the sixteenth, Holland in the seventeenth, France in the eighteenth, Britain in the nineteenth, America in the twentieth. Meanwhile Christianity has survived for two thousand years, and Judaism for twice as long as that. The Judeo-Christian heritage is the only system known to me capable of defeating the law of entropy that says all systems lose energy over time."

With these similarities, one wonders whether is the Chief Rabbi a closet Radical Orthodoxian?

Probably Radical Orthodoxy has been criticized so much so that it has become a vulgarity in the field and an obscenity in its own right. Hence people can't resist but simply to shy from the label.

Nonetheless, as seen here, its specter lingers, and manifests itself in the works of Ferguson, Landes, Nelson, Stark, Rees-Mogg, and Sacks---those who are not related to Radical Orthodoxy in anyway.

There is always another way to call a female canine, no?

Making icon out of dust

God said, “Let us make mankind in our icon [Septuagint: "image"], in our likeness..."

The LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

(Genesis 1:26, 2:7)

Craig Evans versus Bart Ehrman: Does the New Testament present a reliable portrait of the Historical Jesus?

Two established scholars in New Testament studies taking each other to task. 

Ehrman is doing what he does best: Pointing out "contradictions" in the four gospels as the reason to doubt the historical reliability of them, and hence the historical portrayals of Jesus. If these accounts contradict each other, then they are not historically accurate. Hence we cannot be too quick to assume their reliability.

Evans highlights the first principle that contemporary biblical scholars ground their researches (including that of Ehrman): The gospel accounts are reliable as far as historical research is concerned, and this is the starting point of biblical scholarship itself. Can we assume these documents are inaccurate just because we cannot make historical sense from them despite there are details found in them that correspond with archaeological findings and extra-biblical historical data?

Both agree that the gospel accounts are difficult for contemporary readers to comprehend. For Ehrman, this means "contradiction" and so we must read them as fabrication---those events just didn't happen. 

For Evans, this means that we can still ascertain historical data from the texts even though there is difficulty---we have to continue to work on understanding those difficulties with what we can historically affirm.

Isn't the two scholars' so-called historical conclusion philosophical differences?

Happy Chinese New Year, the second day!

May you, readers, be blessed with good (mental & physical) health and wealth so that you may continue to pursue your life in Christ as a blessing to others in this Dragon year! 

Even if health fails and wealth nil: 

We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in [others].

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
(2 Corinthians 4)

Worship, sensus divinitatis, and local students

It is reported that local students are now worshiping the "Bell Curve God" (H/T: Ronald Wong):

The bell-curve refers to a grading method where students' grades are assigned based on the relative performance of their peers. [...]

As seen in the photo above, an altar is set up with food, drinks, and vitamin C tablets offered to this god. 

One picture even shows a sign hung up on the ceiling, that "cursed" whoever entered the room without a food offering for the "Bell Curve God".

This news is particular interesting when read along John Calvin's sensus divinitatis, which simply means that humans are born with some vague ideas that divinity exists. To Calvin, this is the Christian God. And the vague ideas is given by this God to everyone.

G. K. Chesterton has similarly said, "For when we cease to worship God, we do not worship nothing, we worship anything." 

Or, as apostle Paul put it: "...since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made..." (Romans 1:30)

Humans are inevitably homo religiosus. We are endowed with the inclination to worship. And I tend to think it is this inclination that guides all direction and path taken by us in searching for the purpose and the meaning of life, as well as the rationale in ethics and philosophy. And in this case, the hope of some local students.

Riusuke Fukahori's 3D art is awesome!

Any difference between 'Jew', 'Israelite', and 'Hebrew'?

There are so much that I have taken for granted in term of the concern of local congregation. Take for example, yesterday during Bible Study session, the issue about the identity of 'Jews' and the 'Israelites' came up.

Are the Jews identical to Israelites? 

I have all this while assume that they are the same. Yet how sure am I that they are indeed identical? 

There was the notion among local Church members that 'Jews' refers to a 'race', while 'Israelites' is a theological synonym to 'people of God' (therefore 'Christians' are also called 'Israelites').  The former is strictly an ethnic group, while the latter is more inclusive (one can be an 'Israelite' by embracing Judaism, but one cannot be a 'Jew' by that). 

I didn't know whether was this correct. So after the Bible Study session, I did a search.

I knew that 'Israelite' refers the descendants of Jacob, who is known as Israel. I also knew that after Solomon, there were two kingdoms, with the north known as Israel while the south as Judah. But I didn't know how did the reference 'Jew' and 'Israelite' came to be, and whether is there distinction between the two.

According to Oxford Dictionary, the word 'Jew' originally used during the Middle English era, derived from "Old French juiu, via Latin from Greek Ioudaios, via Aramaic from Hebrew yĕhūḏī, from yĕhūḏāh" ('Judah').

So, 'Jew' is just a translation of 'Judah'. This means that a Jew is also an Israelite, a descendant of Jacob.

How about 'Hebrew'? 

Oxford Dictionary states that the English word 'Hebrew' is translated "from Old French Ebreu, via Latin from late Greek Hebraios, from Aramaic ‘iḇray, based on Hebrew ‘iḇrî understood to mean 'one from the other side (of the river)'."

This word is synonym to 'Jew' and 'Israelite', though it too can mean the Jewish language. This may shed some understanding of 2 Corinthians 11:22 as Paul highlighting the three different aspects of his ethnicity: "Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s descendants? So am I."

He was a true Hebrew because he spoke the language. He was an Israelite because he was from the lineage of Jacob. He was Abraham's descendant because he was born into the covenantal community. This may suggest that these three aspects in Paul's understanding constitute a true Jew.

The more interesting note about Jew's own understanding of these phrases can be found at Judaism101 website. It is highlighted that the Jews see ethnicity as inherited through the mother:

The Torah does not specifically state anywhere that matrilineal descent should be used; however, there are several passages in the Torah where it is understood that the child of a Jewish woman and a non-Jewish man is a Jew, and several other passages where it is understood that the child of a non-Jewish woman and a Jewish man is not a Jew.

In Deuteronomy 7:1-5, in expressing the prohibition against intermarriage, G-d says "he [i.e., the non-Jewish male spouse] will cause your child to turn away from Me and they will worship the gods of others." No such concern is expressed about the child of a non-Jewish female spouse. From this, we infer that the child of a non-Jewish male spouse is Jewish (and can therefore be turned away from Judaism), but the child of a non-Jewish female spouse is not Jewish (and therefore turning away is not an issue).

