{"title":"Christianity as “True Religion” According to Karl Barth’s Theologia Religionum: An intercultural Conversation with Selected Asian Christian Theologians","authors":"Benno van den Toren","doi":"10.54424/ajt.v35i2.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54424/ajt.v35i2.9","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 \u0000 \u0000This article orchestrates an intercultural theological conversation between Karl Barth’s theology of religions and selected Asian Christian theologians. The latter rightly stress that Barth’s criticism of religions is mainly concerned with Christian religion, although it does allow for the recognition of “other true lights.” Yet, insufficient attention is paid to the fact that Barth considers Christianity in particular “the true religion.” In critical conversation with these Asian reflections, it becomes clear that we need to move beyond Barth because (1) his Christocentrism neglects God’s presence as Creator and Spirit in other religious traditions, (2) Barth’s actualism does not allow him to properly distinguish between the word of God in the Christian Scriptures and in the “other lights,” and (3) this actualism stands in the way of a full recognition of the historical nature of revelation and salvation in Christ. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000","PeriodicalId":262921,"journal":{"name":"Asia Journal Theology","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129374742","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Not Scattered or Confused: Rethinking the Urban World of the Hebrew Bible","authors":"Leow Wen Pin","doi":"10.54424/ajt.v35i2.15","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54424/ajt.v35i2.15","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 \u0000 \u0000Mark McEntire, Not Scattered or Confused: Rethinking the Urban World of the Hebrew Bible (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2019), ix + 288 pp., ISBN: 978-0664262938, $40.00, Paperback. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000","PeriodicalId":262921,"journal":{"name":"Asia Journal Theology","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116318230","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Literature and Religion: A Dialogue between China and the West","authors":"Lai Pan Chiu","doi":"10.54424/ajt.v35i2.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54424/ajt.v35i2.14","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 \u0000 \u0000David Jasper and Ou Guang-an, Literature and Religion: A Dialogue between China and the West (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2020), ix + 176 pp., ISBN 978-1-5326-5218-9, $24, paperback. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000","PeriodicalId":262921,"journal":{"name":"Asia Journal Theology","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126035726","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Sacramentality of Marriage: A Protestant Perspective","authors":"Leow Theng Huat","doi":"10.54424/ajt.v35i2.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54424/ajt.v35i2.12","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 \u0000 \u0000From the beginning of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, Protestants have departed from the long-held consensus in the Western church that marriage is to be seen as an ecclesial sacrament. This article examines some of the impact of this momentous move on the Christian understanding of marriage. It suggests the need for Protestants to recover, in fuller measure, the sacramentality of marriage, in other words, an affirmation that the outward and visible marriage between a man and woman carries inward and spiritual significance. The article proposes a way this might be done, utilizing John Wesley’s understanding of the “means of grace.” Our hope is that a more robust Protestant view of marriage will contribute more fully to the ongoing discussion on the subject among the various sectors of Christianity and result in the blessing of the church and the world, especially the church in Asia, where sacramentality is inherent in the Asian worldview. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000","PeriodicalId":262921,"journal":{"name":"Asia Journal Theology","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134240641","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What Has Cordilleran Spirituality to do with Evangelicals?","authors":"F. Samdao","doi":"10.54424/ajt.v35i2.13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54424/ajt.v35i2.13","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 \u0000 \u0000This article brings out some aspects of the Cordilleran primal spirituality of the northern Philippines and two vital lessons for Evangelicals influenced by the Enlightenment worldview. Evangelicals in the West tend to dichotomize the supernatural realm and the natural world. Their propositional spirituality and individualistic lens have shaped many Filipino Evangelicals. In this essay, I use a hermeneutic of appreciation of culture since it is a vital interlocutor of Christian theology. I argue that Cordilleran spirituality has something to contribute to evangelical Christianity. Of particular interest are the Cordilleran view of the existence of spirits and their hermeneutical community. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000","PeriodicalId":262921,"journal":{"name":"Asia Journal Theology","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132806564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A.B. Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel in the Evangelical Church of Vietnam: A Study of Selective Theological Assimilation","authors":"Nguyen Vinh Duy","doi":"10.54424/ajt.v35i2.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54424/ajt.v35i2.10","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 \u0000 \u0000The officially distinctive mark of the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (ECVN) is the Fourfold Gospel emblem. It is inherited from A.B. Simpson, the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), through the teaching of C&MA missionaries in Vietnam. However, ECVN adapted some of the teachings and reinterpreted the symbols in the Vietnamese context. The reason is that the assimilation of the Fourfold Gospel to the ECVN’s theology has been selected through a fundamentalistic perspective and a serious uneasiness about Pentecostalism, and hence, it has become disconnected from its original theological foundation. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000","PeriodicalId":262921,"journal":{"name":"Asia Journal Theology","volume":"57 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122551578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Constructing Ethnic Identity in 1 Peter: You Who Are No Longer","authors":"Noel Cheong","doi":"10.54424/ajt.v36i2.41","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54424/ajt.v36i2.41","url":null,"abstract":"This is a book review.","PeriodicalId":262921,"journal":{"name":"Asia Journal Theology","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130412472","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sending Away Foreign Wives in Ezra 9–10: With a Brief Reflection from a Minority Tribal Perspective","authors":"C. Phaipi","doi":"10.54424/ajt.v35i1.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54424/ajt.v35i1.1","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractEzra 9–10, commonly known as “intermarriage crisis” or “forced divorce of foreign wives,” has attracted a wide variety of interpretations of the dismissal of foreign wives. Some of the proposed rationales include political, social, economic, and ethnic purity. Such rationales, while having their own merits, are not evidenced in the text. This article offers a literary reexamination of what the text portrays about the protagonist group’s motivation to take such stringent action. The protagonist’s strong self-perception is the main factor behind their negative perception of the antagonist “others” and thus its stringent resolution to deal with foreign wives. I also briefly reflect on what a minority Christian tribal today could do with such a strong biblical narrative.","PeriodicalId":262921,"journal":{"name":"Asia Journal Theology","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116998985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Aelred and Sworn Brotherhood","authors":"Adriel Yeo","doi":"10.54424/ajt.v35i1.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54424/ajt.v35i1.6","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractFriendship seems to be a subject that is not often talked about in church and, even if talked about, it is usually in the context of providing support for single Christians or those struggling with same-sex attraction. Ironically, such an approach exposes the deep flaws, particularly within Protestantism, due to the neglect of the vocation of celibacy as well as the rich resource on friendship within the Christian and cultural tradition. Retrieving from Aelred’s theology of friendship, together with the idea of sworn brotherhood in Luo Guanzhong’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms, this article seeks to show the promise of theological retrieval for the life of the church. It argues that while Aelred’s theology provides a helpful way of thinking theologically about friendship, the portrayal of sworn brotherhood in Luo’s novel provides the embodiment of such friendship. Ultimately, it is through this process of retrieval that the church can convincingly put forth spiritual friendship to those who are single or samesex-attracted as an optionthat is no less viable than marriage.","PeriodicalId":262921,"journal":{"name":"Asia Journal Theology","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114270438","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}