Asian Ecumenical Contributions to Theologies of Justice and Peace

Issues of justice and peace have been at the centre of Asian ecumenical theology, which has developed within the context of the Asian reality of multi‐religiosity, on the one hand, and rampant poverty, on the other. This article examines how Asian ecumenical theological expressions, such as Dalit theology from India, Minjung theology from Korea, the many Asian womanist theologies, indigenous theologies, the theology of struggle from the Philippines, Burakumin theologies from Japan, and homeland theology from Taiwan, have sought to engage with these realities. It examines the impact of socio‐political movements on theological formation through a focus on the life and work of the Indian ecumenical leader M. M. Thomas, and offers a detailed examination of Dalit and Minjung theologies as expressions of the Asian ecumenical theological engagement with justice.     

Towards an American Indian Indigenous Theology

An indigenous American Indian theology must respond, first of all, out of the ongoing oppression of Indian communities. This means that our indigenous theologies must be explicitly and unashamedly political. After 500 years of colonialism and conquest, we must begin, in this process, to find ways to reclaim our own indigenous identities. As we struggle theologically with the residual effects of colonialism and conquest, this means that we will struggle to maintain or reclaim our cultures and our languages. We must assure our colonizer/missionary relatives that our peoples were in touch with the Creator long before the European colonialist ancestors brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to us. From this point on, we indigenous peoples must focus on rebuilding our national (indigenous) communities and not on building churches. That should be the substance of our theological reflection today. So our theologies must necessarily deconstruct the theological discourses of the colonialist Euro‐Western churches that have missionized and continue to missionize our peoples. This has to be our starting point before we can reconstruct useful ways of organizing our lives together as indigenous communities.     

The Sources and Resources of Our Indigenous Theology

In this article I describe the sources of my indigenous theology out of my own experiences, my worldview, and as a woman. In the first part, I mention our struggles of resistance as the source from which we draw our strength and hopes to resist oppression and dream of a different society, as our ancestors dreamed and acted. I then speak of our living for the day as an act of ideological resistance. It is possible that many readers do not yet understand it, but this involves a worldview different from that of Western capitalism. Some communities in the Amazon still practise this other worldview and take it as their guide. They live day by day, concerned not for the morrow but for the present day; they attempt to live a life of quality, justice and honesty, as if it were the last day of their lives. The source from which our theological enterprise springs is also our wise men and women, who still survive in our communities. They are the guardians of our ancestral wisdom on life, the cosmos and our relations with the created world and its creatures. Moreover, our lifestyle is based on caring for and protecting Pachamama as one of the joint creators with God, who offers us life and enables us to live in the world as brothers and sisters, because we come into being in Pachamama and return to her.     

A Universally Particular Psychology? A Feminist Practical Theological Exploration of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Indigenous and Cultural Psychology</Emphasis>

The newly published volume, “Indigenous and Cultural Psychology: Understanding People in Context” (2006) seeks to further understandings of human behavior with an indigenous psychology that places culture and context in the foreground of its methods, practices, and analysis. As such it represents a significant development in its field, and is important to practical theologians with their attention to context, culture, and the lived religious practices of persons and communities. This article offers a critical review of the book from the standpoint of feminist practical theology, in an effort to further and support the agenda of indigenous psychology. After describing the importance of indigenous psychology for the work of practical theologians, I consider the volume’s chapter on indigenous Filipino psychology (chapter five by Rogelia Pe-Pua) as paradigmatic of the strengths of an indigenous approach put forward in the larger volume. Last, I critically consider two key paradoxical tensions present in the volume’s articulation of indigenous psychology: the tension between universality and particularity, and the tension between indigeneity and critical gender analysis.     

Young women struggling for an identity

In this article, I propose that many young women in today's world are facing an intense internal struggle to find their identity, and that this struggle is an effect of what they experience as enormous pressure to achieve certain goals. My belief is that, in the contemporary atmosphere of postfeminism in which women seemingly have many more options, the young adult woman experiences these options as expectations. The effect of these demands is an enormous self-doubt where women feel worthless, unimportant, and often unable to go forward in their lives. This article focuses on the stories of 3 young women and their struggles: a 25-year-old White middle-class woman whose obsessive longing to find the "right" man leads to eating difficulties; a 23-year-old lesbian, also White, who is just graduating from college and believes that she is terminally depressed; and a 29-year-old Chinese American woman who has fought anxiety and chronic fatigue for most of her adult life. How they find their way clearly exemplifies both the struggle and the road to success--overcoming self-doubt and challenging the expectations that create the conditions for it.     

Las Casas as Theological Counteroffensive: An Interpretation of Gustavo Gutiérrez's Las Casas: In Search of the Poor of Jesus Christ

Peruvian liberation theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez's massive work, Las Casas: In Search of the Poor of Jesus Christ, should not be read as a defensive or retreating move for liberation theology in the face of two decades of opposition. Rather, it is best understood as a creative and strategic counteroffensive to advance liberation theology in terms that the Vatican can only find difficult to counter. Nevertheless, liberation theology struggles with the difficulty of intellectually justifying itself on nondependency and non-Marxist grounds. In any case, the struggle for the work of liberation in Latin America continues.     