Leviticus 24:10 speaks of the son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian man as being "among the community of Israel" (i.e., a Jew).

On the other hand, in Ezra 10:2-3, the Jews returning to Israel vowed to put aside their non-Jewish wives and the children born to those wives. They could not have put aside those children if those children were Jews.

To sum up, 'Jew', 'Judahite', 'Hebrew', and 'Israelite' can be used interchangeably. Yet there are some occasions where I think a distinction may be helpful, for instance when one is writing something about the post-Solomon era of northern and southern kingdoms.

Sorry, but the claim "I hate religion, but love Jesus" is plain stupid

This video has been shared at least 10 times by others on my Facebook page. My fellow theological student also experienced the same thing on his page. 

Honestly, though crude, the claim made in this video is plain stupid. As a theological student, I have concern when such stupid claim is being widely shared around by other believers, thinking that it speaks the truth. The problem is that it is not the truth.

Why?

Brian LePort, who shared similar concern, has written two posts on this video. The first one titled 'Remember, Jesus practiced religion too!':

Jesus is used as a poster-boy for people who want some mystical connection with him, but dislike the practices of others.

If Jesus stands against anyone it is not because they are “religious”. Yes, some religions and religious practices can distract us from Jesus, but so can being irreligious!

If you participate in the Eucharist, if you were baptized, if you gather together to worship, if you pray, if you meditate, if you sing and play music, if you observe holy days, if you do any of these things you are using religious practices to connect with the risen Christ.

Leport's second more elaborate post basically reiterates the same claim.

Kevin DeYoung has written a substantial comment on this video too. He analyzed each of its claims and helpfully showing why some of them are wrong:

More important is Bethke’s opening line: “Jesus came to abolish religion.” That’s the whole point of the poem. The argument—and most poems are arguing for something—rests on the sharp distinction between religion on one side and Jesus on the other. Whether this argument is fair depends on your definition of religion. Bethke sees religion as a man made attempt to earn God’s favor. Religion equals self-righteousness, moral preening, and hypocrisy. Religion is all law and no gospel. If that’s religion, then Jesus is certainly against it.

But that’s not what religion is. We can say that’s what is has become for some people or what we understand it to be. But words still matter and we shouldn’t just define them however we want. “Jesus hates religion” communicates something that “Jesus hates self-righteousness” doesn’t. To say that Jesus hates pride and hypocrisy is old news. To say he hates religion—now, that has a kick to it. People hear “religion” and think of rules, rituals, dogma, pastors, priests, institutions. People love Oprah and the Shack and “spiritual, not religious” bumper stickers because the mood of our country is one that wants God without the strictures that come with traditional Christianity. We love the Jesus that hates religion.

The only problem is, he didn’t. Jesus was a Jew. He went to services at the synagogue. He observed Jewish holy days. He did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them (Matt. 5:17). He founded the church (Matt. 16:18). He established church discipline (Matt. 18:15-20). He instituted a ritual meal (Matt. 26:26-28). He told his disciples to baptize people and to teach others to obey everything he commanded (Matt. 28:19-20). He insisted that people believe in him and believe certain things about him (John 3:16-18; 8:24). If religion is characterized by doctrine, commands, rituals, and structure, then Jesus is not your go-to guy for hating religion. This was the central point behind the book Ted Kluck and I wrote a few years ago. (Emphasis original)

Tan Kim Huat's commentary on Mark's gospel, and Leow Theng Huat's commentary on P. T. Forsyth's theodicy

These two books finally arrived at our shore. Just got a copy of each from Trinity Theological College's Administration Office.

The Gospel According to Mark (Asia Bible Commentary Series). 

Tan Kim Huat is the Chen Su Lan Professor of New Testament and Dean of Studies of Trinity Theological College, Singapore. He is also the author of Zion Traditions and the Aims of Jesus (Cambridge University Press, 1997). 

I took his New Testament Exegesis course last semester. I'm now going through his New Testament Theology class. He is an excellent communicator, hence an excellent teacher and preacher.

The Theodicy of Peter Taylor Forsyth: A "Crucial" Justification of the Ways of God to Man.

Leow Theng Huat is a Lecturer in Theology at Trinity Theological College, Singapore. This is his first monograph, based on his doctoral thesis.

Last semester, I was in his Historical Theology I class. Now in his Historical Theology II class. Wrote an essay on John Damascene's theology of religion under him. His knowledge on early theological controversies on Trinity, Christology, and Pneumatology is impressively vast and deep.

Obvious Christological speech act

Ava, 2 years old toddler, is having a conversation with her mother, Lily. 

Both of them are deaf.

This is a good and heartwarming example of communication with sign. I like to think that this is also good analogy to help our understanding of Jesus' divinity in the gospel story.

The question, 'Did Jesus see himself as God?' is very much alive, especially in interfaith conversation between Christians and Muslims. 

In fact even among Christians, when exploring the question, we may find ourselves hard pressed to find explicit verbal affirmation in the three synoptic gospels that Jesus was indeed God.

And I think this difficulty is much owed to our unfamiliarity with the speech act language understood in Jesus' context. Take for example the scenario right after Jesus healed the paralyzed man:

When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:5-7)

Jesus' speech acted as his pronouncement of forgiveness of sin. The teachers of the law who were there immediately understood that speech act. Jesus was performing the role that belonged solely to God alone. Hence by doing what only God does, Jesus was communicating his divinity. 

Many today overlook this because of the distance between the speech act language in Jesus' time and ours. An example from our present society is the nodding of head. We generally nod to communicate our "yes", while we turn our head to communicate "no". But in some culture (my Indian friends for instance) the turning of head is communicating "yes" at times. This is a real difference between two sets of speech act language.

When Jesus performed the forgiveness of sins, it was clear to his contemporaries what he was communicating. What Jesus communicated was so obvious that the teachers of the law were offended and anxiously thought to themselves: Jesus was blaspheming!

Content Page and the contributors of 'The Bible and the Ballot'

Some friends asked about the topics covered in The Bible and the Ballot: Reflections on Christian Political Engagement in Malaysia Today. Hope this extract from the book's Content page helps:

Foreword

Rt Rev Datuk Ng Moon Hing 

Introduction

Joshua Woo 

Naming Names: Can Preachers Tell You Whom to Vote For?

