What Is Water Buffalo Theology
Nikky Schreier
During those Thailand years, Koyama came up against a reality that flustered and unraveled his Western-learned Princeton theology. Here he was explaining the gospel to Buddhist rice farmers who spent their days with water buffaloes, and there was an utter and total disconnect in understanding. First of all, none of the categories matched! He was talking atonement, wrath of God, sin, and salvation while they were talking arhat, detachment, nirvana, unsatisfactoriness, and tranquility. Christian categories sounded so strange to their ears. They wanted to know if God was hot or cold!
Nevertheless, because of rising nationalism and the reassertion of traditional values in Asia since the end of World War II, Asian theologians have been seeking liberation from Western theologies in order to make the gospel more relevant to their own life situations.
Many Asian theologies have appeared in the theological arena: Pain of God Theology (Japan), Waterbuffalo Theology (Thailand), Third Eye Theology (for the Chinese), Ying Yang Theology (Chinese and Korean), Theology of Change (Taiwan), Minjung Theology (Korea), as well as Indian and Sri Lankan Theology. The proliferation of Asian theologies has escalated markedly since the 1960s and will continue to multiply in the future; already these theologies have made a great impact. They have also caused conflict and confusion in theological institutions and Christian churches in Asia.
Since the Programme Unit on Faith and Witness of the World Council of Churches (WCC) has sponsored a number of religious dialogues with the leaders of other living religions, the increasing tendency towards syncretism in Asian theology has created alarm in the Asian church. For example, Raymond Panikkar, in his book The Unknown Christ of Hinduism (1964), stressed that Christ already dwells in the heart of a Hindu and that the mission of the church is not to bring Christ to the Hindu but to bring Christ out of him.
Accommodation is another subtle attempt to contextualize theology in Asia. Just as a hotel or a family accommodates a guest, so theological accommodation considers prevailing customs and religious practices of another culture and accommodates good ideas from other religions.
Another type of Asian theology derives directly from a particular situation. This situational theology may not be in agreement with the biblical and historical doctrines of the Christian church but speaks to concrete situations in Asia.
The Liberation Theology of Latin America has influenced Asian theologians and been expressed in different forms: the Minjung Theology in Korea, and Liberation Theology in India and the Philippines. The Christian Conference of Asia (CCA), which represents the Asian arm of WCC, has been the chief proponent of Liberation Theology in Asia, focusing on human rights, poverty, injustice and nuclear war.
For example, it is not uncommon to read in ecumenical journals and magazines such as the CCA News, CTC (Commission on Theological Concerns) Bulletin, and East Asia Journal of Theology critical comments against the governments of South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and other countries for violations of human rights. And yet, it is interesting to notice the virtual absence of any critical comments against the Singapore government in the same magazines, because the main office of CCA is located in Singapore.
Dr Kim Yong Bock, Director of the Christian Institute for the Study of Justice and Development, edited a book, Minjung Theology: People as the Subjects of History (1981). This book is an outcome of a Theological consultation on Minjung Theology sponsored by the Theology Commission of the Korea NCC in October 1979.
Christian theology has traditionally underestimated the seriousness of social evil, a mistake caused by its attempt to understand sin and evil in individual, spiritual or metaphysical terms. It is only in recent times that serious political character has been found in sin and evil (p. 74).
Likewise, the resurrection of the Messiah, according to Dr Kim, also provides aspirations of the Minjung, i.e., the resurrection movement of the minjung and the participation of the resurrection community in the minjung movement. Therefore, the church must initiate its witness in society to protect the poor and the weak lest she loses her historical validity.
It is unfortunate that the foreign press, particularly the ecumenical denominational press in the West, overstated the religious issue in Korea as though the whole Korean church had risen against the South Korean government.
Some of the issues we are facing today are Communism, poverty, overpopulation, hunger, suffering, war, demon possession, bribery, cheating, idolatry, ancestor worship, caste system, secularism, and the resurging Asian religions of Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism. Asian theologians must grapple with these issues and produce Asian theology that wrestles with these problems, yet being faithful to the historic teachings of the Scriptures over the centuries.
More particularly, the task of Asian theology, and of evangelical theology in particular, is threefold: first, they must search the Scriptures and provide joint guide-lines to the grass-root churches on key controversial issues such as Christian responses to socio-political situations in Asia. Foi example, Christian young people are confused as to how they should express their Christian faith on socio-political issues or whether they should participate in student demonstrations against the government.
Secondly, they should encourage the Asian church to adopt a holistic approach in ministry by caring for the needs of society. Evangelical churches have been often criticized by Christians as well as non-Christians for their lack of social concern.
Over the past few months I have been using an innovation technique of Pitch and Exhibit to further my thinking on Pioneering and Church. What has become clear over the past week or so is that what has been emerging as fresh expressions, and pioneering expressions of church has matured and is now firmly part of the landscape of the church in the UK and consequently we need a better way to describe the mixed ecology of church that is now present in so many communities and spaces. We have long said that Time Honoured church and Fresh Expressions have distinct needs, but we also know that they need each other. If pioneers have the gift of not fitting in, when we also see them as being a gift to the church, conversations and practice take a creative turn. We have experienced this in Cumbria and in my previous post I failed to adequately recognise just how far we have come. It is clear through church history that both modal and sodal expressions of church are required to help everyone flourish but more than that, when there are good relationships between the two, significant cultural systemic change could be achieved. I think we are very close to a watershed moment where we can observe the church Cumbria and in places beyond and really begin to shed light on what a mixed ecology of church might look like and how it interconnects and relates to one another. The image below is an attempt to capture this. You can find a larger image as a jpeg HERE or in a PDF here
This second image is an attempt to capture some of the wider research on peoples views of church and potential reach, building on some of our research as part of our Reaching Deeper project. You can see a larger version here
If I have any known knowns it is the reality of Jesus, who walks before, beside and behind me, who encompasses me and who is good news to the depths of my soul. It is a soul knowledge where definition of who, and how, of why and what fade into insignificance. It is soul experience of love and care, of positive regard and compassion beyond feelings or formulas. It is a soul space where deep meets deep with an acceptance that is unconditional and independent of schemas and systems and a call that is too easily reduced to a method and corrupted into a mechanism. Yet we in our human frailty rely on these methods, definitions, systems and schemas to try to communicate something of that reality that we experience.
We hold stardust in our souls but our words are grains of sand slipping through our fingers. We feel such welcome in our being but offer a coir mat stamped with a word that cannot possibly convey the depth of acceptance we know. Our minds are expanded and neurons fizz with an energy that is beyond logic but we offer a recipe that can only be a bland version of the delights we know.
So how do we share this good news, how might we convey that deeply held known? What can do justice to the story that jumped off the page, out of pulpit, beyond the building and calls all walls to dust? Might we simply live and try to tell the tale more honestly, more openly bearing witness to the questions we still have and in doing so communicate the deeper truth beyond. Can we seek out the deep soul sparks in others to listen and learn. Might we let go of our formulas, systems, equations, to be still and still moving as we journey with others and the Other within the lifeline etched like a valley in the palm of Christs hand.
Over the past few decades we have seen this in church, the old system and institution is in its death throws, pioneers connections made us think that the new system can emerge from these connections. We saw some possibilities emerge with things like mission shaped church and FX that encouraged us to think it maybe just around the corner. Social media and networks helped many of those early emerging church pioneers find each other and in doing so we started to find our tribe. Many of the tribe were also already in the institution and the possibility of change led others to connect.
My start point here is that mission and church are intrisically linked, two sides of the same coin and I have written extensively on this over the years so hold this in mind as you read the rest of this post.
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