Indigenous Theology in its Latin American Setting

This article explores the emergence of Indian theology at the Latin American level. Indian theology appeared in the church of Latin America over the last 20 years. This branch of theology is a rethinking or reshaping of what existed there during the pre‐Columbian period and incorporating the most valuable contributions of the Christian faith. These were brought to the people during the first 50 years of the evangelism. ‘Indian theology’ therefore comes down to us from the distant past, a collective movement by the indigenous grassroots, indigenous leaders, and supporters of the indigenous cause within the church. Indian theology has taken different forms in Latin America: within the churches; within the people's own traditions, independently of the churches; and within indigenous social movements. Building bridges between people of diverse views through dialogue is leading to increased understanding and respect.     

Prevalence,Predictors, and Implications of Religious/Spiritual Struggles Among Muslims

The current investigation explored prevalence, predictors, and psychological implications of religious and spiritual (r/s) struggles among an Israeli‐Palestinian, Muslim sample. R/s struggle was assessed by the Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale (Exline et al. 2014), a newly developed scale that assesses a wide array of r/s struggles. Factor analysis of the scale in this study revealed five factors of struggle: Divine and Doubt, Punitive Entities, Interpersonal, Moral, and Ultimate Meaning. Of the 139 Muslim participants, between 1.4 percent and 40.2 percent experienced various r/s struggles. Positive God image and fundamentalism predicted lower levels of struggle, whereas negative God image and universality predicted higher levels of struggle. After controlling for religious variables, we found that both depressive symptoms and generalized anxiety were predicted by Punitive Entities and Ultimate Meaning struggles, while satisfaction with life was predicted by Interpersonal struggle. Possible explanations and implications of the findings are offered, and the limitations of the study are discussed.     

Water as Sacrament: Tillich,Gender and Liturgical Eco‐Justice

Theological operations of language that turn physical water into figurative and textual logos‐water are examined in the article with the help of Tillich´s “Nature and Sacrament,” where Tillich reflects the actual relationship between water and word in the sacrament of baptism. Moving to the ecological struggles of contemporary life, the article ponders the scarcity of water in the ecological struggle, and finally the gender implications of figurative water operations.     

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as a Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy

This article presents acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) as a spiritually integrated therapeutic modality. ACT is a value‐driven therapy that involves facilitating transcendence of physical, mental, and emotional experience to alleviate human suffering; as such, ACT shares common ground with the domain of spirituality. Approached as a spiritually integrated therapy, ACT can help clients to access spiritual resources and create life meaning as well as aid in the resolution or transformation of spiritual struggles. Given that spiritual struggles, in particular, can have a significant impact on mental health and well‐being, this article provides guidance in how ACT can address such struggles.     

Religious Resources,Spiritual Struggles,and Mental Health in a Nationwide Sample of PCUSA Clergy

A growing body of research explores patterns and correlates of mental health among clergy and other religious professionals. Our study augments this work by distinguishing between religious resources (i.e., support from church members, positive religious coping practices), and spiritual struggles (i.e., troubled relations with God, negative interactions with members, chronic religious doubts). We also explore several conceptual models of the interplay between these positive and negative religious domains and stressful life events. After reviewing theory and research on religious resources, spiritual struggles, and mental health, we test relevant hypotheses using data on a nationwide sample of ordained clergy members in the Presbyterian Church (USA). At least some support is found for all main effects hypotheses. Religious resources predict well-being more strongly, while spiritual struggles are more closely linked with psychological distress. There is some evidence that stressful life events erode mental health by fostering an elevated sense of spiritual disarray and struggle. We find limited support for the stress-buffering role of religious resources, and limited evidence for a stress-exacerbating effect of spiritual struggle. Study limitations are identified, along with a number of implications and promising directions for future research.     

‘THE METAPHYSICS OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS: RADICAL ORTHODOXY AND THEOSIS’

Western theology struggles with the rise of secularism and postmodernism. The Radical Orthodoxy sensibility asserts that the ancient principles of methexis (participation) and theosis (deification) presents an alternative metaphysical narrative to the narrative of secularism and the onto‐theological tradition. This article addresses the problems of the onto‐theological metaphysical tradition in Western theology by analyzing Radical Orthodoxy's rediscovery of the philosophical and theological principles of participation and theosis as articulated in the patristic tradition and in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Using historical and analytical methods, this article will survey the biblical and patristic literature on theosis, as well as John Milbank's understanding of methexis and theosis in Thomas Aquinas. The result of this study will be to offer theosis, rooted in participation in God, as not only a soteriological model to reclaim for the West, but also a core metaphysical principle for Christian ethics that contravenes both onto‐theology and the materialistic reduction of ontology in secularism.     