Alwyn Lau 

Strengthening Democracy in Malaysia: The Need for a Vibrant Public Sphere

Christopher Choong 

Vote!: Voting as a Christian Duty

Tan Soo Inn 

Vote for Changes: My Decision at This Point in History

Tan Soo Inn 

Prayer and Political Consideration: How and What to Pray For?

Joshua Woo 

Why Am I Attending Vigils For Dr Jeyakumar and EO6?

Rama Ramanathan 

Afterword: Christians: A Blessing to Malaysia?

Sivin Kit 

Appendix: Petition by 34 Leaders of the Christian Community in Malaysia

Some friends asked about the contributors to the book. Here's their information:

Alwyn Lau is a member of Friends in Conversation (friendsinconversation.wordpress.com). A lecturer in Marketing and Sociology at KDU University-College. He is also pursuing a Ph.D (Arts) at the University of Monash (Sunway). He blogs at wyngman.blogspot.com. 

Christopher Choong is a member of Friends in Conversation (friendsinconversation.wordpress.com). He holds a doctorate in Political Science where his research interest lies in the interaction between religion and politics (with particular reference to Christians in Malaysia). He teaches at a private university and blogs at cacoescrib.wordpress.com. 

Rama Ramanathan graduated in Mechanical Engineering in 1982 and has since worked in factories and in regional roles in operations and quality management. He blogs at write2rest.blogspot.com. 

Sivin Kit is a founding member of Friends in Conversation (friendsinconversation.wordpress.com) and one of the initiators of Micah Mandate (www.themicahmandate.org). He served as the pastor of Bangsar Lutheran Church from 2000 to 2010 and has been actively engaged in civil society in Malaysia since 2007. Currently, he is pursuing his Ph.D in Religion, Ethics and Society at the University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway. He blogs at sivinkit.net. 

Tan Soo Inn is a member of Friends in Conversation (friendsinconversation.wordpress.com). He holds a Doctor in Ministry from Fuller Seminary. His doctoral project focused on how one discerns vocation in the context of community. Together with his wife Bernice, Soo Inn directs the works of Graceworks (www.graceworks.com.sg), a training and publishing consultancy committed to promoting spiritual friendship in church and society. 

Weird search...

Today, a netizen googled the following and ended up at this blog:

Must be my Methodist friend who has been praying hard for my salvation. Or, perhaps a fellow Presbyterian who simply doesn't wish that I'm one. ;)

3 Reviews on Steven Pinker's 'The Better Angels of Our Nature'

I haven't read Pinker's book and currently don't have plan to read it anytime soon. This post is simply to point out three interesting reviews for those who are interested. 

First review is by John Gray, a political philosopher formerly at London School of Economics. He argues against Pinker's proposals that the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment, is the reason for the decline of violence. He also questioned Pinker's statement that violence has declined. The review is here.

The second one is by Steve Clarke, an ethicist at Oxford University. He commented on John Gray's review of Pinker, pointing out that Gray has made a case to argue against Pinker's proposal. But he concluded that Gray has not successfully show that violence has not decline. The review is here. 

Timothy Snyder, a historian at Yale University, provided the third review. Snyder critiqued Pinker's dismissing the first part of twentieth century global violence and doubted Pinker's collection of "informed guesses" as reliable historical data. He saw Pinker's work as "unscientific". The review is here.

Paul Knitter sees Buddhism's Sunyata as Trinity

There are many approaches to interfaith understanding. Most of them agree that integrity is essential; that is we have to understand any one religion on its own term and not domesticate its teaching to suit our own understanding for whatever reason. 

Integrity in this area is especially important in comparative studies between religions so that we do not distort any religion to contrast or conform with another according to whim.

Paul Knitter, who professes to be a Roman Catholic and a Buddhist (his blog titles 'How a Buddhist Christian sees it'), in his lecture 'Only One Way?' (H/T: Justin Taylor) proposes that the translation of Buddhism's Sunyata concept is pointing to the God to whom is the reference of Christianity.

The Union Theological Seminary's professor invokes the translation of Sunyata as "InterBeing" as a reference to the relational Trinity. As he wrote in his book:

"Thich Nhat Hanh, a modern practitioner, scholar, and popularizer of Zen Buddhism, translates Sunyata more freely but more engagingly as InterBeing. It's the interconnected state of things that is constantly churning out new connections, new possibilities, new problems, new life." (p.12)

"...to believe in a Trinitarian God is to believe in a relational God. The very nature of the Divine is nothing other than to exist in and out of relationships; for God, "to be" is nothing other than "to relate." That, among other things, is what the doctrine of the Trinity tells Christians. (p.19)

"To experience and to believe in a Trinitarian God is to experience and believe in a God who is not [...] the Ground of Being, but the Ground of InterBeing! [...] God is the activity of giving and receiving, of knowing and loving, of losing and finding, of dying and living that embraces and infuses all of us, all of creation. Though every image or symbol limp, Christians can and must say what Buddhist might agree with---that if we're going to talk about God, God is neither a noun nor an adjective. God is a verb! With the word "God" we're trying to get at an activity that is going on everywhere rather than a Being that exists somewhere. God is much more an environment than a thing.

"And therefore, if we Christians really affirm that "God is love" and that Trinity means relationality, then I think the symbol Buddhists use for Sunyata is entirely fitting for our God. God is the field---the dynamic energy field of InterBeing---within which, as we read in the New Testament (but perhaps never really heard), "we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28)."
(Paul F. Knitter, Without Buddha I Could not be a Christian [UK: Oneworld, 2009], p.19-20. Emphasis original.)

For Knitter to make his case, it is fundamental that his understanding of Sunyata as InterBeing is correct. And it is on this fundamental level that I have a question to raise: Is Knitter's equating Sunyata as InterBeing valid?

Knitter himself acknowledges that this equation is the product of Thich Nhat Hanh's "free" translation. In Chinese, Sunyata is simply translated as 空, which means "emptiness" or "void". Hence the famous verse from the Heart Sutra, "色即是空, 空即是色," ("Form is emptiness; emptiness is form") to which Knitter mentioned in the lecture.

Of course, how should Sunyata be understood is still a debate among the different Buddhist sects. Nonetheless, what we can be certain here is that Knitter chooses to use a free translation to draw out conformity between Buddhism and Christianity. He disregards the question over the validity of this translation and uses it anyway.

