An Asian Theologian Worth Knowing

Most likely, many readers of this blog know of few, if any, Asian theologians. In this article, I am introducing one of my favorites, C.S. Song, the Taiwanese theologian who celebrated his 90^th birthday yesterday. 

Introducing Song

Song Choan-Seng (宋 泉盛), generally known in the West as C.S. Song, was born on October 19, 1929, in the southwestern Taiwan city of Tainan. He earned the Ph.D. degree from Union Theological Seminary in 1965.

After years of being a theology professor and college/seminary administrator in Taiwan, Song taught for many years at the Pacific School of Religion in California and is now the Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Theology and Asian Cultures of that institution.

From 1997 to 2004, Song was also the president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.

Back in 1990, Song came to Japan and I was able to hear his lectures in Kyoto. Not only was I impressed by what he said, I was also impressed by what a warm and genuine human being he is.

I went to hear Song’s lectures because I had read several of his books; after that, I read and published reviews of a few more of his books.

Introducing Song’s Books

C.S. Song’s first major book was Christian Mission in Reconstruction: An Asian Analysis (1975). As a relatively young missionary, I read that work with considerable interest.

It was his next two books, though, that I found to be even more engaging: Third-Eye Theology: Theology in Formation in Asian Settings (1979) and The Compassionate God: An Exercise in the Theology of Transposition (1982).

Seeking a theological perspective from an East Asian rather than a Western viewpoint, I found Song’s books to be both challenging and rewarding.

In 1983 I wrote a lengthy two-part essay about Song’s theology that was published (in Japanese) in The Seinan Theological Review, the academic journal of the Department of Theology, Seinan Gakuin University.

After the publishing of his important 1986 work Theology from the Womb of Asia, Song wrote a trilogy on the person and message of Jesus: Jesus, the Crucified People (1990), Jesus and the Reign of God (1993), and Jesus in the Power of the Spirit (1994).

These are not the only books that Song has written, but they are the ones that were most important to me as I increasingly tried to think about theology in an Asian context.

Introducing Song’s Importance

In the early 1970s, the Taiwanese theologian known in the West as Shoki Coe (1914~88) began to emphasize contextualizing theology. That approach was forwarded by Song, his younger colleague whose early books especially emphasized the Asian context.

As an American seeking to teach Christian Studies and Christian theology to Japanese students and as a worker in Japanese churches, Song’s work became quite influential to my theological outlook.

Among other things, Song questioned the “Western” concept of “salvation history” (to which I referred in my 11/25/18 blog article). The appeal of the historical meaning of the Israelites in “Old Testament” times and later of Jesus Christ and the early church is much greater, to say the least, in the Western world than in Asia.

Song’s strong emphasis on God being known through Creation is another main idea that I encountered from reading his books. In his 2019 book The Universal Christ, Richard Rohr has, in a similar vein, significantly written about creation being the first Incarnation.

Whereas Western Christians emphasize God as being knowable only, or at least mainly, through Jesus Christ, as an East Asian Christian theologian Song emphasized God as also being knowable through the creation and by means of Asian spirituality.

Although he has now come to the end of his productive life as a theologian, C.S. Song is certainly an Asian theologian worth knowing.

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Bonus:  Early on the morning of March 30, 1990, when I was in Kyoto for Dr. Song's lectures, I wrote the following poem at the foot of Mt. Hiei, the “holy mountain” near Kyoto.

Monk upon the mountain, high above the city,
Do you look, bewildered, down on us with pity?
What does your holy hill have to do with Kyoto?
Can we catch its splendor in our instant photo?

From your ancient mountain, filled with moldy glories,
Can we understand your past and present stories?
What has God been saying, what are His mighty works?
Can you share the story which on your mountain lurks?

Let us bring a vessel, dip it in the fountain,
And drink from the story of the monk upon the mountain.