{"id":17922,"date":"2018-06-02T14:05:41","date_gmt":"2018-06-02T21:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=17922"},"modified":"2018-06-02T14:05:41","modified_gmt":"2018-06-02T21:05:41","slug":"culturally-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/culturally-christian\/","title":{"rendered":"Culturally Christian"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his book\u00a0Grassroots Asian Theology: Thinking The Faith From The Ground Up<\/em>, Simon Chan presents the reader with a challenge to see theology in a much different view than western churches do. In reading how Chan views theology, one senses a deep love of Christ and a desire for understanding just how theology can affect the church.<\/p>\n

In describing the roots of Asian theology Chan separates what he calls Elitist theology of the west and how theology is done in the East. He does not focus so much on the actual theology as opposed to how it works out in the church itself. Franklin Woo says this about Chan, “Instead of presenting a systematic theology in Grassroots Asian Theology, Chan is only interested in showing how theology ought to be done. In short, the process of doing theology is just as important as the content; therefore his thesis is definitely “thinking the faith from the ground up.” [1]\u00a0The interesting thing that Chan argues is not theology differences, i.e. virgin birth or not, but how theology plays out in the church. In chapter two he discusses the difference in divine immanence and transcendence in Western theology. He argues “Western theology took a major turn in the seventeenth century when the doctrine of divine transcendence-immanence was redefined in terms of God’s ‘distance’ in relation to the world rather than, as was the case prior to that time, a way of pointing to the mystery of God who transcends metaphysical categories. By understanding God’s relation to the world as a matter of distance, the rational mind could then ‘domesticate’ God.”[2]<\/span>. He goes on to argue that because of this the thought of God being on “our” side and\u00a0the theory of evolutionary progress was one of the causes of colonialism, then with the advent of the two World Wars the idea of a God at all started to waver especially a God present with us. [3] Asian Christians, on the other hand, he argues never had to concern themselves whether or not there was a God because in most of the religions there is a presupposition that there is a God. The idea then becomes the what is God’s nature[4]\u00a0If one starts with the presupposition that there is something greater out there, it seems this path would be easier trod than the Western idea, now, that there is no God and everything is just an accident. Growing up hearing that everything is an accident and you have no intrinsic value other than just a bunch of molecules which happened to come together, it is a much harder road to God, but if one starts at the point of “there is a God” finding the one true God seems to be a path to freedom in Christ.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There are some criticisms of Chan’s work. For one Jesuit Ahn Q. Tran who questions his line between “elitist” and “grassroots” theologies. He points out the line between the two is not as clearly demarcated as Chan supposes. He also poses this question “c.\u2019s claim that the \u201chierarchy\u201d of church and family found in Asian cultures is more nearly biblical may pose a problem for those who support a \u201cWestern\u201d egalitarianism of discipleship.” [5]<\/span>\u00a0Franklin Woo seems critical of Chan, mainly because of Chan’s background as a Pentecostal. His statement “Chan seems to take the Bible, the creeds, and doctrines of the church in all ages literally. In this manner he can be regarded as a “fundamentalist.” But most fundamentalists are also anti-intellectuals.” [6] is an elitist statement at its very core. To assume because one holds to the creeds and doctrines as literal that one does not have the capacity or knowledge to be considered intellectual is why it is hard to take so-called “intellectuals” seriously. Franklin goes on to criticize Chan because “being himself a product of Cambridge University, he is no less an elitist intellectual, like the people he critiques in this volume.” [7], again assuming that if you came from Cambridge you are an elitist intellectual. What Chan seems to be criticizing is jut the same assumptions that Franklin makes.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Enoch Charles argues “Chan’s approach has filled a void in Asian theology by giving voice to the living faith of ordinary people” [8]. This speaks from the heart where I feels is missing in the church. There are too many who want to look at God academically and I think we miss out on his full Godhood if we do not also choose to live out our faith. There is nothing wrong with an intellectual knowing of God, but without living your faith, a once vibrant faith becomes cold an callous. Chan seems to argue that the church in the third world will be the leading edge of the church in the future. This may not be a bad thing!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0<\/span>Woo, Franklin. \u201cBook Reviews: Grassroots Asian Theology: Thinking the Faith from the Ground Up.\u201d China Review International, vol. 20, no. 3-4, 2013, pp. 294\u2013296.<\/p>\n

[2]Chan, Simon.\u00a0Grassroots Asian Theology: Thinking the Faith from the Ground up<\/i>. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014. 47.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[3] Ibid. 47-48.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[4] Ibid. 48.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[5] Tran, Anh Q. “Book Review: Grassroots Asian Theology: Thinking the Faith from the Ground Up. By Simon Chan.” Theological Studies 76, no. 2 (2015): 394-95.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[6]\u00a0Woo, Franklin. \u201cBook Reviews: Grassroots Asian Theology: Thinking the Faith from the Ground Up.\u201d China Review International, vol. 20, no. 3-4, 2013, pp. 294\u2013296.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[7] Ibid.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[8]\u00a0Charles, Enoch. “Grassroots Asian theology: thinking the faith from the ground up.”\u00a0Religious Studies Review<\/i>\u00a041, no. 1 (March 2015): 10-11.\u00a0ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials<\/i>, EBSCOhost<\/i>\u00a0(accessed June 1, 2018).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his book\u00a0Grassroots Asian Theology: Thinking The Faith From The Ground Up, Simon Chan presents the reader with a challenge to see theology in a much different view than western churches do. In reading how Chan views theology, one senses a deep love of Christ and a desire for understanding just how theology can affect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17922"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17925,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17922\/revisions\/17925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}