Besides, is the Suntaya really means interconnectivity among beings? If so, then according to the Heart Sutra, interconnectivity among beings is void. ("不生, 不滅, 不垢, 不淨, 不增, 不減。是故空中. 無色, 無受, 想, 行, 識. 無眼, 耳, 鼻, 舌, 身, 意. 無色, 聲, 香, 味, 觸, 法. 無眼界. 乃至無意識界. 無無明. 亦無無明盡. 乃至無老死. 亦無老死盡. 無苦. 集. 滅. 道. 無智, 亦無得." Translation: "The void is without beginning, ending, form, embodiment, consciousness, sensation, thought, deficiency, completeness, etc." Simply said, the void is nothing.) 

The Sunyata refers to the interconnectivity that has nothing and is nothing. It is ontologically impersonal.

If this is true, then I have another question to raise: If Suntaya refers to the impersonal interconnectivity among beings, how then can Knitter proposes that it is an equation to the Trinitarian God, who is fundamentally recognized in Christianity as personal? 

One can see that Knitter's intention is to point out convergence between Buddhism and Christianity. However, in the way he did it, there are violations done on both Buddhism and Christianity. On one hand, Knitter knowingly used a free translation to represent Buddhism's Sunyata concept, while on the other hand, he deprived Christianity's Trinity from its nature as a personal being. As mentioned above, there are many approaches to interreligious understanding; is this how a Buddhist Christian sees it?

Some unexpectedly-important books I read in 2011, and two unexpected projects

This list betrays my interests and the fields that I am less incompetent at. Each of these informs and forms my spiritual life in this past one year. 

This list is what it is because I wanted to learn about some controversial events in the past (the crusades and Constantine's relationship with the 4th century Church), to be inspired (F.F. Bruce's life), to explore uncharted horizons (contemporary's Pentecostal theology, John Damascene's Byzantine theology, and Islamic theology), to get some sense of what the local theological scene is like (Malaysian and Singaporean authors), and to deepen my understanding on philosophical/public/political theology.

Among them, I thought Oliver O' Donovan's and Philip Goodchild's most difficult to read. Reading them is like choking on ice-cream. Tasty, but choked!

Some of the things I didn't expect from the list:

• I didn't expect Simon Chan's treatment on Pentecostal Ecclesiology has so much important thing to say to other Protestant tradition. Low-Church congregants have so much to learn from the book, particularly about the doctrinal status and perception of the Church!
• I didn't expect money is laden with so much theology. Philip Goodchild's book basically unpacks the theological aspects of money, exposing the dogmatic conditions for the materialization of money.
• I didn't expect Emperor Constantine can be sympathized by present Christians since he has been  popularly smudged by the believing community in general. Peter Leithart shows that he can.
• I didn't expect a Regius Professor (Nigel Biggar) can write so remarkably clear and comprehensible.

Besides reading these books, completing course assignments and Field Education internship through the year, I had the opportunity to work with others on two unexpected projects. 

The first one is with Yale Centre for Faith and Culture's Pathway for Mutual Respect's upcoming literature. Norani, the organization's Asia Project Director, invited each of us to contribute two short essays (350 words) on Muslim-Christian issues. I vaguely have an idea how the final product would be like, as I was told it wouldn't be out so soon. 

The second one is a book project on Christian political responsibility in Malaysia. The hardcopies just came out from the press last week. It is titled as 'The Bible and the Ballot: Reflections on Christian political engagement in Malaysia today'. Here's how the book looks like:

When this project was first conceived, I didn't thought that it would be a hardcopy book. Nevertheless, Soo-Inn and Bernice from Graceworks believed in it and carried the project through. This book contains contribution from six of us who share the same mission in this area. Our hope for this project is to provide some clarification on the ambiguous relationship between Christian discipleship and the challenging situations facing the country at the present moment. 

Advent and its political theology

"In the Christ-event we found the elements of God's rule: an act of power, an act of judgment and the gift of possession. But these elements are presented in the narrative account of a decisive act, an act in which God's rule was mediated and his people reconstituted in Christ. We are told of the Advent of the one in whom the possession was vested, the conflict that his coming evoked and the vindication that he received at God's hand. To speak of God's rule from this point on must mean more than to assert divine sovereignty, or even divine intervention, in general terms. It means recounting this narrative and drawing the conclusions implied in it. And so we face the task of tracing its chief moments. We cannot discuss the question of 'secular' government, the question from which Western political theology has too often been content to start, unless we approach it historically, from a Christology that has been displayed in narrative form as Gospel."

(Oliver O' Donovan, The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the roots of political theology [UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996], p.133)

Race-based ideology and Islam: The Malaysian enigma

Published on the New Mandala: New perspectives on mainland Southeast Asia website, dated 5 December 2011.

In the recent United Malays National Organisation’s (UMNO) general assembly, the “Prime Minister and Umno President Datuk Seri Najib Razak launched a Bumiputera Economic Transformation Roadmap” as a gesture to inform the Malay community that his political party will continue to advance the Malay agenda.[1]

UMNO’s Deputy President Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin further affirmed this race-based ideology by saying that “it is vital” to protect “Malay political power.”[2] He justified such ideology by painting the picture that the interest of the Malay race, given its demography in the country, dictates the well being of the whole nation. “[W]hen we talk about Malay interest it does not mean we are racist because the largest group in the Malaysian society whether you like it or not is still Malays, Bumiputeras and Muslims.”[3]

Seeing ‘Malays’, ‘Bumiputeras’, and ‘Muslims’ being juxtaposed next to each other certainly stirs up curiosity as to what actually has the third group (Muslims) to do with the other two:

Does Islam teach race-based ideology or race-favouritism? Is it true that Islam requires the advancement of ‘Ketuanan Melayu’ (Malay Supremacy)?

Sin and its contextual nature: Plagiarism as case study

Moral objectivity enables the pronouncement of good and evil. The reality of sin subsists under this objectivity. If there is no such thing as 'what is supposed to be', then there can be no such thing as 'not what is supposed to be'. The acknowledgibility of the latter presumes the former. 

However, when it comes to discerning what is sinful (or not) is complicated due to sin's relational nature. The sinful-ness of an act depends on whether that act relates destructively, that is whether it goes against or uphold the greatest commandments stated in Matthew 22:37-40. What is supposed to be is to relate to God and neighbors in love. What is not supposed to be is to relate to the two otherwise.

This is the moral objectivity taught by, though not confined to, the Christian tradition. The context of which sin is realized and understood is the objectivity of this dual-love. In other words, sin emerges through context. We call an act sinful when the act impoverishes according to the demand of the context. 

