St Augustine and the Christian’s Dual Citizenship

Sherman Kuek, SFO
Published in Catholic Asian News
(August 2009 Issue)

In adapting the satire written by Canadians Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull in 1968 - The Peter Principle - one may say, in the context of human involvement in national governance, that the higher one rises in the political ladder, the less one is able to achieve that which he had initially set out to do. For the individual politician, this may be because he has to spend most of his time focusing on efforts to retain his position rather than being fixated on human dignity and the common good. The higher he rises in the political ladder, the greater a proportion of his resources must be devoted to preserving his position.

And thus, in accordance with the Peter Principle, the rise of individuals into political positions might mark the death of their initial ideals.

But yet, despite such a deficiency, we live in a context today that calls for loyalty to king and country. With governments that do not always promote human dignity or the common good, can Christians be loyal to their king and country, and to God, both at the same time? Should they? Is it right that such undisputed loyalty without boundaries be attributed to the collective sensibilities belonging to people who would do whatever it takes to stay up there, governments often fraught with corruption and all but questionable motives?

On this, the Christian tradition is not naïve.

Different sorts of government systems exist in the world. Among many Christians, it is commonly held that liberal democracy is the political regime most consistent with Christian ideals. That notion, to be sure, is a myth, for even liberal democracy cannot help but be accompanied by various self-serving humanistic inclinations. This deficiency is often compounded by the political assumption of liberal democracy’s autonomy from the religious dimension.

Of course, even theistic forms of governments entail their own challenges. For example, the dominance of a particular religious worldview in a government may mean the marginalisation of all other religious worldviews in a plural society. Therefore, for, say, Christians who exist as a minority community within a society which is governmentally dominated by a different religious worldview, true loyalty may be in question when the government becomes exacting in a way that requires the Christian community to compromise its religious loyalties. Thus, the Christian is often found to be caught in a tension of conflicting allegiances - to serve God, or to serve king and country?

Thus, at one extreme, the problem with liberal democracy is that it ignores the existence of God all together. At the other extreme, theistic governments which embrace certain religious worldviews ignore the fact that their “god” exists among other “gods”.

On the one side is the “city of God” that consists of all things supernatural and includes the Christian community. The city of God is governed by divine law and is more concerned with the direction of creation to eternal existence.

On the other side is the “earthly city” that consists of all things political, such as the state government, the economy, social stratification, and the military. This latter dimension is to be subservient to the former as it serves the lesser purpose of the temporal order.

Universal Christian political imperatives should not be derived from temporal considerations because the need for earthly government exists only as a reminder of man’s fallen nature. But at the same time, I am also not actually suggesting that the temporal order should find its governing principles from the spiritual order, for it has been established in a prior point of mine that even theistic governments present inherent deficiencies. Rather, the crucial point of this discussion lies in the assertion that secular governing principles should find their being in the reality that the present worldly state of affairs are a result of human fallenness, which as a consequence requires government to restore order in the temporal world.

Whilst the way of the city of God does not directly dominate the temporal order, the latter finds resonance with the former in that the city of God promotes a greater dignity of human persons in its proper perspective. The city of God also possesses the capacity to prescribe limits to earthly authority for the purpose of upholding civil peace and moral order on earth.

These two governmental worldviews also represent divergent values about human life, thereby further escalating the tension between those holding dual citizenships. Even if the values often look alike, one needs to look beneath the superficial expressions of these values in order to discern if they emerge from the same motivations. For example, it would be naïve to hold that the modern rendition of human rights can be grounded in the Christian understanding of human dignity when, in all likelihood, it arises from the egocentric nature of human fallenness.

The embrace of human rights can lead one to conclude that it is one’s right to cause the expiration of his own life when he no longer is able to live with dignity, whilst it leads the other to conclude that life must be preserved at all possible cost because of its intrinsic dignity.

The earthly city’s doctrine of human rights also fixates itself upon living the good life in the temporal order and neglects the greater desirability of the otherworldly concerns. In this respect, all temporal government must return to embrace its divine roots together with the noble motivations that accompany them.

The two concepts of “Christian” government and “secular” government are not mutually exclusive. The concept of a secular government is not to be construed as being opposed to religious government, but rather, to eternal government. The government should be secular only in the sense that it is temporal and will one day be displaced by the eternal rule of Christ.

But as has been earlier mentioned, the laws of the temporal government are also subservient to the laws of divine government in that the latter limits the former. Therefore it is vital that temporal governments legitimately demand submission of its citizenry only to the extent that the divine laws are not defied.

The suggestion that temporal government submits to divine laws does not in any way imply that a particular nation should form a theocratic pattern of governance. It is certainly not within the scope of the state to enforce Christianity. But it does imply that the state should cultivate fear of God and God’s ministers, the rulers and governors of the state; not because it supports the cultivation of mass subordination, but because it is simply consistent with the divinely instituted design of human governance.

It must also be recognised that the legitimacy of the temporal government can find its ultimate support for existence only in its acknowledgement of divine appointment. In other words, the state needs “proof” of its sanction by higher authority, and it is at this point that the state needs to understand the Christian imperative of its secondary prerogative in comparison with the divine government. Furthermore, it would be utterly illusive to presume that people’s beliefs and values have little or no political consequences.

Hence, just as secular political inclinations dictate that spiritual considerations are not to interfere with political concerns, the patriotic Christian - in being consistent with his faith - must necessarily pledge his primary allegiance to the spiritual dimension of his citizenship. And in instances whereby temporal political demands stand in blatant defiance of the spiritual order, he must remain firm in his allegiance to the latter (which, in the first place, is responsible for according legitimacy to the existence of the former). It is only in such a manner of allegiance to God and then to the state that a citizen can be truly held as one acting for the greater good.

However, a word of caution is in order. The priority of one’s spiritual citizenship must never succumb to the unreasonable conclusion of non-participation in the secular political order. Hence, a crucial point of reminder for the Christian citizen is the imperative of his involvement in the political life of the nation.

Aristotle claims that the human person is inherently a “political animal”. In so saying, he is not suggesting that every member of society bears a responsibility to be a participatory politician. What Aristotle refers to is the community as a reference point for the individual, and that each community needs to have its life ordered on the basis of the common good. This process of ordering communal life may itself be termed “politics”, and responsible citizenship of a community logically implies that an individual would participate in this political process through his interaction with others in the community. Likewise, the similar principle applies for the larger context of national life.

The onus rests upon the Christian community to understand the relationship between its faith and temporal politics, failing which the understanding of the community regarding the political arena would be wanting. The political actions of the Christian community must necessarily demonstrate a legitimate dynamics of theological understanding, for faith must give direction to politics. Therefore, this calls for both an active political participation from the nation’s Christian community and the cultivation of the discipline of theological reflection for the political direction of a nation.

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Sometimes we humanise the Church so much, we forget that she is at once fully human and fully divine - very God and very man - inheriting utterly the two natures of the Christ into whom She has been grafted. We lose sight of the divine nature of the Church especially when socio-politically conscious minds interpret everything as a matter of power, control and the absolute necessity for human activism, even militance.

I believe that today the divine acted. It was a rather different model of the BERSIH we've come to be so familiar with in the past couple of weeks; a divine rendition of BERSIH the way God would have it, if you like. Here's what it looked like:

The Vicar of Christ, the 265th Supreme Pontiff, the Successor of St Peter, held the hand of Najib Razak, the Prime Minister of Malaysia. Is the Holy Father unaware of what Najib has allegedly done in Malaysia and the countless accusations against him about various issues? Hardly so, I dare say.

But this is where the nature of the Church, in the spirit of Gaudium et Spes, becomes more incarnate than ever in the world when, despite knowing of human attrocities, depravity, oppression, cruelty and hypocisy, She holds the hand of a man and persists in speaking peace and goodness. She does all that Christ would do, Who sat with tax collectors and all the undeserving.

Wouldn't that unjustly sway votes back in Malaysia? Wasn't that Najib's intention in the first place? I choose to trust that Christians in Malaysia are discerning enough, especially those who understand the nature of the Church. When the Church speaks with those commonly perceived as undeserving, it does not so much reflect on the virtue of the one with whom She speaks. It reflects on who She, the Church, is. It speaks of the tenderness of Christ and His unconditional love, even for the unlovable.

Today, the Supreme Shepherd of the Church held the hands of someone who is perceived to have oppressed his own spiritual children. It must have been a painful sight for many who had spent the past weeks fighting for justice and equality. For some, it might have felt like their efforts had gone to waste. Others might have felt betrayed.

To be sure, the Church shares this pain. But the Church's gesture of reaching out to hold the hand of a man commonly perceived by many to be an oppressor of Her children aptly pictures the spirit of the Christ whose grace reaches further than we can conceive. A grace that hurts; a grace that calls to mind the reality of the crucified Christ. This was BERSIH at its best, at its most divinely inspired expression.

This gesture must have kickstarted a long analysis in many people's minds about the political implications of such a crucial encounter between Pope Benedict XVI and Najib. It might perhaps be a matter of wisdom in regards to whether one is able to see past these political implications and be brought back to the divine reality that we call the Holy Church.

I've spent many weeks trying to figure out how I should respond to the urgent call for justice in our nation. I've been deeply agonising over what the most appropriate response might be to the BERSIH movement, particularly in my role as a cleric and servant of the Church. Unknown to anyone else, this agony has carried me through sleepless nights; I've even dreamed about it in my sleep. All because I could never figure out what the right response was to the injustice I've witnessed and experienced in solidarity with my fellow Malaysians.

But today, Holy Mother Church has shown me how: justice and peace through righteousness and tenderness, not by the sword. For he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. Mother Church invites us to take the higher path.

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Here is a paper I wrote towards the end of last year (2009), which was presented at the Second Symposium on Consecrated Life of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC) and has now been published by the East Asian Pastoral Review:

The Call to Consecration: Renewing Discipleship in the Church in Modern Asia
by Sherman Kuek sfo

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My friend who's a brilliantly intellectual Reformed pastor notes:

One of the most common arguments made against Christianity (that I know of) is "Why is the Bible so hard to understand?" This is usually coupled with some notions of divine omnipotence and inspiration. If God intended for us to understand through the Bible, then why did he allow it to be subjected to multiple interpretations and it takes tons of biblical scholars to resolve some controversial matters.

To that, I now have a new response: Why should it be simple? Seriously, think about it. Nothing in life is really simple. According to simplexity, only absolute anarchy or absolute totalitarianism is simple. Truly fruitful things are complex because of the countless factors involved that can tilt the situation one way or another. In communication through language, truly meaningful things will never be simple. Like the description of life. Or suffering.

But my main gripe is towards Christians and not others. This expectation that the Bible should be easy to read is an immense fallacy. Sure, God wants us to know him. But I can also say that God also wants us to know the world he created. Yet, we know for a fact that the world takes true hard work and exploration to understand. Physics, Geology, Astronomy, Sociology etc. None of this is simple when you want to go deeper. It is not in the failure of communication. The subject matter is deep and rightfully so. Why some Christians expect God to be simple is just confounding to me. I've been married for more than 7 years. I can't say I can predict everything (if even anything) about my wife. Good luck being simplistic about God.

Lesson: The Bible is not simple because the subject matter is deep. And rightfully so.

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The Catholic Church and Ecumenism Today
The Roman Catholic Church has always considered it a duty of the highest rank to seek full unity with estranged communions of fellow Christians, and at the same time to reject any promiscuous and false union that would mean being unfaithful to or glossing over the teaching of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

Over the recent past, there has been a change in emphasis of the Catholic perspective on ecumenism. Before the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the main stress was laid on this second aspect, i.e., avoiding the possibility of compromising the teaching of Scripture and Tradition.

For example, Canon 1258 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law says: “It is illicit for the faithful to assist at or participate in any way in non-Catholic religious functions. For a serious reason requiring, in case of doubt, the Bishop's approval, passive or merely material presence at non-Catholic funerals, weddings and similar occasions because of holding a civil office or as a courtesy can be tolerated, provided there is no danger of perversion or scandal”.

The most recent 1983 Code of Canon Law, however, whilst absolutely forbidding Catholic priests to concelebrate the Eucharist with members of communities not in full communion with the Catholic Church (canon 908), allows, in certain circumstances and under certain conditions, other sharing in the sacraments. Furthermore, the Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism, 102, states, "Christians may be encouraged to share in spiritual activities and resources, i.e., to share that spiritual heritage they have in common in a manner and to a degree appropriate to their present divided state (italics my own)."

Pope John XXIII, who called together the Council that consequently brought about this change of emphasis, said that the Council's aim was to seek renewal of the Church itself, which would serve, for those separated from the See of Rome, as a "gentle invitation to seek and find that unity for which Jesus Christ prayed so ardently to his heavenly Father”.

Ecumenical endeavours continue to remain a priority of the Roman Catholic Church today. But what the Catholic Church construes as an ecumenical endeavour should not be misunderstood by other Christians who insist on their own brand of ecumenism. The Catholic Church respects that these have their own rendition of ecumenism, whilst she works out of her own ecumenical endeavours in ways consistent with her Sacred Tradition and ecclesial life.

The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, has issued an unmistakable call to the Body of Christ, emphatically instructing the Church that “ecumenism is not an option but a sacred duty”.

-- End of Series --

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Our Understanding of Other Christians
The Catholic Church does not take a simplistic view of other Christian communities. Her understanding of the various communities is well-nuanced and therefore does not lump them all together.

The Orthodox Churches are seen as “true churches”. The Catholic Church recognises the Orthodox churches as true churches; in fact, they are frequently called “sister” churches. These churches born in the East, although not in communion with the Bishop of Rome, are distinctly characterised by apostolic succession and therefore have valid sacraments.

We do estimate that such churches are suffering from a “wound” since they do not recognise the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, among other Patriarchs. However, the wound is not so severe that it has caused them to lose the gravity of the marks of a true Church: oneness, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity. They still contain sufficient marks to constitute true churches.

[Note: Of course, there are some Eastern Churches who have throughout the centuries returned to full communion with the Bishop of Rome and have come to be called “Eastern Catholic Churches”. These are not wounded and continue to exercise their ecclesial life based on the distinctives of their traditions in consistency with the deposit of faith and in full communion with the Pope. There are also about two Eastern Churches which have never broken communion with Rome before in the course of their history.]

Protestant communities are called “ecclesial communities”. Whilst there is a measure of woundedness in the Eastern Churches, it said that the “wound is still more profound” in the Protestant denominations. The wound is so profound that these communities do not sufficiently possess enough marks of a church to be properly called “churches”. Therefore, the Catholic Church calls these communities “ecclesial communities originating from the Reformation”, a term used to refer to Protestants and Anglicans (the latter often do not identify themselves as “Protestants”, therefore it is right to identify them separately with due respect to their self-identity). A document of the Catholic Church says, “Despite the fact that this teaching has created no little distress ... it is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could possibly be attributed to them”.

The Catholic Church does not mean these terms to be derogatory; rather, they are meant to be honest terms. She would expect no less from her dialogue partners. In the same way, there are well-meaning Protestant segments who call the Catholic Church “the Harlot of Babylon” and the Pope “the antichrist”. The Catholic Church does not react even to such derogatory name-calling, perhaps by way of respecting the rights of such well-meaning Christians to determine what they truly believe and to be honest about it. A Pentecostal theologian once said in a dialogue with the Catholic Church, “We think you Catholics are not saved, and our aim is to save you!” The point was well-received because the open honesty was respected.

But at the same time, the Catholic Church continues to recognise that within these ecclesial communities is to be found elements of truth and sanctification which assist people in the salvific process. The Catholic Church also continues to acknowledge, admire and deeply respect those who continue to proclaim Christ in local and foreign lands, the evangelists and those who die because of their faith.

And yet, whilst the Second Vatican Council's opening to other faiths recognised that there were “many elements of sanctification and truth” in other Christian denominations, the Church stresses that only Catholicism has all the elements to be Christ's Church fully.

It is possible, according to Catholic doctrine, to affirm correctly that the Church of Christ is present and operative in the churches and ecclesial communities not yet fully in communion with the Catholic Church, on account of the elements of sanctification and truth that are present in them […] In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them (other Christian denominations) as instruments of salvation, whose value derives from that fullness of grace and of truth which has been entrusted to the Catholic Church.”

[Responses to Some Questions Regarding
Certain Aspects of the Doctrine of the Church]

Recognising also that the Protestant Reformation took place in waves, and that each wave of the Reformation represented a further drift away from the fullness of the deposit of faith, the Catholic Church further categorises the ecclesial communities into three separate clusters. The first batch of communities arising from the Reformation is known as the “Reformation communities” (i.e. Reformed, Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran). The second batch, most often further breakaways from the Reformation communities themselves, are termed “free communities” (i.e. Methodists, Baptists, Quakers). Finally, the subsequent communities arising from further breakaways are categorised under “sects” (i.e. Brethren, Salvation Army, Pentecostal denominations, Seventh Day Adventists, etc).

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What Ecumenism Is
Having elaborated what ecumenism is not, from the Catholic perspective, it is also important to define what it is. In order that dialogue may be open and respectful, this definition must be given in utter honesty and without a hidden agenda born out of the fear to offend. The Catholic Church speaks respectfully with distinct honesty and expects her partners to do the same; this is a basic requisite for healthy dialogue.

Ecumenism, as far as concerns the Roman Catholic Church, is to be a visible unity. In other words, for her, the goal of ecumenism is union with the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church does not demand union, but it hopes to arrive at it through mutually respectful dialogue. And even if this union was not possible, the Catholic Church would continue striving in dialogue so that she may honour the desire of her Lord for His disciples to eventually be one.

The Catholic Church makes no apologies for being so forthcoming about its agenda and its understanding of ecumenism. Again, it must be emphasised, she believes that honesty is a requisite of fruitful dialogue, and would therefore rejoice in the respectful honesty of all other Christian communities in laying out their self-understanding. So it really is about laying out our cards in the open, with utter honesty and yet respect, and then proceeding with dialogue from there. It is fundamental to any kind of dialogue that the participants are clear about their own identity. Dialogue cannot be an occasion to accommodate or soften what you actually understand yourself to be.

The Pope, along with all Christians, believes salvation comes from belief in and acceptance of Jesus Christ as one’s personal Lord and Savior, as the only mediator between God and man. The Bible says as much. But he also affirms the long-standing doctrine of the Catholic Church that Jesus chose to work out this plan of salvation through His Church under the direction of His twelve Apostles and their successors (bishops in communion with the Pope).

The Catholic Church does not see the unapologetic expression of theological differences as a barrier to friendship, respect and brotherhood. In fact, a false sense of tolerance has made it now almost impossible to say, “I think I’m right,” without being called a bigot by denominational pluralists. Neither the Pope nor the entire Catholic Church would/should stand for that.

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What Ecumenism is Not (continued)
Thirdly, ecumenism is not false union. The Catholic Church does not see that the endeavour towards ecumenism necessitates the putting aside of all our theological differences. Pretending that there are no differences and relating to one another as a “united body” by resting on the lowest common denominator of the faith is to pander to false and promiscuous union. True ecumenism, by the standards of the Catholic Church, is to be measured in terms of consistency with our Creed (the faith and moral claims of the Church), Code (the discipline of the Church) and Cult (the liturgical worship of the Church).

So why do we not practise, say, open communion at the celebration of the Eucharist? Because for the Catholic Church, the sharing in one bread is not a means to unity, but rather, a sign of a unity (of Creed, Code and Cult) that should have already taken place prior to the sharing in one bread. We understand that our Protestant brethren do not agree with this, but the Catholic Church expects that her standards be respected within the context of her own liturgical celebration. It is, after all, our liturgy.

Similarly, the Orthodox Churches generally do not permit for our Catholic communicants to receive their Holy Eucharist in their liturgies even though the Catholic law permits for them to do so where they cannot find a Catholic Church in which to worship. Out of ecumenical respect, the Catholic Church teaches its children to abide by the disciplines of the Orthodox Churches even if it means the sad reality of being “deprived” of participation in the Holy Eucharist. No big fuss is made about such. That much respect the Catholic Church accords to the preferences of other communities, and that much respect it expects from others in her own ecclesial practices in accordance with her theological beliefs.

Unity is indeed important to the Catholic Church, and it remains her priority to strive towards that. However, it is a unity in the service of truth that she seeks, not just a unity for the sake of itself. For this reason, the Catholic Church does not - she cannot - sacrifice truth at the altar of unity. In the understanding of the Catholic Church, when an authentic unity has been reached, it is a unity of truth.

Therefore, two conflicting truths (e.g. the Eucharist being the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ for some and being a mere symbol for others) can neither be a source of nor a means to unity. Whilst the Catholic Church respects that this inconsistency does not perturb the Protestant practice of inter- and open-communion despite the presence of over 300 different interpretations on the Eucharist among the over 40 thousand denominations, she herself cannot pander to it.

Ignorant denominational pluralists are frequently scandalised by the fact that the Catholic Church refuses to take such a pluralistic position on ecumenism. The position of the Catholic Church is always inclusive but not pluralistic. The principle of inclusion enables the Church to make space for others and to recognise the good in others without having to compromise our self-understanding. It also respects the self-understanding of others, keeping in mind that respect does not mean consent or agreement. Unity based on a whitewashing of differences, according to Pope Benedict VI, is a facade and only stalls fruitful dialogue.

Furthermore, the pluralistic position is often not as generous as it claims itself to be, because it actually excludes those who refuse its position. In other words, to the denominational pluralist, everyone must acknowledge that all "brands" of Christianity are on par with one another. Those who refuse to acknowledge that are automatically excluded; this irony is often a blind spot to the denominational pluralists who are quick to exclude those who disagree with their enterprise of leveling down all Christian traditions. Denominational pluralism, often justified in the name of “ecumenism”, is therefore a logical fallacy. The authentically inclusive position, on the other hand, respects one’s self-identity and the self-identity of others: all are not necessarily seen as equal or agreeable, but all are respected.

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What Ecumenism is Not
Before the Catholic conception of ecumenism is expounded, it is first crucial to clarify some points in the negative, i.e. what ecumenism is not.

Firstly, ecumenism is not yet achieved. It must be known to the dialogue partners of the Catholic Church that ecumenism is not something that has already been achieved, in our understanding. Ecumenism is a desired future, a goal, because it is the desire of the Son of God who prayed “that [we] may be one”. But this does not in itself mean that we are already one, even though we all profess faith in Him.

Ecumenism is not yet achieved because, unlike the conception of some factions of Christians, ecumenism is not merely an attitude or state of mind which says “Let us just behave like we are one, and we will be one”. Ecumenism, in the assessment of the Catholic Church, is much, much deeper than that, and she refuses to take a superficial stance on the matter.

Secondly, ecumenism is not easily achievable. It needs to be clarified that the Catholic Church does not think that ecumenism is something easily achievable. In fact, from a human viewpoint, it is not even remotely achievable, especially with our Protestant brothers and sisters. To return to a state of unity with over 40 thousand denominations globally, each with its own distinct doctrinal claims, is not a human possibility. This is true even without taking account of the fact that even within any one particular denomination, its individual members (i.e. both clergy and laity) hold differing theological viewpoints on crucial matters.

Of course, many would then say that we should focus our ecumenical efforts on a spiritual unity rather than a theological unity. This will not do for the Catholic Church; neither will it do for the Orthodox Churches, for that matter (although I will not assume the audacity of right to speak on behalf of that well-respected tradition in this series). This proposed alternative would sorely compromise our understanding of revelation and truth.

Well, ecumenism is indeed a possibility; just not a human one. Therefore, while we seek unity, prayer is the ultimate embodiment of that desire, because only God can unite His own fragmented Body. And as we pray, we also dialogue prayerfully with others by gentle invitation.

(More to come on "What Ecumenism is Not...")

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Introductory Comments
The Catholic faith is one of the most known but least understood of various faiths, not just among people of other religions but also among other Christians. Besides the fact of the mysteries surrounding the mystical aura of the 2000 year-old Church institution, this lack of understanding is in part because of the intricacies of its faith system which cannot be understood in simplistic monotonal terms. When people confront this system with simplistic mindsets without first truly understanding the vast minute intricacies underlying each Catholic truth claim, some tend to become hostile to the Church because of such lack of understanding or ignorance.

And so it is with the prevalent ignorance of many other Christians on the Catholic Church’s understanding of ecumenism. When questions like “Why does the Catholic Church not permit other Christians to receive the Eucharist when we are all supposed to be part of the same Body of Christ” or “Why does the Catholic Church not apply the term ‘church’ for us?” are asked, they betray a lack of understanding of what the Catholic understanding may be on such issues.

Of course, agreeability is not a requisite in ecumenical efforts; but the pursuit of understanding is. Therefore, it is not the aim of this writing to solicit agreement, but rather to clarify underlying assumptions and theological presuppositions as we all embark on ecumenical efforts in the service of truth (yes, the Catholic Church believes there is indeed objective truth as revealed by God and interpreted by the Church according to her divinely endowed right and responsibility, so it is not merely a matter of differing theological opinions among the pseudo intellectual elite).

Many non-Catholics Christians tend to impose their assumptions on the Catholic Church by telling us how ecumenism should be exercised (for example, insisting that we should practise open communion at the celebration of the Eucharist), and even going so far to try telling us what we believe based on their own misconceptions about Catholicism (for example, that the Catholic Church’s claim of commitment to ecumenical efforts is “dubious and smutty”).

Contrary to such ignorant accusations, Catholicism has over the years developed what has probably become the most substantive system of understanding ecumenism among the various Christian traditions. Therefore, in these next couple of days, I will be posting up a series on the Catholic Church’s position on ecumenism.

This treatise will not be exhaustive (because any discussion on ecumenism would necessitate a thorough investigation into the Catholic dogma of the Church), but it will be adequate to provide an understanding to people who truly wish to begin their journey of deeper understanding. And yet, this treatise would indeed be found sorely lacking for people who desire to antagonise and interrogate by picking on what is absent rather than what is present in this treatise. Hence, I post this series for the former and not the latter.

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Recently, I happened to come across a weblog entry of a current student from my former seminary. It was a rather brilliant critique of seminary life, to be sure. But it was the following paragraph that caught my attention:

During lessons, I have heard lecturers made remarks like, "Being critical is okay but being over-critical is problematic," and, "the task of theologians is first and foremost to be faithful to what the church has been passing down, and not to be overly creative or novel." Now the question that I have is how does one measure the "overs"? Was Jesus being overly creative when he pronounced the forgiveness of sins, an office which the Israelites believe belongs to God alone? Were the apostles being overly novel to proclaim the resurrection of Jesus as the dawning of the eschaton? Were the church fathers like Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria being over-critical when they engaged Arius and Nestorius? Was the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea being overly creative to introduced terms like 'hypostaseos' and 'ousias' into the creed? Was Augustine of Hippo being over-critical to go against Pelagius on one hand, and being overly creative in formulating his theology of history and political theology in City of God? Was Benedict of Nursia being overly novel to set up a monastic order? Was Anselm being overly novel with his articulation of the atonement theology? Was Thomas Aquinas being overly creative to incorporate Aristotle's philosophy into his theology? Was Martin Luther over-critical with the Roman Catholic Church? Was John Calvin being overly creative to propose a new institution of Christianity? Was Friedrich Schleiermacher being over creative to write about religious nature of humans? Was Karl Barth being overly critical over liberalism? Was Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Desmond Tutu being over-critical against the social condition of their time and overly novel to have done something about it? And finally, is not discouraging 'over-criticality' and 'over-creativity' (assuming they can measure the 'overs') among the students an over-critical and an overly creative suggestion which seems to go against all the listed events above and many more in the rich history of the Christian church?

For Christians who have been steeply traditioned into the faith as has been handed down by the Fathers, the immediate diagnosis derived from this query is all but glaring: there is, herein, an acute failure in recognising the Apostolic Tradition from whence comes the Christian deposit of faith.

Such is the malady suffered by communities of Christians who have lost their sensus fidei because of the erosion or absolute eradication of the doctrine of apostolic succession from their faith. Theology, as a result, is no longer about preserving in faithfulness the body of teachings as has been passed down from Christ Jesus to His Apostles and further transmitted in all faithfulness from one generation of believers to another. The deposit of faith, in which case, has either shrunk or been obliterated all together from the memory of the faith community, leaving them either a frustratingly narrow schema within which to work, or worse yet, with no framework at all.

The nature of theology is such that when it is not guided by the voices of the Fathers who had passed down to us the depositum fidei in its fullness, there is also no understanding of how the heads of the Church today, the Bishops, form the Magisterium together with the Bishop of Rome as the successor of St Peter, Chief of the Apostles. Together, they are jointly responsible - by divine appointment - for the faithful transmission of the faith to the present generation of earthly human inhabitants.

