Abstracts of CGST JOURNAL (Issue No.31 Jul 2001)
Sexuality: As Related to Gender Roles, Culture, and the Christian Faith

Sexual Humanity: A Theological Reflection
on Humanity as Sexual Being (An abstract)
Shun-kai Kevin Cheng

Between Colonialism and Nationalism:
The Identity and Theological Vision of Asian
Christian Women (An abstract)
Wai-ching Wong

The Rise of Female Chinese Christian
Leaders in Hong Kong (An abstract)
Siu-lun Lau

A Dialogue between Christianity and
the Postmodern View of Self (I):
The Death of Self? (An abstract)
Kai-man Kwan

Salvation and Poverty (An abstract)
Lap-yan Kung

Indigenized Chinese Theology
-- Viewed from the Cultural Perspective (An abstract)
Jason H. Yeung

Rethinking Word and Tao (An abstract)
Andres S. K. Tang

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CGST JOURNAL No. 31 (in Chinese)

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Sexual Humanity: A Theological Reflection
on Humanity as Sexual Being
(An abstract)

Shun-kai Kevin Cheng
Associate Professor
China Graduate School of Theology

This paper addresses the issue of sex from the perspective of theological anthropology. Traditional theological anthropology has often left this out, relegating it to ethics. The thesis of this paper is that sex is a central constituent of the structure of humanity. The thesis is developed step by step, with the latter steps built upon preceding ones.

First, it is argued that the human being is a creaturely-being-in-relation-with-God, for humans are essentially and structurally related to God. Second, as creaturely being, humankind is being-with-sexual-body. That is, humans are concrete embodied being, and their embodiment is necessarily sexual. Third, the sexually-embodied human being is being-in-relation-with-opposite-sex. The formal structure of I¡ÐThou relatedness is sexually differentiated, with the I encountering the Thou as the other, not as a projection of the I or as the object of one's cognitive subjectivity. Fourth, this opposite-sex relatedness forms the basis of human inter-relatedness at the ontological level, with the human being as being-in-relation-with-fellow-sexual-humans.

Fifth, within this dynamic relationality, human subjectivity arises and affirms the alterity of the other, the Thou. Moreover, materially speaking, this subjectivity has the tendency to give one's life for the benefit of others. Humankind is thus being-as-gift. Sixth, the self-giving behaviour of humankind is intensely manifested in the intimacy between opposite sexes. The human being is being-in-unity-with-opposite-sex, as the two become a "jointly autonomous" unit in marriage. Such unity is an encounter with the other, the essence of which is not mating, but meeting.

Having mentioned all these in relation to the formal structure of humankind, we are minded of our existential condition, namely, that the human being is being-existentially-in-sin. This, of course, is only our existential human condition. While it may distort and deface our material humanity ¡Ð our being-for-others, it does not and cannot destroy our ontological structure.

Between Colonialism and Nationalism:
The Identity and Theological Vision of Asian
Christian Women
(An abstract)

Wai-ching Wong
Assistant Professor
Theology Division, Chung Chi College
The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Over the years, there has been an urgent need for Christian theologians in Asia to build an indigenized and contextualized regional theology. A movement of Asian Theology has thus arisen. This movement, since the fifties, has engaged itself with major themes and issues arisen from the emergence of nationalism in new independent (or recovered) countries in postcolonial Asia. When Asian theology set out to differentiate itself from its western constitution, and declared its commitment to various movements of national reconstruction in Asia, it became a postcolonial construction of an autonomous religion for Asian Christians, both as a colonial-resistant force and a liberating spirit in national struggles.

Asian Christian women have taken on many of the challenges faced by their male counterparts, including those of national movements. In the earliest stage of this movement, for example, Asian Christian feminists such as Marianne Katoppo addressed the issue of the identity of Asian Christian women. Using the analogy of "woman as other," then popular in western feminist movement, Katoppo framed the experiences of women in Asia as that of a triple "Otherness." The Asian Christian woman is "the other" to her fellow country people of indigenous religions; she is "the other" to the patriarchal Church; and she is "the other" to her fellow Christians in the West. For anyone who takes it seriously, the three overlapping identities of an "Asian Christian woman" cause ongoing tension and conflicts, for there is immense pressure in their being held together.