Therefore what is not considered sinful in the past is considered sinful in the present. And what is considered sinful now may be considered not so in the future. It depends on the context whether an act contradicts or conforms with the greatest commandments. An example that we may look at is plagiarism, "the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work, as by not crediting the author." (Dictionary.com)

Is plagiarism always a sin? Or, is it only a sin when it contradicts the objectivity of dual-love?

In my time at theological college, I have come across cases where students are forfeited when plagiarism is found in their work. Some are expelled after being caught plagiarizing repetitively. We are taught in the first week of the course that plagiarism is not tolerated.

In more serious cases, reputation and career are jeopardized due to the guilt of plagiarism. One of them was Timothy S. Goeglein, the former Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison from 2001 to 2008. It is reported at News Sentinel  that there are at least 27 counts of plagiarism committed by Goeglein.

Earlier this month, Christianity Today did an interview with Goeglein. He remarked that he is a "serious Christian" belonging to the Lutheran tradition. However, he remorsefully confessed that he has committed plagiarism out of "pride and vanity". If anything, this confession testifies to Martin Luther's radical understanding of Christian personhood, which was spelled out five centuries ago in these four words: simul justus et peccator. Literally it means simultaneously a righteous and sinful person.

Back to the question, is plagiarism a sin at all time and places? Is it not the case that plagiarism is wrong only in societies where writing is capitalized as a way to make a living through the publishing industry, which assumes high literacy rate in the society?

The Church Fathers copied each others' works, and many times they don't give citation of who they copied from. Their world is one where writing does not generate money, or at least not in the scale of today's postindustrial world, because publishing technology wasn't available and literacy rate was not high.

Take for example John Damascene, who is known as the last of the Church Fathers. He copied the entire summary of Epiphanius of Salamis' Panarion without giving credit to him. This led an authority on the Damascene, Andrew Louth, to write of John: "By modern standards, with our high evaluation of originality and the 'right of the author', John was scarcely an author at all: he was simply a skilful plagiarist." (St John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology [USA: Oxford University Press, 2002; paperback, 2004], p.24.)

However, John did made clear in the first pages of his Fountain of Knowledge that, "I shall say nothing of my own, but collect together into one the fruits of the labours of the most eminent of teachers and make a compendium." Yet, which eminent teachers, John did not name.

As such, what is sinful with plagiarism in the postindustrial context is that it encourages a culture that subverts the process of money-making of the industry. And by that, it prevents people (in this case, authors and publishers) from earning a living. Simply put, it potentially threatens the livelihood of these people. And such threat can hardly be dismissed as contradicting the love for our neighbors.

If this is the case, then isn't plagiarism only against the neighbors, and hence technically not against the dual-love stated in the greatest commandments?

To this, another John has these to say: "For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. [...] Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister." (1 John 4:20-21) The duality of the dual-love mutually assertive and derivative. Doing one is to do the other; deny one is to deny the other.

If it follows that sin emerges through the dual-love context, this post may have fulfill its duty to shed some light in the understanding on the objectivity of morality in relation to context.

Mohd. Asri Zainul Abidin on Allah's punishment on apostasy

Interesting short dialog between Nik Nor Zafirah (Zaffyaffendi)  and Dr. Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin (Dr MAZA), Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at University Science Malaysia who is a former Mufti of the state of Perlis, Malaysia, sparked by article I wrote on New Mandala website.

You can read the dialog in Malay at the right column of the snippet above. Otherwise, here is the English translation (emphasis added): 

Zaffyaffendi: Dr MAZA, need your opinion on the apostasy article and how valid is it? 

Dr MAZA: Yes, I agree that that is the opinion of some scholars. 

Zaffyaffendi: Then, does that means apostasy from Islam is allowed without punishment if it does not threaten or belittle Islam? 

Dr MAZA: That is the view of some scholars. 

Zaffyaffendi: Yes, I understand. But the view of scholars is misguided at times too. So does this opinion contradict Allah's law? 

Dr MAZA: Allah never mentioned any particular punishment on that.

Following that, Zaffyaffendi twitted:

'He Still Heals' by Craig S. Keener

Craig Keener, Professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary who produced one of the best commentary on John's Gospel, wrote the following article to whet our appetite for his upcoming book on the subject. This piece is dated to the time before Keener moved from Palmer Theological Seminary to Asbury (see his biography at the bottom of the article), which occurred in July 2011:

(This article is originally published at charismamag.com.)

He Still Heals
Craig S. Keener

When Thérèse was 2 years old, she cried to her mother that a snake had bitten her. By the time Antoinette Malombé reached her daughter, little Thérèse had already stopped breathing.

Antoinette lived in a remote region of Republic of Congo in central Africa where medical resources weren’t immediately available. Strapping her child to her back, she started running to a village where a family friend, evangelist Coco Moïse, was staying. When he prayed for Thérèse, she began breathing again. By the next day she was fine.

This account was reported to me directly by Antoinette. When I spoke more with her about it, I asked how long Thérèse had gone without breathing. She paused and thought about the distance she had to traverse to reach the evangelist’s village and said it took her about three hours.

The human brain suffers irreparable damage after only six minutes without oxygen, even if the person can be artificially revived. Thérèse had gone close to 180 minutes without taking a breath. Yet she suffered no brain damage—as she herself can attest to today, many years later. Thérèse recently completed seminary.

I am married to her younger sister, Médine Moussounga Keener, and Antoinette is my mother-in-law. Though not meaning to question my relatives’ account of Thérèse’s healing, I nonetheless checked with Moïse, just to be sure, and he confirmed the story as I had heard it.

A miracle? Certainly. A supernatural event isolated to rural Africa? Hardly.

人生funny不funny?

人生本來是 happy，
辛辛苦苦去 study,
找到公作不 easy,
老板说我又 lazy,
到头还是没 money,
不如早点去 marry,
快点生一个 baby,
早上给她吃 roti,
晚上给她吃 curry,
Baby长大变 naughty,
让我每天很 angry,
慢慢我近 seventy,
到了明年就 mati,
一眼已经 history,
你说 funny不 funny?

(现在我在 library,
静静在读 theology.)

Lim Ka-Tong lectures on critical contextualization as reflected through the life and ministry of John Sung

Yesterday morning Lim, whose biography on John Sung is published recently, gave a crash course on contextualization to us who are taking the course on 'Theology of Mission'. He highlighted many of the cultural issues that missionary face. Prior to stopping by Singapore, he was in Malaysia visiting many of those who have directly and indirectly transformed by Sung's ministry in the late 1930s. Lim was like the walking Google of the late legendary preacher; The most knowledgeable person on Sung that I have come across.