To be a product of the Protestant Reformation's sola Scriptura without any trace of memory whatsoever of the equal vitality of the Sacred Tradition of the Church would inevitable lead one to tamper with the deposit of faith and to exercise self-election as the arbiter of one's own faith. After all, we can make Scripture say anything we want it to say; this much the Church Fathers knew.

The Church preceeded Scripture, and it was the Church that had come to recognise the canon of Scripture. For this One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, the contents of the faith had never been exhausted by Scripture itself. Sacred Scripture contained truths in faith and morals that would never contradict the deposit of faith or the Sacred Tradition, but in itself, it was only a part of the entire wealth of the deposit. For the Church, Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture had to both function as one, communicating each other and moving towards a common goal.

Together, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition are one, and are to be known as Dei Verbum (Word of God). This Word of God is the deposit of faith, and the credibility of any one theological teaching is measured and judged by its fidelity to this very Word of God. The task of the theologian, accordingly, is not so much to innovate beyond the boundaries of the truths that have been revealed by God to his Holy Church, but rather, to seek ways to explain and further expound that which has become a part of the sensus fidelium.

Hence, the "hierarchy of truth" that had been spoken of by the Fathers at the Second Vatican Council holds true. Here, we see that without apostolic succession, there would be no fidelity to the fullness of the Word of God as reflected by both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Without this fidelity, there would be no theological honour attributed to the divinely instituted Sacred Magisterium which serves to guard the teachings of the Church. In the face of such deficiencies, any truth claim made on account of the sacred teachings of the Holy Church is inevitably confronted by the epistemological question, "Whose truth?" At worst, such disdain for the kerymatic claims of the Church is expressed through profanity and ad hominem attacks (read here for an example of such utter ignorant forms of reactions arising from self-arbitration of truth and an incomplete understanding of the present state of ecumenism). For the child of the Reformation, it is ultimately his own truth that holds true, for it is he who has judged it to be, in fact, true.

I know the lecturer of this seminary who had most probably been the one stating the claim against theological novelty. He is one who has recovered an infinite treasure lost with the currents of the Protestant Reformation: the treasure of authority. He has come to understand that the all too often exalted exercise of "theological innovation" is a mere betrayal of Protestantism's intrinsic tendency to sway leftward. He surely has come to understand, there is nothing new under the sun!

Therefore, his statement that "the task of theologians is first and foremost to be faithful to what the Church has been passing down, and not to be overly creative or novel" is, in the assessment of the Holy Catholic Church, TRUE.

Posted by SK at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Internal Politics that Split the Church

Sherman Kuek, SFO
Published in Catholic Asian News
(July 2009 Issue)

It has often been asked, if the Church founded by Jesus Christ was One, why is there today such a vast collection of Christians claiming to be a part of the Body of Christ, and yet not being in full unity with one another?

Over the centuries, various events have taken place in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church which have caused multiple schisms (i.e. divorces) to take place. Of course, the issues surrounding these schisms often revolved around those of dogmatic beliefs. But as will be elaborated herein, disputes over doctrinal concerns were often also tainted by human realities of pride, power, and prejudice. Had those disputes been handled purely based on dogmatic concerns, the schisms that had resulted from those conflicts would perhaps have not been thus tragic.

To be sure, it is true that the departure of these other Christians from full communion with the Roman Catholic Church happened as a result of unresolved doctrinal disagreements. However, it was more often the manner in which these disputes took place that was the cause of the bitterness with which those resulting schisms occurred.

The state of the Body of Christ today is very reflective of three major disputes and the consequent schisms that took place in the history of Christianity. One the one hand, we have the Roman Catholic Church. On the other hand, we have the cluster of Eastern Churches, which are themselves also generally divided into the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Oriental Orthodox Churches, both not being in full communion with each other. Beyond that, there is also a very significant cluster of Christian communities called the “Protestants” comprising over 40,000 denominations globally.

Together, all these Christians form about 2.2 billion people, a third of the world population. Unfortunately, they do not all exist in a state of full unity. There is much to be learnt from the human dimension - the inner politics - which had been largely responsible for further tarnishing the already complicated relationships arising from the pertinent dogmatic disagreements.

At the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, the Council drafted the now well-known Chalcedonian formulation which became the watershed for all subsequent dogmas about Jesus Christ. The declaration contained several phrases crafted with the goal of explicitly rejecting the various rampant heresies about Jesus: “acknowledged in two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation”.

At the same time, the Council also acknowledged that even though the orthodox position on Christ’s natures was that he possessed two natures, there was no single interpretation for how the two natures related to each other. Since these variances in interpretations had to be accounted for, the Council went so far to only give its weight to whatever consensus it could find.

This position of the Council was cause for grave concern on the part of the Eastern Church that is today known as the Oriental Orthodox Churches, as they had a particular emphasis on the unity of Christ’s two natures. Of course, the Council would not include this interpretation into its formulation so as to avoid foreseeable controversy on the matter. Pope Dioscorus, the Patriarch of Alexandria, therefore refused to accept the formulation promulgated by the Council of Chalcedon.

Now, although what followed this dispute was a consequent schism between those who had rejected the Council’s formulation and the rest of the Church, the schism was not born purely out of theological dispute. There were other human agendas involved too.

The Bishops of Alexandria had been leaders in the first three Ecumenical Councils prior to this fourth one at Chalcedon. The dominance of these Alexandrian bishops in those Councils had become the cause of envy among many from the other Churches. Furthermore, the dominance of the Alexandrian view in those earlier councils had led to the excommunication of the Bishops of Constantinople, which was the capital of the Empire.

In fact, just two years prior to this most recent Council, there was another Council that had been convened, and the Bishop of Rome (Pope Leo) was excommunicated as a result of the meeting having been overly steered by the Bishop of Alexandria. In the first place, this was one main reason that the Emperor Marcianus subsequently assembled 600 Bishops in the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD), so as to render the Council two years prior to that null and void.

So beyond the theological concern, there was quite obviously a nationalistic ego involved in the decisions of the Council. The other patriarchs had a vendetta against the Bishops of Alexandria for the way the latter had steered the previous Councils in exclusion of those other Bishops. For them, the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD was payback time!

One of the most significant events in the early history of the Church was agreement throughout the Roman Empire, both East and West, on the Nicene Creed (i.e. the “I believe”). It was intended to bring doctrinal stability to the Church.

However, over time, a disagreement arose over the filioque clause in the Nicene Creed (an addition to the part of the text which referred to the Holy Spirit “proceeding from the Father”). The Western Church had subsequently added the filioque phrase (Latin, “and from the Son”) to the Creed. The filioque is first recorded as having been added to the creed at the Third Council of Toledo (589 AD), and by the 9th century, it was used in the Western church routinely until this day.

For the Eastern Church, the filioque indicated a double procession of the Holy Spirit and was unacceptable. In other words, the Holy Spirit could not proceed from two sources (i.e. the Father and the Son). The Eastern Church insisted that there was only one source of being within the Trinity. The Father alone was the sole and supreme cause of all things, including the Son and the Spirit within the Trinity.

Theological though this argument may have been, the consequent schism between the Eastern Church and the Western Church was tainted by many political factors. The truth was, the relationship between East and West had long been embittered by rivalry for dominance, and the filioque controversy was merely the last straw that had broken the camel’s back.

For one thing, there was rivalry over the dominance of language, as the West was Latin-speaking and the East Greek-speaking. Pope Leo IX of the Western Church and Patriarch Michael Cerularius of Constantinople had both suppressed the use of the Greek and Latin languages in their respective domains in order to assert the significance of their own languages.

For another thing, there had all along already been disputes over whether the Patriarch of Rome (the Pope) should be considered a higher authority than the other Patriarchs. All five Patriarchs of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church were in agreement that the Patriarch of Rome should receive higher honours than the other four, but they disagreed on whether he had juridical authority over the other four.

In 1054, Roman legates had traveled to Cerularius to deny him the title “Ecumenical Patriarch” and to insist that he recognise the Catholic claim to be the head and mother of the churches. At Cerularius’ refusal to concede to the demands of the Wetern legates, the leader of the Latin contingent excommunicated Cerularius, and he in turn excommunicated the legates.

But in fact, the Western legates’ acts were of doubtful validity because Pope Leo IX had died, while Patriarch Cerularius's excommunication was applicable only to the legates personally and not to the Western Church as a whole. Still, such political rivalry had caused a schism that was never to be bridged again.

In 1965, the Western Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople had both nullified the anathemas (i.e. condemnations) of 1054 AD. But healing and communion after over 900 years of mutual discord requires much more than mere retraction of past condemnations.

It began with Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk and a biblical theologian. He challenged what seemed to be the predominant teachings of the Catholic Church at that time. For example, he asserted that salvation was attainable through Christ alone without the mediation of the Church, that the Bible alone was the source of authority, and that all baptised Christians had the right of priesthood.

Luther was convinced that the Catholic Church was corrupt in its ways and had lost sight of the central truths of Christianity, the most important of which, for him, was the doctrine of justification (i.e. God's act of declaring a sinner righteous) by faith alone through God's grace alone in Christ alone.

Luther’s teachings against the Catholic Church and the Pope changed the course of Western civilisation. He was excommunicated by the Catholic Church in 03 January 1521 upon refusal to recant his teachings which were deemed heretical by the Catholic Church. He subsequently married a nun, Katherina von Bora, who also defected from the Catholic Church. She was 26 and he was 42.

As the Reformation spread, the three cities that became the centres of the Reformation were Germany (Martin Luther and the University of Wittenberg), Geneva (John Calvin), and Zurich (Huldrych Zwingli).

The key to Luther’s success lay not so much in convincing the masses of his doctrinal correctness; it lay in responding to the political climate of the day. Luther’s Germany was nothing like modern-day Germany. Germany at that time was divided in multiple territories with different royal governing authorities. In order to push his agenda for reform, he had done much to garner the support of the princes of the various German territories. The strategy he had adopted was that of presenting to them the semblance of a Catholic reformer rather than a heretical revolutionary.

So as to gain the favour of the princes, Luther assisted them in quelling revolts by the lower classes of society in the name of religion. Apart from the suppression of the lower classes, the middle classes of northern Germany, namely the well-educated urbanites, would appeal to religion in order to express their discontent according to the cultural medium of the day. The great emergence of the burghers, the desire to run their new businesses without the regulatory impositions of institutional barriers or outmoded cultural practices gave rise to the revolt for self-motivated purposes. To many of the middle class masses, papal institutions were rigid. It therefore made sense for them to jump onto Luther’s anti-papal bandwagon.

In Northern Germany, the burghers and monarchs were united in their frustration at having to collect taxes from subjects and sending the revenues disproportionately to Rome with little or nothing left for themselves. In Northern Europe, Luther appealed to the growing national consciousness of the German states because he denounced the Pope for involvement in politics as well as religion. Moreover, he backed the nobility, who were now justified in crushing the Great Peasant Revolt of 1525 and confiscating church property because of Luther’s Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. This explains the attraction that Lutheranism held for some of the territorial princes.

With the church now subordinate to and the agent of civil authority and peasant rebellions condemned on strict religious terms, Lutheranism and German nationalist sentiment were ideally suited to coincide. With this, the Reformation was a success and the rest was history.

However, the bitterness of the disputes tainted with human motives is another issue all together. Because of such political motives involved in the processes, often accompanied by lack of mutual respect for the dignity of others, we cannot conclude with an utterly clear conscience that the historical schisms of the Church were orchestrated by the Holy Spirit in His effort to preserve truth among the people of God. In large measure, the disputes had more to do with power and dominance than truth.

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Deacons as Administrators
of the Church

Sherman Kuek, SFO
Published in Catholic Asian News
(June 2009 Issue)

The employment of salaried administrators in dioceses and parishes today is an entirely new phenomenon. There is little that Holy Mother Church, being a two-thousand year old institution and community, has not thought about. Right from the time of the Apostles, Church administration had already become a challenge, and a special order created in response to the need for effective administration.

In the Acts of the Apostles (6:1-6), the landmark election of seven men as deacons of the Church took place arising from administrative concerns. The Greek-speaking widows, who were not attendees of the Temple where the Apostles preached, were said to be somewhat neglected since their needs were not attended to in their own homes. They, unlike the Aramaic-speaking, had allegedly not received their fair share of the goods which were distributed by the Christian community among the people in need of aid. The Apostles, in having their attention brought to this need, concluded, “It is not right for us to neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables”. They therefore laid hands on seven “deeply spiritual and prudent” men for this ministry of serving the catechetical needs of the widows and the bringing of their rations to their homes. They were called “deacons”. These deacons served as the Apostles directed.

Arguably, the institution of the order of the diaconate preceded that of the priests. The reason for this is that at the institution of the diaconate, the Apostles were still in active ministry and had not had to grapple with issues of succession, whilst the Church was relatively still small.

As has been explained, the foundation of this ministry is found in Acts 6:6 wherein men were elected to serve in the distribution of daily rations to the widows. Its original Greek word diakonia very simply means “service”. This perhaps explains why the dalmatic, one of the deacon’s liturgical vestments, has short wide sleeves with a somewhat apron-like appearance - he is an icon of Christ the Servant.

Church history documents the growth of the deacon’s role. So crucial was the role of deacons that the See of Rome, by the third century, was administered by The Seven Deacons of Rome, who were deputised by the Bishop of Rome to handle the operational affairs of the diocese. In the scheme of the diocese, the bishop and deacon were very closely bonded to each other.

Tradition records a deacon called Lawrence in the year 258 AD in the See of Rome. The emperor Valerian had been cultivating a desire to possess all the wealth and riches of the Church in his lust for power. He therefore ordered for Lawrence to gather all the wealth of the Church before him, this being an offer of a way out of martyrdom for Lawrence. Just four days before that, the Bishop of Rome - Sixtus - had been martyred. So close was the relationship between Sixtus and his deacons that as he was led away to his death, Lawrence and his other six brother deacons followed along, crying, “Father, where are you going without your deacon?” Lawrence’s six brother deacons were subsequently also martyred.

In response to the emperor’s instructions, Lawrence requested for three days to gather all the wealth of the Church together. Within that three days, Lawrence congregated all the poor, the handicapped and the needy from all over Rome who were being supported by the wealth of the Christian community in obedience to the Gospel imperative. When the emperor arrived, Lawrence presented all these people before him as the true “gold and silver” of the Church. The deacon, known today as St Lawrence, was put to death by being burnt slowly over a gridiron.

Among the many lessons projected by this account of St Lawrence, one acquires a rather clear idea of how deacons were very much involved in administrative matters in the Church, particularly, the administration of Church property and the administration of its people.

The deacons of a diocese constituted the eyes and ears of the bishop, his "right hand men". The bishop's principal assistant was known as the "archdeacon", and was often charged with daunting responsibilities, namely, in the financial administration of the local church and the distribution of funds and goods to the poor. So crucial was the diaconate in the Church that of the 37 men elected pope between 432 and 684 AD, only three are known to have been ordained to priesthood before their election to the Chair of Peter, whilst the rest were elected popes whilst they were still deacons.

One reason for this diminishment of the diaconate as a permanent function in the Latin Church was the failure of both presbyters and deacons to understand the unique role of the diaconate as a distinct order within the life of the Church. It also was less than helpful when deacons who had major responsibilities, together with powerful authority accompanying these responsibilities, became lofty and self-serving in their attitudes. The presbyters too were often unhappy that in certain responsibilities held by the deacons, they found themselves having to submit to the administrative authority of the latter. Even St Jerome demanded an explanation for why deacons had often been endowed with such authority by bishops: “After all, deacons could not preside at Eucharist, and presbyters were really the same as bishops".

As a result, by the early middle ages, the diaconate in the Latin Church had become an intermediate step in one’s journey towards priesthood. The deacon, now a solely transitional role, was perceived by the clergy and populace as an incomplete priest awaiting the completion of his sacramental ordination. He was a mere priest in the making, rising through the ranks, this being a traditional system of gradual promotion adapted from the Roman secular government.

But at the Second Vatican Council, the Holy Father Pope Paul VI definitively restored the permanent diaconate in the Latin Church through his apostolic letter Diaconatus Ordinem. Subsequent to his reinstatement of the permanent diaconate, he said “the permanent diaconate should be restored as a driving force for the Church's service (diakonia) toward the local Christian communities, and as a sign or sacrament of the Lord Christ himself, who 'came not to be served but to serve'" (Ad Pascendum, August 15, 1972, Introduction).

One reason cited for the restoration of the diaconate as a permanent order of the Church during Vatican II was that it would at least temporarily alleviate the shortage of priests in certain parts of the world. The presence of deacons would somewhat relieve the absence of priests and provide for the spiritual sustenance of communities which rarely caught sight of priests in their midst. This rationale continues to be valid and even compelling in certain contexts today. However, holding solely to this argument that deacons would merely be helpful in situations where relief of priests was required, and that the former would not have been needed should there have been sufficient numbers of priests, would constitute a deficient understanding of the threefold hierarchy of the Holy Orders. The diaconate possesses its own intrinsic reason and right to exist.

In the document Lumen Gentium of the Second Vatican Council, the function of the deacon is clearly delineated:

At a lower level of the hierarchy are deacons, upon whom hands are imposed "not unto the priesthood, but unto a ministry of service". For strengthened by sacramental grace, in communion with the bishop and his group of priests they serve in the diaconate of the liturgy, of the word, and of charity to the people of God. It is the duty of the deacon, according as it shall have been assigned to him by competent authority, to administer baptism solemnly, to be custodian and dispenser of the Eucharist, to assist at and bless marriages in the name of the Church, to bring Viaticum to the dying, to read the Sacred Scripture to the faithful, to instruct and exhort the people, to preside over the worship and prayer of the faithful, to administer sacramentals, to officiate at funeral and burial services. Dedicated to duties of charity and of administration [italics added], let deacons be mindful of the admonition of Blessed Polycarp: "Be merciful, diligent, walking according to the truth of the Lord, who became the servant of all".

[Lumen Gentium, 29]

Notice that this paragraph in Lumen Gentium alludes rather explicitly to the fact that administration is very much a part of a deacon’s sacramental function. Thus, the diaconate is a rather distinct and specific role in the Church which is not to be confused with that of the priesthood; the deacon should never try to be a priest. He is also not an assistant to the priest, except when specifically instructed by the bishop to be so, for he serves the bishop’s bidding just as the deacons in the Early Church were directed by the Apostles.

Having said that, it must also be noted that despite the decisive reinstatement of the permanent diaconate at Vatican II, its restoration in the particular churches falls under the discretion of the local bishops: "But it pertains to the competent local episcopal conferences…with the approval of the supreme Pontiff, to decide whether and where it is opportune that such deacons be appointed" (Lumen Gentium, 29).

The task belongs to him, in the first place, to inspire dedicated service among the laity. The very person of the deacon himself is a visual reminder that Christ is not only the high priest, but also a servant, “For the Son of man himself came not to be served but to serve... (Mark 10:45)”. The deacon’s presence exists to consistently propel the people of God out of lackadaisical complacency over issues of peace, justice and mercy, challenging all the faithful to respond to their baptismal calling to fulfil the mission of the Church. A task like this certainly entails more administrative considerations than meet the eye.

There is, to be sure, nothing wrong with dioceses and parishes employing lay people to work as administrators of their various offices and ministries. In fact, many times, lay people are able to accomplish that which clerics are never able to find time to achieve. But to rely solely on the role of the laity in the administration of the Church is to keep the Church in sacramental poverty, since God’s gift of the diaconate to the Church for very obvious purposes is not utilised.

The deacon therefore continues to be revered as an icon of Christ the Servant for whom works of charity and administration are a permanent vocation in his life, together with the service of word and altar. His role is profoundly different, but not necessarily better, from the role of the laity, because his ordination into the Holy Order leaves a permanent mark on his soul.

Like Lawrence and his six brother deacons, the deacon today is to be so bound to the ministry of his bishop that in the face of the bishop’s peril, the deacon would cry out, “Father, where are you going without your deacon?”

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The Church Fathers Speak on the Economic Crisis

Sherman Kuek, SFO
Published in Catholic Asian News
(May 2009 Issue)

As Asians, one of our reference points in moments of crises is our forefathers. When Asian individuals and families are faced with crises and crucial decisions to be made, we are often told to turn to the wisdom imparted by our ancestors. This is perhaps exactly what we should do as we contemplate on the present economic situation confronting us and the rest of the world; we should turn to our ancestors in the faith, our Church Fathers. They certainly have a thing or two to teach us about economics and wealth.

In the face of present economic and financial crises plaguing the world, it is in order that we should examine what has been wrong with the economic system in the first place. Much finger pointing has been taking place, particularly among those blaming America for its implementation of financial systems that permitted for banks to grant unsafe loans since the 1980s.

This is not an economic article that assesses market mechanisms. It is a theological article that examines the human attitudes underlying those market mechanisms. Taken from that perspective, truth be told, a vast many of us might have been guilty collaborators in the success and the subsequent breakdown of these mechanisms.

The problem lies in society’s attitudes towards wealth and possessions. And this is by no means a new problem; just exploring some of the homilies preached by the Church Fathers in the third and fourth centuries would clearly point to the existence of this age-old human disease called “greed”.

This has been precisely the value undergirding the world economic system of the modern era, which propels the excessive drive for ever increasing profits without ethical controls. As a result, two thirds of the world population has lived in relative poverty as the wealth of the other third has kept on increasing.

Much of the suffering in the world today can find its roots in this reality which take a tremendous amount of honesty to acknowledge.

We (even well-meaning Christians) have often failed to distinguish between “wealth” and “riches”, and have misperceived these two terms as synonyms when they should actually be opposites. “Wealth”, referring to the creation of wealth, is to be seen as an activity sanctioned and blessed by God, whilst “riches” refers to the selfish amassing of commodities which results in shortage and the deprivation of others’ needs.

It is important that we understand the Christian calling to create wealth as a fruit of one’s labour, for this is an ordained means of one’s participation in God’s continuous creating acts for the betterment of creation itself. However, the creation and amassing of wealth at the expense of others is another matter all together. Unfortunately, such thoughts are often beyond the scope of our contemplation in our efforts for wealth creation.

As we return to the wisdom of our Fathers in the faith, we would perhaps be able to glean some crucial economic principles with the hope that it can aid an economic recovery for us (even if only a minor one).

St Ambrose teaches: “Not from your own do you bestow upon the poor man, but you make return from what is his”. Basil of Caesarea is recorded to have emphatically asserted that the hoarding of wealth at the expense of one’s neighbour is to commit a wrong towards him.

St John Chrysostom also speaks of the failure to share one’s possessions as “theft and swindle and defraudation”. He reminds his listeners, “I beg you remember this without fail, that not to share our own wealth with the poor is theft from the poor and deprivation of their means of life; we do not possess our own wealth but theirs”.

It is apparent from these instances that the tradition of the Church warns the wealthier Christians to be mindful of the plight of the poor. The failure of these Christians to provide for the sustenance of the poor constitutes a moral injury. Their ventures for wealth creation at the expense of those who had no ability to create wealth were construed as oppression.

It is this line of thought that is perpetuated by St Thomas Aquinas, as he seemingly reiterates the principle that each human person has an implicit or innate right to a means of sustenance, and that it is the rightful duty of those who possess excess wealth to provide a way of access for the poor. (In fact, according to Aquinas, in the case of a failure on the part of the wealthy to execute such provisions, the deprived are permitted the privilege of secretly or forcefully taking what is rightfully theirs!)

In accordance with this, the provision of wealth to the poor by the wealthy is not to be seen as a gift, but rather, a moral duty. Aquinas also emphatically prescribes the use of material wealth for the meeting of one’s most fundamental needs in life such that one is able to reasonably subsist. The breach of such prescribed moderation would render a human person beastlike.

Apparent, the Christian tradition upholds the virtue of temperance and the employment of one’s abundance for the welfare of the needy. It is precisely at this point that the peril of a modern economic culture has been found endangering to the spirit of the Christian faith.

Market players, Christians and non-Christians alike, have indulged themselves in the amassment of wealth with little or absolutely no regard for the wellbeing of the larger society. In most economic activity, the welfare of the neighbour has ranked last in our list of priorities. The present crisis is the resulting consequence of such attitudes.

For a fourth-century church leader like St John Chrysostom, the Christian community’s responsibility towards the poor is not dissipated and its conscience not free for as long as there exist the poor in the world. For far too long, we have ignored the economic wellbeing of the larger humanity, often justifying this nonchalance through our occasional Lenten almsgiving.

Chrysostom’s agony stems from the inequitable distribution of resources within his society. For him, such unjust distribution is the inevitable ramification of economic injustice, which in turn is the result of the very existence of the concept of privately owned wealth and luxury. Therefore, this leads Chrysostom to conclude that the categorical existence of “private property” is the source of social and economic evil.

Goods, he asserts, are placed alongside the human existence as a way of testing the human capacity to exercise stewardship with the poor in mind. However, people have become consumed by their love for such goods and degenerated into overt material obsession, hence a perverted economic system for illusory wealth creation.

Chrysostom also speaks of an idolatry which surpasses the abomination of pagan idolatry. Idol worship, according to Chrysostom, means worshipping something which God created. This he distinguishes from the idolatry of covetousness in that the latter pertains to the worship of something of one’s own creation, i.e. the voracious propensity towards acquisition. The latter of the two is considered a more hideous form of idolatry. As such, Chrysostom makes it his project to safeguard the wealthy from an obsessive concern over their possessions.

The only properties that are legitimate, as far as he is concerned, are those things that are required for one’s daily survival. These do not include exaggerated accesses and luxuries we do not need. Isn’t it true that people most usually face economic crises from trying to acquire luxuries rather than from trying to meet their simple subsistence needs?

The solution out of the present economic crisis is quite obvious, if only people would be willing to abide by the law of love and charity. Maybe the Christians should start first.

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Is the Church Political?

Sherman Kuek, SFO
Published in Catholic Asian News
(April 2009 Issue)

Christ's redemptive work, while essentially concerned with the salvation of men, includes also the renewal of the whole temporal order. Hence the mission of the Church is not only to bring the message and grace of Christ to men but also to penetrate and perfect the temporal order with the spirit of the Gospel.

In this light, the Church undoubtedly needs to be involved in politics in order that her voice finds adequate representation in temporal affairs. Her political participation purposes to uphold divine justice, honesty and defence of true and authentic values like the safeguarding of human life, marriage and the family. Political isolation is not an option for the body of Christ-followers who desire the coming of the Kingdom of God and who consistently pray that the will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven. Where Christian presence is too negligible in the political sphere, insufficient influence will be exercised over the state of secular affairs. For this reason, Pope John Paul II was unflinching in his assertion that political participation was a key for the evangelisation of society.

What has been said so far hopefully mitigates misconceptions that the Church is dispassionate about political participation. It seeks “the renewal of society in all its strata through the interplay of the Gospel truths and man’s concrete total life” (Quoted from the Canon Law Society of the Philippines). It is thus evident that the Church does not want to restrict its influence to the sphere of private morality and only within churches; it is not meant to do so.

However, the discussion needs to be brought further than this. The Church is not just concerned for the importance of political participation, but also in the manner of this participation.

The political participation of each particular person goes back to the issue of vocation. Beyond the common priesthood of all believers, it is for each believer to discern together with the Church his/her calling to specific vocations. Some find themselves being called to the ministerial priesthood, others to the religious life, and yet others are called to fulfil the mission of the Church in the world as lay people embodying the secular way of life.

For those who have chosen the secular life, by virtue of their being laity, it is their specific and proper role to “become actively engaged in their responsibilities in the professional, social, cultural and political world” (Christifideles Laici, 1988, point 2). Such laity are primarily called to be agents of change in the world; this is a responsibility proper to their role in the light of their baptismal vows. They are to bring Christ and His Church to places and circumstances where only they can go, and make fruitful vineyards where only they can labour: in their families, workplaces and communities, and in political affairs (Ad Gentes Divinitus, 1965, point 21; Apostolicam Actuositatem, 1965, point 14).

While most remain ordinary citizens endowed with certain rights common to all members of society, some laity eventually move on to enter the realm of politics as politicians. Laity should, if it is their discerned vocation (within their already established vocation as laity), concede to take on leadership positions in society in order that the temporal affairs may be directed towards the will of God. As politicians, they would naturally have to be aligned to specific political parties, according to how they think the common good can be best upheld. But most importantly, they should be people of integrity who seek to contribute to the achievement of good governance. They are to act in accordance with the mind of the Church, for it is the common faith of the Church that should guide and shape their conscience as officeholders.

