Redemption That Liberates

Political Theologies of Richard Mouw and Nam-dong Suh

Jung

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781532640155
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

This book is for both evangelicals and ecumenicals interested in a holistic approach to the Christian vision of social transformation. The author compares Richard Mouw's Reformed political theology and Nam-dong Suh's Minjung theology to suggest a vision of transformation that is theologically more cogent and politically more engaged.In general, Minjung theology understands transformation in terms of political liberation and Reformed theology in terms of spiritual redemption, and theologians of the two theologies have criticized the other's approach as theologically inadequate. However, Suh's formulation of Minjung theology and Mouw's Reformed political theology based on the neo-Calvinist worldview show significant affinities with each other in their understanding of transformation in Christ. Both Suh and Mouw show a broad understanding of liberation and redemption. They develop their theologies in an inclusive both/and way of thinking, and their holistic approach is contrasted with the exclusive either/or way of thinking in the Minjung theology of Byung-mu Ahn and the Reformed theology of David VanDrunen.The book concludes that redemption in Christ aims at an all-encompassing transformation that includes not only spiritual renewal but also liberation from social alienation, economic inequality, and political oppression.

1

Introduction

Problem and Argument

Minjung theology is a revolutionary theological idea that was developed in the military dictatorial regime in South Korea during the 1970s. It has provided a tool for interpreting history and society from a biblical perspective and has inspired a social transformation movement among progressive Christians. Minjung theology, utilizing the sociohistorical analysis of the life of the minjung (oppressed people), identifies the minjung as the powerless who are economically exploited, socially alienated, and politically oppressed and advocates their liberation from such dehumanizing conditions. Arguably the most prominent theological contribution from Korean Christianity, minjung theology, however, has faced severe criticisms, especially from Korean Reformed theologians. Central to these criticisms are debates about minjung Christology.

Byung-mu Ahn, one of the most influential minjung theologians, contends that christological titles of the Western traditional theology such as Messiah, the Lord, Son of God, and Son of Man cannot be exclusively applied to Jesus of Nazareth.1 He also rejects the traditional doctrine of Jesus’ two natures.2 For him, Christ should be understood not as an individual person but as a messianic event or messianic movement of the minjung for their own liberation.3 Because he regards Jesus as a collective symbol for the minjung, Ahn argues that it was not Jesus of Nazareth but rather the minjung who were rejected, unjustly tried, and crucified by the powers that be.4 In the same way, what the biblical report of the empty tomb event signifies is, according to him, the resurrection of the Galilean minjung rather than that of the historical person Jesus.5 Overall, he and other minjung theologians criticize Western traditional theology in general, and Nicene and Chalcedonian Christology in particular, as a system of religious dogma that supports the status quo for the ruling class.

Theologians with traditional Christology, especially in the Reformed theological tradition, have then vigorously criticized minjung theology, raising serious doubts about whether it can be regarded as a Christian theology from any Orthodox Christian theological perspective. After examining minjung theologians’ interpretation of Jesus in the Gospel narratives, Seyoon Kim concludes that, because of its fatal exegetical inconsistencies, along with its syncretistic and anti-Christian characteristics, minjung theology is no more a Christian theology than Moonism.6 Another Reformed scholar Eunsoo Kim criticizes minjung theology’s methodology as a nonreligious, socioeconomic interpretation of the Scriptures and raises questions concerning the minjung concept of God. According to him, minjung theology rejects the traditional understanding of God as triune and transcendent and thus virtually amounts to an atheistic theology from his Reformed theological perspective.7

A voice in minjung theology, however, to which those criticisms cannot aptly apply is that of Nam-dong Suh. Along with Byung-mu Ahn, Suh is one of the two founding fathers of minjung theology and portrays significant differences from Ahn in many theological points. They agree on the decisive role of the minjung in the process of human salvation. In contrast to Ahn, however, Suh does not reject traditional Christology in his articulation of minjung theology but affirms Jesus’ unique role as Messiah. His minjung messianism does not identify the minjung as the Messiah in an ontological sense but emphasizes the critical role of the minjung in human salvation. While Ahn understands the crucifixion of Jesus only as a political event, Suh recognizes both political and religious implications of the cross. Considering these observations, Reformed theologians’ criticism of minjung theology as a non-Christian or atheist theology is not applicable at least to Nam-dong Suh’s rendition of minjung theology.

Another vision of social transformation in the Korean church is called the neo-Calvinist worldview or the Christian worldview.8 Minjung theology and the neo-Calvinist worldview are the two revolutionary theological ideas that inspired recent social transformation movements in Korea, the minjung church movement and the Christian worldview movement, respectively. Both were called “movement” because their moral visions were directed toward stimulating responsible social engagement among Christians and effecting a practical transformation in a larger society. The redemptive vision of the neo-Calvinist worldview, introduced to Korean Christians in the early 1980s, is anchored in the biblical motifs of creation–fall–redemption–consummation as a methodological tool to interpret history and society, with its pivotal claim being that Christ’s redemptive activity and sovereignty reach all areas of life that have fallen from the original order of creation.