Book Review: 'The Life and Ministry of John Sung' by Lim Ka-Tong

This book is probably the most detailed study on John Sung available so far. The author, Lim Ka-Tong, has helpfully condensed his 502-pages doctoral thesis submitted to Asbury Theological Seminary in 2009 into this important guide into the life of one of the most well known preachers of 20th century southeast Asia. 

The book is structured into 7 parts, 37 chapters, 1 introduction and 1 conclusion. Within each chapter, Lim further categorized the content into sub-chapters. This makes the book tremendously easy to read! 

Lim introduces this biography not simply as a story about a person but "a fruitful venue for theologizing" in a "quest for an authentic Asian Christian theology." (p.xiv) The biography in enriching the "cultural worldview of Chinese Christianity, and its effect on the intellectual and affective realm will make truth tangible and real." (p.xviii)

Part 1 of the book describes the historical setting of Sung's world by briefly jotting down the socio-political situation, the condition of Chinese Churches, and the theological controversy in the early 20th century. Lim highlights the love-hate relationship the Chinese in China had towards foreigners. 

On one hand, the locals "embraced Western learning and scientific knowledge wholeheartedly" yet on another hand, "deeply resentful of the West". (p.6) The missionary activities and local Churches are caught in this ironic relation. The anti-Christian movement is chronologically distinguished into 3 different waves which took place from 1920 to 1927. It is very interesting that Lim attributed the famous atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell, who traveled and lectured "extensively" in China between 1919 to 1921, as one of the causes of the anti-Christian movement in China.

During those years, the "Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy" was not confined only in America. The Bible Union of China is formed as a response to the threats of theological liberalism. Lim pointed to the exchange between Browell Gage and D. E. Hoster as evident of this controversy. The former wrote an article titled 'Why I Cannot Join the Bible Union' in January 1921 issue of The Chinese Recorder. The latter, who was then the director of the China Inland Mission, responded with an article titled 'Why I Have Joined the Bible Union of China' in July 1921. As the result of theological liberalism, the missionary activities are significantly affected.

In Part 2, the book traces Sung's early years from his birth to his release from the Bloomingdale Asylum. Lim patiently recollects Sung's academic pursuit in America, his active involvement in the "Social Gospel", and his various struggles which resulted his admission into asylum. This section has proved to be my favorite in the book, for I am especially interested to learn more about Sung's experience and encounter in that time.

Sung picked up English language, toiled tirelessly to finance his undergraduate study, actively promoted interracial bonding during the segregation period, and received his Ph.D in Chemistry from the Ohio State University at the age of 24. However, it was also within this period that Sung unconsciously adopted scientism and naturalism. Hence as he went further into his studies, he was not able to relate his academic pursuit with the Christian faith he has brought up with. His enrollment into Union Theological Seminary in New York did not help the problem he faced. This struggle has prolonged and caused him to fell into depression.

After his "breakthrough" from the depression in one evening, Sung spent the following week confronting fellow students and professors at the seminary, scolding and pleading them to repent. (p.66) The seminary thought that it would be to Sung's good to have him admitted into Bloomingdale Asylum. The seminary generously paid for Sung's 6-months treatment at the hospital.

Lim used Chapter 11 to assess Sung's mental illness. The hospital record shows that Sung was diagnosed with "Dementia praecox" (schizophrenia) but Lim argued that Sung remained sane throughout his stay at Bloomingdale. (p.69-72) In my view, Lim could be more careful in explaining Sung's predicament. This lack has resulted in a mistaken view on Sung's status as "an icon of Chinese Evangelicalism" (Chapter 36), which shall be pointed out below after my reconstruction of Sung's trouble.

As I see it, Sung's problem originated in his inability to relate his academic pursuit with his Christian religion. We know that Sung enjoyed the intellectual engagement with science (p.56-57) although the subject does not provide him the spiritual fulfillment he used to experience through his faith (as epitomized in his reminiscence of the encounter with 14-years-old evangelist Uldine Mabelle Utley, p.61-63). To Sung, science and Christianity is mutually contradictory (the so-called 'conflict thesis'). After all, it was this intense conflict between two desires (the 'scientist Sung' and 'preacher Sung') that threw him into depression.  (p.52-64)

The "breakthrough" that Sung experienced can therefore be understood as an event when Sung has decided to abandon his intellectual engagement entirely for the sake of spiritual fulfillment. Hence, contra Lim, Bloomingdale may be correct to diagnosed Sung as schizophrenic. Therefore Lim's view that "Sung was normal during his whole stay at hospital" (p.70) deserves re-examination.  Due to this, Lim wrongly interprets Sung's derogatory reference (written on his second day at the asylum) to the "Spirit of Christ" as "dog" as evident of Sung being Americanized. (p.72) If I am correct in my assessment, this reference is the manifestation of Sung's schizophrenia; He loved and hated the unresolvable conflicting position he found himself in.

To be clear, Sung has already decided which personality he wanted to be before being admitted into Bloomingdale. His stay there would be the period for him to adapt to his decided personality as the preacher Sung, and the asylum's assessment on him was a reflection of this process of adaptation.

If this is true, then Lim's view of Sung as "an icon of Chinese Evangelicalism" for reasons like he affirms the Bible "as the Word of God" as a "scientist" is mistaken. We have to understand that the 'scientist Sung' is already gone when Sung decided to be 'preacher Sung'. Lim may have overlooked this as he himself has recorded Sung's own testimony said in 1938, "[As] a scientist, I believed in natural laws and did not believe in the existence of God. I was against the teaching of the Bible. There's no heaven, and there's no hell." (p.57, emphasis added) Therefore we have to reckon that Sung's famed status as a Ph.D holder in Chemistry, which is one main reason for his popularity, is not representative of the preacher Sung. The scientist Sung is not the preacher Sung; the two personalities are mutual contradicting to Sung himself.

Part 3 to 7 of the book records the life and ministry of the preacher Sung. These chapters contain fascinating accounts of Sung's evangelistic, healing, and Bible-teaching ministries. There are recorded numbers of conversion from a few to the thousands through Sung's rallies. Lim also mentioned Sung's negligence of his family, his bad working relationship with colleagues like Andrew Gih, his encounter with Pentecostalism and theology of the Holy Spirit, his constant scolding of other preachers, his medical condition that led to his death, and his struggles with pride--trying to prove himself as better preacher than others. Despite Sung's flaws, it is amazing to learn of his passionate outreach that spanned across not only China but also almost all parts of southeast Asia. Bear in mind that all those travelings happened in the 1930s!