As members of society, laity are to practise their rights as citizens by upholding freedom and the common good of all, which should be the political goal of all Catholics. Since they profess the Catholic faith, their political choices should be assessed in the light of the faith. The moral teachings of the Church are the standards by which the values and conscience of both officeholder and voter should abide. This would (or should) include Catholic principles such as compassion, justice and charity that would serve as guidelines on issues like taxes, education, foreign policy and immigration reform, among others.

The laity have a rightful duty to strive to be heard in the public square. It is their duty to ensure that the moral teachings of the Church are publicly advocated in such a way that they can conscientise, inform law and public policy, and not be artificially confined to the private domain of personal belief.

In their patriotism and in their fidelity to their civic duties Catholics will feel themselves bound to promote the true common good; they will make the weight of their convictions so influential that as a result civil authority will be justly exercised and laws will accord with the moral precepts and the common good...

Apostolicam Actuositatem, 1965, point 14

The laity should work along with ecclesiastical hierarchy and turn to the clergy for “guidance and spiritual strength” (Gaudium et Spes, 1965, point 43). They should not, however, expect ready answers from the hierarchy for every social and political problem, for finding such solutions is the practical responsibility of the laity guided by the wisdom of the Church.

In certain instances where public authority becomes oppressive, Catholics are bound to obey the laws of the state insofar as they do not contradict divine law. But no parliament, legislature and court has the authority to defy divine commandments or to command obedience to laws and regulations that are contrary to the natural moral law. Whenever such an abuse of authority occurs in the political system of a nation, its Catholics must take all legal and political steps necessary to defend themselves and their fellow citizens.

Furthermore, they may be obligated to exhibit conscientious objection, civil disobedience, non-cooperation and other forms of non-violent resistance in accordance with the natural moral law and the Gospel (Gaudium et Spes, 1965, point 74). Should such steps become necessary, the unity of Christians and non-Christian believers in God and their willingness to suffer will ultimately overcome the abuse of state governmental authority.

Two provisions of the 1983 Code of Canon Law expressly forbid participation by clerics in certain types of political activity:

Canon 285, §3: Clerics are forbidden to assume public offices, which entail participation in the exercise of civil power. This provision means that priests cannot assume public offices which entail the exercise of legislative, administrative and judicial authority.

Canon 287, §2: Clerics are not to have an active role in political parties and in the direction of labour unions unless the need to protect the rights of the Church or to promote the common good requires it in the judgment of the competent ecclesiastical authority. Priests cannot engage in partisan political activity unless in a particular case, this is truly required by the good of the community, and receives the consent of the bishop after consultation with the priests’ council and, if circumstances call for it, with the episcopal conference.

Permanent deacons, even though they are clerics, do not fall under these prohibitions but these apply also to members of religious orders (c.672) and to members of societies of apostolic life (c.739).

These canonical prohibitions to priests and bishops are in line with the pronouncements of Pope John Paul II. To an assembly of religious priests in Mexico in January 1979, he asserted: “You are not social directors, political leaders or functionaries of temporal power… Let us not be under the illusion that we are serving the Gospel if we ‘dilute’ our charism through an exaggerated interest in the wide field of temporal problems”. This exact position was reiterated in Manila, the Philippines, on 17 February 1981.

In Zaire, he similarly exhorted the priests: “Leave political responsibilities to those who are charged with them. You have another part, a magnificent part; you are ‘leaders’ by another right and in another manner, participating in the priesthood of Christ, as his ministers. Your sphere of interventions, and it is vast, is that of faith and morals, where it is expected that you preach at the same time by a courageous word and by the example of your life.”

It is therefore clear that as a general rule, priests and bishops are not to hold public office that calls for the exercise of civil power, and they are not to engage in partisan politics. As the Synod of Bishops of 1971 categorically affirmed, priests “must keep a certain distance from any political office of involvement”.

However, priests are not at all excluded from political activity. In certain circumstances priests are not only allowed, but even obliged to engage in political action. The same 1971 Synod document states:

Together with the entire Church, priests are obliged, to the utmost of their ability, to select a definite pattern of action, when it is a question of the defence of fundamental human rights, the promotion of the full development of persons and the pursuit of the cause of peace and justice.

If the election of a particular party clearly seriously endangers the rights of the Church or the common good, for example, then members of the clergy, like all other citizens, are not only allowed but are obliged to prevent the victory of such a candidate or party.

Bishops and priests, therefore, may undertake non-partisan types of political activity, involving the defence of human rights, the promotion of the full development of persons and the pursuit of justice and peace, when such activity does not entail holding public office that calls for the exercise of civil power.

Even as they are fully entitled to lay down moral guidelines regarding elections, bishops and other members of the clergy have no special competence to indicate the best persons to vote for. Much less can they oblige the faithful to vote for a certain candidate. In the matter of choosing candidates, lay people should know that they enjoy and should exercise their Christian freedom. The Council of Vatican II reminds pastors to “respect and recognise the liberty which belongs to all in the terrestrial city”.

Such is the manner in which the Church’s political involvement is regulated. It almost leaves no room for a confusion of roles on the part of all the faithful of the Church. At the same time, it calls upon each member of the Church to be utterly aware of the state of affairs in the world.

A new state of affairs today both in the Church and in social, economic, political and cultural life, calls with a particular urgency for the action of the lay faithful. If lack of commitment is always unacceptable, the present time renders it even more so. It is not permissible for anyone to remain idle.

Christifideles Laici, 1988, point 3

Francis Cardinal George, OMI, Archbishop of Chicago, ends his letter Catholic Participation in Political Life (10 October 2004) as follows: “May the Lord be good to us and give us the courage to participate in political life with consciences truly formed by the faith that comes to us from the apostles.” Let it be so.

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St Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (354-430 AD), was once walking along the seashore, meditating on the unfathomable mystery of the Holy Trinity.

A boy was using a shell to pour seawater into a little hole.

When Augustine asked him what he was doing, he replied, “I am emptying the sea into this hole.”

Thus did Augustine understand that man would never penetrate to the depths of the mystery of God.

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Did Mother Church Change Her Mind about Slavery?

Sherman Kuek, SFO
Published in Catholic Asian News
(March 2009 Issue)

For any slave from Mississippi to Maryland in America, Wade in the Water was a coded slave song, a reference to escaping slaves using shallow streams to throw off pursuing bloodhounds. One would have thought that the social attitude towards slavery today was entirely different from that of those days.

Slavery is a phenomenon that is universally illegal today. Yet, its illegal legislative status notwithstanding, there are more slaves in the world now than at any other time in the history of humanity. An estimated 27 million persons around the world are captives of slavery, exploited for various purposes, some of which are forced prostitution, domestic work, and other forms of labour. Of these slaves, approximately fifty percent are under the age of 18.

Whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torture inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children ... all these things ... poison human society, dishonour the Creator, and do more harm to those who practise them than those who suffer from the injury... Human institutions, private or public .... should be bulwarks against any kind of political or social slavery and guardians of basic rights under any kind of government. [Gaudium et spes, 1965, points 27 & 29]

What many are not entirely aware of, however, is that the outright condemnation of slavery here seemed to be a watershed in the life of the Church. In fact, for 1,500 years prior to this document, the Church had never before so outrightly condemned slavery as an insult to the dignity of the human person.

For the first fifteen centuries of the Church’s life, it had seemed that the Church was giving a prima facie endorsement of slavery as a legitimate practice. Consider the following:

At the local Council of Gangra in 340 AD in Asia Minor, the Council decreed that slaves had the Christian obligation to submit themselves to their masters as they would submit themselves to God. The verbatim decree sounded as follows: “If anyone, on the pretext of religion teaches another man's slave to despise his master, and to withdraw from his service, and not to serve his master with good will and respect, let him be anathema” (Canon 3. C.J.C. Decriti Gratiani, 11, C.XVII, Q.IV, c.37).

Six decades following this Synod of Gangra, St Augustine similarly propagated that slaves should resist the inclination to abandon their masters’ homes and run to freedom. Rather, he taught, they should remain in their positions as slaves and render faithful service to their masters with an appropriate Christian attitude.

The decrees of the Council and St Augustine’s teaching were subsequently canonised and remained the official position of the Church until the promulgation of the new statement at the Second Vatican Council. On the face of it, it would naturally seem that the Church was, together with larger society, enforcing the institution of slavery and the accompanying separation of social classes.

In the seventh century, Pope Gregory I explained that even though all humanity was equal before God, by His providence, a “hierarchy of merit and rulership” had emerged as a result of sin. This “hierarchy of merit and rulership” spoke of the stratification of men into different social classes that was a segregation “ordained by divine justice”.

Subsequently, St Isidore of Seville further clarified this notion by explaining that certain persons were considered by God as being unable to bear the weight of freedom, and were therefore mercifully subsumed into slavery as a divine measure of mercy. It would seem that St Isidore of Seville had declared that the role of the slave master was a divinely appointed one for the purpose of regulating the intrinsic savaged nature of certain groups of persons.

Furthermore, St Thomas Aquinas, in the 13th century, had purportedly attempted to reconcile the practice of slavery with the patristic tradition of the Church.

In the light of this pattern of teaching in the history of the Church with regard to slavery, one must ask, what happened between then and the outright condemnation of slavery at Vatican II? Had the Church changed her mind?

The labour of slaves had largely contributed to the development of much of the European continent. Likewise, industrialisation in these nations could very well be attributed to the phenomenon of slavery. Against this background, it was understandable that slavery might not have been perceived as something evil, as long as slave masters were not unnecessarily ill-treating their slaves. Slavery was perfectly legal and it was absolutely legitimate as a trade.

Furthermore, notice also that the Church from the time of the Apostles emphasised the common participation of both slave and master in the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether or not slavery was to be seen as moral, it was a fact that out of that system of slavery, there were those slaves and masters who had come into the bosom of the Church, thereby subjecting themselves to her teaching and discipline. To these, the Church did not directly address the morality of their relationship as slaves and masters. However, she did impart to them the principle of common brotherhood and natural equality of men. In other words, a slave who exercised the virtue of submission towards his master, and the master who exercised mercy and patience towards his slave, exhibited the virtue of godly excellence. This teaching specifying the moral duties of both slaves and masters towards each other was perhaps a divine anticipation for a future appropriation of a fuller justice in which practical equality and liberty among men was to be realised.

The Church existed in these eras duringwhich slavery was an incorporated reality of society. It was unlikely that any sort of outright reproach against the practice of slavery would have yielded much good. But she did bring about a code of conduct regulating the duties of slaves and masters within the given societal framework of the day. Before the Church spoke up for the abolishment and immorality of slavery, she first conscientised the slaves and qualified them for the enjoyment of their natural rights. This act of qualifying the enslaved for the enjoyment of their intrinsic freedom was as crucial as the subsequent act of abolishing slavery. The enslaved had to be prepared for the enjoyment of freedom, and the masters had to be prepared to grant it to them at the appointed time.

Thus, the wise manner in which the Church handled this situation, even if only providentially, was to be observed in how she regulated the conduct of master and slave as a matter of church discipline in the light of their common relations to the Church. She prescribed duties to each and exacted obedience in ways which would give rise to the preparation of each for the subsequent condemnation of slavery.

Obviously, the Church has shown herself to have moved on since then. And this is perhaps how we may best understand the seeming change in the Church’s teaching on slavery, that she has grown into a fuller recognition and understanding of God’s revelation in Christ rather than that she has changed her mind. Slavery is now no longer perceived merely from the perspective of a social norm or a legitimate trade, but more so from the perspective of intrinsic human dignity which is to be accorded without prejudice to any man.

One final note: Let us remember also that the Catholic Church does not stand alone in having seemingly “condoned” the practice of slavery for centuries. Together with her were also the rest of the churches and ecclesial communities. But the Catholic Church is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church that has today emerged with an officially carved position in outright condemnation of slavery.

Of all this, something of the divine must be acknowledged. The song Wade in the Water could have been providentially prophetic when they sang:

Wade in the water;
Wade in the water, children.
Wade in the water;
God's gonna trouble the water.

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The Trinity and Community


Sherman Kuek, SFO
Published in Catholic Asian News
(February 2009 Issue)

Far from existing in an emptiness which led God to create humanity, in all eternity, before time and space existed, before all creation and matter came into being, the three members of the Trinity had existed in a kind of eternal relationship. This relationship was so all-encompassing and all-fulfilling that it needed nothing to further complete it.

On the contrary to creation being God’s avenue for the completion of that relationship, creation was actually the result of that relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That relationship was most eloquently described through the words Christ used when he spoke to His Father about those who had followed Him:

I pray not only for these but also for those who through their teaching will come to believe in me. May they all be one, just as, Father, you are in me and I am in you, so that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me. I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we are one. With me in them and you in me, may they be so perfected in unity that the world will recognise that it was you who sent me and that you have loved them as you have loved me... I have made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and so that I may be in them.

John 17:20-23, 26
New Jerusalem Bible

Surely these words sound strange, unless there was a way of understanding - although not in its fullness - what kind of relationship this was.

In the mid seventh century, John of Damascus, in his work De fide orthodoxa (“On the orthodox faith”), used the Greek word perichoresis to provide clarity to our understanding of this relationship shared among the members of the Trinity. This term was first used by Gregory of Nazianzus, but was subsequently used in greater detail by John of Damascus. It has two indications regarding the interrelation of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The first indication of perichoresis is “to contain” or “to penetrate”. This implies that the three persons of the Trinity are to be described as mutually "indwelling," "permeating," or "interpenetrating" one another. Although each member of the Trinity is a whole unique “other”, their unity is so deep that they can each be found in the other as well. There is nothing that any one member of the Trinity would do that would contradict the others. In human terms, we can say that their interpenetration means they are so intertwined that they function in a profound like-mindedness and like-heartedness and share the exact same desires.

The second indication of perichoresis is “to dance around”. Again, this is a metaphor describing the nature of the relationship shared among the Trinitarian members. This even more vividly describes the manner in which the Father, Son and Holy Spirit relate with one another. They do not just live in interpenetration, but also are so thoroughly coordinated with one another and so complementary of one another that their manner of living becomes a “dance of life”.

In the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father, the Father gives of Himself to the Son. Likewise in the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, the Son gives of Himself to the Father. Through the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son exist in a relationship of intimate love and the mutual giving of themselves to each other.

Their being with one another and working out a common desire together is not done clumsily, but rather, in a most gracefully artistic manner. The life of the Trinity is a masterpiece, the Art of arts. All that is beautiful flows from this perichoretic existence of the Trinitarian God.

There are three very critical points pertinent to this understanding of the Trinity:

I. The unity of the Church is based on the perichoresis of the Trinity.
The Church is not merely a human entity; it is also divine, because Christ is her Head. With Christ as the head, it means that the Trinity is the very foundational basis of the Church.

Just as perichoresis means that the Father and the Son enter into each other, infuse each other, dwell in each other, and are always one in the intimacy of their fellowship, this quality is also supposed to be typically characteristic of the community called “the Church”.

Our profound unity as members of the Church does not stem from our getting along well with one another or from the fact that we like one another enough to be seen together. Our profound unity is found in the reality that the very Spirit Who is the bond of love between the Father and the Son is also the very Spirit Who lives in us.

Because the Holy Spirit lives in us, we too now exist in this perichoresis with God and with one another. Believe it or not, it really has nothing to do with how we feel about one another!

II. The Church is not just trying to be a copy or a “reflection in the water” of the perichoresis. She is a real partner in this divine dance of life.
As is obvious by now, God did not just model the perichoretic life for us and then told us to mimic it so that our life in community looks like His. Much more than that, He has actually brought us into His own life so that we become the human partners of the divine life that is taking place in the Trinity.

The Church is more than a mere sociological construct or a community of human beings trying to project the Trinitarian characteristics of God. She is a part of the Trinitarian life.

We are given the privilege of participating in the life of the eternal Trinity. And together with this privilege also comes the responsibility to do so. It is for this very reason that the Church in Peninsular Malaysia embraces for herself the vision of being rooted in the communion of the Trinity.

III. This perichoresis in the Church is the basis of her mission in the world.
At the same time, this being rooted in the communion of the Trinity cannot remain an abstract concept. It must be embodied in a most visible way, for it is the visibility of this perichoretic life that attests to the presence of the Trinity among us. Hence, the Church in Peninsular Malaysia has deemed it fit that our witness to this reality of the Trinity should be made visible through our lives in the Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs).

This prospect of embodying perichoresis in our BECs may not seem very appetising for some of us, surely. Admittedly, living the perichoretic life as God’s people is no easy feat. There are always people in the Church, especially those in our own parishes and our own BECs whom we find intolerable, unbecoming, and unworthy to be in intimate communion with us.

But this is precisely where the challenge lies for us who are called into the perichoretic life. We need to deliberately learn to live lives that are vulnerable, which permit for us to be deeply formed and affected by the lives of others around us in the Church. It is in such perichoretic communion that our identities as people of God become visible and the mission of the Church comes alive.

The call to live in perichoresis is the call to do the dance of life with the Trinity and with our fellow brothers and sisters in the faith. It is the call to embody a life of communion in a most beautifully artistic way. Difficult though it may be, it is a most sacred call into a sacred communion of the sacred Church.

Shall we dance?

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Attempting to Understand the Holy Trinity


Sherman Kuek, SFO
Published in Catholic Asian News
(February 2009 Issue)

The word “Trinity”, like a number of other words commonly employed by the Christian community, cannot be found in Sacred Scripture. However, the dogma itself was formulated as intellectual but devout minds studied and discovered it in Scripture. All throughout the centuries, the followers of Jesus Christ have never flinched from the use of this term even when it caused them to become objects of ridicule and scathing criticism by wider society.

To this day, the dogma on the Trinity remains a distinctively Christian doctrine. And still, it often seems like a self-contradicting doctrine to many. How do we intellectually justify that “God is one, and yet there are three who are God”? The seeming “mathematical dilemma” posed by this dogma of the Church may never have a terminal solution to it, especially if it continues being examined from a numerical perspective. But as we explore Sacred Scripture, it is evident how God reveals Himself to be one God and yet three persons.

Lest anyone should think that Christians worship three gods, we find that Scripture defends the oneness of God. The adamant proclamation in Deuteronomy 6:4-6 of the Old Testament (also known to the Jews as the Shema) reads as follows: “Listen, Israel: Yahweh our God is the one, the only Yahweh. You must love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. Let the words I enjoin on you today stay in your heart”.

This resolute proclamation from Deuteronomy finds agreement in the New Testament as well. James 2:19 says to his readers, “You believe in the one God - that is creditable enough...” St Paul similarly instructs in 1 Corinthians 8:4-6, “...there is no God other than the One... for us there is only one God, the Father from whom all things come and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things come and through whom we exist”. Likewise, in 1 Timothy 2:5-6, we are told, “For there is only one God...”

Evidently, monotheism (i.e., the belief in the oneness of God) is deeply implanted in the Christian faith, although we are frequently being misunderstood by some people of other religions.

But perhaps this misconception on the part of our other neighbours stems from the fact that Scripture somehow refers to more than just God the Father, and describes two other persons through implicit or explicit reference, implying that they are somehow part of the “Godhead”.

For instance, in the gospels of Matthew (26:63-65) John (19:7), Jesus came as close as He ever did to affirming His own deity. If He truly did not regard himself as God, this would have been a splendid opportunity to correct a mistaken impression, but He did not do so. Furthermore, in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 and 6:19-20, St Paul, in asserting that our bodies are the temple of God, seems to use the terms “Holy Spirit” and “God” interchangeably.

As if the above descriptions are not already baffling enough, the Trinitarian formulation does not end here! Scripture also describes a kind of a relationship between the three persons, as if they exist in some inexplicable state of profound unity.

This can be seen in the baptismal formula given by Jesus to the Apostles in Matthew 28:19: “Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit...” This threefold formula is also used by St Paul in 2 Corinthians 13:14: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all”.

Scripture seems to be revealing that all three - Father, Son and HS are equally and fully divine, that none of them is “more God” than the other two. They have always been three persons and there has never been any alteration in the nature of the triune God.

Thus, in our own feeble and utterly limited way, we can conclude that the being of God is so complex that any attempt to describe him must defy grammatical conventions - One are three, and three is God. Beyond that, no other attempts to explicate this dogma can ever adequately reflect who the Trinitarian God is.

Admittedly, the Trinity is a doctrine that is hard to defend. It is a doctrine that has at times made the Church a laughing stock of the religious world because it defies a very fundamental law of the human intellect, i.e. the law of logic.

Without the doctrine of the Trinity, it would have been much easier for many intellects to have embraced the Christians faith. And yet, despite many accusations and sustained mockery, the Church refuses to budge from this doctrine. Rather, we even persist in our efforts to defend this dogma. Early Church Fathers like Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, and Augustine sought to defend the Trinitarian teaching with all their might.

Irenaeus, in defending the dogma, states:

For the Church, although dispersed throughout the whole world even to the ends of the earth, has received from the Apostles and from their disciples the faith in one God, the Father Almighty ...and in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became flesh for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit. (Against Heresies, 1:10:1)

His defence finds concurrence in Tertullian’s statement on the faith of the Church:

We do indeed believe that there is only one God, but we believe that under this dispensation, or, as we say, oikonomia, there is also a Son of this one only God, His Word, who proceeded from Him and through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made. . . . We believe He was sent down by the Father, in accord with His own promise, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father and the Son, and in the Holy Spirit... This rule of faith has been present since the beginning of the gospel, before even the earlier heretics. (Against Praxeas, 2)

Why such adamant defence? It is because Holy Mother Church recognises that the doctrine of the Trinity is not humanly constructed or ingeniously crafted by the human intellect. It is a doctrine that is uniquely and divinely revealed by God, through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, and particularly through the sending of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit who works among us and lives in us today.

A Christian believer once replied the following to an atheist who challenged him regarding the necessity of such a dogma: “Try to explain it, and you may lose your mind; but try to deny it, and you will lose your soul”.

In the final analysis, the most realistic reason for our not being able to fully explain the Trinity is that He is nothing less than God. But He has revealed Himself enough for us to know that the God we worship is a Trinity. This is a precious truth that we should jealously guard until we meet the Trinity face to face.

And so, with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, and with the Church on earth, we can pray as St Augustine has prayed:

O Lord our God, we believe in You, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For the Truth would not say, “Go, baptise all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”, unless You were a Trinity. Nor would You, O Lord God, bid us to be baptised in the name of Him who is not the Lord God. Nor would the divine voice have said, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God”, unless You were so a Trinity as to be one Lord God. (De Trinitate, 15:28)

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

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My alma mater

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Our understanding of the nature of theology will affect our understanding of the nature of dialogue. And our understanding of the nature of dialogue will affect the manner in which we choose to dialogue with other religions / worldviews / value systems.

I think Liberation Theology must go back to examine its understanding of the nature of theology before it realises it has gone too far in its dialogue with other religions / worldviews / value systems. Dialogue should not be about negotiating compromises. When one’s faith distinctives have to be compromised in the course of dialogue, then the act of dialogue itself is rendered redundant.

Liberation Theology also needs to understand that just because people do not agree with its brand of liberation does not mean that people have no concern for the oppressed and the marginalised.

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Christian Identification with Immigrants


Sherman Kuek, SFO
Published in Catholic Asian News
(December 2008 / January 2009 Issue)

“...[F]or you yourselves were once aliens in Egypt” (Leviticus 19.34).

This was God’s justification to Israel for why they were obligated to accord alien residents in their midst with dignity equal to their own (Leviticus 19.33-34). For they, like the current alien residents living in their midst, were once aliens in somebody else’s land.

But now that they had been delivered from the horrors of several hundred years of sojourn in Egypt, God knew that they could all too easily forget the centuries of torment and oppression they had suffered under the hands of the Egyptians. Israel was, after all, a rather forgetful people. And if they had forgotten that they too were once aliens – pendatang – they would eventually forget to treat aliens in their midst in the way they themselves had desired to be treated in the land of Egypt.

For this reason, when God was educating these previously enslaved people on how they were to live as a free people in the wilderness under His divine tutelage, He also reminded them to be utterly kind to the aliens in their midst, “for you yourselves were once aliens in Egypt”. More than just being superficially kind to them, Israel was required to treat aliens in their midst as though they were one of them, “native-born”, equally loved as the Israelites themselves.

This faith of the Israelites formed the roots from whence came the Christian faith. And hence, just as they were called to remember, so are we. We are required to call to mind the historical realities of our identity as a People of God that our faith is a faith of immigrants. It is a faith of a delivered people.

If God had not delivered us from our sins, we would not have become a people properly belonging to Him. But just as this deliverance would have been extremely difficult for later generations of Israelites to remember, let alone identify with, it is also something difficult for many second-, third-, and fourth-generation Christians to remember. And without this remembrance, obedience to God’s commands may appear “senseless” at some point.

So we are told to remember that the Christian faith – salvation history – is one that is fraught with various events of immigrations; some forced, others voluntary, and yet others divinely instructed. These immigrations very often took place with the Israelites as refugees fleeing either famine, enslavement, or slaughter. And because our faith is a faith of immigrants, God deems it fit that we should know how to treat aliens in our midst. All aliens are to be treated not as pendatang (aliens), but as orang asal (native-born); because we too come from a religious lineage of pendatang, but were delivered by a God who had saved us and given us birth-rights equivalent to that of the orang asal.

But there is another sense in which we are still called to be aliens. We are told in the New Testament that we still have not arrived at where we truly belong, that we are still “aliens and strangers” in this foreign land that we call the world (1 Peter 2.11).

Of course, some of us are so rooted in the scheme of life in this world that our way of life does not even remotely resemble the life of “aliens”. We look just like any other resident of the world, other than that we are regular participants at the weekly Masses in our parishes. Once again, we are asked to call to mind our real identities – we came from a spiritual lineage of immigrants, and we are still asked to live our lives in this present world order as immigrants because we do not belong here.

It is such a struggle having to live as spiritual immigrants, isn’t it?

Just as we struggle to preserve our Christian identities in a world which threatens to erode every fabric of our faith, we are called to identify with the painful struggles of immigrants who endeavour to sustain their identities in a society which threatens to obliterate their unique ethnicities by failing to honour their uniqueness. Just as we strive to uphold Christian values in a world that jeopardises our morality, we are called to identify with their intense battles to secure their traditional values in an unfamiliar environment that seems to propagate otherwise.

As people of an immigrant faith, sojourners and aliens in the world, we are reminded to look forward to a future “destination” where we can one day exist in full union with God. Similarly, the immigrants around us have a vision of a desired future “destination” (strangely, many have seemed to indicate that this future destination is called “America”, the land of opportunities!) Even if we may hold that this notion is misperceived, there is a point at which we can identify with their aspirations for a better future. The sense of being on a dynamic journey towards a desired future is something we can connect with.

But just as we are prone to forgetting our imminent future because of routinal distractions, the aliens in our midst too are prone to forgetting their future aspirations, especially when they have been rooted in their interim countries for too long. If we were to hang around these immigrant communities often enough, especially those of the refugees, we would probably hear them reminding one another frequently to not get overly comfortable with the way things were because there was a better future towards which they should press on. But essentially, both they and we struggle with the sense of inertia when bogged down by certain regular routines.

The Christian obligation to identify with and provide care for the aliens in our midst – in full awareness of its accompanying risks – does not stem from a notion of exhibiting a simplistic “Christian niceness”. This obligation is rooted in the reality of God’s love for all humanity, even (or rather, especially) for the outcasts, aliens and strangers. For this reason, a serious assessment of Scriptural evidence regarding aliens and strangers consistently points to the need for a compassionate response from the Christian community.

If we were to take the time to reflect further on this issue, we would certainly discover more points of convergence between the Christian experience of sojourning in this world as “strangers and aliens” and the immigrant experience of subsisting in foreign land. And that would perhaps help us to recover God’s call for us to “treat resident aliens as though they were native-born and love them as [ourselves]” (Leviticus 19.34).

For at the heart of the matter, as we should have come to realise by now, we ourselves are not very much different after all.

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The Church's Teaching on Human Dignity


Sherman Kuek, SFO
Published in Catholic Asian News
(December 2008 / January 2009 Issue)

The dignity of the human person forms the most basic premise of the Church’s social teaching. It is the key which unlocks what has come to be known as the Church’s “best kept secret” or “buried treasure”.

The Church, having a moral vision for society, has deemed it fit to begin her teaching with an affirmation of the sanctity of human life and the dignity of the human person. The human person is invariably the concentration point of the Church’s social vision.

Accordingly, therefore, human persons are endowed with an inherent dignity which entails certain basic rights and responsibilities to be exercised within a social framework. Every person possesses a fundamental dignity that comes from God, not from any human quality or accomplishment, not from race or gender, age or economic status.