Resources for Indigenous Theology from a Sami Perspective

By looking at resources for indigenous theology, this article focuses on some key concepts in Sami tradition and how they are linked to a native understanding of the Christian concept of creation. An important aspect is the reciprocity between human beings and other beings or “creations”. The article takes the biblical injunction to love one's neighbour as challenged through Sami spirituality and theology to apply also to how one should behave towards other beings.     

Gone to the Spirits: A Transgender Prophet on the Columbia Plateau

This article examines the life of Kaúxuma núpika, an indigenous transgender prophet living on the Columbia Plateau in the early nineteenth century. As a Ktunaxa woman, she crossed cultural boundaries to marry a Euroamerican. When she left her husband, insisting on her independence and autonomy, she crossed another frontier. When Kaúxuma núpika declared herself no longer a woman, but a man, and secured himself a wife, he crossed further boundaries of gender and sexuality. As a warrior and a prophet, Kaúxuma núpika crossed the boundaries to the world of the spirit, returning with warnings, guidance, and hope for the tribal people of the Columbia River valley. In this project, I reflect upon the historical record in light of indigenous prophet traditions on the Columbia Plateau and current scholarship on gender and power among Native communities of the region, to consider notions of power, identity, and the religio-cultural dynamics of gender and sexual identity among indigenous communities on the Columbia Plateau.     

Loving Paradoxes: A Feminist Reclamation of the Goddess Kali

The feminist significance of the Goddess Kali lies in an indigenous worshipful attitude of “Kali‐bhakti” rather than in the mere image of the Goddess. The peculiar mother‐child motif at the core of the poet Ramprasad Sen's Kali‐bhakti represents, I argue, not only a dramatic reconstruction of femininity but of selfhood in general. The spiritual goal of a devotee here involves a deconstruction of “master identity” necessary also for ethico‐political struggles for justice.     

Loss of Religious or Spiritual Identities Among the LGBT Population

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals are at risk of having negative experiences with religion because of mainstream religions’ non‐LGBT‐affirming stance. Negative religious experiences can lead to religious or spiritual (R/S) struggles and loss of R/S identity to maintain sexual identity. The authors describe R/S abuse, R/S struggle, and how these can result in loss of R/S identity in LGBT individuals. They provide a case study and discuss counseling implications and areas for future research.     

Growing up gay and religious. Conflict,dialogue, and religious identity strategies

Homosexuality has become a divisive issue in many religious communities. Partly because of that, individuals growing up in such a community and experiencing same sex attractions need to negotiate the messages about homosexuality with their own experiences. This paper explores the identity strategies of religious communities as the background of individual identity struggles. Following a discussion of Bauman's grammars of identity/alterity, it describes four different discourses employed in conservative protestant and evangelical circles: holiness, subjectivity, obedience, and responsibility and four modes of negotiation: Christian lifestyle, gay lifestyle, commuting (compartmentalisation), and integration. By combining an analysis of discourses on the community level with individual strategies, this narrative research helps to better understand the interactions of (group) culture and individual coping.     

From the ground up: cultural considerations in research into children’s spirituality and theology

Cultural diversity is a hallmark of human life and communities across the globe. Yet research into children’s spirituality and theology does not often intentionally consider culture. In this article, the author addresses this gap by drawing from original qualitative research into how children generate theological meaning in different cultural contexts in order to propose three suggestions for research into children’s spirituality and theology. By beginning with the lives of the children who participated in this study, the author argues that such research must explore not just the content of children’s theologies, but also the processes by which they generate theology, that one needs to consider children’s theologies as phenomena created and held both individually and collectively, and that culture must be attended to at every stage of the research process.     

The Religious Meaning of Culture: Paul Tillich and Beyond

Throughout his theological career Paul Tillich (1886–1965) was fundamentally concerned with the question of the religious meaning of culture. The answers that he gave – initially in the revolutionary ferment of 1920s–1930s Germany and then again in the brave new world of post‐World War II America – were profound and far‐reaching in their importance for twentieth‐century theology. This article will explore the development of Tillich's interpretations of the religious meaning of culture and apply his analyses to our contemporary religious and cultural situation by suggesting a trinitarian enlargement of Tillich's concept of theonomous metaphysics towards a multidimensional theology of culture.     

The Viability of Christian Same-Sex Unions: Why Scripturally Normed Faith Communities Must Support Homosexual Relationships

Abstract

This article examines the common, competing lay theologies employed to address the viability of Christian same-sex unions and critiques their problematic underpinnings. Particular attention is given to the unproductive hermeneutical dynamics that have characterized the debate over this issue. After a critical examination of the relevant biblical texts and other foundational assumptions, the author proposes a biblical theology of Christian same-sex unions as a constructive, conciliatory alternative. The author contends that Christian communities that grant a controlling influence to the Bible as Scripture must accept the biblical testimony on the identity of human beings and the calling of human beings to image God's covenant faithfulness through the gift of sexuality, regardless of sexual orientation. The article is written primarily with clergy in mind, specifically to offer resources for providing guidance in ecclesial processes of discernment on the issue of Christian same-sex unions.