Despite their comparable visions of social transformation informed by theological perspectives, minjung theology and the neo-Calvinist worldview have been generally considered theologically incompatible. While Reformed theologians criticize minjung theology as unwarrantedly politicized, minjung theologians criticize the Reformed social vision as fatally lacking the structural approach to social evil. According to Hyung-mook Choi, one of the most active contemporary minjung theologians, even the evangelicals who seek social transformation as an essential Christian mission show an individualistic tendency in their approach.9 They naively believe that a change in the individual heart will bring about social change and do not pay adequate attention to the problem of structural injustice. For Choi, this is the limitation of the Christian worldview movement that has made minjung theologians suspicious of whether the Reformed transformational vision can actually effect social change.

Richard Mouw sympathizes with this critique and offers an alternative perspective. A Reformed theologian himself, Mouw is not persuaded by the evangelical belief that to change the individual heart is to change society. Rather, he argues that a political approach to social transformation is crucial because injustice is structurally and systemically built into the human social and political relationships.10 Developing his political theology from the neo-Calvinist worldview, Mouw understands political activities and relationships in the light of creation–fall–redemption–consummation and maintains that redemption in Christ should involve the transformation of unjust political order. Considering this, the criticism by minjung theologians of Western theology in general as apolitical, status-quo theology and Reformed theology specifically as tending toward pietistic individualism in its social approach cannot be reasonably directed toward Mouw’s neo-Calvinist political theology.

For many Korean Reformed theologians and Christians, Mouw’s approach has seemed to be a constructive challenge to the Korean church, which is dominantly conservative in its approach to social and political concerns. Since the late 1980s, most of his books have been translated into Korean, and he is considered the spokesperson for the Reformed model of social transformation. According to Wonha Shin, a Calvinist ethicist of a Korean Reformed seminary, Mouw, like mainstream ethicists, emphasizes social transformation as a Christian mission and seeks it through active political involvement, but unlike them he grounds his political ethic on scriptural authority.11 This makes his political theology characteristically Reformed and, at the same time, open to dialog with other approaches of public theology. In this regard, Shin appreciates Mouw’s pursuit of a “softer Calvinism” because in this approach “the traditional Calvinistic rigidity is removed and a learning dialog with other traditions is encouraged.”12

This openness of Mouw’s political ethic, however, has not yet fully extended to a learning dialog with minjung theology. As discussed above, Reformed criticism of minjung theology cannot be fittingly applied to Nam-dong Suh’s articulation of minjung theology and minjung theologians’ criticism of the Reformed theology cannot be aptly directed to Mouw’s political theology. On the contrary, Nam-dong Suh shows a possible way of doing minjung theology without necessarily rejecting what some theologians argue to be essential elements of Reformed Christology. Richard Mouw, on the other hand, radically and consistently applies the neo-Calvinist worldview to the discussion of politics and shows openness to a similar focus on structural and political change as do minjung theologians. Further, the essential themes of the political theologies of Suh and Mouw show a significant affinity with each other. The central discussions of Suh’s liberation-oriented theology involve the themes of the fundamental human problem, the Messiah as the agent of liberation, and the kingdom of God as the end of the liberation, and these themes find a parallel in Mouw’s neo-Calvinist discussion of politics.

This study will compare Nam-dong Suh’s formulation of minjung theology and Richard Mouw’s neo-Calvinist political theology in terms of each theology’s treatment or understanding of the human problem, Christology, and the kingdom of God. Based on the comparative observations of the two theological visions, the current study will argue that, contrary to the criticisms of Reformed and minjung theologians against each other, Suh’s minjung theology and Mouw’s neo-Calvinist political theology are compatible with each other with respect to the salient points of anthropological, christological, and eschatological discussions. This compatibility, then, can suggest a possible way of reconciling the two transformational visions of minjung theology and the neo-Calvinist worldview for a theologically more cogent and socially more relevant vision of transformation for Korean society.

Method and Limitations

This study examines how Nam-dong Suh’s minjung theology and Richard Mouw’s Reformed political theology correspond with each other and how they might mutually enrich one another. Unlike other minjung theologians, Suh recognizes traditional Christology while holding firmly the distinctive tenets of minjung theology. This makes his approach unique among minjung theologians. Mouw criticizes socially and politically unconcerned theologies as inadequate and puts a strong emphasis on Christian engagement for social justice based on his radical understanding of the Reformed faith. He extends the Reformed concern of the fundamental redemption in Christ into the area of human political relationships and this makes his approach distinctive in Reformed theology. Despite the above-described criticisms between minjung and Reformed theologians against each other, therefore, a carefully constructed theological comparison between Suh and Mouw will show that a creative conversation between minjung and Reformed theologies is possible for a more constructive Christian social vision. It is with this expectation that the current study choose to discuss Suh’s minjung theology and Mouw’s Reformed political theology with the focus on their understandings of the theologically envisioned social and political transformation.

Though coming from different theological traditions, Suh and Mouw show considerable affinities with each other in their theological ethi...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: A Preliminary Survey of Minjung Theology
• Chapter 3: A Preliminary Survey of the Neo-Calvinist Worldview
• Chapter 4: The Both/And Way of Thinking
• Chapter 5: Anthropological Comparison: What Is the Human Problem?
• Chapter 6: Christological Comparison: Who Is Jesus?
• Chapter 7: Eschatological Comparison: What Is the Kingdom of God?
• Chapter 8: Crossroad of the Two Theologies
• Chapter 9: Conclusion
• Bibliography