The “link of being” between God and humanity was rendered even more pronounced when God became flesh by entering the human race in the person of Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man. The God-Man - the Christ - challenges us to see His presence in all humanity. More than that, he confronts humanity with the need to see His presence in our neighbours, especially those who suffer or who lack the things that are crucial to their human development.

Identifying with the sufferings of our fellow neighbours and endeavouring to relieve their sufferings and to meet their needs, in Jesus’ own assessment, tantamount to serving Him (Matthew 25:34-40). For the Christian, there is no more honourable privilege and duty.

Any human society, if it is to be well-ordered and productive, must lay down as a foundation this principle, namely, that every human being is a person, that is, his nature is endowed with intelligence and free will. Indeed, precisely because he is a person he has rights and obligations flowing directly and simultaneously from his very nature. (Pacem In Terris, 1963, #9)

... there is a growing awareness of the exalted dignity proper to the human person, since he stands above all things, and his rights and duties are universal and inviolable. Therefore, there must be made available to all men everything necessary for leading a life truly human, such as food, clothing, and shelter; the right to choose a state of life freely and to found a family, the right to education, to employment, to a good reputation, to respect, to appropriate information, to activity in accord with the upright norm of one's own conscience, to protection of privacy and rightful freedom, even in matters religious. (Gaudium et Spes, 1965, #26)

... this Council lays stress on reverence for the human person; everyone must consider one's every neighbour without exception as another self, taking into account first of all life and the means necessary to living it with dignity, so as not to imitate the rich man who had no concern for the poor man Lazarus. (Gaudium et Spes, 1965, #27)

... Whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practise them than those who suffer from the injury. (Gaudium et Spes, 1965, #27)

At the centre of all Catholic social teaching are the transcendence of God and the dignity of the human person. The human person is the clearest reflection of God's presence in the world; all of the Church's work in pursuit of both justice and peace is designed to protect and promote the dignity of every person. For each person not only reflects God, but is the expression of God's creative work and the meaning of Christ's redemptive ministry. (The Challenge of Peace, 1983, #15)

Every perspective on economic life that is human, moral, and Christian must be shaped by three questions: What does the economy do for people? What does it do to people? And how do people participate in it? (Economic Justice for All, 1986, #1)

The basis for all that the Church believes about the moral dimensions of economic life is its vision of the transcendent worth - the sacredness - of human beings. The dignity of the human person, realised in community with others, is the criterion against which all aspects of economic life must be measured. All human beings, therefore, are ends to be served by the institutions that make up the economy, not means to be exploited for more narrowly defined goals. Human personhood must be respected with a reverence that is religious. When we deal with each other, we should do so with the sense of awe that arises in the presence of something holy and sacred. For that is what human beings are: we are created in the image of God. (Economic Justice for All, 1986, #28)

Human persons are willed by God; they are imprinted with God's image. Their dignity does not come from the work they do, but from the persons they are. (Centesimus Annus, 1991, #11)

The dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the image and likeness of God... (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1992, #1700)

Christ is "the image of the invisible God" in whose image humanity is created. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1992, #1701)

The Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office notes that “the tragic plight of refugees, while not new, has reached unprecedented levels in recent times as massive political and social upheavals, wars and internal conflicts continue around the world, forcing people to migrate and to seek asylum in countries other than their own”. This apt observation implies that the numbers of migrants and refugees in our midst will only increase in time to come. Compounding this problem is the reality that many of these will be present in our countries with no legal status and therefore no entitlements.

In our assessment of social policies pertaining to such migrants and refugees, among other policies, the test of every institution or enactment lies in its priority of human dignity, namely, whether it enhances or threatens human dignity and human life itself. Policies which consider people no more than mere economic units, or those which reduce people to a passive state of dependency on welfare, do not do justice to the dignity of the human person.

This teaching rests on one basic principle: individual human beings are the foundation, the cause and the end of every social institution. That is necessarily so, for men are by nature social beings. (Mater et Magistra, 1961, #219)

How all these considerations are translated into tangible endeavours on the parts of the Church and society in upholding and sustaining the dignity of the migrants and refugees in our midst remains a work in progress.

One immediate issue plaguing the migrants and refugees is, of course, that of work and subsistence. It has always been taught in the Christian Tradition that one’s vocation is fundamental to what it means to be human. And if this is indeed so, then perhaps active efforts for the provision of vocational training is necessary in collaboration with non-governmental agencies in order to promote their dignity by way of vocational equipment.

Together with that, their rights to be treated human by employers is another major factor to be addressed, especially in situations where no legislative enforcements assure the wellbeing of migrant workers. Such would include adequate medical attention, reasonable living conditions, and humane working hours.

Inasmuch as the teaching of the Church in issues of human dignity is comprehensive, the translation of her teaching into tangible solutions for the predicament of migrants and refugees is also a substantially comprehensive plan which requires long-term strategies and collaborative planning. Where the latter does not happen, the teachings of the Church might continue remaining etched in ecclesial documents as the Church’s best kept secret.

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In two days' time, I will be delivering a talk at the National University of Singapore. Interestingly, this talk was organised by the Religion Cluster of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

This has got me thinking about the relationship between Sociology and Theology. Being involved in the field of Theology, it's common for us to consider our relationship with Sociology, but from the primary perspective of Theology. Perhaps it is also appropriate that we now consider the relationship between Theology and Sociology, but this time from the primary perspective of Sociology.

Sociology has a particular way of studying religion, and it is called the Sociology of Religion. It seeks to understand the role of religion in society and how people make meaning of life through religion.

I would like to posit that Sociology's assessment of religion is possibly less accurate if it seeks to study the role of religion dispassionately without taking into serious consideration the confessional claims of religion, i.e. Theology. Beyond Sociology's own assessment of religion and its social role, it is more crucial for Sociology to understand how religion defines its own role in society - this will certainly provide for a more realistic definition of religion and religiosity.

Of course, the Sociological community would examine confessional statements of religious communities in different light as compared to the Theological community itself. That is a given that must be accepted by virtue of the sheer nature of Sociology itself. But yet, I am also suggesting that the Sociological community would benefit from attempts to study and understand religious claims on the terms of the religious communities themselves. In this instance, acceptance and agreement are not as crucial as understanding is.

Sociological realities are studied based on a premise of objectivity, observation from a "healthy" distance. But I am challenging this premise. I am suggesting that sociological realities - and in this instance, religious realities - are better understood when studied from the positions of the people's convictions, practices, values, and passions. Only then will the meanings held by the religious people be understood by the Sociological community; not perfectly, but perhaps less inaccurately.

I think that in listening to the confessional claims of people like me from the confessional religious community, the National University of Singapore has got it right. It is not just a gracious gesture of academic humility but also an apt Sociological position to take in the academic community's endeavour to understand religion in society.

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Sherman Kuek
Published in Catholic Asian News (November 2008 Issue)

In the 2000-year life of the Christian faith, the Church has engaged in a great multitude of educational efforts. Taking the context of the West, the Church’s involvement in education is observable from ancient schools of rhetoric to the tertiary academic institutions of the High Middle Ages, from the elementary rudiments of grammar schooling to the sophistications of philosophical and scientific thought. Through these multiple levels and layers of education and human reasoning, she has been there.

True to the observation of the Pope John Paul II that a number of significant Catholic academic institutions grew ex corde ecclesiae (“out of the heart of the Church”), the great European universities such as Oxford, Louvain, Paris, Bologna, Prague and Padua arose from a Christian West. However, Western Catholic theological academia has perennially existed in a state of tension between faith and reason - between the search for logical truth and the fervour for divinely revealed truth - as if the two stood in contradiction to each other.

I firmly embrace and retain each and every thing which has been proposed by the Church regarding the teaching of faith and morals, whether defined by solemn judgment or asserted and declared by the ordinary Magisterium, especially those things which concern the mystery of the Holy Church of Christ and its sacraments and the sacrifice of the Mass and the primacy of the Roman Pontiff.

Evidently, the conventional oath emphasised the creedal aspects of the Catholic faith. However, at the dawn of this new announcement, the newly sanctioned oath replaced the old formula with three comprehensive statements:

With firm faith I believe as well everything contained in God’s word, written or handed down in tradition and proposed by the Church - whether in solemn judgment or in the ordinary and universal Magisterium as divinely revealed and calling for faith.

I also firmly accept and hold each and every thing that is proposed by that same Church definitively with regard to teaching concerning faith and morals.

What is more, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the college of bishops enunciate when they exercise the authentic magisterium even if they proclaim those teachings in an act that is not definitive.

This change was in all probability a response to the Vatican’s fear at the way in which many Western Catholic theological institutions were becoming increasingly secular in character. The past recent decades has witnessed a number of Western Catholic theologians either being formally censured (having their teaching licences revoked and removing their rights to be presented as “Catholic theologians”) or at least being perceived as dissident voices in the Catholic Church. The Vatican continues to monitor the movements of theological thought that flow from the Church’s theologians.

Surely and unsurprisingly, such an act of theological policing is construed by dissidents as an obsession with control on the part of the Church hierarchy. Cardinal Ratzinger’s policing activity while he was Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith had earned him the infamous title of “the Grand Inquisitor”. These dissident voices wavered with apprehension at their prospects for survival when Cardinal Ratzinger was subsequently elected as Pope Benedict XVI in April 2005.

Is he truly the power hungry control freak many dissident voices have made him out to be? Is his conservatism so acute that he would not allow for any freedom of theological exploration which might jeopardise the stability of the Church hierarchy? For a theologian so astute and thus widely published, it would seem strange for such accusations to ring true regarding the Holy Father’s own paradigm of theology and scholarship.

According to the Pope Benedict XVI, if theology “was [merely] a systematic reflection about questions of religion, about the relationship between man and God”, then it would constitute nothing more than a “science of religion”. Essentially, theology is a field of study that deals with truth that is “greater than our own thought”. The route of theology must therefore be characterised by the formulae fides quaerens intellectum (“faith seeking understanding”) and credo ut intellegam (“I believe in order that I may understand”).

Theology speaks of the work of God in bringing the human mind to grasp truths that are beyond its own initial capacity. It is about God helping the human mind to transcend itself and to recognise realities that are beyond its own powers to understand, let alone grasp in totality.

However, this does not exclude the role of human reason. Faith and reason can coexist, but not in the order prescribed by the rationalistic mind. For the Christian mind, faith precedes reason. Yet, the content of faith is never hollow or shallow, for this faith shall always be found rational, although the former is not on any account contingent upon the latter. Faith precedes reason and seeks to help reason to understand.

The Church does not advance a bias against the interest of academic freedom. In fact, academic freedom is so deeply valued that the Church seeks to ensure that ultimate truth must be recognised in the process of this search. Although the pursuit of scientific and logical findings and the recognition of divinely revealed truth both possess discovery methods that are autonomous from each other, both fields of truth discovery find their existence in the same Source. This means that both cannot contradict each other; there is a point at which both faith and reason must converge to reveal the greater reality.

This also means that academic freedom cannot be exalted at the expense of divine revelation. There must be symbiotic relationship that exists between the two dimensions of inquiry. On the one hand, freedom needs faith to be its guiding light and its safeguard, in order that the authenticity of this freedom may always be preserved. On the other hand, the recognition of divinely revealed truth must be explicated and deepened through the exercise of reason. To be truly free is to be truly open to both these dimensions of divine and reasoned truth. In this sense, faith is the guarantee of the authentic freedom so desired by reason. “There can be no reason apart from or in opposition to the truth...” (Veritatis splendor, 96). When either one of these two orders seek to function apart from each other, there is an absence of authentic freedom or real openness.

When academic freedom leads to a contradiction of the faith proclaimed by the Church, it compromises its own virtue of true freedom. True academic freedom implies even a willingness “to speak uncomfortable truths which do not please public opinion” but, nevertheless, are “necessary” in order “to safeguard the authentic good of society” (Ex Corde Ecclesiae, 32). If academic theology becomes a pathetic imitation of secular inquiry prevalent in many academic institutions and sacrifices the integrity of divine revelation, it loses its prophetic power in a world that exalts the infallibility of human reason, which is itself an unsustainable notion.

Actually, the common assumption that even secular intellectual life does not operate within certain boundaries constitutes a fallacy. Every intellectual community is regulated by its own rules of research and discovery. Theological thinkers should not be ashamed of the fact that theology itself is regulated by its own unique rules of engagement as set out by the community of faith; what more when it speaks of divinely revealed truth.

Perhaps the tension between faith and reason - and its profound implication upon the much treasured academic freedom - is best explained by the Holy Father himself in his statement regarding the Magisterium of the Church: “The Magisterium, rightly understood, is a humble service that makes possible true theology”.

The policing activity of the Vatican, together with its censure of dissident theological voices in the Church, is on all accounts a most sacred duty that exists to preserve the integrity of both faith and reason. Only then is authentic academic freedom upheld.

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Sherman Kuek
Published in Catholic Asian News (October 2008 Issue)

At the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, the council fathers highlighted the divinely endowed role of women in society which urgently summoned the attention of womenfolk:

The hour is coming, in fact, has come, when the vocation of woman is being acknowledged in its fullness, the hour in which women acquire in the world an influence, an effect and a power never hitherto achieved. That is why, at this moment when the human race is undergoing so deep a transformation, women impregnated with a spirit of the Gospel can do so much to aid humanity in not falling.

(The Council's Message to Women, 08 December 1965)

This statement marked the call for women to rise up as guiding forces in a modern society characterised by decadence in various aspects of life. It was a most natural result of the inherent and alienable dignity of women being recognised by the council fathers.

The inherent value and dignity of the woman is implied from the intrinsic value of every human being (CCC 1928-1938). Sacred Scripture writes, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Men alone do not reflect the glory of humanity in its fullness. In accordance with God’s scheme of creation, it is the complementarity of both sexes together that brings about the more complete reflection of God’s own image.

Based on such universal human rights that emanate from the Christian understanding of personhood, the Holy Father John Paul II spoke of a “Christian feminism” which he deemed necessary for the exposure of the fuller truth about women. He affirmed the vitality of women’s presence in all aspects of social life. In relation to that, he defended the dignity of their being: their skill, their professionalism, their intellectual abilities, their deep sensitivity, among many other admirable qualities inherent to the person of the woman.

Evidently, the Church of this century has affirmed the role of women in an unprecedented way. Like never before, the equal dignity of women is defended as an intrinsic right that is divinely endowed, and which no other person has the right to take away.

However, whilst propelling the Church to examine the human historical past with courage, it must be noted that the kind of feminism John Paul II spoke of took a rather different shape in comparison with the kind of feminism found in many sociological movements today (and which, very sadly, has also pervaded the Church).

In accordance with the teachings of the Church, authentic feminism is that of women finding the “entire meaning of their femininity and thus [being] disposed to making a ‘sincere gift of self’ to others, thereby finding themselves” (Mulieris Dignitatem, 15 August 1988). It is only in this sense that a woman can be said to be “acting freely”.

As most women themselves point out, equality of dignity should not be taken as a synonym for "sameness with men". Such an understanding would merely impoverish women and greater society by distorting or compromising the unique wealth and intrinsic value of femininity (Letter of John Paul II to Mrs Gertrude Mongella, 26 May 1995).

On this note, one may observe that certain factions of feminists in society tend to exhibit rather disturbing inclinations. For example, some feminists implicitly imply that the acknowledgement of women’s equality involves the trivialising of manhood. The undertones of their verbal expressions can be very telling of a “who-needs-men” attitude.

Mrsg Celestino Migliore, in his address to the United Nations on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women on 08 March 2007, cites an example of how this has happened in the past. He describes the antagonistic approach taken by some feminists in defending the rights of women, which “exalts opposition” between men and women, rather than giving rise to “mutual respect and recognition of the identity and the role of one towards the other”.

Another pertinent example would be that of battling for the right to do just about anything that men do. Because it is alleged that history and culture have been perpetrators of the supposed inferiority of womenfolk, a great number of women are now attempting to reverse such roles by demonstrating that women too can very proficiently undertake the roles that are commonly attributed to men. Whilst this is warranted to a certain degree, when the traditional roles of say, motherhood, have to give way to a newfound “manhood”, society further breaks down.

True, it was said by John Paul II that cultural conditioning had been instrumental in women’s roles being “relegated to the margins of society and even reduced to servitude” (Letter of Pope John Paul II to Women). This reality indeed warranted a new effort for the restoration of women’s dignity, to be sure.

But in the same breath, one must take heed of Mrsg Celestino Migliore’s exhortation that “equality goes hand in hand with and does not endanger, much less contradict, the recognition of both the difference and complementarity between men and women”. Whilst the Church affirms that women can and should become actively involved in all areas of public life, it also defends the traditional roles of women which constitute the most intrinsic meaning of what “womanhood” means in accordance with God’s divine design.

A truly Christian feminism means affirming that men and women are equal, both sexes created by God in His image, each having distinct but complementary gifts and attributes. It also means affirming that the social and ecclesial roles of women and men must conform to the natural law and the Divine Plan for mankind. Mulieris Dignitatem instructs, “In the name of liberation from male 'domination', women must not appropriate to themselves male characteristics contrary to their own feminine 'originality'”.

Some women choose to embody their womanhood through undivided devotion towards the raising of children and caring for the home as a fulltime vocation. But by the standards of many feminists, even the voluntary embrace of such traditional roles is denigrated. Such women, by their standards, are unenlightened prisoners of cultural conditioning.

The pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm proclaimed: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”, a statement that ended up being the famous slogan of Animalism. It seemed that they had rallied to establish a form of government which officially ratified the absolute equality of all people but in reality endowed extra privileges to an elite minority.

This scenario, even if originally written in satirical reaction to Soviet totalitarianism, serves as a reminder to us that our endeavours for equality in the Church and society, and battles on behalf of a people once downtrodden, must never give rise to the emergence of a new form of elitism. Were such a scenario to occur, the creation of an elite minority would be accompanied by the actualisation of a new marginalised people; and the vicious cycle would continue endlessly.

A constant reminder that needs to always be set forth is that the endeavour for the equal dignity of women is not a battle for power or significance; it is a battle for dignity. And the battle for dignity implies that our efforts to dignify a marginalised people must not compromise the dignity of other peoples. Only then is the principle of equality truly upheld.

But to be sure, with all such issues placed in appropriate perspective, affirmation of the equal dignity and significance of women in society emphatically resounds from the voice of the Church. Pope Paul VI, in an exhortation to women, said:

You women have always had as your lot the protection of the home.... You are present in the mystery of a life beginning. You offer consolation in the departure of death. Our technology runs the risk of becoming inhuman. Reconcile men with life, and above all, we beseech you, watch carefully over the future of the race. Hold back the hand of man, who in a moment of folly might attempt to destroy civilisation. Women of the entire universe, whether Christian or non-believing - you to whom life is entrusted at this grave moment in history, it is for you to save the peace of the world.

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The Christian churches in Asia are witnessing an increasing growth in numbers. More than that, they are witnessing an increasingly educated Christian population, consisting of people who possess post-secondary and university qualifications. In a place like Malaysia, especially in the larger cities, this has become a somewhat normative reflection of the average church member.

Thus, the Christian minister in urban Malaysia is not excluded from the pressure to flaunt his academic competence. David F. Wells notes that this pressure stems from the manner in which the minister’s identity is often “strangely dislodged from both the church and society”.

They find themselves truly fitting neither the wider societal ethos nor that of their congregations (for the congregations consist of people from the secular marketplace anyway). And since the average member in the congregation sits well in the middle-class category of the wider society and possesses at least one or two university degrees in his field of expertise, ministers too experience an increasing psychological need to be perceived as occupying a highly specialised profession just so they “belong”.

In accordance with this, they seem to be increasingly keen in upgrading their academic statures. Wells identifies the Doctor of Ministry degree as the very instrument exploited for this purpose. The craving for social identity has apparently pandered to the acquisition of academic qualifications in as short a chronological duration as possible.

Whilst the potential practical value of a Doctor of Ministry degree should not be mindlessly dismissed, swift and relatively easy acquisition may often be the very spirit that underlies the pursuit and conferment of relatively quick degrees like the Doctor of Ministry degree.

Together with the acquisition of deeper knowledge that will eventually benefit the life of the Christian community, an unhealthy inclination to hoard higher degrees is also exhibited. Wells argues that the Doctor of Ministry degree represents the professionalisation of Christian ministry, which results in the infiltration of the church with a certain modern culture which is at odds with the culture of Christ. It is, he contends, little more than a manifestation of the Christian minister’s insecurity at having been rendered irrelevant in a secular culture which attaches no meaning and significance to his vocation.

It is no wonder that the Doctor of Ministry degree has now become a “lucrative product to sell” for the seminary. For this reason, increasing numbers of seminaries are beginning to put out Doctor of Ministry degrees for sale. Malaysia has recently joined the bandwagon too. As compensation for their lack of academic rigour, these degrees are called "professional degrees". The cheaper and the faster, the better.

Adam Walker Cleaveland, who studied in Princeton Theological Seminary, comments:

I know that during my first year at Princeton, as some of us were beginning to feel the intensity of the academic pressure and others were fearing they’d never get into a Ph.D program - there were those who’d smile and say, “D.Min baby - go for the D.Min.”

The owner of another weblog called The Cutting Truth, enunciates this cutting truth about the D.Min degree:

Seminaries are all too happy. At minimal cost, the D.Min degree ushers in a wave of new students, and, more importantly, a flood of tuition money from a previously untapped demographic. It is a stroke of marketing genius, cost-saving and profit-ratcheting. Classrooms are sitting empty, just waiting to be filled at no real extra cost. All the facilities, libraries, accommodations just waiting to be filled with these newly-found students chomping at the bit to put down money. A real cash cow for the seminary. And as market-driven as a used-car dealership.

Evidently, for many seminaries, the Doctor of Ministry degree means one thing: cashflow. Keep it rolling! D.Min baby - go for the D.Min!

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Sherman Kuek
Published in Catholic Asian News (September 2008 Issue)

But more than that, this event had triggered off an increasing pressure on the Church of England to also begin consecrating women priests as bishops. As a result, its General Synod had most recently ruled in favour of the consecration of female bishops, although such consecration has yet to be practically actualised. However, at this point of time, the Anglican churches in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, among several others, have already appointed women as bishops.

The Anglican Communion does not stand alone in its ordination of women ministers. A number of other mainline Protestant denominations like the Methodists, Presbyterians, and Lutherans do so too. These mainline Protestant denominations are also joined by a host of others that practise women’s ordination.

Purportedly, the reason Jesus Christ did not ordain women as reflected in Sacred Scripture was that He was abiding by the societal norms of His day. Had Jesus been living through an age in which societal norms reflected greater appreciation of women’s dignity, He would have brought unto Himself women to partially comprise His band of Apostles. Furthermore, the magnitude of honour accorded by Him to women is held by proponents to be the legitimate reason for women’s ordination. Clearly, nothing in Jesus’ actions reflected a faintest taint of discrimination against women.

Remaining firm on what has been established by canon 1378 of the Canon Law, both he who has attempted to confer holy orders on a woman, and the woman who has attempted to receive the said sacrament, incurs in latae sententiae excommunication, reserved to the Apostolic See.

This decree is said to have been pronounced infallible in accordance with the ordinary and universal Magisterium of the Church. In resonance with this pronouncement, the teaching that the Church has no authority whatsoever to exercise a prerogative to ordain women is to be contained within the scope of the deposit of faith.

Does the Catholic Church’s refusal to ordain women truly constitute gender discrimination? Is this how the Church perceives it, that she refuses to ordain women because she thinks women are lesser in dignity and significance? It is in fact often (if not always) assumed by proponents of women’s ordination that the Church’s refusal to ordain women constitutes a marginalisation of women and giving rise to inequality.

The official and detailed position of the Church on this issue is documented in Inter insigniores (1976) and in Ordinatio sacerdotalis (1994). As far as the Church is concerned, the question of gender equality does not arise - in fact, the equal dignity of and honour for both the male and female gender is a non-negotiable given. Women are on all accounts of honour and dignity equal to men, in Christ, and this by no means contradicts the position that Christ had established a permanent norm of male priesthood.

Rather, the more pertinent issue falling within the scope of this debate is that of the historicity of the person of Jesus and His Church. Just as the first Christians believed that Jesus intended for the priesthood of the Church to consist of men, so should we. Right from the second and third centuries, any attempts to admit women into ministerial priestly functions were pronounced heretic.

The Church maintains that our Lord Jesus did not appoint female apostles, and that to do so today in compliance with resounding social pressure would constitute a departure from apostolic tradition. The appointment of women as ordinary ministers of the Church is not a prerogative that has been accorded by Jesus to the Church. Had He desired to do so, He would perhaps have best appointed His Mother to be the very first of all apostles (and the most deserving one at that!)

Further to that, the priest who acts in persona Christi (“in the person of Christ”) mirrors the image of Christ the Priest. Even if Christ’s role as mediator is not in some way related to His maleness, the historical Christ was nevertheless embodied as a man. Just as the bread and the wine which become His body is first offered up as real bread and real wine in embodiment of this historical reality, the priest standing in the person of Christ must also be an embodiment of the historical reality of the Saviour sent to the world as a man.

This does not mean that women cannot signify Christ, for all the faithful – both male and female – are one with the Church in the common priesthood of the faithful. However, the election of a ministerial priesthood points to a somewhat different consideration.

Pope Paul VI had emphatically reinforced the pronouncement of Vatican II on the absolute equality of women and men. Similarly, Pope John Paul II had repeatedly and incessantly accentuated the equality in the dignity of both women and men. His 116-page apostolic letter Mulieris dignitatem (1988), in which he delineated the dignity of women and the uniqueness of their roles, was an overt testimony to the position of honour the Church accords to women.

In his apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, the Pope John Paul II had irrevocably declared that the relegation of the priesthood to the male gender could not be construed as a lower position being accorded to women:

...the fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, received neither the mission proper to the Apostles nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that the non-admission of women to priestly ordination cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity, nor can it be construed as a discrimination against them. Rather, it is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed to the Wisdom of the Lord of the Universe.

Evidently, the Church’s recognition of the equal dignity and value of women is complemented with a rightful defence of the differences between the two genders. The two dimensions of personhood are not to be confused one with the other.

...it can be academically demonstrated that the rejection of the ordination of women within the tradition was not predicated on contemporary concepts alone but in essence on theological arguments. Therefore it should not be assumed that the Catholic Church will one day revise its current position. The Catholic Church is convinced that she has no right to do so.

The sacrament of holy orders is not a human invention; it is a gift of Jesus Christ to the Church that she may sustain the life of her children. In this light, arguments either for or against the admission of women into the holy orders cannot be made as if it was simply an issue of social discrimination.

To be sure, the reservation of priestly ordination to men alone does not automatically concur with the mistaken notion that the Church is chauvinistic in her disposition. Rather, it is an invitation to the faithful to pursue a greater understanding of “the meaning of the episcopate and the priesthood” (Inter insigniores).

Some continue to say, “Had Jesus been alive at this moment, He would have done it differently”. Well, He is alive now. And He is acting in and through His Church.

Posted by SK at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I've often been dabbling with theological method. It's one of those things that most European theologians aren't very good at doing. But contextual theology is essentially a re-examination of theological method.

The premise of contextual theology is that even though there are already established formulations of truth statements made by the Councils, these formulations do not encapsulate truth exhaustively. As the Church is continuously guided by the Spirit, our understanding of these truths becomes more and more lucid, and we discover more and more cogent ways of enunciating these truths in ways which are best suited to our time and culture.

Truth is universal, but statements reflecting this truth are not timeless and universal.

But this does not mean that the truth claims of the Church are prone to error. The infallibility of the Church is still upheld. But infallibility does not cover substantial exhaustiveness. This principle sanctions further search for how that which is true and sacred might be also found beyond the Christian faith, and how the presence of truth in other religious traditions may be providential preparation for the fullness of Christ to be revealed and acknowledged through the seed of the Word (logos spermatikos).

Many people often interpret my arguments to mean that there is no such thing as absolute truth; they are absolutely mistaken. My argument is not against the notion of absolute truth; rather, it is against the notion of any truth claim being taken as universal and exhaustive.

At best, a truth claim can be absolutely true (as are all magisterial teachings of the Church). But it cannot absolutely encompass all there is to a certain truth. It also cannot be the only way in which that certain truth can be expressed.

Posted by SK at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Sherman Kuek
Published in Catholic Asian News (August 2008 Issue)

Christianity – or any religion, for that matter – is structured around the roles of clergy and laity. A religious institution thrives on the vitality of these two roles, in a sense, reflecting both the sacred and the secular dimensions of religion. Even so, the dynamics between these two roles brings a certain tensive character into the realm of the institution we call “Church”. This tension is, of course, provoked and further intensified with the onset of modernity and critical thinking among the Christian populace.