In the past two decades, much effort has been made to hold together at least two identities: their "womanness" and "Asianess." On the one hand, Christian women share with Asian theologians their liberation agenda and methodologies, championing the liberation of the oppressed mass in Asian countries. On the other hand, they take to themselves, as women, their own distinctive concerns and tasks. Such tasks are two pronged. First, having taken up the burden of Asian traditions, they have, in the process, utilized western notions of freedom, democracy and human rights to redefine a public space for the activism of women. Conversely, they have made a strong case in the active engagement of Asian women in local liberation struggles, pressing for a distinctive regional theological response to the reality of Asian women.

Nevertheless, Asian Christian women have been, from start, trapped between the interest of themselves as women and that of their nations. Whenever Asian Christian feminists fail to collaborate completely with the reconstruction of their nations or the liberation of the mass, they would be criticized as not being "Asian" in theology. Alternatively, if they challenge the patriarchal practices of fellow male Asians for the cause of women, they would be accused of being uncritical in adopting the western feminist agenda. The future of Asian feminist theology, therefore, depends greatly on the continuous adjudication of women, with their indigenous loyalities on the one hand, and their identities as women on the other.

The Rise of Female Chinese Christian
Leaders in Hong Kong
(An abstract)

Siu-lun Lau
Assistant Research Officer
Chinese Culture Research Centre
China Graduate School of Theology

By the 1880s, a number of Chinese Christian men had emerged as prominent leaders in the society of Hong Kong. Female Christian leaders, however, were not recorded as influential at all before the 1920s, whether in Church or in society. The first batch of outstanding female leaders came on the scene from a common background: being brought up in Christian families, they received their education from institutes run by missionary societies. Among these female leaders were Sin Tak Hing, the first General Secretary of YWCA; Wong Yuk Mui, the Secretary of YWCA from 1960 to 1962; Wu Foonyee, the first Chinese Principal of St. Paul Girls’ School; and Ma Fok Hing Tong, the first President of YWCA.

This paper attempts to account for the rise of these female Chinese leaders. The author traces its root back to a time as early as 1842, when Christian services to women were first initiated by missionary wives, at that time only as a kind of subsidiary ministry. It was not until 1860 that the first specialist in women ministries, a woman missionary herself, arrived and set out to serve women in full force. After that, institutions were established by missionary societies in areas such as education, medical care, and evangelism. Graduates with distinct academic achievements were asked by their training institutes to stay and teach. A few of them went further on to receive overseas higher education, and they eventually rose to key positions as principals of their mother schools, or as presidents of social organizations, such as YWCA. At a time when women were restricted to getting only domestic jobs, it was quite against the tide for missionary societies to emphasize women welfare and to recruit local women as task force. This practice opened up unprecedented possibilities for female converts to build up their own career, and women began to have a chance to participate in serving the society. Women could then be career women instead of just being confined at home as housewives. In our study of the early Protestant missions in Hong Kong, this rise of female Christian leaders marks the emergence of a new stage in the progress of women welfare ministries.

A Dialogue between Christianity and
the Postmodern View of Self (I):
The Death of Self?
(An abstract)

Kai-man Kwan
Assistant Professor
Hong Kong Baptist University

This article is the first of two papers in which I seek to dialogue with the postmodern view of "self" from a Christian perspective. I begin by tracing the development of various views of "self," from the pre-modern, to the modern, and then the postmodern period. Then I explain how postmodern thinking, in contrary to the worship of a self-sufficient and unitary self in modern thinking, emphasizes the plurality, contingency, and fragmentation of selves. Extreme postmodernists, such as Foucault, even proclaim the death of Man or Self, and celebrate it as the victory of untrammeled freedom and the ultimate liberation from all restraints. Further, I investigate the social and cultural roots of the death of Self as manifested in consumerism and media culture. In the second half of this paper, I provide a critique of the death of Self thesis. From the perspectives of moral responsibility, interpersonal relationship, psychological consequence, and common experience, I argue that the postmodern view cannot stand scrutiny. I further argue that Foucault's later transition to the aesthetics of existence shows that there is a dilemma inherent in the postmodernist view of self, which is ultimately linked to the loss of transcendence in postmodernism.