The conclusion is Lim's constructive sketch of what we can learn from the life and ministry of Sung. Lim explored and developed various theological themes based on the biographical data he provided. One of the many insights that I find helpful is Lim's distinguishing between "Encountering the Power" from "Power Encounter" drawn from Sung's teaching. The former focuses on the process and the fruit of the Spirit, while the latter on the event and the gift of the Spirit. It prompts me to ask what should a present Christian ministry look for? May be Sung himself has asked this numerous times. And the answer to this question could be the very reason that led Sung to work through his life and ministry in the way that he did.

'The Islamic Case for Religious Liberty' by Abdullah Saeed

(This article is originally published at First Things website for the November 2011 issue [H/T: Andreas Pilipus].)

The Islamic Case for Religious Liberty
A close reading of the Qur’an and the Prophet leads to supporting religious tolerance.
Abdullah Saeed

The words of the Qur’an and hadith contain rich resources for supporting the democratic order. If Muslims are to embrace modernity, including life in a pluralistic, democratic society, without abandoning their faith, they must take up the argument for religious liberty that is embedded in their history and that stands at the center of their most sacred texts.

Although the broad thrust of the Qur’an and hadith supports religious liberty, many parts of these texts can be, and traditionally have been, interpreted as denying it. One example is a qur’anic verse that deals with the question of the jizyah, a tax on non-Muslims: “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (Q 9:29). The Prophet reportedly sometimes demands the death penalty for apostasy, the most obvious example of this being the hadith “Whoever changes his religion, kill him” (Bukhari, Sahih, 9, 84, hadith 57).

These problematic texts are outweighed by the bulk of the texts and instruction provided by the two most important authorities in Islam, the Qur’an and the Prophet Muhammad’s actual practice. Both are remarkably supportive of the idea of individual and personal religious freedom.

Freeman J. Dyson on the mystery of the origin of life

Freeman J. Dyson, Professor Emeritus of Mathematical Physics and Astrophysics at the Institute for Advanced Study's School of Natural Sciences, acknowledges the mystery of the origin of life in the face of all the fancy claims postulated by scientists (H/T: Uncommon Descent):

"The origin of life is the deepest mystery in the whole of science. Many books and learned papers have been written about it, but it remains a mystery. There is an enormous gap between the simplest living cell and the most complicated naturally occurring mixture of nonliving chemicals. We have no idea when and how and where this gap was crossed. We only know that it was crossed somehow, either on Earth or on Mars or in some other place from which the ancestors of life on Earth might have come."
(Freeman J. Dyson, A Many-Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe [USA: University of Virginia Press, 2010], p. 104. Emphasis added.)

The Church should be above politics?

Should it? Or, should we find out what do we mean by 'above' politics? In the sense the Church is floating and so passing by all matters political, untouched and untainted by them?

The Church concerns only with God and what God has done, is doing, and will do with his people. In this sense, there are indeed areas that the Church bypasses without needing to give any regard, for eg. the vague scenario whether should you eat cabbage or broccoli at the hawker's center tomorrow. Hence the question is not whether should the Church float above politics, but is politics included in what God has done, is doing, and will do with his people?

As citizens of a nation-state and people who confesses allegiance to God and his Christ, the Church is inevitably overlapped by anything non-Church that are located within the shared national border and policy. This overlap means that the politics of the non-Church may occasionally spill over into the Church, and vice versa. So, if politics affects the Church, then the Church cannot help but to engage it. In other words, the Church should not float above politics.

One may object by saying that anything political is dirty and therefore the Church should not have anything to do with it. But isn't the Church itself dirty, filled with weed? (Matthew 13:24-30) So should we then ask the stupid question, should then the Church floats above itself? Or should we pretend that the Church consists of utopian human beings who have no qualm giving up their parking lot to other Church members during Sunday service?

If politics is part and parcel of the Church, and if national politics and the Church mutually affects each other, then in order to do Church, we have to do politics. And here lies a fundamental question to ask: What does it mean for the Church to do politics?

From that one question springs other questions: Does doing politics mean having the parliament filled with Church people? Does it mean legislating laws based on obligations that are meant only for the people of God? Does it mean 'Christendom'? If it is, then what is 'Christendom'?

There are of course many other questions that we can ask. However, the point of this post is simply to point out that the Church does not and should not be above politics. In any case, the Church is called to be precisely what it is not: the light and salt in a world that overbears upon the people of God.

A recent example of how this is played out is Rowan Williams' meeting with Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe.

"The Archbishop of Canterbury is using his moral authority to persuade Mugabe to desist and repent. He denounces the injustices and demands change. It may not work, of course, but merely by visiting the land and speaking out, he manifests humanitarian conviction and moral fibre. He shames our politicians and eclipses other church leaders as he confronts face-to-face that which is largely ignored by the African Union, the British Government, the US, the EU and the UN."

(Cranmer blog: The Archbishop of Canterbury shames our politicians, dated 11 October 2011, http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2011/10/archbishop-of-canterbury-shames-our.html [accessed 16 October 2011], emphasis added).

A historico-theological approach to understand the significance of 'homoousios' to theology proper

There is a popular rumor about the Church Fathers, such as Athanasius, having imported foreign categories into theology proper. It charges that Christianity's understanding of Jesus Christ since the fourth century is deeply infiltrated by paganistic Greek philosophy.

The famous case is none other than the word homoousios' (Greek: 'of the same substance'), which is seen as a dubious theological imposition on the earliest Christians' historical experience of God and Jesus, to which has since distorted the (trinitarian) idea of divinity in the consciousness of the Church. To inquire into this matter, we may look back into the uncompromising dispute between Arius and Athanasius.

The Alexandrian presbyter Arius and his followers (Arians) challenged one of the most sacred conviction among the Christians in the fourth century. They proposed that Christ is not God but simply a pristine being created by God. Hence the Son does not exist eternally.

The main person who was more than able to engage the Arians was Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria at that time. He insisted that the Son exists eternally along God and shares the same divine nature. Although Athanasius is not the one who introduces the term homoousios to the world, he is the best known defender of it in that century.

Hence if homoousios is an invalid theological construct, we would have Athanasius to blame. But we have to ask whether is this the case?