Let us attempt to comprehend the different dynamics between the clerical roles and that of the laity in the three major streams of Christianity in existence today. For each of these traditions, we shall delineate the way in which the clergy and laity are ordered and examine the roles of the laity within its structural scheme.

The Catholic institutional structure is top down (unlike the Orthodox structure, as we shall later see) in that the election of bishops neither involves the lay populace nor even a significant segment of the clerical population within a diocese. In the selection of a bishop, the papal nuncio usually solicits names from the other bishops of a country, and then selects three to be forwarded to Rome where the Congregation for Bishops attends to such elections with the approval of the pope. Evidently, the ordering of the hierarchy does not involve the lay faithful in the Church.

The “lay faithful” refers to those baptised faithful not called by God to ordained ministry within the Church. Whilst they are not responsible for the constitution of the hierarchy, the Church assigns a very special role to the laity by virtue of their presence in the secular realm of the world. The laity are distinctly called to share in the priestly, prophetic and kingly functions of Christ by bringing Him to the world in a way that the clergy cannot. This charge is thus explicitly stated by Pope Pius XII:

Lay believers are the front line of Church life; for them the Church is the animating principle of human society. Therefore, they in particular ought to have an ever-clearer consciousness not only of belonging to the Church, but of being the Church, that is to say, the community of the faithful on earth under the leadership of the Pope, the common Head, and of the bishops in communion with him. They are the Church.

The preservation of order within the Catholic Church institution is relegated to the hierarchy so that distinctions of both the roles of the clergy and laity are well-defined. This distinction does well to avoid a temptation to pander to either “clericalism” or “laitism”. The clergy function in some unique ways that the laity cannot, but their unique prerogatives are also the very charisms that empower the laity to function effectively in the realm of the secular. The Church is thereby resoundingly affirmed as a people of God, every member of its community being personally called and individually charged by Him with a specific mission in the world.

II. Orthodox – Joint Government. The Eastern Orthodox Church, the most prominent embodiment of Orthodox Christianity, is a communion comprising fourteen separate autocephalous hierarchical churches in full recognition of one another (excluding the fifteenth autocephalous, the Orthodox Church in America, whose autocephaly is still a matter of dispute). Each autocephalous church is governed by a supreme patriarch. Whilst there is an ecumenical patriarch – a role assumed by the Patriarch of Constantinople – his ecumenical patriarchate is one of ceremonial honour and unity of fellowship rather than one that effects juridical implications.

The autocephalous churches tend to organise from the bottom up. Most of these churches permit for the participation of lower level clergy and laity in the election of bishops, albeit in varying magnitudes. In such autocephalous churches, people of varying positions have some degree of empowerment to vote in church matters and policy making. The patriarchs of the fourteen autocephalous churches will appoint leaders nominated by the grassroots, who will then with the approval of the patriarchs participate in the election processes.

The polity of the Orthodox Church reflects a greater authority-sharing system between the clergy and the laity. The clergy constitute the sacred priesthood and the laity constitute the royal priesthood. Whilst the clergy cannot celebrate the divine liturgy without the participation of the laity, the laity cannot perform the liturgy without the sacramental presidency of the clergy. The Church is most often jointly governed by the clergy and the laity. Of course, these statements by no means contradict the position of the Catholic Church; however, they are more apparently reflected in the practical life of the Orthodox Church.

III. Protestants – Priesthood of All Believers. The Protestant communities are extremely varied in their ecclesial structures. These structures range from highly regulated episcopal systems like the Anglican communities to congregational systems such as the brethren communities. But fundamentally, an underlying principle of the Protestant ethos is the priesthood of all believers. Since this principle lay at the nucleus of the Protestant Reformation, the Protestant movement embodies a high level of lay participation. Admittedly, this high permissiveness for lay participation has constituted an attractive factor for many lay Christians.

In a vast many Protestant communities, the laity in fact possesses authority which exceeds that of the clergy. Many Protestant clerical ministers are considered to be employed and salaried by the financial contributions of the lay populace. Simply put, they are hired and fired by the lay people. As such, they are held accountable to the governing boards of their local churches. This also impacts their ministerial roles such that they are told exactly how many sermons to preach in a month, what their working hours should be, and how they should account for their appointed tasks.

Therefore, where they fail to perform to the expectations of the people, or have offended a large segment of the congregation, or seek to effect change in a resistant congregation’s values and behaviour patterns, they inadvertently see themselves leaving within a relatively short season in a particular parish.

If the answer is “no”, this leaves us with two possibilities – the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.

Now, let us consider the Orthodox form of governance. One would have thought that with such practice of democracy in the Orthodox Church, the laity would have been rather contented with their significance in matters pertaining to ecclesial government and liturgical participation. But this is far from the reality. Tensions between clergy and laity yet exist in the Orthodox institution. Some contemporary examples of these tensions are the struggles between the clergy and laity in the Greek Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church in America. In fact, such tensions are less present in Catholic polity because of the clear distinctions drawn between the roles of the clergy and the laity.

Perhaps the only avenue for the existence of a harmonious symbiotic relationship between clergy and laity, wherein the significance of both are equally affirmed, is a recognition of the oft silent but all important role of divine election in the vocations of the faithful. Whilst the Catholic Church recognises the common priesthood of the faithful by “the unfolding of baptismal grace”, God elects from among the lay faithful a ministerial priesthood to be “at the service of the common priesthood”. It is through the ministerial priesthood that Christ “unceasingly builds up and leads His Church” (CCC 1547). Whilst many lay people perceive the hierarchy as a hindrance to lay empowerment, on the contrary, without the ministerial priesthood the lay are not empowered to live lives of faith, hope, and charity.

One’s reflections on the roles of clergy and laity must be considered from the perspective of the nature of the Church rather than from the socio-political perspective of power and authority. When the proper perspective is employed, the clerical role is rightly perceived as an issue of divinely appointed roles and responsibilities, not of power and glory. A misplaced focus breeds mistrust and conflict, which results in the nature of the Church – and therefore Christ – being compromised.

Posted by SK at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The following article is interesting:
"Clodovis and Leonardo Boff, Separated Brethren"

My brief response to the article:

I absolutely agree with Clodovis Boff that a fundamental flaw in Latin Liberation Theology is found in its reduction of Theology from one of divine revelation to a socio-economic reality as its starting premise. I think that when theological thinking is based on a human need/concern rather than on how God has revealed Himself, it leads to eventual bankruptcy even if it may seem to provide some "solutions" for the human condition in the shorter term.

Ultimately, all theology must begin with God's revelation of Himself as its starting premise. But this does not mean that theology will remain separated from the human condition. There will always be a point at which God - in His revelation - shows Himself to be One Who meets the human predicament. It is at this point that theology becomes truly liberating. It may not be liberation theology, but it will be nevertheless liberating.

If you notice a trend (which is present even here in Malaysia), many liberationists who engage in activism on behalf of the marginalised and the poor invariably seem to find themselves functioning apart from the Church. In their identification with the plight of the marginalised, they come up against the Church and accuse the Church of not standing with the marginalised. Very often, the comment that I hear is, "The Church is not doing anything, so we have to do something about it". What they usually means by this statement is that the Church is not addressing the problem in the way they think the Church should. This anti-ecclesial statement is not only untrue, but also goes against the very nature of the Church. The Christ Who instituted the Church and Who is the Head of the Body is the Christ for the poor and of the poor. As long as we remember the nature of the Church in Christ, we will not detract from this concern for the plight of the marginalised.

But there are two realities we must reckon with as well:

1) No matter how hard we work to alleviate poverty, we will always have the poor among us. Even Jesus Himself said this.

2) We can never help the marginalised perfectly. Our efforts will always fall short of perfection while we are on this side of heaven.

Whilst liberationists think that their revolutionary efforts would more effectively serve the betterment of humankind, poverty still remains a global reality and a vast many poor still remains beyond their reach. And worse still, such a brand of liberation has rendered the Church beyond the reach of the poor by attempting to serve Christ but condemning the Church, His Body.

The Church, we must always remember, is more than a mere sociological reality. We are a divine reality. Poverty came about because humankind fell away from God. There is a greater healing that humankind needs beyond economic healing (even though economic healing does constitute a part of this holistic healing). To seek economic healing alone without the means for holistic healing which God has given to humankind through His Church is to shortchange our neighbours.

Posted by SK at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Why? Why both the Holy Scripture and the Holy Tradition? Does it not seem plainly clear that one source - the Holy Scripture alone - is sufficient in matters of faith and morals? Why the need for Tradition? Is Tradition not merely, after all, man-made? Are the Holy Scriptures not the only word from God that has been bequeathed to us for our salvation?

Prima facie - on the face of it - this argument seems right.

But as history has pointed out unambiguously...

...theology that is not in service to "the faith once delivered to the saints" (Jude 3) will, in time, turn against the faith once delivered to the saints.

Ideas that are not held accountable to "the Church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of truth" (1 Tim 3:15) will, in time, become the enemy of that truth.

For the same reason, the sola scriptura principle, as we know from sad experience, is "so protean and subject to variation that it results either in gutting the tradition or in creating new traditions around which further schisms are formed".

Hence the non-negotiable necessity for both Scripture and Tradition, both mirroring each other. Scripture constitutes the teachings of the Holy Apostles transmitted through documentation, and Tradition constitutes the teachings of the Holy Apostles transmitted orally; both preserved by the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ.

[ A reflection of my reading from Richard John Neuhaus, Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth, p.58. ]

Posted by SK at 9:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

These past decades has seen an uprising in dissent from the Christian academia – particularly Catholic institutions. Well, okay, that’s not exactly true – dissent has always been present in the academia throughout the history of the Church.

But it has become a rather critical moment for the existence and sustenance of such Catholic academic institutions. Academicians in such institutions claim that when dissent is prohibited and freedom of intellectual inquiry is curtailed, it places the institutions at a great disadvantage in terms of their academic competence and competitiveness. This would consequently affect student intake and funding. Thus, the eventual existence of entire academic institutions is jeapordised.

It does not of course mean that variances from official ecclesiastical positions are not inherently present in Protestant-based academic institutions. It is just that in such circles, there has never been a Magisterium to speak of, hence no censure and no licensing of religious teachers. If an academic scholar was dismissed in a more confessional Protestant setting, he would probably not have a problem finding another tenured position in a less confessional environment. But this is not the case with the Catholic setting, wherein teachers imparting knowledge pertaining to faith and morals are licensed by the Vatican to teach. Where their teachings clearly do not echo the Church Magisterium and such dissent bears considerable gravitational consequence, their licences are revoked.

The Vatican has been vigilant in silencing such dissent, an exercise which some claim is in part a successfully imposed exercise because of Cardinal Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and who sits on the Chair of the Apostle Peter as Pope Benedict XVI today. The likes of Hans Küng, Charles E. Curran and Leonardo Boff have tasted, in no small measure, the medicinal treatment of Ratzinger’s inquisition.

So is disproportionate dissent to be permitted? If not, how would the Church be able to sustain the relevant existence of such academic institutions subject to curial inquiry?

In the final analysis, it really is a matter of priority of relevance. It is not an issue of relevance per se, but rather, deciding on what priorities are relevant for the consideration of the Church as the guardian of truth.

The rationale of the Church for such a jealous guardianship over the teachings pertaining to faith and morals stems from the understanding that faith informs reason, and not vice versa. Reason can never be the arbiter of truth, and neither can it exist apart from the truth claims of the faith.

Whilst the idea of the kerygmatic prerogative of the Church may come across as condescending to academic inquirers, Christian academia is called to retain its memory that our epistemological advancements begin with the point of divine revelation rather than vain human ability or capacity. On this point, the Church cannot allow for the Christian academia to gravitate towards that which has now become a thoroughly secular endeavour – and a highly exalted one at that.

Hence, the bidding abides for Christian thinkers to think, feel, and act with the Church. For those without a Magisterium, be thankful that you're liberated to liberalise – but remember that what you say is not necessarily good for the eternal glory of the Church.

Posted by SK at 9:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Would it sound overly triumphant if I advanced the claim that I’m now experiencing what seems to be the most enjoyable stage of my theological journey so far?

I’m learning new forms of theological articulation, discovering new categories and deciphering how my existing scheme fits into the ever-expanding matrix, and in the process, witnessing an influx of new categories that I’d previously never even heard of before. And yes, I’m thinking to myself, “Which part of the planet have I been stuck in before this?”

It seems as though I have just entered a whole new world of discovery. At the same time, it’s not a world entirely unfamiliar to me. There are things that strongly resonate with what I’ve known before, so the sense of continuity resounds. But more than that, there are also things that are really mind-blowing in the light of the paradigm from which I have emerged.

Now it seems like the paradigm I have recently emerged from is at least thirty years backward. It was a world wherein people articulated things as if those were entirely brand new discoveries, when it had actually escaped their realisation that others had already spoken about those very things for decades and have now moved far beyond that.

Oh the folly of thinking that we already know all there is to know. The folly of thinking that our little fossilised little frameworks already contain all there is to know, and the ignorant insecurity of protectionism reflected in the way we guard our fragile little schemas.

But you know, inasmuch as it might sound judgemental to say this, the reality is that some people will always remain where they are. They will always remain happy being in static intellectual existence; they remain happy there because that’s where they get to persist in their delusions of already having known all there is to be known.

Posted by SK at 4:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

For theology to be a spiritual discipline, it must be a kenotic exercise.

Some segments of the Church - some Christians - are inclined to think that theology is a matter of opinion, that one is entitled to the right of private judgement in matters of faith and morals. All this is undertaken in the name of relevance, academic enquiry, and the virtue of freedom.

Freedom, there is. But freedom presents the obligation for the pursuit of truth, not opinion. And truth - be it in propositional or relation form - must correspond to the aggregated experience of the faith community's encounters with the Lord of the Church throughout human history.

Theology is an exercise that requires the kenotic, self-emptying exercise of thinking and feeling with the Church. Inasmuch as the kerygma of the Church may at times be difficult to reconcile with our experiences and opinions, she is nevertheless a Church that has been given the Holy Spirit Who guides her and preserves her in all truth.

Mother Church never errs. Not because her people are infallible, but because the Spirit Who animates her is infallible. That some people in the Church have throughout the course of history failed to live up to her doctrinal and moral standards does not in any way mean the Church has failed. She is, after all, the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church.

Already, I can hear voices muttering "I beg to differ" and "I disagree" from a distance. For as long as we are stuck in the rut of the "pick-and-choose" Christianity, we remain far from God's purpose of giving us the gift of the Church. He cannot have God for his Father who does not have the Church for his Mother.

Fides quaerens intellectum.

Posted by SK at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

So the general election of Malaysia is over, and the Cabinet has been appointed.

There you have it, the people you have chosen now sit in the offices to which they have been appointed.

After this political tsunami, what's next? Tricia Yeoh, Director for Centre for Public Policy Studies (CPPS), expresses her hopeful observation that

...Malaysians are now pointed in the direction of democratisation, an equitable society, social justice, principled governance (over and above race-based politics), public accountability, and freedom of expression.

How may Christian individuals in Malaysia participate in this struggle?

What might be some appropriate theological responses to these issues confronting Malaysia?

What sort of spirituality can Malaysian Christians embrace in the light of these realitise?

Topic:
Blessings Amidst Blunders... A Contextual Liberation Theology for Malaysia

Resident Instructor:
Revd Dr Jojo Fung, SJ

Invited Speaker:
Sherman Kuek

Venue:
Sacred Heart Cathedral,
Taman Sri Tebrau,
Johor Bahru, Malaysia

Date/Time:
22 April (Tuesday) @ 8 pm

Posted by SK at 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There seem to exist multiple categories of theology, and people are often confounded by these categories. To explicate the meanings of some of these important fields of theological specialisation, I have adapted the following information from What Theology Is by Aidan Nichols, OP. Together with that, I have done some minor additions which I find useful:

What is faith based on?
This is fundamental theology.

Fundamental theology helps one to help other people keep the faith, by removing difficulties they may have about believing. It also helps one to convert others to the faith, by suggesting considerations relevant to the truth of Catholic Christianity.

How has it come down to us in history?
This is historical theology.

Historical theology helps one to discern the impression which Jesus Christ made upon those who first met him (the New Testament), the situation he lived in (the Old Testament) and the way his image and teaching have been preserved and presented in the Church (the history of doctrine). In these ways, historical theology enables one to put over the faith in a way that is concrete, circumstantial and historically correct.

How is its content a unity?
This is systematic theology.

Systematic theology helps one to show people how the faith hangs together, how it all makes a satisfying design which is an inspiration to live by.

How does it sound when articulated in the language and culture of particular communities?
This is contextual theology.

Contextual theology helps one to explain the faith in a culturally relevant way to particular groups of people. These groups may consist of clusters of peoples reflecting similar races, languages, nationalities, genders, etc.

What does it imply for living?
This is moral theology.

Moral theology is useful in showing people how they might be growing personally in relation to God and their neighbour.

What does it imply for the rest of what we know?
This may be termed practical theology.

Practical theology shows them the relevance of their religion to their professional work or private concerns, to their general knowledge or the social situation.

Posted by SK at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Many Christians seem almost entirely unsure about the role of the Church in the political arena.

Some Christians, on the one hand, seem to relegate the role of political partisanship to the Church, as if it was the responsibility of the Church to sway people either towards or away from particular political inclinations and parties.

Some other Christians, on the other hand, seem to think there is no role at all for the Church in politics and that she should maintain a posture of absolute silence on anything within the domain of the secular state.

One must remember, the ultimate concerns of the Church of Jesus Christ are not of this world although they find their temporal embodiment in the present circumstances of this world. The Church, beyond elections, democracy and government (all of which are legitimate mechanisms for the regulation of the temporal world), finds her prophetic calling in the upholding of peace and justice in the world, for these deal with the higher and eternal values of the Christ who established His Church in the world.

Elections, democracy and government are therefore – in the eyes of the Church – nothing more (and nothing less) than instruments for the promotion of peace and justice. She of herself is to be a non-partisan, non-political entity.

The Church’s task as the visible Kingdom of God in the world is to articulate and proclaim its concern for justice and peace, and to strive towards upholding it. This task at times involves the expression of support for specific causes that coincidentally favour particular political positions and organisations; but these are merely coincidental, for the Church’s other articulations of peace and justice may very well coincidentally condemn the causes of those very same political positions and organisations her previous articulations seemed to endorse.

It is therefore not the particularities of any one political entity’s positions the Church seeks to endorse or illegitimise, but rather, the causes and values for which these particularities stand. Christians should therefore make no mistake about it. If the Church’s expression of support seems to endorse the cause of any political entity, it is entirely coincidental. Likewise, if her expression of condemnation impinges upon the cause of any political entity, it is also not the political entity itself, but rather, the cause she seeks to condemn.

Therefore, the position of the Church is neither one of utter indifference nor political partisanship. Her position is one of justice and peace, this being a position that coincidentally presents profound implications for the express stances of political entities.

Having understood that, the individual Christian is then called to vote for the cause of justice and peace, and not in accordance with the law of partisanship. The Church together with her leadership are also to refrain from telling people, “Vote for…” or “Do not vote for…”; this is not her calling. Her calling is to execute and sustain the consciousness of people in matters of justice and peace, to be the righteous voice of Christ in a partisan political world.

Of Himself, Christ is neither government nor opposition, Labour nor Conservative, Democratic nor Republican. Christ is Christ.

Posted by SK at 6:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

For some, the the study of the Church Fathers is simply a dispassionate field of study which they call the Patristics. It's a science, a method upon which much historical criticism must be applied. It's a fascinating field of study, but nothing more. Even if something was to be got from the study of the Church Fathers, it is to be done with utmost selectivity.

For some others, the Church Fathers are not even worth paying attention to. In fact, the Christian era prior to the sixteenth century constituted religious corruption at its apex. Nothing is worth remembering about it. Everything prior to the sixteenth century constituted abominable corruption, abhorring abuse, crusading zealousness and everything else other than true Christianity. The age of the Church Fathers was just not as enlightened as it should have been... until the sixteenth century came.

This is where I beg to differ and have chosen an entirely different direction. I believe that no Christian can study theology with adequate honesty whilst choosing to study Scriptures and yet disregarding the Church Fathers as people who were the earliest passers down of paradosis (tradition). It is unfortunate that they should have been regarded as those who were merely trying to figure out what the Christian faith was all about and were gravely mistaken about much of the faith (unlike us, who know better).

I believe we are the ones who are lost in our search upon conceding to the folly of truncating Christian theology into something that begins in purity only from the sixteenth century. In thinking that searching the Scriptures for ourselves would help us derive infallible interpretations for our readings, we have discarded the readings of the Fathers of the Church who lived learning to interpret Scriptures the way Jesus had taught the Apostles.

No theologian who has studied the Church Fathers with utter seriousness can disregard that the Christian way of life for many today is much, much less than what it should be. People have come to assimilate into their life systems the bits and pieces of the Christian way of life that fascinate them, whilst disregarding the others. And their interpretations of the Scriptures do not rebuke or correct them anymore because the Church Fathers have been silenced; so hermeneutics in all shapes, sizes, and theological inclinations is free for the taking.

Without paying due regard to the Church Fathers, there cannot be a concrete embodiment of tradition. And without a concrete embodiment of tradition, they cannot point to anything except some concepts and texts whose interpretation is anybody's guess. But they'd just go ahead and think that their right to private interpretation is infallible anyway.

A faith claiming to have infallible Scriptures but not possessing infallible interpretations for those infallible Scriptures: that's the faith by which many live today. To each his own.

Posted by SK at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is literally the first time a mention of Wayne Grudem makes me smile.

[ HT to David Bish ]

Why this man is thematic, he’s charismatic, he’s systematic,
Why he’s Wayne Grudem! (Wayne Grudem)
He did not author Scripture but provides a clearer picture - Oh Yeah!
(Keep reading whoa keep reading)
Wayne may not be Jesus but he writes mean exegesis - Oh Yeah!
(I’ll buy a copy, I’ll kill to buy a copy)
You put it on the floor and it props open your door,
Or if you need to sit- you can climb on top of it - With Wayne Grudem
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go
Go Wayne Grudem with your intellectual writing style,
(Wayne Grudem go Wayne Grudem)
Go Wayne Grudem you make hard doctrines less of a trial
(Wayne Grudem go Wayne Grudem)
You are extreme, but God’s supreme, oh Wayne Grudem
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go
(There are) many heresies which we now clearly see - Oh yeah!
(oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh)
Despite him being bald, hundred-thousand copies sold - Oh yeah!
(oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh)
His six appendices leave you praying on your knees.
Although he’s not inerrant he’s a heresy deterrent - Wayne Grudem
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go
Go Wayne Grudem with your intellectual writing style,
(Wayne Grudem go Wayne Grudem)
Go Wayne Grudem you make hard doctrines less of a trial
(Wayne Grudem go Wayne Grudem)
You are extreme, but God’s supreme, oh Wayne Grudem
Go Wayne Grudem with your intellectual writing style,
(Wayne Grudem go Wayne Grudem)
Go Wayne Grudem you make hard doctrines less of a trial
(Wayne Grudem go Wayne Grudem)
You are extreme, but God’s supreme, oh Wayne Grudem
Grudem, grudem, grudem, grudem
Grudem, grudem, grudem, grudem yeah!

Posted by SK at 6:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The notion that this life is no more than a preparation for a life beyond, is a theory of a refusal to live, and a religious fraud. It is inconsistent with the living God, who is "a lover of life".

Jürgen Moltmann, The Coming of God, p.50.

Posted by SK at 9:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by SK at 4:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I've just ripped the following post wholesale from Pearlie's blog. It's so well-written, I've nothing to add to it. Thanks, Pearlie.

We visited a different denomination church today - the Petaling Jaya Evangelical Free Church. It was a new experience.

The order of service was almost the same except for the Holy Communion and Parish Notice happening right after Praise and Worship and before the sermon. There were no bulletins to refer to and I wasn't used not knowing what's going to happen next.

The church set up was different, i.e. not the traditional set up: it does not have a cross or an altar. The language used was also different: the sanctuary is called an auditorium and the pastor spoke about invoking Jesus in our lives. I didn't realise but now that I checked the bible and the word invoke is used in translation. I am just not used to it though. For me, when the word invoke is used, it carries the picture and flavour of calling upon the powers of magic. I don't know - I may have a wrong conception over this in the first place.

I can now tell how "traditional" I am when it comes to these things. I think I should feel more at ease in an Anglican or Orthodox church.

Eversince Rev Gan Meng Tee - who used to be our pastor, now serving the Lord in Melbourne, Australia - introduced me to church architecture a few years ago, I became quite intrigued by it. I have since learnt that a church should have an apse, altar, sanctuary, chancel, transept, pulpit, lectern, nave and narthex. Not all would agree with me I am sure, but there are theological reasons why old churches and cathedrals are built the way they do. I believe that traiditional church architeture has its theological background and practical purposes as well, which in my opinion should be preferred compared to the modern fan-style auditorium set up.

Apse: the rounded alcove behind the altar. This is where the cross is place and where our worship should centre, i.e. upon God. Churches which do not have a cross at the front believes that with God being omnipresent, it does not matter where we direct our worship to. Moreover, some of them believe that by having a cross hung at the front may encourage idolatry. To me, the cross is a symbol of God's love and sacrifice for us. At any moment in my service that I am selfishly aware and conscious of myself, I look to the cross to remind myself that I am not my own.

Altar: the ceremonial table at which the Eucharist or Holy Communion is celebrated. In the Methodist churches however, the altar is where the collection is placed as an offering to God, in line with the OT sacrifices and offerings, while the Holy Communion cup and bread is placed on another table in front of the altar at the chancel. These items are holy, separated for the Lord's use. It is not that they are powerful or "magical" so to speak, but they are set aside for the Lord's use only and for no other purposes. There are those who abuse the tables and the communion railings.

Sanctuary: the front part of the church from which the service is conducted, as distinct from the nave, where the congregation sits. In the more modern traditional churches however, the term ‘sanctuary’ is often used to mean both chancel and nave because the two are not architecturally distinct.

Chancel: the front part of the church from where the service is conducted, as distinct from the nave. The chancel is usually an elevated platform, usually three steps up from the nave. There are churches where the pastors would not allow anything other than teaching and preaching, leading hymns and songs to be held in the chancel. In some churches, the chancel is usually called the stage, which I felt it should not. The worship of God should not be reduced to a show or presentation or entertainment. After all, a stage is where presentations are staged.

Transept: back then, they had require an increased space near the chancel to accommodate the large numbers of clergy, choirs, or members of religious orders. The result was a space between the chancel and the nave that extends beyond the side walls, giving the church a cruciform floorplan, i.e. the shape of a cross viewed from above. The center of the transept is called the crossing, the area connecting the nave to the chancel. The ushers act as priests of God, bringing in the offering of the people, crossing over from the nave to the chancel to be placed on the altar.

Pulpit: in the more traditional churches, there are two speaker’s stands in the front of the church. The one on the left, as viewed by the congregation is called the pulpit. It is used by clergy to read the gospel and preach the sermon. It is placed in at the side because the focus and centre of worship is still God, hence, where the apse and the altar are placed. Once I was worship leading standing in the center of the chancel. The pastor had to advise us against it and since then we were more aware of it. In the modern auditorium churches, the clergy and laity would usually take centerstage, and in most instances, there is no pulpit. The preacher would use a cordless mic and move about as he speaks.

Lectern: the stand on the right from which readings or parish notices are given. The word lectern comes from the Latin word meaning ‘to read,’ because the lectern primarily functions as a reading stand. It is used by lay people to read the scripture lessons, to lead the congregation in prayer, and to make announcements. The differentiation is given because of the importance of the word of God to the people that the pulpit has to be separated from the other readings and announcements.

Nave: the main body of the church, where the congregation sits and gathers for worship, as opposed to the front part of the church from which the service is led.

Narthex: the historic term for what might otherwise be called the foyer or entry way of the church.

With all these, I felt that church architecture plays an important role in worship and service. It is also practical for the purpose of Holy Communion and coming forward to be prayed for. It requires us to physically go to God and not sit where we are and let God come to us, particularly during the Holy Communion. It is the coming together of the body of Christ, communing and remembering Jesus who gave us his body and his blood for our salvation.

Posted by SK at 8:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Alwyn is wise to foresee questions regarding RoH, which he advanced through email.

I've attempted to reply these questions, although my reply is not officially representative of the RoH Team's position. Given the ethos of these beautiful people with me on the team, however, I'm quite sure they'd be rather happy with my approach in tackling these answers. So here's my reply:

1. What sets RoH apart from, say, Friends In Conversation/Emergent and Agora?

Agora is a local church-based effort to engage society from a rather explicitly Reformed perspective. It is an admirable effort although thoroughly Western and unapologetically Evangelical in its approach (but they certainly believe in apologetics, haha).