Salvation and Poverty
(An abstract)

Lap-yan Kung
Associate Professor
Theology Division, Chung Chi College
Chinese University of Hong Kong

Salvation is God's action and response to human predicament. In Chinese systematic theology, however, the reality of human predication is mostly understood in a strictly religious and spiritual sense. As a result, our understanding of salvation becomes too abstract for people to understand, and too detached from their experience. Here, the issue of poverty in Hong Kong is chosen as a concrete experience of human predicament that calls for God's intervention, as there is a close relationship between salvation and poverty. Salvation is related to both the process of freedom from and the process of freedom to, and this is exactly where the hope of the poor lies. The purpose of this study is to bring abstract theology down to earth, and the human experience on earth better expressed. Hopefully an encounter between the two may take place, and a construction of the meaning of salvation in relation to human reality, namely, poverty, can be figured out. Our study begins with the story of a low-income family that was severely stricken by unemployment in the course of social and economic changes. The question is asked: what kind of a Christian message can be offered to them. After an examination of this story, and a biblical reflection on Jesus’ life, the author suggests that the meaning of salvation should be a praxis of love, demonstrated in the building of dignified relationships, the creating of a culture of salvation, and a return to the source of life. These suggestions are made on the basis of the findings of an earlier research on "Welfare Relation, Human Dignity, and Solidarity: The Case of Chinese Christian Churches' Financial Assistance in Hong Kong" conducted by the author. The author also advises that the message of salvation should not be defined in terms of social service and evangelism only, as evangelicals often understand, for God's message of salvation is right there wherever we devote ourselves to the poor.

Indigenized Chinese Theology
-- Viewed from the Cultural Perspective
(An abstract)

Jason H. Yeung
Associate Professor
China Graduate School of Theology

Christianity has been treated as alien in Chinese culture. Theologians working on the indigenization of theology tend to adapt biblical teachings to Chinese culture, or make Christian faith appear Chinese at the expense of sound biblical doctrines. This paper argues that there are unchangeable elements in the Christian faith that are rooted in the canonization of the Bible and are not to be forfeited in the process of indigenization. There is, undeniably, an ontological distance between Christianity and Chinese culture, but it does not prohibit a so-called "alien" Christian to be truly Chinese. A Chinese Christian can be both Chinese and Christian authentically. If he gives up the canonical faith in the Bible, however, he will lose the authenticity of his Christian identity. Like other "alien" elements or influences that come from the west, Christianity can also be integrated into and contribute to Chinese culture, for culture is not something fixed in the past, but is continuously developed in the present and in the future. Our Evangelical faith upholds the canonical teachings of the Bible. Yet, as Evangelical Christians, we love both our country and our heritage, and we maintain our Chinese life styles. In indigenizing Christian theology, the most important task of Chinese theologians is to apply biblical teachings to the life of Chinese communities. The alien background of Christianity would bring no harm to the community, and its Christian elements will contribute to the modernization of Chinese culture.

Rethinking Word and Tao
(An abstract)

Andres S. K. Tang
Associate Professor of Theology and Culture
Lutheran Theological Seminary

Reflecting on the ideas of various theologians and philosophers, this paper points out that Tao must be difference-structured. It is on this basis and on the further assertion of the ontological difference between Tao and humanity that one can approach the claim of the Christian faith: the ontological distinction between God and humanity. Liu Xiao Feng advocates that the encounter between Christ's culture and Chinese culture has to be individual and existential. Otherwise, the only appropriate alternative way of getting close to God would be Heidegger's way of opening one's self to God with an anticipation of His speaking, striving to live beside the Being. While the impersonal Being is in no way equivalent to the personal God, the author stresses that God, just as the Other, is irreducible. The key for this understanding lies in the ontological distinction between God and humanity. Chin Ken Pa contrasts Christian faith with Chinese philosophy in two terms: the principle of non-identity and the principle of identity. However, the principle of identity can only be applied to Mou Zong San's reconstruction of Chinese philosophy that takes the form of a Chinese version of the metaphysics of the presence. It is not helpful in comprehending Chinese philosophy as a whole. We would, rather, employ Heidegger's and Derrida's philosophy to deconstruct Chinese culture. Such a deconstruction can help to introduce the principle of non-identity/difference to Chinese culture, to eventually bring it closer to the way of thinking in the Christian faith. Finally, the danger of reducing God's Otherness to abstract human concept in the process of dialogue should be avoided, and this can be done by a deconstructive way of speaking about God, as suggested by Kevin Hart and Robert Scharlemann.

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CGST JOURNAL No. 31 (in Chinese)

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