Those of the view that the Bishop is responsible to corrupting Christianity's theology proper often do not realize what was at stake in the Arian controversy. Alasdair Heron has helpfully elaborated that the main contention in the dispute is due to the different paradigm held by Arius and Athanasius. To quote Heron extensively,

The origins of the Arian conception of God lay in the tradition of philosophical theology which had begun with Xenophanes. This took as axiomatic an absolute distinction between God and the world, which was closely bound up with equally radical disjunctions between the mind and the body, and between the intelligible and the sensible realms. Thus the being of God, while in one sense seen as totally separate from non-divine being, is yet implicitly conceived of as being epistemologically accessible to the mind whose vision is clarified and refined. Through self-knowledge lies the path to knowledge of God, and the being of God may be grasped and spoken in terms drawn from the mind's self-analysis, and then further qualified to take account of the difference even between the mind and God. [...] Athanasius does not entirely reject this sort of approach: it has a part to play in his theology, as in most Christian theology before and since. What he does insist on, however, is that this avenue to knowledge of God must be controlled by the fact that God himself has made himself known in Christ, and that it is with Christ as God that genuine knowledge of God must begin. Arius on the other hand never reaches the point where he can admit that Christ is God: his thought is wholly shaped by these other influences, and his epistemological starting-point is thus at the opposite pole from Athanasius.

(Alasdair I. C. Heron, 'Homoousios with the Father,' in The Incarnation: Ecumenical Studies in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed A. D. 381, ed. Thomas F. Torrance [UK: Handsel Press, 1981], pp.70-71. H/T: Leow Theng Huat.)

The Arians' paradigm is traced back to Xenophanes, while Athanasius' back to "the fact that God himself has made himself known in Christ". To understand Athanasius's point further, we may juxtapose it with the historical findings of Larry Hurtado,

To judge by NT writings, Jesus was not reverenced at the expense of God, but instead as the unique agent and expression of God (e.g., as God’s “Image,” “Son”), and in obedience to the one God, who has designated Jesus as the “Kyrios” to whom this robust cultic reverence is to be given.

In the historical context, it is a novel development: professing the “one God” of Israel and yet also including as rightful (even required) recipient of devotion a distinguishable, second figure. The NT evidences, not dreams of some future time when a messianic figure may be reverenced (as, e.g., in the “Similtudes” of 1 Enoch), but instead a real and dramatic re-formulation of regular devotional practice in historically identifiable circles of early Christians. Given the special significance attached to worship practice, the programmatic inclusion of Jesus as co-recipient/recipient of their devotion is remarkable.

Of course, these first Christians insisted that they remained true to the “monotheistic” stance inherited from the ancient Jewish tradition. But, judging by the actual way that they practiced their worship and larger devotional life, theirs was a distinguishable form of “monotheistic” practice involving the programmatic inclusion of Jesus along with God. (Emphasis added)

With this juxtaposition, we see that the theological term homoousios is not a distortion, but rather the approximated term that is considered to be the most appropriate constructed description of the earliest Christians' knowledge of God and Jesus.

It seems clear that Athanasius is well aware that homoousios is not a foreign imposition forced into the theology proper of the Church. In contrast to the Arians, who were too ready to perceive God and Jesus through Xenophanes' philosophy, Athanasius understood well the 'novelty' of the earliest Christians' encounter with God and Jesus. The employment of homoousious is therefore used as a restrictive category that prevents the perception of God from being corrupted by foreign ideology. And precisely because of its preventive function, the category enables Athanasius to describe the relationship between the Father and the Son as how it was encountered by the earliest believers. To him, the theological notion that Jesus shares the same divine nature as God is not something he pulled out from the air but a responsible exercise of historico-theological construction. Instead of being the epitome of the invasion of Greek philosophy on theology, homoousios is the necessary category to avoid precisely that during the fourth century.

3 things: Which upset you the most?

From Tony Campolo, one of my favorite preachers:

"I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night."

(Christianity Today website: Ted Olsen, The Positive Prophet, dated 1 January 2003, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/january/1.32.html [accessed 26 September 2011]. H/T: Dante Lum.)

Malaysia is a political theology: A deliberation on promise and doctrine

Malaysia is a political theology... Look at our National Pledge and Principles (taken from The Malaysia Government's Official Portal: Rukunegara, http://www.malaysia.gov.my/EN/Main/MsianGov/GovRukunegara/Pages/GovRukunegara.aspx [accessed 22 September 2011]):

Our Nation, Malaysia is dedicated to: Achieving a greater unity for all her people; maintaining a democratic way of life; creating a just society in which the wealth of the nation shall be equitably distributed; ensuring a liberal approach to her rich and diverse cultural tradition, and building a progressive society which shall be oriented to modern science and technology.

We, the people of Malaysia, pledge our united efforts to attain these ends, guided by these principles:

• Belief in God
• Loyalty to King and Country
• Upholding the Constitution
• Sovereignty of the Law, and
• Good Behaviour and Morality

Malaysia continue to exists through these pledges and principles which are fundamentally ideologies containing hopes and imagination.

As an entity that is spoken into being, Malaysia is a speech, a word, a logos. Its creatureliness lies in the verbalization of promises and doctrines.

As logos of promise and doctrine, all creativity, non-creativity, productivity and non-productivity within this nation are extensions of itself, realities created in its own images of pledge and principles. Malaysia is political theology is a claimant of this basic national experience.

If Malaysia is a speech, its society is the sensibility of that speech. What is understood from a speech is by the grasping of its sensibleness. The ability to make sense presumes congruence. And congruence is predisposed to negotiation. And negotiation subsists by contradiction. And at the core of contradiction is politics.

Therefore to do Malaysia is to make sense of the promises and doctrines of the nation. To deliberate the doing is to engage in the politics of pledge and principles. If the national pledge is principled on the belief in God, then doing Malaysia is doing theology. And doing theology is doing Malaysian politics.

If Malaysia is political theology that is spoken into being, is it not also the creature of promise and doctrine; is it not a creation of divine speech?

If the Malaysian society is the sensibility of its political theology, is it not also the possibility and confirmation of congruence, negotiation and contradiction of the logos; are not its creativity, non-creativity, productivity and non-productivity extensions of its pledge and principles? 

If the answer is 'yes' to these two questions, then the Malaysian social realities are politico-theological imaginary shaped by promises and doctrines. That makes the social activity or movement in the country the deliberation of orthodoxy; what promises and which doctrines?

The Christian's first contribution can then be the grasping of this basic national experience. That Malaysia is a political theology. The next question is of course, what then makes up the Malaysian promises and doctrines, and how can the Christian heritage deliberate along this process of making up?