Friends in Conversation was exactly what it spells - a conversation - as is Emergent. And out of that conversation was birthed a shared dream by a small group of thinkers to rise beyond Western categories in its response towards societal realities in Malaysia.

One main difference between Agora's approach and RoH's approach is the language used. I think Agora would be quite happy to rest with high-sounding theological language, whereas ROH will represent an express effort to articulate in the language of the people.

Also, Agora uses already pre-established Western theological categories in responding to societal realities, whereas RoH seeks to not do that.

Finally, Agora has, in a way engaged much of the social-scientific arena; but RoH is attempting to do that much more seriously by engaging the wisdom of sisters like Tricia, Veron, and Rachel in our theological interactions.

By the way, may I add, it's of no coincidence that they are sisters, not brothers - the demographics of the team has been very carefully configured.

2. What is your doctrinal statement (if any)?

There is no necessity for a doctrinal statement in this effort, because we are constructing theologies as Malaysian Christians, not Protestant or Roman Catholic (which are in themselves Western realities).

The one thing that has brought us together and which holds us together is our being Malaysian and Christian. As Malaysian Christians, there must be things we can articulate in common without splitting hairs on our Western historical realities and their resulting positions.

But this does not mean we are planning to evade all the differences we may have. RoH represents an ecumenical effort. In an ecumenical effort, there is an implicit understanding that no single individual is expected to compromise his doctrinal positions as we all enter into an effort in a spirit of dialogue. But yet, there is also an implicit understanding of humility in our dialogue, which means that our position is open to constructive challenge and positive shifts.

One most crucial attitude in this effort is that of listening to the other with open hearts before we respond with discontention towards anything we're unfamiliar with.

3. What is your view of the differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics?

We have vast differences. But far more similarities than differences.

Within the Great Tradition, there is a common stream, a very broad stream, that runs throughout Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Protestantism. That alone provides us with ample space to move together in like-heartedness and single-mindedness in this effort.

The issues of the papacy or the veneration of the saints are too far removed from the realities of Malaysian society for us to even want to discuss at this point of time. Issues like Islam Hadhari, the Federal Constitution as opposed to Syariah Law, the poor and marginalised in our nation, children at risk, the Orang Asli, besides others, are things we hold closer to our hearts as Malaysian Christians.

Besides, we have Protestants (like me) who hold the Holy Father in higher regard than most Protestant bishops we know, and who are very happy to practise iconography (which includes something of the veneration of the saints).

What I'm saying is that we are Christians who are willing to cross over. Recently, Veron (one of the RoH Team members) kindly conceded to come over to [the seminary I teach in] to share what it means to her that she's Catholic and ecumenical in her faith. Something extremely beautiful was birthed from that conversation.

The spirit in which we are working together in RoH is rather idealistic, admittedly. We are trying to embody an eschatological oneness which probably has yet to truly exist in our various ecclesiastical contexts; but it is only because the Roh who is orchestrating this effort is the eschatological Spirit of God himself... and we're foolish enough to flow along.

Posted by SK at 7:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the day. The 50th Anniversary of Malaysia marks the official launching of R.O.H, an effort recently inaugurated for the purpose of writing local theologies for the Malaysian context.

A MANIFESTO FOR A REVOLUTION OF HOPE (R.O.H)

Roh is a Malay word which means “spirit” and yet phonetically sounds like ruach, the Hebrew word for God’s Creative Spirit hovering over the world, and through the Incarnation is now in us, amongst us and through the Resurrection is all in all.

1. BACKGROUND
We live in a world that is being dominated by neo-liberal globalisation which has at the same time imperialised the rest of the world, including erasing national boundaries and local traditional cultures. Now, a timely moment has arisen (kairos) when the Kin-dom movement summons the emergence of a countercultural movement of believers in religion. This calls for Christian believers, especially intellectuals (in the sense of critical thinkers with professional and academic qualifications) to band together and think more concertedly within our Malaysian context so that we may imagine more globally while we act more locally. This comes in the light of the Asian understanding of knowledge and the local cultural wisdom of our people in Asia-Malaysia, not to mention the untold sufferings inflicted on the marginal communities in our midst (the many poor of the various religions and cultures).

To begin the ripple effect of a countercultural movement, a sizable group of Christian activists-strategists needs to come together on a platform that enables theological reflection (emergent contextual theologies). This is to encourage a critical interface between faith (religion) and society, fostering a rich interaction between theology and the social sciences with the clear goal of analysing pertinent issues affecting our nation/society. And thereafter, these thinkers need to articulate a theological response so that critical thinking Christians are guided (as a church emerging) in their lives. Such a theological response would have a societal impact on public policies, mindsets, worldviews and values of fellow Malaysians in their workplaces and neighbourhood.

Such critical analyses and theological responses must be “translatable” into effective and concrete efforts that command the attention of diverse stakeholders in our nation. “Stakeholders” here refers to the government with its multiple ministries and other agencies in civil society; so that together we move our nation forward in a manner that is Kin-dom-centred. This is aimed towards the greater good of all in Malaysia, especially the marginal communities.[1]

Such interdisciplinary, intercultural and inter-religious efforts can be seen as our cooperation with God in transforming our nation into the “playground” where Malaysia becomes a more harmonious society wherein all in Malaysia begin to live more and more as equal disciples and equal persons before God.

Ultimately, R.O.H’s hallmark is its sensitivity to the voice of the Spirit and its capacity to be the dynamism, the sap, the force within that sustains an emergent Malaysia. Out of R.O.H, there emerges too a host of theologies borne of a Gospel Faith that speaks together with the social sciences so that the Church emerging is seen and heard to be speaking into the joys and sorrows of fellow Malaysians and the wider society.

2. RESPONSE
a. Level-One Response (The Core Team)
The team devoted to this effort we call R.O.H comprises six people. Our primary goal in the configuration of this team is to reflect an adequate representation of both genders, both the Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions, and both the social-scientific and theological disciplines in interaction with each other. We have come to participate in this effort propelled by various collective motivations and reasons:

• Integrating local spiritualities into our understanding;
• Learning from people working with real socio-political issues to feed into theology;
• Finding like-minded people to write together and form theologies together (writing theology can be a lonely journey);
• Tying in faith and life together;
• Translating words into action on the ground, ensuring people at the grassroots level are defended;
• Western-driven theology that has caused us to think about the need for an Asian-driven theology, a local contextual theology;
• Disillusionment with Western-centric theology;
• Growth into self-identity;
• Creating a tradition for the future generations.

The R.O.H Team consists of the following personnel:

Tricia Yeoh Su-Wern
BBusComm Econometrics and Marketing (Monash, Malaysia);
MSc in Research Methods in Psychology (Warwick, UK).

Tricia is currently Senior Research Analyst at the Centre for Public Policy Studies, at which she engages in national socio-economic issues through research, analysis and fostering policy dialogue. This covers a wide range of issues, dealing for example, with inter-faith dialogue and economic policies. Her work involves interacting closely with the country's socio-political environment. She hopes to work constructively toward a matured and united Malaysia, and envisions faith and vocation as one, as we seek common goals and platforms in the long-term nation-building process.

Veronica Anne Retnam
BSc in Resource Economics (UPM, Malaysia);
MEd in Educational Psychology (Cardiff, Wales).

Veronica started off with working with out-of-school youth and was then responsible for the formation of Catholic undergraduates in Malaysia. Then for nearly 18 years she was an economics lecturer at UiTM (previously Institut Technologi MARA). Her concerns are about reaching out effectively to poor communities and working with them in empowering partnerships. Her interest is also developmental psychology with a focus on research for policy change. She is currently starting off with training and development for low income communities through her own business enterprise.

Rachel Samuel
BSocSc in Development Studies (USM, Malaysia);
MSocSc in Development Studies (USM, Malaysia);
PhD candidate in Management (USM, Malaysia).

Rachel worked with the Consumers Association of Penang for three years on issues pertaining to the rural sector and health and safety issues. She took up the Bukit Merah people's case against the radioactive company and worked closely with them throughout the period of their legal struggle. She has also worked among drug dependents (women and HIV carriers) and been involved with the AIDS Hotline, the Community Clinic and the One Stop Crisis Centre. Rachel co-authored Women and Drugs, Domestic Violence in Penang, and Shame, Secrecy and Silence: A Study on Rape. She is currently involved with Women In Action in Melaka, Education and Research Association in Kuala Lumpur, the Melaka-Johor Office of Human Development, and the Counselling Ministry of the Melaka-Johor Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church.

Jojo M. Fung, SJ
MA in Theology (LST, Manila);
MA in Social Anthropology (London, UK);
STL (Berkeley);
Doctorate in Contextual Theology (CTU, Chicago).

The Reverend Father Jojo Fung is an ordained priest in the Society of Jesus, an order of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the Director of the Campus Ministry, the Orang Asli Ministry, and the Ministry of Eumenism and Interreligious Dialogue in the Diocese of Melaka-Johore. He is also the Coordinator of I.N.T.R.Asia and Co-editor of the Arrupe Papers. Father Jojo is a prolific writer on issues pertaining to the gospel as it relates to local contextual issues.

Sivin Kit
BTh (STM, Malaysia);
MTheo candidate (SEAGST).

The Reverend Sivin Kit is a minister of the Lutheran Church in Malaysia and Singapore (LCMS) and pastor of Bangsar Lutheran Church. Sivin is primarily concerned about ecclesiastical interactions with local social-political realities and desires to see the emergence of more contextual responses towards these realities. He brings with him a wealth of pastoral and missional perspectives in contribution to this conversation so as to ensure that our constructions are based on realistic observations.

Sherman Y.L. Kuek, OSL
BSc Management (Bradford, UK);
MDiv (Trinity, Singapore);
DTh candidate in Contextual Theology (Trinity, Singapore).

Sherman is an Adjunct Lecturer in Systematic and Contextual Theology at Seminari Theoloji Malaysia. His primary areas of interest are contextual theological methodologies and the recovery of the Great Tradition in the theological thought of the Christian community. It is therefore natural that Sherman also has a concern for ecumenics. He is presently completing his doctoral thesis on a theological critique of modernity in Asia.

The direction of the R.O.H. Team is guided by several individual Patrons who have kindly agreed to endorse our effort and be our guiding wisdom:

Revd Dr Hwa Yung
Bishop, Methodist Church of Malaysia

Among his various other involvements besides being Bishop of the Methodist Church in Malaysia, Bishop Hwa Yung is the Honorary Secretary of the Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM) and the Chairman of the STM Council. On the international scene Bishop Hwa Yung is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (OCMS), Oxford; the Vice-Chairman of the Asian Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (ALCWE); a member of the Executive Committee of the World Methodist Council and an Executive Committee Member of the International Association of Mission Studies (IAMS).

Rt Revd Dr Paul Tan Chee Ing, SJ
Roman Catholic Bishop of Melaka-Johor
The Catholic Archdiocese of Kuala Lumpur

Besides having been the Bishop of the Melaka-Johor Diocese since May 2003, Bishop Paul is the Chairman of the Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM) and the Vice-Chairman of the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism & Taoism (MCCBCHST).

Revd Dr Simon Chan
Ernest Lau Professor of Systematic Theology,
Trinity Theological College Singapore

Dr Simon Chan is a renowned Asian theologian. He is the author of Liturgical Theology; Spiritual Theology: A Systematic Study of the Christian Life; Man and Sin; and Pentecostal Theology and the Christian Spiritual Tradition. He is also an ordained minister of the Assemblies of God in Singapore.

b. Level-Two Response (Friends)
The effort also seeks to be a platform for the coming together of other like-minded Christians in Malaysia to share in the dream together. It will simultaneously create a voice for other scattered Christians who in their individual capacities have begun to, or desire to, make a change in Malaysian society. This is akin to causing minute but significant ripples.

Therefore, the next layer of involvement in this R.O.H effort consists of others who may be equally interested in this initiative and committed to its cause. We seek to draw upon their experiences and resources, and will endeavour to receive their contributions seriously, through personal conversations, writings, and organised gatherings. Where appropriate, their concerns will find their way into our constructive efforts.

3. OUR COMMITMENTS
a. Our Commitment to the Neighbourology Principle
The neighbourology principle expresses the deepest motivation for our contextual engagements with the local contexts. It is important to begin with how we see people in our nation firstly as neighbours, and what this involves. Authentic love for the neighbour involves a “kin-dom” mentality (based on an idea of “kinship”, which is very consistent with the Asian paradigm of societal life).

Two crucial features of the neighbourology principle are:

• that we must ensure our ultimate goal is for the long term. Critiques although necessary will be driven purely for the sake of achieving desirable results for the nation in the long run. Loving the country necessitates honest criticism at times. And we critique the country because we believe she is worth critiquing.

  
  

• the objective of building bridges. This involves healing wounds between different races, religions and any other factors that have since divided the Malaysian society.
  

b. Our Linguistic Commitment to the Target Audience
While we intend for our audience to be largely urban and educated in nature, this necessitates an inclusivity of experiences from the bottom up, including the marginalised and grassroot communities. Formal English will be used but care will be given to ensure it is not necessarily academic or technical to ensure laymen comprehension.

Because the Malaysian church has a long way to be exposed to such local contextual theologies, we will be targeting the church primarily and only at a later stage speak to society at large. In other words, our primary concern relates to what it means to be “the church in the world”.

In regard to our use of language for the communication of our theological constructions, we will make it a point to employ the language of social scientists and other relevant disciplines in the midst of our theological articulations. This is to ensure that our articulations are not found dislocated from a proactive interaction with the language of other disciplines. Yet, our articulations should also reflect the language of the intended audience as afore described. Whilst social-scientific and theological jargon may be an inevitable, the employment of such jargon has to be unpacked and written in a manner understood by our readers.

c. Our Commitment to Holistic Reflections
We are not in favour of our articulations constituting knee-jerk reactions towards unexpected occurrences in the life of the nation. Much of the Christian community’s statements and positions on socio-political issues in Malaysia is reactionary in nature. These statements and positions are issued only upon an urgent need to do so, and are seldom undertaken with sufficient theological reflection given to the purpose. It is hoped that we will provide holistic reflections upon local Malaysian issues, as opposed to the mere knee-jerk reactions in response to perceived external threats.

d. Our Commitment to Basic Governing Principles
There are generally five key principles that the group considers essential in governing our local theological constructions:

• Socio-Political Context. This will include crucial issues which will be identified in our subsequent meetings to develop a proper contextual framework for our theological reflections. It is important that this framework must include a concern for marginal communities.

  
  

• Social-Scientific Disciplines. Our theologies will be dislocated from reality if we do not seriously engage the findings and analyses of the social-scientific disciplines in our society. The role of the social-scientific thinkers in our team is therefore crucial.

  
  

• Local Cultural Wisdom. The cultural paradigmatic realities of the society in which our theology is entrenched must be accounted for in our theological constructions. This is also known as the principle of inculturation, wherein local epistemologies are taken seriously.

  
  

• Christian Tradition. The approach we are taking herein is an ecumenical one. Our joint concern is for the wellbeing of our neighbours, our nation, and not the disagreement on our respective distinctives. In fact, in deep appreciation of how our distinctive traditions may contribute positively to this conversation, we take the guiding voice of the Great Tradition as a non-negotiable in our constructions.

  
  

• The Gospel. This principle is not necessarily separate from the fourth, but accentuates a point of importance. Our theology must come to terms with the heart of the gospel, which essentially speaks of the ultimate and full establishment of God’s reign in the world.
  

e. Our Commitment to Various Levels of Socio-political Involvement
There are three possible levels of socio-political involvement by the Christian community: i) writing, ii) helping immediate needs (e.g., helping the poor and alleviating immediate suffering), and iii) effecting structural change. Historically, Christians in the Protestant Malaysian Church have been active within the first layer but little else has been done in either of the other two. It is noted that the situation is not very far different for the Roman Catholic Church in Malaysia.

The objectives and strategies of R.O.H. will be in attempting to achieve all layers of socio-political involvement. This however is an incremental and dynamic cultivation and change, as the process is subject to growth and alterations in time.

f. Our Commitment to the Dissemination of Our Ideas
We are committed to the dissemination of our social scientific analyses together with the accompanying theological constructions in various forms of publications. This may involve web publications, books and monographs, journal articles, and sporadic articles in newsletter.

In time to come, there is also a great possibility that we may organise events involving relatively small clusters of young thinkers who share in our concerns and who would be keen to participate in conversations pertaining to these concerns.

The R.O.H. Team
31 August 2007
Malaysia’s 50th Anniversary

Endnotes
[1] These marginal communities include the poor, the Orang Asli, women, persons with disabilities, plantation and factory workers, migrants and refugees, and children at risk, among others.

Log onto the R.O.H Malaysia Blog. Click here.

Posted by SK at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What you see above is a silhoutte... a reflection of things to come.

It's something Malaysia has needed, and which some Malaysians have been waiting for. For years.

The mystery will be revealed in its fullness this coming National Day (31 August).

Watch out.

Posted by SK at 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So here we are, standing at the crossroads, having to decide how we desire to move on as a part of the very fractured Body of Christ.

Surely, what I have shared in response to these questions threatens the status quo of church life. It brings much inconvenience, for it obligates us to deconstruct much of things we have taken for granted for decade upon decade.

Amidst the imperfection of my articulations, whether these words are merely received as the troublesome voice of dissent emanating from a disgruntled Christian or as a prophetic voice in the wilderness depends largely on the spirit of the hearer.

From where I stand, it is my conviction that church life, along with our idea of spirituality, need to be radically deconstructed and reconstructed; not so much that we will be relevant to the times, but that we will be relevant to the coming of the Kingdom.

Too much of our idea of spirituality and the Christian life has been focused on living our lives in the present; this leads us to settle with contentment for sub-standard expressions of who we are as Christians. Perhaps it is time to live a future-oriented (eschatological) life.

But yes, it is just too troublesome. Looking too much like Christ may just get you expelled from the church… it has happened before.

But throughout the ages, we see that the Spirit of God keeps raising people who're foolish enough to think that living the eschatological life is a possibility in the present moment. Every time the church is too fixated on her temporal existence, the Spirit raises from within her a number of people who refuse to resign themselves to this senseless preoccupation with temporality.

Posted by SK at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

What do you think would be the greatest challenge to integrate spiritual formation into the life of the church?

The greatest challenge would probably be to convince many pastors and church leaders that what they are doing in/for the church now is not spiritual formation. It is just doing, not so much a cultivation of being.

The only people who can effectively bring about some kind of deep change in the way church life takes place now are the pastors and leaders, but they are also the people who are the most difficult to convince in this respect. Many have been so used to a specific idea of what constitutes "formation", they find it hard to see a different perspective.

In other words, most pastors and church leaders actually think they are already doing it. And the idea of re-examining their present paradigm of formation makes them rather resistant.

Whilst acknowledging that they have done the best they could under the paradigm in which they have been raised in the church/ministry, we need to find ways of modeling something different for them that they might realise that many of us might have missed the point of what it means to be the church.

Posted by SK at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

If there are no boundaries and limitations, what would you most like to see happen or emerge or take place in the area of spiritual formation?

Firstly, I would most like to see the abolishment of spiritual formation as a distinct aspect of theological training at the seminary.

I would like to see an integration of the formation process through which a minister-in-formation undergoes. I don’t think the way in which spiritual formation is emphasised in the seminary today does justice to the concept of spiritual formation itself.

I think it is very unfortunate that in the scheme of things at the moment, there are the biblical scholars, the theologians, the historians, and the spirituality gurus. As a result, we even have spiritual formation gurus who are unable to impart their ideas of spiritual formation with strong theological undergirdings, because they themselves studied spiritual formation apart and distinct from theology.

If formation is to be seen as holistic, then its embodiment has to be holistic. All of our lives - our studies, our prayer, our worship, our communion, our relationships, our vocations - are various dimensions of a holistic spiritual formation.

Surely, every seminary would laud my lament and claim to have the kind of holistic emphasis I am speaking of here. But yet, at the end of each semester, it is the academic result slip that speaks the loudest of the seminary’s preoccupation and priority.

Secondly, I would like to see a deliberate effort to shift our paradigm of spiritual formation at the level of the local church.

We need to see, in a very real and concrete way, the role of the church as the depository of the mysteries of God. These mysteries of God propel every individual within the church in his/her journey of growing “into Christ”, and the individual therefore cannot exist apart from the church and must keep existing as a part of this Body into which he/she has been baptised.

In other words, the church must start taking up its role as the centre of spiritual formation for every believer by forming the personhood of every Christian within it, not just organising activities and inviting people to participate.

Together with that, each individual must also be taught to cultivate an awareness that he/she is also a part of the mysteries of God within the church. Each individual in the community is a very crucial part of the spiritual formation of other individuals in the church, for he/she is an agent of grace within the scheme of the Kingdom.

This is why believers have to share together in a common life, for in so doing, they are embracing one another as divine mysteries of God and mutual agents of grace for one another’s journey “into Christ”.

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What would you consider to be the greatest gap in terms of spiritual formation for your church?

For your pastors? For church leaders? For youths?

This will be mostly a reiteration of something I have shared earlier.

I consider the greatest gap in terms of spiritual formation for my church to be our understanding of what it means to be the church and what it means to be followers of Jesus in the world.

Most, if not all, of the Christians in my local church see the church as a place to express their spirituality and a place to express their devotion towards God. In other words, every good Christian goes to church, attends the services, the cell groups, the bible studies, and the family camps. The even better Christians attend prayer meetings and the extra conferences and seminars organised by the church.

Beyond that, there is little or no understanding of how the church has been given the mysteries of God that she may cause each individual to further grow “into Christ”.

There is little or no understanding of what it means to be the people of God beyond all our programmes and activities; we attend these things because we genuinely want to be “good Christians”, not because we see how they help us grow “into Christ” (nor do these things necessarily help us attain that goal, in the first place!) But we just keep cooperating anyway, because “good Christians” do not question.

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As a pastor, teacher, counselor, etc, what is your vision for the Malaysian church?

My vision for the Malaysian church is to be mature enough to see beyond the matrix in which she is stuck at the moment. She is paralysed by a colonial past and cannot seem to get over the colonial form of Christianity she has inherited.

I feel that the Malaysian church should be mature enough in her faith journey to start questioning many presuppositions previously taken to be a priori. Much of what the Malaysian church believes and practises is utterly disconnected from the local cultural wisdom of the Malaysian society. She is very much an alien in her own nation.

Even today, at the 50th celebration of our nationhood, the Malaysian church is still being imperialised by the Western culture, both high and low cultures. It may not be so much the fault of the West as it is our own, for we are often drowned in our own insecurity.

For example, two national bodies responsible for bringing together a significant segment of the Malaysian churches recently implemented a programme transplanted from a Western evangelistic association. Many of these methods transplanted from the West, although not wrong in themselves, are often utterly insensitive to local worldviews and cultures.

And yet, such national ecclesiastical bodies are not yet mature enough to examine such programmes critically and theologically. For any national ecclesiastical body to seemingly assume that an evangelistic effort can be transplanted universally (what more from the West to Asia) without a sense of cultural sensitivity speaks of an insensitivity of the church towards her own nation. More fundamentally, it speaks of a lack of theological understanding on the part of the ecclesiastical leaders of what it means to be the church of Jesus Christ in Malaysia.

Ecclesiastically, I am merely an active member of the local church holding no position on the organisational hierarchy. But my vision for the Malaysian church is simply that she matures and develops a strong ecclesiology (a strong understanding of what it means that she is the church in Malaysia).

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What are the three greatest needs of your church? How relevant is spiritual formation in addressing these needs?

In my observation, the three greatest needs of my church are as follows:

i) cultivating followers of Jesus who understand the message of the Kingdom and who are adamantly desiring to embody that message in their lives;

ii) cultivating a theological understanding of the church as a “Kingdomic community” and actively attempting to express this idea of community in concrete ways; and

iii) cultivating leaders who see themselves as more than administrators, organisers and decision-makers; who see themselves as spiritual guides of the community.

I do not think there is any form of concrete theological reflection or a deliberate consciousness for an undertaking of any sort of spiritual formation at this point of its life journey.

Like most other Protestant churches I observe, my church is most of the time majoring on how to do church rather than seeking to understand how to be church. No doubt, it is one of the best of the Protestant churches I have ever been a part of (I mean this sincerely); but there is still much for us to learn in terms of understanding that our task is more of cultivating Christians who will be rather than Christians who will merely do. But for that to happen, we need a strong theology of the church.

In other words, I am saying that the spiritual formation of my local church is not effective in addressing the said needs. In fact, the notion of spiritual formation might not even be a part of the consciousness of the local church. It often seems like we do what we do because “these are things every good church must do”.

If we had a proper theological understanding of the nature of the church, a new consciousness would emerge, shifting our preoccupation from what we need to do to who we need to be; or in fact, who we already are.

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If you had a free hand to run a church with no boundaries, how would spiritual formation look like at its best integrated form?

If I had a free hand to run a church with no boundaries, spiritual formation would take place in small communities of believers. However, I must quality this with my strong reservation regarding the contemporary cell group movement which tends to mechanise church life and regulate communal involvement for the express purpose of numerical growth in the church - this goes entirely against my most basic idea for the being of the church itself.

I like the name given by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kuala Lumpur to these small communities – basic ecclesial communities (BEC), although I do not know enough about this structure to discern if it is entirely coherent with my idea of spiritual formation.

In my understanding, each small community should have a spiritual formator within it to regulate the common life of the said community. This spiritual formator has to be someone wise in understanding life and faith, not necessarily someone who has had formal credentials or theological degrees, but someone who possesses deep spiritual wisdom. He/She becomes the guide for every life within the said small community.

The believers within each community, with the guidance of this spiritual formator, share in a common life. They spend time with one another daily, redefine the boundaries of their families and their private space, share a common commitment to Kingdom life, and together seek to deepen their understanding and praxis of the perichoretic life of the Triune God with one another.

Within these communities, each individual embraces the values of simplicity, obedience and purity. As communities of faith, they together share in the values of relationality, mutuality, grace, offering, and missionality. All these values are tied in with the principle of sacramentality and are to be defined theologically. Whilst these values may sound abstract, the outworking of these values must be concretely observable in the common life of each community.

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What is your favourite quote that best describes your idea of spiritual formation? (continued)

b. The Martial Arts Apprentice
One day, a young man who desired to learn a supreme form of martial arts heard there was a martial arts master in a high mountain. He made his way there to beg to be an apprentice, that he too might one day become a martial arts maestro.

As he approached the martial arts master, he was already feeling rather downhearted because the master did not seem very keen in teaching him the art. But it did seem that the master was keen on trying him out first, so the master said, “All right, you begin by mopping the floor using two pieces of cloth. You squat down and use both your hands to mop the floor. Make sure you’re done by the end of the day.” So the young man thinks to himself, “I didn’t come here for this. But I think he’s testing me, so I’ll just do it, and then tomorrow he’ll accept me as his apprentice.” So he completes his task for the day.

To his horror, early the next morning, the master tells him, “Do again what you did yesterday”! He begins to get furious, but tells him he has to persevere if he wants to gain the trust of the master. But as time goes by, this task of mopping the floor drags on for two weeks, then three weeks, then up to months! And worse still, at a later stage, while the disciple was mopping the floor, the master would just walk by and give him a kick in his stomach. At times, he would use a stick to hit the disciple’s back. And he would fall over with such great pain. Even at night while the disciple was sleeping, the master would just sneak into the room and kick him hard. Ouch!

Eventually, the disciple realises he has to watch out and avoid kicks and beatings from the master. So as he mops the floor, and even as he sleeps at night, he finds himself being very alert so that when the master comes, he can avoid those kicks and beatings.

One day, he loses his patience at the master’s abuse. And tells the master, “Okay, enough is enough! When are you going to teach me some real martial arts?” The master replies, “You’ve been learning every day since the day you came. And everything I have to impart, you already know. You now know the secret of this art – it’s alertness, and you’ve mastered it. Now you can go.”

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What is your favourite quote that best describes your idea of spiritual formation?

I do not have a favourite quote, but I do have two favourite stories I use to describe my idea of spiritual formation. These are not original stories, but are nevertheless reflective of certain fundamental dimensions of spiritual formation.

Also, these stories are true of how learning actually used to take place in pre-industrialised societies and reflect a missing dimension of our Christian heritage that we have lost in discipleship and formation.

a. The Violin Maker
Stradivarius was a legendary violin maker from Italy in the 18th century. He made violins like no other man in existence. His violins produced sounds which flickered, constantly trembled, and moved like candlelight. There are about 600 Stradivarius violins in the world today, and one can fetch a price of as high as a USD 200,000. And despite the way in which technology has grown by leaps and bounds, nobody has truly figured out what makes Stradivarius violins sound the way they do.

