Wrestling with God in Context

Revisiting the Theology and Social Vision of Shoki Coe

M. P. Joseph, Po Ho Huang, Victor Hsu, M. P. Joseph, Po Ho Huang, Victor Hsu

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781506445809
• eBook ISBN:
  9781506445816
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Teologia cristiana

Shoki Coe was among the first to speak of "contextualization" in theology. Coe argued that theology is not a reiteration of past formulas or doctrines but a response to the self-disclosing initiative of the living God in history and human experience. Yet he remains little known outside his native Taiwan. Wresting with God in Context introduces Coe's work and social vision and evaluates his contributions to the field of missiology and ecclesiology. Eager to offer a creative and critical witness to Christian faith, Coe worked tirelessly to liberate theology from its Western captivity and shaped a generation of theological reflection on God, culture, and history. For thousands of students and church members around the world, Shoki Coe was the spiritual father that guided their contextual theological pursuit to the living reality of God. In order to reflect on his legacy, the chapters in this volume--including original essays from Stephen Bevans, Dwight Hopkins, and Enrique Dussel--tackle the critical, methodological issues related to doing theology, reading the Scriptures, and being the church.

I

Shoki Coe and the Reconstruction of Theological Methodology

1

Revisiting the Methodology of Contextual Theology in the Era of Globalization

Po Ho Huang

Introduction

In 1987, Shoki Coe was awarded an honorary doctorate in theology by the Tainan Theological College and Seminary on his return to Taiwan twenty-two years after the authorities had exiled him from his motherland for initiating the campaign “Formosans for Self-Determination” and for his commitment to the freedom and self-determination of the Taiwanese. In the citation,^[1] the TTCS hailed him as a “pastor, theologian, theological educator, and a pioneer of human rights movements.” These testimonials and evaluations made by the Taiwanese church capture the rich experience and profound contributions that shaped Shoki Coe.

Coe is considered the first proponent of contextual theology, one who accentuated the need for theology to be rooted in the local soil. Later, contextualization became the professed method of doing theology. His status as the director of the Theological Education Fund (TEF) of the World Council of Churches (WCC), the first person from Taiwan to serve in a global ecumenical movement, offered him the necessary space to make contextualization an ecumenical agenda around the globe.

Along with his concern for contextualization of theological discourse, Coe was deeply committed to the social witness of the gospel and offered leadership to churches in Taiwan to devote themselves to issues pertaining to the larger society. Acknowledging his abilities, the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT) elected him as the moderator of its Assembly for two consecutive terms, and he eloquently used that time to strengthen the unity of Taiwanese churches.

Being in exile never dampened his political determination to create a better future for Taiwan. Along with friends, Coe commenced the “Formosans for Self-Determination” campaign based on the “Public Statement on Our National Fate” issued by the PCT. Coe’s thoughts and actions encompassing the political, ecclesial, and theological world were informed by the deep resentment of unfairness “呣甘願 (m-kam-goan)” meted out under the colonial regime and shaped by his experience of being in exile due to political convictions.^[2]

In retrospect, the struggles to preserve selfhood under colonial despotism and exile taught him profound lessons on how to practice Christian faith and do theology in the third world. As early as 1966, he elaborated his idea of Asian theological education in a speech, “The Text and Context in Theological Education,” at the inaugural meeting of the Northeast Asia Association of Theological Schools.^[3] Due to his invigorating experience from Taiwan and abroad, Coe was able to make specific relationship between theological texts and their contexts and, hence, he urged the theological community to contextualize its theological thinking. Further, he also called for theological schools to shape their pedagogical structure toward “contextual theological education.”

Construction of the Contextual
Theological Methodology

Coe’s contextual theology was not based only on his introspection of politics and social experience but also on the theological implications of incarnation that he was aware of. In his article titled “Contextualization as the Way towards Reform,” Coe delineated the need for “contextualizing theology”:

Contextuality—contextualization are, I believe, a missiological necessity. But are they a theological necessity? Contextualizing theology takes the concrete local context seriously. It is rooted in a concrete, particular situation. Is there, then, a danger of losing the catholicity of the gospel? To this there is a counter question: is there such a theology which is not in loco and thus in vacuo?—a theologia sub specie aeternitatis, as it were—a utopian theology? But the concern for the catholicity of the gospel is a legitimate one, with which contextualizing theology is deeply concerned. And contextualization, I believe, is the authentic way to that catholicity.^[4]

Coe believed that catholicity was a gift and also an agenda for mission. To see it as a gift, we must ask how it was given. He observed that catholicity was molded in churches’ witness of incarnation within a given time and place.^[5] He continued:

I believe, in fact, that the incarnation is the divine form of contextualization, and if this is so, the way we receive this gift is also through our following his way. That is what I mean by contextualization. As the catholicity of the gospel is given through the Word becoming flesh, so our task should be through our responsive contextualization, taking our own concrete, local contexts seriously.^[6]

After the adoption of the Third Mandate by the TEF-WCC,^[7] contextual theology has been accepted as the principal perspective and strategy of ecumenical theological education. Since then, theological education of churches around the world has started to implement methods to contextualize their theology. Thus, the mandate was used as a common guideline for theology and theological education for the global churches. The principles of contextualization proposed by the TEF have not only become a guideline for theological education but also stimulated local theological constructions around the globe. Gradually, contextual methods in doing theology have assumed a cardinal position in theological education.

Contributions and Critiques of Contextualization Method

The proposal of contextualizing theology made by Coe and the TEF has marked the advent of a new paradigm shift in the history of theology since the Enlightenment. The beginning of Christian theology was informed by the life and teaching of Jesus, which was rooted in Jewish thought. The early church, along with the authors of the four Gospels and Paul, laid the foundation for the prototypes of theological thinking. On the basis of these early propositions, the Apostolic Fathers constructed what was later known as the doctrines, or the foundations of theology. Through informed dialogue with Greek philosophical thought, Tertullian, Augustine of Hippo, and Thomas Aquinas paved the way for traditions that were later identified as orthodox theology. Reformers largely reiterated the theological traditions set in motion by orthodox theologians. A shift in paradigm of these early initiatives began with the emphasis on rationalism proposed by Enlightenment thought. The Enlightenment, which was marked by an emphasis on scientific method, raised profound questions on the method and content of orthodox theology. Liberal Christianity, also known as liberal theology, was formed and advanced as a sequel to Enlightenment rationality. Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher, regarded as an early leader in liberal Christianity, shaped Christian theology as a rational form of knowledge, coherently integrating scientism and rational thinking proposed by modernity. The advent of liberal theology marked the first paradigm shift in theology. However, though the inception of liberal theology is considered a foundation-shaking event in the theological tradition, the proponents of its Enlightenment paradigm shared the same historical and cultural context of the previous traditions of theological thinking, that is, within the political and cultural milieu of Europe, influenced by Jewish, Greek, and Roman traditions. Although its impacts were overwhelming, the nature of challenges was different from that of the contextualization principle.

The emergence of contextual theology, the third paradigm in theological thinking, coincided with the irruption of the third world on the Christian map. A large number of people who were outside so-called Christendom found meaning in Christianity. Indicating a shift of the pendulum in Christian geography, Coe from Asia and Desmond Tutu from South Africa assumed responsibilities as the director and deputy director respectively of the TEF. This appointment was historic as it demonstrated the fact that third world Christians could play a pivotal role in the global ecumenical movement. As the former colonies gained independence, one of the challenges that the Christians there faced was to revisit their identities. Obviously, the legacy of the colonial missionary movement was placed under serious critical scrutiny. The emergence of contextual theology inherited those critical evaluations of the colonial past and strived to break free from those legacies. In other words, while the first paradigm shift initiated by the Enlightenment remained in the same geographic location and cultural environment of the previous epoch, the second paradigm shift resulted in a shift of geographic location. While the locus of the first paradigm shift was the adaptation of theological thoughts in the changing civilizational framework of a given cultural context, the second paradigm shift attempted to locate and affirm the importance of people’s culture in doing Christian theology. Besides, it also represented the struggles of Christians in the third world for their identities.

The development of contextual theology was greatly influenced by different regional histories and cultures that were shaped by the life and mission of the various churches and individual Christians in the third world. When Coe coined the term “contextualization,” he was reflecting and acknowledging the unique contributions of third world Christians, but at the same time proposing that theology should be constructed as a reflection of the praxis in the local context. Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama, a contemporary of Coe, engaged in a similar theological articulation after encountering the peasants in northern Thailand. In his monumental work Waterbuffalo Theology (1974), he argued that t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table Of Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Context, Discernment, and Contextualization: Theology of Shoki Coe, the Prophet from the Fourth World
• Shoki Coe and the Reconstruction of Theological Methodology
• Redefining Mission and Ecumenism
• Mission and Dialogue: Universality of Contextual Theological Discourse
• Text and Context
• Theology out of Context: Contextual Theologies of the Marginalized
• Contextualizing Theological Education
• Political Witness of Faith
• Prophet from the Fourth World: Life and Legacy of Shoki Coe
• Essential Writings of and about Shoki Coe
• Index