How did a master violin maker like Stradivarius or any other violin maker teach an apprentice to make violins? Did he conduct classes twice a week for two hours each session? Or did he offer a certificate programme for this? It’s simple. He would bring the apprentice to live with him, day and night watching him make violins.

Apparently, a great violin that produces the best music can only be made from certain kinds of wood. These woods are from trees that have survived a cold season at a certain time period. So the master violin maker would take the apprentice up to the mountains of Switzerland to find wood there. The master violin maker would test the wood by touching, feeling and smelling the wood, to judge whether the wood would be suitable for the construction of a good violin. His apprentice would just be following him and observing him for many years. One day, on one such trip, the master violin maker would pass the wood, piece by piece, to the apprentice to ask the apprentice to gauge if it was good or bad wood. The apprentice would begin by guessing wrongly, for he does not truly know what constitutes a piece of good or bad wood – and neither does the master have the words to describe the criteria!

But the apprentice just keeps imitating the master’s actions – touching, feeling and smelling the wood. Some years later, he’s able to do what his master does, and he knows what is good wood and what is bad wood – without necessarily having the words to describe the criteria! But he has mastered the art by slowly imitating the master and is able to eventually construct high quality violins instinctively, which even highly technologised machines cannot do.

Editor's Note: The second story will be posted up in the next post.

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What is your favorite book/s that best describes your idea of spiritual formation?

My answer to this question will not sound very characteristic of me, but my favourite book which I think best describes my idea of spiritual formation is the bible, especially the Gospels, and then the book of Acts.

It is in the Gospels that we see (in “real time”) how spiritual formation takes place through the sharing of the common life between Jesus and his disciples. It is also in the Gospels that we see the idea of the perichoretic life being best reflected through the life of Jesus and his companions. Jesus lived as a parable before his companions, being the perfect model of the perichoretic life, that they might imitate him in all dimensions of their lives.

In the book of Acts, we see how the followers of Jesus continued the legacy he had left behind for them. They kept on sharing in the common life and learning what it meant to live a life based on the perichoretic nature of God. We see how they met daily in the homes and how they shared everything they had with one another, no one claiming their possessions to be their own. They were doing the dance of life together. Christ was no longer present, but yet, still present in a very real way through his Spirit in their midst.

It seems to me that spiritual formation is often discussed as a very abstract concept. At best, it is cultivated through a series of “programmes” and “disciplines” seminary students or church members are put through. At worst, it is imposed as a set of legalistic requirements which has to be met in order to graduate from seminary.

But scripture imparts the idea of spiritual formation in a very different way. It imparts the ideal through the narration of a beautiful story and the passing down of a legacy from one generation to another. From the Gospels and the book of Acts, we can see that spiritual formation is about helping people to find their places in the Story of God, and in the process of finding their places, coming to understand who they are themselves.

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What is your favourite scriptural passage that best represents your idea of spiritual formation?

My favourite passage is John 1:35-39. These two men were disciples of John the Baptist and were present with him one morning when Jesus passed by. John recognises him as the one sent by God to be the Saviour and says, "Look, the Lamb of God". John's insight led these disciples to leave him and follow this person so wholly acknowledged by their trusted master as more than just a prophet enlightened by God.

At that point, Jesus noticed these two at a distance, hesitating in wonder at the thought of approaching someone so significantly acknowledged by their master. The Lord turns and presents them with a leading question, which was also an implicit invitation for them to draw closer and engage with him directly. "What are you looking for?", he asks. His reassuring disposition helps them to express their interest in getting to know him. "Rabbi, where are you staying?", they inquired. "Come and see", Jesus said in return. They then accompanied the Lord to his dwelling and spent the rest of the day with him. That encounter changed their lives.

In this passage, John the Baptist is the spiritual formator who points the attention of his followers to Jesus and paves the way for them to follow the Christ. It is the role of the spiritual formator to create opportunities for people to follow Jesus and to “spend the day” with him, so that these successive encounters might change their lives.

The spiritual formator creates an environment that cultivates an awareness of the heart, so that when Christ “passes by”, he and his companions notice that passing by. Thereafter, he releases his companions to follow this Christ as the formator witnesses to his significance as the one worthy of being followed.

An even more sacramental approach to this would be for the spiritual formator to see himself as “being Christ” to those who sit at his feet. He is the mysterious representation of Christ to those who journey with him, dispensing the grace of Christ in real time to the lives of these spiritual companions.

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What comes to your mind when you hear the term "spiritual formation"?

I prefer the term “formation” without an adjective attached to it. In such terms, adjectives usually present an implicit idea of disintegration and fragmentation. So people see these terms without realising that the logical conclusion to there being “spiritual formation” is that there is also “academic formation” which is all together separate from spiritual formation because it is quite an unspiritual form of formation!

When I hear the term “spiritual formation”, what comes to my mind (or rather, what is supposed to come to my mind) is a holistic process of life formation which an individual goes through within the context of a community. This process takes place within the context of a common life within a shared space.

It is immediately obvious that the term “spiritual formation”, for me, cannot be divorced from the communal and communitarian dimensions. For spiritual formation to take place, it has to take place within community. This conviction stems from a theological understanding of God’s nature.

Early Eastern thinkers of the church used to explain the nature of God in this manner: in all eternity, God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – have existed in a state of perichoresis. Perichoresis has two indications, being i) the state of interpenetration in which the three person of the Trinitarian Godhead live, and ii) the dance of life that results in their intimacy of relationship. And God so desires that all human persons reflect that very perichoretic nature of his.

In accordance with this fundamental understanding of God’s nature, the whole goal of spiritual formation is the cultivation of the mind, heart, soul, and hands of a person such that he/she reflects the perichoretic nature of God within community.

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A friend of mine, who also comes from the same local church as I do, is studying for a masters degree in Spiritual Formation in Talbot School of Theology.

She was recently working on a term paper and had asked me to answer some questions pertaining to spiritual formation. She has kindly agreed for me to post up my answers to her questions on this blog so that my perspectives on spiritual formation can also be shared with the readers here.

I'm not a guru in spiritual formation. And I naturally see spiritual formation from a very theological perspective, since my field of training is Theology rather than spiritual formation per se. So rightly or wrongly, I don't have a dichotomised paradigm of the two dimensions of the Christian life.

I'm taking a break from blogging this weekend (actually I seldom have time to blog on weekends anyway). But I'll be posting up the questions and answers successively as a series in the next two weeks - it's quite lengthy, really.

Hope you enjoy it.

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Listening is such a lost art, even in the Christian tradition. We have very devoutly spiritual Christians who happen to be brilliant theological minds, but who function like heresy hunters. At the slightest hint of some doctrines or belief that takes a marginal variance from their own, they don’t think twice about pointing it out. Not only do they point it out; they in fact point it out as if their view was superior and absolute in its validity.

Why can’t we meet someone who has a different theological position on some issues, and think to ourselves that perhaps this person has seen a perspective we’ve been missing? Or perhaps that this person actually does know more than us on something of that issue, and that we actually need to learn? What makes us often conclude so conveniently that our views are the absolute ones?

Are we afraid if we actually listened, that perhaps we might be obligated to yield our positions? Are we afraid to leave our views open to scrutiny for fear that our views might actually be proven wrong? Since when were we appointed to be guardians of doctrinal truths (well, truth in our view, at least) without the appointment of an ecumenical council?

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t share our views or state our position. I do that a lot; and I believe I’m doing just that right now. One stark example I can cite is a recent meeting I sat in last month consisting of various representatives from different Christian traditions, during which it was mentioned that “the Christian message is love”. I responded, hopefully gently, that in my tradition, the Christian message is not love. The Christian message is Jesus, who taught us to love. But Jesus and love cannot be mistaken to be the same entity. Our understanding of love is contingent upon who Jesus is, and our love cannot stand apart from him. God is love, but love is not God. The point is, part of the listening process also involves the sharing of our own positions and convictions, and that’s okay as long as it’s done with utmost respect.

I think we need to learn to listen to one another. I’ve grown up in a strictly Reformed tradition wherein black and white were thoroughly delineated (I’m not saying all Reformed people are like that – it’s just the background I grew up in). Over the years, I found myself opening up to a plethora of other voices, meeting people who might have had something to say from different perspectives, and discovering many areas of grey apart from the black and white through which I was taught to define my faith. As a result, my position on a number of issues has shifted; probably not changed all together, but nevertheless significantly shifted.

Of course, this puts me in great peril, because some people think I’m no longer “evangelical” (sigh, whatever that means anymore, really). Some say I’m liberal, and fortunately, yet others still say I’m evangelical (like on the occasion when I said that the Christian message is Jesus, someone stood up and commented that it seems I’m evangelical). And there have even been some who have called me a fundamentalist, actually! This just goes to show that different people develop different perceptions of one same object (in this case, me); and this further compounds the need to listen and to try to understand why and how these perceptions develop.

Yes, listening does that to a person. It ensures that our senses are not dulled to a world containing wisdom in various expressions. It ensures that we don’t become protectionistically elitist in our self-understanding. Many things in life are, after all, not as clearly cut and dry as we’d like them to be.

It’s very unlikely that I’m ever going to move away from my personal conviction that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and that no one goes to the Father except through him. It’s very unlikely that I’m ever going to shift from my understanding that Jesus is uniquely very man and very God. I’m always willing to strongly defend these beliefs (although not at the risk of misrepresenting the very God whose truth I seek to defend, which unfortunately happens a lot among some people I know).

But should that stop me from listening to what anyone else has to say, or put me in a defensive mode about what I believe in, or insulate my faith from public examination, I think it shows an insecurity in my own positions. I know this makes some of my brethren worried about me. To these who are concerned, please keep praying for me.

Thank you for listening.

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A reflection on conversations with my spiritual guide on 30 June 2007

1. On the Rule of Life
A community of people sharing life together in commitment to the Kingdom should not be too impetuous in setting out its rule of life. The focus of the community should rest on its concrete sharing of life together on a daily basis.

From this daily sharing of life will eventually emerge a pattern, a settledness, a stability with which the community exists and regulates itself. The collation of words that we gradually find to describe this daily pattern of stability is that which we call the rule of life.

The rule of life cannot be externally imposed upon anyone who is not yet ready to accept it. Any new visitor spends a considerable season of time with the community as an observer and a learner. When the visitor finds himself attracted to the rule of life, it is for him to express a desire for a voluntary embrace of the community’s rule of life. Otherwise, the community continues to exist as a parable of the Kingdom for the visitor.

Upon the embrace of the community’s rule of life, the visitor becomes a brother. His life story becomes woven into the story of the community, integrating itself into the community’s being a parable.

2. On Speaking for the People of Asia
That which we know as Asian Theologies today has implicitly elitist undertones. They are written by people who have constructed theologies for the masses of Asia without first having consulted the masses. In thinking that they somehow know better, such theologies is written with the presupposition that they accurately reflect the struggle of the Asian peoples. No consent was sought from the masses to validate the written theology. In claiming their theologies to be liberating, they may have further marginalised those whom they sought to liberate.

A theology that is truly Asian would seek validation and legitimisation from the people it speaks about. Such a theology would take on a consultative tone and hopes to understand theologies that already form a part of the way the masses understand their world, and seeks to find the appropriate words to describe the experiences of the masses in as accurate a way as possible.

We need a new Asian theological method.

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3. Ensure that the life of your organic community is regulated. If you’ve been thinking that an organic community is about the cultivation of lovey-dovey mushed up and emotionally hyped sentimentalities, you couldn’t be more mistaken. An organic community isn’t about a group of people with similar interests and who speak a similar lingo cliquing together to live happily ever after. That’s called a club.

An organic community is a family of people who may be diverse in their cultures, worldviews and interests, but who have an express willingness to live in unwavering commitment in the ways of the Kingdom of God. They may have habits that get on one another’s nerves and cultural differences that confound one another, which makes it very difficult for them to live with one another, but they are nevertheless deeply committed to share life with one another to embody the reality of the Kingdom in the present.

This means that the people within this organic community are willing to embrace a set of values that are shared by all within the said community. These are also the very values that regulate the life they share together and how they relate with one another. Now, if all within the community are of almost a similar maturity (or lack thereof) in their faith journey, that’s a rather difficult feat to achieve. Thus, every community needs a person within it who is relatively advanced in his/her faith journey to steer and guide the community in terms of the community’s rule of life.

I suspect many people think that if they could find organic communities consisting of people who live in commitment to one another and to God, their spiritual vitality would be all fired up and they’d once again return to the “first love” experience. It’s a fallacy. An organic community that truly strives to live out the way of the Kingdom actually suffers. If you find that hard to believe, follow these suggestions I’ve given and go try them out and see for yourself if life in an organic community is all that pleasant as you’ve made it out to be. My experience tells me that proximity and intimacy in relationship spells trouble.

In the final analysis, you know what - it really is much easier to just be an institutional Christian. Inasmuch as you find it painful, it’s much less daunting a process than learning to live within an organic community which is committed to the way of Christ. The institutional way is the way that most Christians have chosen for themselves, because it is the way that enables them to live the religious life whilst still having every bit of freedom to live in almost exactly the way they most desire. If you think life in the institution is overly controlled and inhibited, try life in an organic community; you’ll most likely be horrified. It’s easier to survive the superficialities of the institutional church than the intimacy of the organic dimension of church.

We’re often complaining that life in the church institution is too superficial. But when confronted with the realities of the organic life of the church, can we actually take it? Is it something we actually want? If we've not been able to survive the demands of the institutional church on us, it's almost certain that we won't survive the demands of an organic community.

I could certainly share more on what an organic community within the institutional church looks like in concrete terms. But that's not really the point of this series. The purpose of this brief series has been merely to stir us to consider the realities of the church at the present moment, and to re-examine if our responses towards these realities have been legitimate from a theological perspective of the church.

One thing is for sure, whatever it is, and I've emphasised this multiple times in this writing - there is no such thing as a "churchless Christianity". It is theologically unjustifiable and untenable as a form of Christian spirituality, because it defies the most fundamental nature of God as a eternal and Trinitarian community. In other words, Christianity apart from the community that Jesus has instituted and which the Holy Spirit constitutes is no Christianity at all, maybe except to the one practising it and propagating hard to justify it.

I wish you all the best on your endeavour to survive church. A churchless Christianity? NO.

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2. Find an organic life within the church institution(s).
The problem is real - for many of our church institutions, there is hardly an organic life within. The people go through the religious notions and prescribed rituals, and then dive right back into their own private lives as if their faith and life were two separate issues all together. But remember, the church is the church. Nothing can take away the role relegated to the church of being the necessary means to bring you towards the eventual and full partaking of Christ’s nature. This means that you’re obligated to continue partaking in the life of the church institution. But it also means that you have to somehow find an organic life within the said institution.

One main difficulty the Protestant Christian has to grapple with is which church institution I’m referring to here. Because in reality, we’re talking about many fragmented institutions which often disagree with one another, not one universal institution. Unfortunately, this is part of the irony which has emerged from 600 years of protesting against… erm, I understand what we were protesting about, but what are we protesting about now?

So here’s the thing: If you were a Roman Catholic or an Orthodox Christian, the organic community in which you participated would also belong to the one institution, because the entire Roman Catholic Church is one, and the Orthodox Church also sees itself as one based on a universal theological agreement on the Tradition of the church. But as a Protestant Christian, it would be difficult to have any one particular institution contain the organic body for the simple reason that we are legion (in authority structures and in theological positions)! Imagine, what if your organic community – people who journeyed with you in spiritual intimacy – consisted of a Presbyterian, a Methodist, a Lutheran, and a Pentecostal? Which institution would you expect to contain this organic community? To have one institution contain it would mean the exclusion of the other three.

So for the Protestant Christian, I’d suggest that you find spiritual friends who can journey with you in a deep intimacy in the environment of an organic community, but not seek an organic community solely found within one institution. The people in your organic community may come from various institutions, and that’s okay. But as they commit themselves to a life within your organic community, they must also be deeply committed to a participation in the life of their respective institutions. As soon as the organic community begins to think that it can exist apart from the institution(s), it has theologically invalidated itself within the scheme of the Kingdom. If you stand outside the institution, you stand outside the body of Christ. There is no Christianity outside the church in its institutional form, for she is the body of Christ enfleshed, which contains both the visible structure and the invisible organic dimension. If this fact seems over-emphasised, it is only because it cannot be emphasised enough.

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So, here I stand, having survived years of churchlife within the Protestant tradition and having suffered multiple ulcers every time I “go to church”. But how did I survive church, find resuscitation for my faith, and keep on being a part of the institutional church? This is what I hope to share here, together with some theological points of concern which must be taken into account in such decisions we make along our journey.

1. Remain fiercely loyal to the institutional church.
Now, no matter how horrible the church institution looks like, remember that she is nevertheless the church belonging to and constituting a part of the Christ. He died for her, and he will return for her. Yes, not all who are within the institution are truly a part of that body, because many of these may not have appropriated their faith despite having received the means to do so. But yet, everyone who is a part of the body must always be found within the institution. Don’t go thinking that one can be Christian outside the church institution; it’s like saying “I can call myself ‘Sherman Kuek’ without identifying myself as a part of the ‘Kuek’ family”. It’s ridiculous.

Why is it so important that one who is truly a part of the body of Christ must be found within the church institution? Because the Christian church in ages past and present has been given the authority to i) dispense the sacraments which are necessary for the impartation of God’s grace to propel us further towards increasingly partaking in the nature of Christ (without this, there is no “salvation” to talk about), and ii) distinguish the right beliefs from the wrong, and to distinguish orthodoxy from heterodoxy (a nicer word for “heresy”). These are things that cannot be replaced by an “organic church”, if there is even such a thing.

One may ask, “Where is all this mentioned in the bible?” The bible is a historical piece of document containing information about the life of God’s people up to the first-century church - that’s where it stops. But inasmuch as the bible is a documentation about the people of God, the people of God herself – the church – is dynamic and growing in her wisdom. In other words, the bible belongs to the church, the church does not belong to the bible. Hence, there are subsequent developments in the church’s self-understanding throughout the centuries that are not contained in the bible, but which do not contradict the bible. Rather, these developments are a further extension of the church’s self-understanding from biblical times. In fact, it was the institutional church that prescribed the bible as its authority. So asking “where is all this mentioned in the bible” is in fact an attestation that you subscribe to the authority of the institutional church.

Another reason that one who is truly a part of the body of Christ must be found within the church institution is this: the organic dimension of the church is organic, for goodness’ sakes. It is unshaped and dynamic and, like water, difficult to define unless there is a container which contains it. And the church institution is precisely that visible container which contains the organic dimension of the church. So we cannot go speaking of the two as if they are separate entities - this form of dualism is a heresy. To have an organic dimension of the church outside of the church institution (if that’s even possible) is only as good as having spilt water on the ground that cannot be recollected – it eventually dries up!

So the very first thing to note, in our journey of recovering a Christianity which is true to our faith, is that no authentic Christianity can exist apart from the church institution. One cannot claim to be a Christian outside of the church institution any more than a scientist can claim to be a scientist who remains unrecognised by the scientific community or a self-professed journalist whose news reports no press wants to publish. You may say, “Well, as long as God accepts me, that’s fine by me”, but you can never know for sure, can you? Because God speaks through his Body, the church. The fact that this church has lost its organic dimension and mostly retained only its institutional dimension is besides the point.

No doubt, the church might have screwed up and hurt you, disappointed you, abused you, flogged you, or abandoned you. Nothing warrants your finding a “churchless Christianity”, for there is no Christianity apart from the Body of Jesus Christ enfleshed. So for now, I leave you with the advice of my spiritual father:

As long as a church confesses the catholic faith even though catholicity is blurred at the margins, I cannot abandon the church into which I was baptised.

Of course, this does not mitigate the pain you face and the problem you might have identified pertaining to life in the institutional church. But it suffices to say for now that the prerogative is not yours (or anybody's) to think you can find a Christianity apart from the church.

More to come...

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There’s a lot of talk among middle-class young adults from the urban contexts regarding their disillusionment with church. Some are disillusioned because they’ve been hurt by the church. Others are disillusioned because the church isn’t providing what they need. Yet others are disappointed because they find that the church isn’t focusing on things that matter, e.g. environmental concerns and socio-political concerns.

Their responses are varied. Some continue being a part of the church institution whilst finding alternative sources of spiritual and emotional support from beyond the institution (or platforms beyond the institution that stand for the causes relevant to their concern). Others, upon having found such alternatives, stop going to church. Yet others dump the idea of having a commitment to the church institution all together and stop wanting to be involved in any visible form of churchlife, thinking that there’s a form of Christianity that still renders one Christian despite his/her absence from the institution. And together with these responses of course comes a plethora of different justifications. It’s a trend that’s picking up significantly especially in the West; and our urban young in Asia who’re disillusioned with church are happily influenced by this trend, consuming and even propagating videos and books on a “churchless Christianity”.

I feel a need to respond to my observation of this phenomenon. But first off, I want to acknowledge that if you’re a Roman Catholic Christian or an Eastern Orthodox Christian, the seeming conceptual detachment of the church institution from the church as an organic body must sound entirely awkward at best, and heretic at worst, for you. And you are right. It’s a Protestant “heresy” that undermines the importance of the very institution to which Christ has bequeathed the authority for the dispensation of the sacraments necessary for our journey of salvation, the very institution which also should contain the organic life of the church. It is therefore common for a Protestant Christian to think that the true Christian life can be lived beyond the church institution. And of course, by virtue of our being Protestant (a confederation of churches which sometimes disagree with one another rather than a single entity with a universal authoritative mind), the problem of “institution” also begs the question: which institution? So as a Roman Catholic or an Eastern Orthodox Christian, if you find us largely messed up in our understanding of church and our identities as people rooted in a historical faith (or not), by golly, you’re right.

Now, having said all that, I’ve never been anything other than Protestant. To be exact, I’ve belonged to the “evangelical” faith all throughout my faith journey (now, I didn’t overtly say that I’m evangelical, did I? I just said I belong to that tradition… mark the difference, pretty please, because I’m increasingly discovering within my own tradition lots of teachings and practices that would’ve been seriously condemned as heresy in the Patristic era).

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The following is an article from the CHRISTIAN VISION PROJECT of Christianity Today.

Simon Chan may be the world's most liturgically minded Pentecostal. The Earnest Lau professor of systematic theology at Trinity Theological College in Singapore is both a scholar of Pentecostalism and a leader in the Assemblies of God, but his recent books, Spiritual Theology and Liturgical Theology, engage with wider and older Christian traditions as well. Worship, Chan believes, is not just a function of the church, but the church's very reason for being. Our big question for 2007 focuses on global mission: What must we learn, and unlearn, to be agents of God's mission in the world? Christian Vision Project editorial director Andy Crouch interviewed Chan while Chan was a visiting scholar at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, to find out whether fully joining God's mission may require that we unlearn some of our assumptions about mission itself.

You have written a great deal about liturgical theology, but missional theology seems more popular these days.

I think that missional theology is a very positive development. But some missional theology has not gone far enough. It hasn't asked, What is the mission of the Trinity? And the answer to that question is communion. Ultimately, all things are to be brought back into communion with the triune God. Communion is the ultimate end, not mission.

If we see communion as central to the life of the church, we are going to have an important place for mission. And this is reflected in the ancient fourfold structure of worship: gathering, proclaiming the Word, celebrating the Eucharist, and going out into the world. The last, of course, is mission. But mission takes its place within a larger structure. It is this sense of communion that the evangelical world especially needs. Communion is not just introspection or fellowship among ourselves. It involves, ultimately, seeing God and seeing the heart of God as well, which is his love for the world.

In many services today, the dismissal into the world is quite perfunctory. But if you go to an Orthodox service, you'll be amazed at the elaborate way in which the end of the service is conducted. It's not just a word of dismissal—there are whole prayers and litanies that prepare us to go back out into the world.

If liturgical worship is such a good preparation for mission, why are Pentecostalism and evangelicalism, which hardly follow the ancient structure of worship, growing so fast?

In the modern age, the free churches are evangelistically successful, but in the broader history of mission that hasn't always been true. Europe was evangelized in the early centuries by missionaries who were certainly not free-church evangelicals. And think of the spread of the Orthodox Church from Russia to northern Africa.

In Singapore, we keep very close statistics about the growth of the Assemblies of God, which is currently the second-largest Protestant denomination in the country. We are good at evangelizing, bringing people in, but we have also noticed that many of those people that we have brought into our churches would over time go to more traditional churches and seeker-friendly megachurches. Our net growth isn't really that much, but in terms of bringing people in, yes, we have significant numbers of people being brought into the church for the first time. It may be that in God's providence he is using free churches, Pentecostals, and charismatics to reach out to the world, but I still believe that his aim is to embrace them all within the one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

Surely part of Pentecostalism's success is its ability to adapt rapidly in a technological culture.

Pentecostals are definitely very adaptable. They are quick to seize upon new opportunities for the sake of the gospel. They make use of the technologies of the times. There is a certain habit of mind that enables them to readily leave behind things that don't work and to move on to things that they think will work. Whereas the liturgy creates a different habit of mind, a habit of stability. This has its strengths and weaknesses, just as the Pentecostal mindset has its strengths and weaknesses. But in my view, in the modern world especially, the danger of a short memory far outweighs the danger of not being willing to change.

Many people would say the opposite: For the church to succeed in its mission, it needs to be ready to change.

But is that true in the long run? Coming from a Pentecostal background, I'm more sensitive to the dangers that a church is exposed to when it forgets its history.

What is the place of new communication technologies in worship and mission?

I believe that if we have a clear, coherent ecclesiology, if we know what it is to be the church, then technology will have its proper place. It's when we lack a clear understanding of our own identity and are driven by a pragmatic understanding of the church and its mission that technology becomes a threat to the life of the church. For too long, evangelicals have been driven by a rather shallow understanding of the church. We tend to see the church as a kind of pragmatic organization to fulfill certain tasks. And of course, if the church is viewed in this way, then we use technology very uncritically as long as those tasks are done.

This is especially important when it comes to the ultimate meaning of communion. Technology has created what we call virtual reality. It can give you a sense of intimacy. But whether it is real intimacy or not is quite another matter. I think this is where the Christian understanding of community enables us to look beyond what modern technology can offer, because the Christian understanding of real communion is embodied communion. Communion means bodily presence. That's at the heart of our incarnational theology, God coming to us in person; it's the meaning of the resurrection of the body. So no matter what virtual reality technology can create, it will never be an adequate substitute for communion.

But a high-definition video screen seems to bring us much closer to the preacher. Does that sense of intimacy happen in liturgical worship?

The traditional liturgy doesn't exist primarily to foster interpersonal relationships. It operates on a very different paradigm. In the liturgy we are, in a very real sense, objectively recognizing God for who he is. And in the midst of proclaiming who God is, we encounter God. At the end of the day, we may not be particularly drawn toward individuals, but in a good liturgy, we are drawn to God. We recognize him for who he is.

What can liturgical traditions learn from the charismatic and Pentecostal stream?

I think they need to be willing to recognize that God can and often does surprise us. We cannot control God. The Pentecostal willingness to change things at the spur of the moment may not be a bad thing at times! Liturgical churches need to be open to what Jonathan Edwards called "the surprising works of God."

What do we need to learn and unlearn about making disciples?

We need to rediscover this ancient word, catechism. In a way, it is very straightforward. Its purpose is to help people become the body of Christ and be incorporated into the church. And I don't think that the modern church can improve very much on what has already been given: the creeds, the great commandments, the Lord's Prayer. Those are the basic things that help the church develop its identity as the church of Jesus Christ. We can certainly add other training programs, but I think the catechism should be central to any training of disciples.

Now, the traditional approach was rote learning, asking questions and memorizing the responses. That may not be the most useful approach now, although it's surprising how some of those things we learn by rote stick at the back of our minds for a lifetime. But there are many other things that need to be addressed as the church enters into new contexts. The basic content of the catechism needs to address contextual issues.

For example, in some parts of the world, in the course of catechetical instruction, when we come to the Christian's renunciation of the world and of idolatry, that can quite literally mean that you have to give up your fetishes and idols. It's not metaphorical. Similarly, exorcism, which is still practiced in a liturgical way in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches when people are being prepared for baptism, may be much more than just a ritual in some parts of the world. People who are involved in black magic and the like actually have to renounce these things and have demons cast out of them.

In our context in Singapore, the act of baptism is seen even by non-Christians as the most critical moment of a person's life. Traditional Chinese do not mind their children going to church. In fact, they'll say, well, the church can teach you good things—but don't get baptized. Because the moment you get baptized, you burn your bridge with traditional religion. They understand baptism better than some of our evangelical Christians!

I'm an advisor to a local Assemblies of God church, and I know some of the people in our church who have been in our church for years, who have even taken up leadership positions in the church but who are not baptized.

What does the Asian church have to contribute to our understanding of discipleship and mission?

I believe the traditional Asian family structure, with its emphasis on extended family and authority within the family, could be very helpful to the Western church and its tendency to atomize the Christian community into autonomous individuals. Western people have great difficulty understanding that a hierarchical structure is not necessarily opposed to individual freedom. They tend to think of hierarchy as an arrangement of domination. But that is not the way we see it in Asia.

Likewise, in our more traditional cultures, the value attached to marriage helps us in instructing people in the importance of baptism. When you go through that process, there's a profound and permanent change of relationship and status. But in the context where marriage is a kind of convenient arrangement, it's very difficult to teach sacramental theology. So in a way, I can see why free churches in the West talk a lot about the church and leave out the sacraments.

Can't modernity be described as a loss of sacramentality? There's nothing particularly special about the world, and we can remake it as we will.

That's right. But I think in many traditional societies outside the West, the sense of the sacred is still strong. It is beginning to give way as modernity comes in, especially in urban places. But in many other contexts, the sacred is still there. I think that provides a good point of contact for linking them with the Christian faith. This is one of the reasons why Christianity has a special appeal among what we might call tribal societies, where there is still a strong sense of the sacramental universe.

What does the church need to learn and unlearn about mission in your cultural setting?

Unfortunately, when Asian churches start to be involved in cross-cultural mission, especially churches in the more affluent societies like Korea and Singapore, many of them seem to repeat the mistakes of earlier missionaries. For example, after Cambodia opened up to the rest of the world, mission groups, many originating in Asia, rushed in. There are countless mission groups working in Cambodia. But they simply perpetuate the denominationalism that they so strenuously condemned in their own countries. So we haven't quite learned our lesson.

Asian Christians, too, can come with the same colonial mentality that Westerners once did, thinking that we've got all the answers because we have the money.

It's kind of reassuring as a Westerner to know we're not the only ones who make these mistakes.

At the same time, there's a lot to be thankful for. Many Asian churches are devoting huge amounts of money to the mission field. I was telling a colleague here at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary yesterday that some megachurches have mission budgets that are bigger than the budget of Trinity Theological College! And they are using that to go and preach the gospel. We can be thankful for that. But at the same time, we need to look at mission in the longer term and engage in things that are going to bear lasting fruit. There are still many parts of Asia, especially tribal regions, where the Bible is not available in the local language. I believe that the key to long-term mission success is to place the Bible in the hands of people in their local language. But this kind of work requires years and years of commitment. And I'm afraid that many of our churches are just not patient. They want to get things done quickly. They want to have results. They want statistics to show.

I suppose translation is just one aspect of contextualization, and it takes a long time to get it right.

Exactly. You need to have people who are willing to live in the place for a long period of time to do translation well. It can't be done quickly without doing harm to the very culture that you're seeking to serve.

Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today.

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It is strange how theology (particularly Western theology) has a methodology which drives us to ask more and more questions and, in the process, leads us to sometimes be so speculative in our relentless endeavours to derive satisfactory answers to our questions.

Many people have set out to study theology with a hope that they would attain answers to questions they have had about life and faith, and perhaps in the process drawing some sharply clear boundaries between the black and the white regions of life. To their horror, their study of theology has led them to being confronted by more questions than ever, and to the further erosion of the clear boundaries between black and white which has become a source of their spiritual security.

This leads them to despair. It is such a difficult place to be in, knowing that there are more things in life we do not know of than things explainable. The confrontation of a question with ten more others like it reflects an obvious reality that life is bigger than we think. And certainly, God is bigger than we think - no sooner than you try fitting him into neat categories, his nature defies you in the face.

If anything, theology must lead us to a posture of prayer. In fact, in Eastern Orthodoxy, theology is not even the things we say about God - theology is the things we say to God. In saying things about God, we are at best talking about theology, and that is not theology itself.

In the final analysis though, whatever our definition of theology is, it must do one thing - it must lead us to the humbling confession and the awesome depth of appreciation that God is who he is, and that we are because he is.

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This evening, I was having a casual chat with one of my colleagues working in the Academic Office of the seminary I teach in. I never used to be one for small talk (I think I’ve blogged about this before), but of course by now I’ve learned that you never know what small talk might lead to.

To my amazement, this colleague revealed her secret interest to me – she’s interested in the reconciliation of the Chinese Yin and Yang principles with the Christian worldview. This caused my heart to skip a beat. The Chinese Yin and Yang speak of “opposite factors” in the scheme of life. They are not to be understood as opposites in the sense of “good” waging war against “evil”, for neither is morally superior to the other. They are merely opposite forces at work in the processes inherent within the scheme of the universe.

The thing is this – any talk about the Yin and Yang almost immediately brings the well-meaning Christian into a furious negativity about how it’s related to Taoism (or at best, Chinese medicine!) Hardly would anyone dare to venture into the possibility that the principles of the Yin and Yang can be somewhat reconciled with the Christian paradigm of life in the universe. And this is precisely what this colleague of mine finds herself interested in. For her, it’s simply about reconciling one philosophy to another. Whoosh!

The problem that unsuspecting Westerners have about learning Asian philosophies is this – if Westerners talk about their philosophies, Asians most often simply live their philosophy. You cannot “read” Asian philosophy from afar and assume to understand it the way you can read Western philosophy from a distance. To understand Asian philosophy, you’ve simply got to come and live among us for an extended period of time and be one of us – you don’t study Asian philosophy. You catch it by watching the things we do every day and doing those things with us. Geddit?

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There is a joke among English-speaking pastors that Chinese preachers don't preach; they tell stories. But without either of them knowing it, the Chinese preachers may have had the last laugh. In conveying the gospel through story-telling, they have in fact come closer to the biblical narrative tradition than their Western-educated counterparts.

Quoted from: Simon Chan, “Problem and Possibility of an Asian Theological Hermeneutic”, Trinity Theological Journal, Vol. 9, 2000, pp.55-6.

Related Posts:
Telling Tales 1
Telling Tales 2
Telling Tales 3
Telling Tales 4
Telling Tales 5
Telling Tales (Afterthought)

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I'm sensing a rising discontentment in the enunciation of Christian theology, particularly by a number of friends from my generation. And I stand with this discontentment. It pertains to the blandness of our theological language.

We say theology is our language of the divine. It is how we express our experience of our relational transactions with God. Hence, theology is beautiful, we say. At the same time, we pack it in a most hideously bizarre way of enunciation. We say things about God in a way that few can even understand, and codify our understanding of him (or lack thereof) in mysterious riddles. We advance claims that God is beautiful and seek to articulate that beauty, but we do it in the most aesthetically estranged ways.

We spew unbecoming propositions like "God is this" and "God is that", and "God is not this" and "God is not that". And the more we speak of God in such terms and in such a language, the more the subject of our description is found repulsive.

When others reject our claims, we say they've rejected the truth. Maybe it's not God or the ones who reject the truth who're the problem; maybe it's our language that's the problem. This may not always be the case, that's true. But nevertheless, it often is the case.

Our language of God is too bombastically brash. It is complex and sophisticated. But perhaps we are confused between sophistication and beauty. Beauty can be found even amidst simplicity of expression.

But things are changing. The aesthetically sensitive people are now beginning to say things about God in a way that reflects the gracefulness of his being. It is captured not merely in the descriptions themselves, but also through the language used.

Maybe, for a change, we should just start telling stories all over again, and cease trying to talk beyond ourselves. Our attempts to enunciate theology in a sophisticated way are simply too clumsy. Perhaps God didn't mean for theology to be articulated that way.

Stories captivate, because they have a capacity to capture our God-talk together with its beauty. And stories don't make God sound too boxy. It's a stark irony when we try to say that God isn't clumsy in such clumsy language. Like this post.

Editor's Note: This is a republication of the post from 21 April 2006.

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This post dwells on some further sustained thoughts pertaining to the “dynamic universal core”. If we posit that the dynamic universal core is “time sensitive and perennially changing with the development of our theological understanding”, what reasonable sources possess legitimate ascendancy over the dynamism of the core?

It is open knowledge that the "emerging" people are serious about engaging with the dominant culture confronting the Christian gospel (in the West the postmodern culture, and in Asia perhaps the postcolonial ethos). First and foremost, this engagement is about the vulnerability of allowing the dominant culture to challenge the Christian gospel with serious questions regarding the adequacy, accuracy, and even the absolute rightness of the latter.

But it is probably a misunderstanding beyond proportions that these people engaging with culture are actually permitting the culture to redefine the core. It is most likely that culture raises questions which shed doubt on the perennial universality of the core, but not necessarily that culture redefines the core.

In my observation, it seems to me that whilst culture is permitted the role of the “interrogator”, the contextual thinkers are going back into the Great Christian Tradition to seek solutions for these problems raised by culture. They do not claim that culture itself provides the answers. They seem to have an implicit understanding that the Great Christian Tradition itself possesses more than a sufficient wealth of wisdom to provide plausible solutions for challenges posed by culture. The Great Christian Tradition causes one to expand and deepen the core such that one realises that his definition and demarcation of the core may have been overly limited and unnecessarily fossilised.

Thus, it is not uncommon for contextual thinkers to move beyond the boundaries of their own limited traditions (i.e. their denominational / traditional boundaries and familiar scope of theological positions) towards other even older traditions in search of responses to the problems posed by culture. This explains the openness of the emerging people towards the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions and their willingness to listen to other ecclesial voices beyond that with which they are familiar. Again, this is not something deemed acceptable to every Christian thinker of every tradition. Some traditions are, by their sheer nature, implicitly closed to conversations which challenge the rudiments of their all-familiar categories.

The Christian faith is more than 500 years old. In fact, the memory of the Christian Church goes back beyond 2,000 years. The contextual thinker holds on to this wealth of ecclesial life and therefore understands that there is no need for theological insecurity, for he has a long, long history – a Great Story of which he is a part – consisting of multiple voices of wisdom who have come before him and who would be able to infuse wisdom and impart solutions in his endeavour to be a relevant voice within the present scheme of life. This is the reservoir of ecclesial jurors for the contextual thinker which many others fail to observe or choose to ignore all together.

For him, the challenges posed by cultural confrontations do not cause him to pander into a state of intimidation and self-preserving defensiveness, for he looks beyond himself and his restrained traditional familiarity; and behold, a world of endless possibilities is open before him as he gleans from the voices of his many Fathers who once treaded the path on which he now finds himself. Someone aptly comments (and the contextual thinker certainly mirrors it well): “It’s not about the old ways, it’s about the much older ways”.

Posted by SK at 1:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

In speaking of contextualisation, there are (rather simplistically) two trends of thought:

1) The gospel consists of a "static universal core", a series of articulations which is time insensitive and perennially unchanging. The contextualisation project is simply about enfleshing this core with a cultural facade for the facilitation of communication and understanding. The core, essentially, does not change.

2) The gospel consists of a "dynamic universal core", a series of articulations which is time sensitive and perennially changing with the development of our theological understanding. The contextualisation project, whilst being about the cultural expression of this "dynamic universal core", is also about allowing the enfleshment process to provoke us to re-examine the legitimacy and relevance of the universal core. This means that the universal core, by its sheer dynamic nature, is vulnerable to being modified, changed, eradicated, retained, or reaffirmed in accordance with that deemed necessary.

I suspect that the "emerging" people are those who are more ready to embrace the second of the two approaches, and not just anyone is willing to sit well with this methodological vulnerability.

But anyone who is seriously going to engage his/her context authentically would almost immediately see that the second of the two is probably the only way by which one can be authentically contextual in his/her theological methodology.

Editor's Note: This post was first posted as a comment in the following blog entry.

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Contextual theology has been in existence for aeons now. When people engage with prevalent cultures like modernity and post-modernity, or some third-world socio-political realities such as political oppression, economic imbalance and gender imbalance, they are essentially engaging in contextual theology.

At the outset, it is crucial for the theological thinker to acknowledge that all theology is contextual. Every theology necessarily arises from some immediate context or situation which warrants a reflective exercise and thereafter effects a thoughtful theological response. This is true even for those theologies we now accept as normative.

Of course, there are those who continue to revel in the glory of universal and timeless truths. It is, needless to say, a much safer position in which to stand. Many of us come from such traditions that "fossilise" what we think to be universal. However, even if we conceded to the validity of the position of timeless universality, there's an inclination to forget that our articulations of that which is universal themselves aren't universal. The reasons for refuting the universality of these articulations are multiple:

Firstly, these articulations are encouched within a cultural reality. To begin with, the fact that language needs to be employed for these articulations already points to the inherent validity of this argument. Secondly, our articulations are never exhaustive of the universal in its entirety. We are but mere humans articulating our cognitive understanding and subjective experiences of the divine within the confines of our intellectual perceptivity. We must never allow our intellectual loftiness to pander to timelessly universalising that which we have constructed using finite intellectual material. Thirdly, an engagement with contextual realities often (if not always) necessitates the theological thinker to re-examine what he once thought was universal.

In other words, we cannot escape the particularities of our theological contexts. A theologian must - at all times and in all places - engage in the theological enterprise as a contextual exercise.

Now, it is at this point that we begin to face some strange demands from those who fail to acknowledge the inevitability of the contextual exercise - they mandate that a universal apologetic has to be constructed in order to establish the legitimacy of the contextual exercise! The irony of it is this: such a demand itself arises out of a certain cultural predisposition (which they, of course, fail to realise).

The contextual theologian must hold his nerve and not pander to playing the same game, lest he gets stuck in a cycle of universalistic hegemony. He must not attempt to “evangelise” the theological universalist by trying to play by the rules of the latter’s game. He should keep speaking a language the other understands, but not start speaking the language of the other - and this statement is itself to be understood, no less and no more, contextually.

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To believe or not to believe in the legitimacy of propositional theology…

This may come as a surprise (at worst, a shock) to many, but I do believe in propositional statements - and yes, this is a propositional statement. I believe in propositional theology when there is a relational life behind it.

Proposition is what we emerge with when we are confronted by the reality of the Truth - a Person - and when we seek to articulate our experience of life with the Truth in the context of community. Anything we can say about that experience is a proposition.

Proposition in the absence of the relational is dead articulation. Whilst some may deny that proposition can take place in the absence of the relational, Western history is replete with examples of the contradicting reality.

Propositional theology without the undergirding relational dimension is as dead and superficial as the institutional church without an organic life animating it. It is as useful only as the letter of the law which mindlessly binds without the spirit of the law which sheds light on its existence.

When there is rightful focus on the relational dimension of faith, a series of lively articulations emerges from the experience of the community. This is the propositional articulation of its relational faith.

Focus on the articulations themselves and forget the life, and indulge in mere intellectual battles in the absence of relational depth, and we would have exhibited evidence of a subtle heresy called intellectualistic scholasticism.

One sure evidence of intellectual scholasticism is observable when “scholars” seek to present propositional theology in a language people cannot understand just so no one knows how to refute them. Linguistic sophistication is a facade for insecure scholastic endeavours which seeks to present ideas beyond the reach of the people. If the people are not high enough to grasp that which is articulated, then the articulation stands beyond reproach (or so they think).

In contrast, relational propositions are unsophisticated and yet possess a power of depth unbeknownst to intellectual scholasticism.

We can believe in propositional theology only because we have a relational life. Be rational, but be relationally rational.

Editor's Note: A slightly adapted version of this entry is published in the Generous Orthodoxy Think Tank. Click here to see it.

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There is a distinct difference in the Christian understanding of work.

In the Christian understanding of work, labour is offered as a gift of love. It is a worshipful act of representing God to nature. It maximises the dignity of the human person, for in his offering of himself through work, the human person finds his place of significance within the scheme of the created order. Therefore, work increases his sense of personhood.

Work in a capitalistic society, on the other hand, represents an impersonalisation of the human person. Human labour is but a commodity. For the person who provides labour for the sustenance of the production process, the offer of labour is more a contractual process than it is liturgical work offered to God. The end result of his work is so far removed from him that the only visible reward for his work is the financial returns he derives from that wilful exchange.

What about work in the contemporary ministerial context? I’m afraid that even in many vocations we relegate to the “fulltime ministry” today, work is nothing much more than a contractual exchange. For many ministers, "serving the Lord" has never been such an alienating experience before and it is threatening to become increasingly even more alienating than ever before.

The work of the Christian minister might now have become perceived as a demeaning vocation rather than a dignifying one. If the role of the minister in the past was primarily one of building lives, loving people, and in the process being loved himself, the role of the minister now is to run an organisation. And the sooner he turns his organisation into an automated production line, the greater returns he derives.

He is little more than a worker tasked with fulfilling the purpose of the organisational capitalists. His ministerial work is a commodity traded through a contractual exchange with his denominational leaders. The ordination title is a perk - and in some denominations, it indicates a privilege of lifelong employment.

What people?

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Yesterday morning, I witnessed what must've been the most meaningful eucharist I've ever experienced before in my life. The irony of it is, I experienced this in an independent charismatic church using a series of liturgical prayers commonly heard being recited in the mainline churches. But it was all done with so much liveliness and meaning as the people lifted their hands, wholeheartedly saying:

Holy, holy, holy Lord,
God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest!

Guess what - there wasn't a single ordained leader presiding over this occasion. It was led by a group of largely lay leaders who loved the Lord and loved the people. And the result? A powerfully sacramental eucharist duringwhich many people teared and some people wept. Around the table, I even saw some people approaching their estranged friends in a spirit reconciliation just so that they could eat together at Christ's table of friendship.

So here's what gets me thinking now - many of our church institutions accord the eucharistic dispensation only to ordained ministers who're tasked with the responsibility of discharging the sacrament through mechanical recitations of the liturgies. I understand the fear of abuse if the dispensation were to be given to the lay people. But does the relegation of this role to the confined authority of an ordained minister necessarily prevent abuse and preserve the significance of the sacrament?

Who is the host of the table - the ordained minister?

There are the traditions, and there are the traditions.

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We are created in the imago Dei (“image of God”). For centuries, it has been a point of debate concerning what the imago Dei really means. One speculation after another emerged from the time of the Patristics (who distinguished between the “image” and the “likeness” and posited that the image was retained at the fall but the likeness was lost) right up to the time of the Protestant Reformers (who held that both the “image” and the “likeness” are synonymous and that this image had been distorted at the fall).

Understanding this from a Trinitarian perspective – which is essentially the foundation of our Christian faith anyway – one would realise that the “image” concerns God’s Trinitarian nature. If God has existed in all eternity as Father, Son and Holy Spirit – COMMUNITY – then the impartation of his “image” must mean the communication of his Trinitarian communal nature. We are made in the image of God such that we possess the capacity and the desire to live in community.

The Fall, which is traditionally understood as a “rebellion” against God, might be more accurately seen as the severance of humanity’s life in community with God and with one another, as well as with all creation. Consequently, sin may be appropriately seen as an inability to live in community; perhaps even an aversion towards life in community. Perhaps it is true then that sin always takes place in a social setting. After all, the failure to love God and one’s neighbour involves an “otherly” dimension.

The human race has forgotten that it was created for life in community. The remnant of the distorted image which John Calvin talks about is observable in our inclination towards having a “social life” or sorts. So in that sense, we are still the “social animals” Aristotle spoke about. But the brokenness of the image is distinctly vivid in the way we draw boundaries between ourselves and other people for the sake of our own emotional, physical, and mental survival. It is also made apparent in the way we feel a sense of intrusion when others invade our private space.

We have forgotten that we were created by community for community. And we have forgotten how to live in community. The norm for communal living has shifted from intimate Trinitarian communities to one of superficial non-threatening relationships. Even for Christians.

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b. For the Christian Believer

Despite the incapacity of the institutional church to align its priorities in accordance with the Kingdomic vision, no follower of Christ is excused from a fierce and unyielding commitment to the church institution. Despite the failure of the institutional church and its inconsistency with the Kingdomic vision, the faith of a Christian believer who seeks to exist apart from the institution must be seriously questioned. This understanding is found in the argument that the institutional church consists of people gathered by God from the world. And it is very likely true that the organic missional Christian is gathered by God from the institutional church. Whilst the individual’s deepest motivations may strongly and strangely differ from that of the institutional church, the fierce commitment to the institution guards his motivations and keeps them aligned to a cause beyond his self-interest.

Many individual Christians who have stood at odds with the institutional church have resorted to finding alternative paths among parachurch ministries and mission agencies. Such an alternative is not legitimate, for one needs to understand that these organisations themselves too are often self-motivated and constitute the institutional church in no less measure than the local assembly. Further to that, it does not do service to the cause of the Kingdom when many such parachurch institutions seek to perpetuate their existence by seeking resources in various forms from disgruntled Christian individuals. Many of them do not even deem it necessary that the parachurch institution walk in partnership with local churches; they often solicit help from individual Christians without the express blessing of local faith communities. This is extremely telling of a weak ecclesiology on the part of such parachurch agencies, and it betrays the very institutional deficiency they often attribute to the local church institutions. This is of course not to say that parachurch agencies are redundant. The issue in question is whether parachurch agencies are the natural solution to the institutional crisis of the church – a firm ecclesiological approach refutes this possibility. The discerning believer is called into the local assembly, the institutional church, and to live out the higher way of the organic missional life. This means that he finds himself consistently stuck in the tension between institutional demands and Kingdomic commands. To seek creative solutions in the form of attachments to parachurch agencies at the expense of the local church institution is ecclesiologically defiant. In this light, parachurch ministries too need to examine their own ecclesiological motivations and positions.

Note: This entry marks the end of this lengthy treatise on Organic Missional Ecclesiology. I hope you have found it helpful in addressing some concerns you may have had in relation to your relationship with your institutional local church or denomination.

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IV. The Praxis of Organic Missional Life

a. For the Ministerial Vocation

A minister of the gospel who desires to truly embrace the vision of the Kingdom and to embody it without compromise will inevitably find himself at odds with the institutional church. His predicament arises from the reality that he is actually gainfully employed by the institutional church, this being a vocation which entails the rendering of his authority, recognition, titles, and status within the organisational hierarchies. To continually stand at odds with the institutional church for the sake of the Kingdom is also to put all these privileges at stake. And yet, he struggles with the reality that his deepest motivations are inclined to those of the Kingdom, which is the primary and ultimate purpose of the organic missional church. In situations like this, the minister finds himself having to choose. And choose he has to. The calling of Christ to follow him is not something that entails the possibility of compromise, for we either accord everything or nothing to him.

Then there is another dimension of the minister’s affiliation with the faith community which compounds the complications he faces – despite his unyielding commitment to the organic missional life of the church, this ecclesiology does not permit him to dismiss the institution and to work apart from it. It is the institutional church as the visible assembly of believers that affirms his vocation in the ministry, and he is obligated to uphold this appointed vocation always in the best interest of the church’s wellbeing. However, this “wellbeing” is to be defined in accordance with Kingdomic values, and not institutional values. When called for, the minister is obligated to ignore the gravity of his position and his security and to act in accordance with the Kingdom, for it is in acting in accordance with the Kingdom that he functions for the wellbeing of the institutional church (which admittedly, would construe otherwise). He must be willing to lose it all; yes, everything.

The minister is to be the sacramental presence of Christ unto his people. He is called to be the real model of Kingdom life for all people, within and without the institutional church. He must never compromise this role even if it is upheld at the expense of his standing with the institution. He must find a place of peace within him to exist in this state of tension between serving the organic missional purpose of the Kingdom and surviving the temporal demands of the institutional church. He must always seek to be a visible embodiment of the Kingdomic life rather than merely to do the “work of the Kingdom”. And even at times when the institutional church seems to have compromised his wellbeing, he must love the church unceasingly and fervently seek to offer himself to the Body in accordance with the vision of the Kingdom.

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III. The Unity of the Church

In relation to this dynamics also is the pertinent issue of unity in the church. It must be noted that the issue of unity is not to be construed as the division between the institutional church and the organic missional church, but rather, unity among various institutional churches. The organic missional church is not divided; it does not have to be. The unity of the church is a major concern of the institutional church, not the organic missional church. This is because the fractured fellowship of the Body arose from the institutional history, and it is for the institutional leaders to negotiate a restoration of institutional unity. As far as the organic missional church is concerned, there never was a fracture in the unity of the church – it exists in harmony with the various components and streams of the Great Christian Tradition, for it looks beyond itself.

This is so because the theological concerns of the organic missional church are rather different from those of the institution. If theology in the institutional church impacts the constitution of the organisation, theology in the organic missional church animates its behaviour patterns and lifestyle. Hence, the organic missional church is most concern for unity not so much in the traditions and expressions of institutional churchlife, but rather, in Kingdomic values. It does not establish institutional boundaries and is not interested in organisational reputation or credit. It finds a deep and authentic sense of oneness with all who embrace the call to walk towards the Kingdom. Its disputes are not so much centred on, say, the speaking of other tongues or the acceptable forms of corporate worship as they are about practically caring for the needs of the poor, the hungry and the marginalised. In other words, it is the organic missional church which possesses the capacity to exercise charitable theological positions. It is the institutional church that is disunited, for there, we find elements of control, power, and authority to be pertinent issues. For the organic missional church, these are irrelevant, for authentic Kingdom living is to be found in the laying down of one’s life and all that one holds dear for the cause of the Kingdom.

When Jesus prayed “that they may be one”, he was referring to his Body in the true sense of the word. He was referring to the organic missional people whose concerns pertain to that which he had spoken of more than seventy times in the Gospels – the Kingdom of God. It probably does not bother God that the institutional church exists in a fragmented state, for this is a partial given in institutional life wherein control and power constitute consequential issues.

At this point of time in history, the search for unity within the church is an active search undertaken by the institutional church. As far as the organic missional church is concerned, there is no fracture. Instead, there is a sense of charitable unity among all who capture the heart of the gospel story and who desire to learn what it means to lay down their lives to follow Jesus.

Posted by SK at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The organic missional Christian must remain fiercely committed to the institutional church but not to its priorities. In his sovereignty, God has instituted both the organic missional church and the institutional church such that the former arises from within the latter. Whilst the institutional church often seems to be working against – or at best, constituting a hindrance to – the cause of the Kingdom, it is from within this realm that organic missional Christians emerge. Undoubtedly, when such Christians emerge, they become a “thorn in the flesh”, a source of disturbance, for the church institution. Their abiding presence remains as a stark reminder to the institutional church that there is a higher way of life, a higher calling to discipleship, even if many from the institutional church choose to ignore their presence. There is an apostolic role associated with the organic missional church in that it is there within the institutional church to impose a cleansing effect upon the institution, thereby drawing the larger Body closer to the vision of the Kingdom. For whilst there are those within the organic missional church who have willingly laid themselves down for the purpose of the Kingdom, there are others within the institutional church who need enforcements of Kingdomic challenge in order that they may not slip into positions of spiritual complacency.

Besides that, the institutional church is also charged with the task of guarding the orthodoxy of the organic missional church’s theology. When the organic missional Christians attempt to dispense all together with the institution instead of living within the existing tension, their ecclesiology must be held suspect. For in all history, it was the institutional church that has been the articulator of theology in its orthodoxy. From the time of the early church, the various ecumenical councils that met to resolve issues of doctrinal conflict represented the institutional Body of the Lord. This crucial role in guarding the theological orthodoxy of the church must not be viewed with disdain, for it is beyond the scope of the organic missional church. The task of the organic missional church is to fulfil these articulations of theology in praxis, and to provide challenge for the further crytalisation of these theologies. It must be obvious by now that even if the institutional church and the organic missional church cannot relationally co-exist in harmony, they must co-exist harmoniously in terms of their functional ontology. For one to exist in ignorance of the other is to render a significant fracture in the economy of the Kingdom.

The institutional church exists because human assemblies require structures within themselves in order to function. However, establishing structures in such a manner poses the grave possibility of compromising the often unshaped and unformed Kingdomic life found within the Christian story. And yet, the church – being the assembly of saints, human saints – cannot possibly exist without such structures, simply by virtue of its members being human. But from within these assemblies, there can emerge clusters of saints who are less concerned about structural issues and remain more fixated on the issues of the Kingdom. And their concerns cannot bear fruit if the institutional church does not persist in the working out of its temporal concerns. As it were, the institutional church needs to establish and preserve order so that the organic missional church can create chaos within the said order. The concerns of the latter give meaning to the former, whilst the concern of the former set the stage for the outworking of the latter. The existence of both is necessary.

Posted by SK at 6:08 AM