tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post3877825238519270045..comments2024-03-24T19:55:32.537-05:00Comments on The View from This Seat: An Asian Theologian Worth KnowingLKSeathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08860725174433173015noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-46059930596729275682019-11-19T10:53:30.022-06:002019-11-19T10:53:30.022-06:00Here are comments received yesterday from Thinking...Here are comments received yesterday from Thinking Friend Ed Kang in New York. Ed was born in the 1930s in Pyongyang.<br /><br />“Leroy, thank you very much for introducing an Asian theologian and theology to the western world. Asians had a long history of profound ethical and philosophical background. I am glad you have encountered some aspects of Asian thinking and shared some to the western world.” LKSeathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08860725174433173015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-59525724325874570372019-10-24T10:00:19.974-05:002019-10-24T10:00:19.974-05:00Thanks, Dickson, for sharing your essay with me an...Thanks, Dickson, for sharing your essay with me and for these comments I excerpted here. I think Dr. Song, and also Fr. Richard Rohr, would agree with your ideas. LKSeathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08860725174433173015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-71762261466670880872019-10-24T09:52:32.057-05:002019-10-24T09:52:32.057-05:00Thinking Friend Dickson Yagi was my missionary col...Thinking Friend Dickson Yagi was my missionary colleague at Seinan Gakuin University for many years. Now retired in California, he sent me an essay he had written yesterday (Oct. 23), partly in response to this blog article, although he makes no reference to Dr. Song. It is titled "Christ for Asia."<br /><br />Dickson avers, "God is bigger than Christianity. God is bigger than all religions. God is bigger than the human heart can hope and the human mind can understand." <br /><br />He goes to say, "Surely Christ is meant for more than 1% of Japan’s population. Those with eyes to see can find the Spirit already in Japanese religions." Then, "Surely God did not come to Japan the first time with Francis Xavier, the first Catholic missionary in 1549! God was already deep in the soil, deep in the religions, and deep in the culture from the first movements of life, love, Spirit, and conscience in Japan. We need something wider than the Jewish-Christian salvation history of the Bible confined to less than 1% of the Japanese population. That tunnel vision has changed the Good News ('euangelion') of the Bible into Bad News for 99% of Japanese."LKSeathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08860725174433173015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-83537543960375172692019-10-23T10:49:23.228-05:002019-10-23T10:49:23.228-05:00Thanks for your follow-up comments Fred. I have a ...Thanks for your follow-up comments Fred. I have a quite a different "take" on the matter of conversing/dialoguing with people of other religious faiths or of no religious faith. I do not think it is helpful to talk with such people about the universal or cosmic Christ. But I certainly think it is much more fruitful to see, and to relate to, them as having some (even though unrecognized to them) connection with the universal/cosmic Christ rather than being completely separated from Christ. LKSeathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08860725174433173015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-13661368646288898112019-10-23T10:38:21.525-05:002019-10-23T10:38:21.525-05:00I then posted this reply to Ron:
"Ron, thank...I then posted this reply to Ron:<br /><br />"Ron, thanks for your comments. -- I am not surprised that Chow Lian Hua, whom I had the privilege of meeting and talking with once or twice and for whom I had great respect, was critical of Song. They probably had political differences as well as theological differences -- and Song had some theological ideas I didn't agree with either. But I appreciate, and agree with, your final sentence."LKSeathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08860725174433173015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-56431590341439133862019-10-23T10:36:54.797-05:002019-10-23T10:36:54.797-05:00I asked Facebook Friend Ron Winstead, who lived an...I asked Facebook Friend Ron Winstead, who lived and taught at the Baptist seminary in Taiwan for many years, about Dr. Song. Here is his response:<br /><br />"Our leading Chinese theologian at the Taiwan Baptist Seminary, Chow Lian Hua, was a critic of Song. Chow considered Song’s theological orientation to be a bit too liberal. I have read some of Songs ideas and believe he has a contribution to make in our understanding of revelation. After 30 years of studying Chinese culture the hand of God is everywhere present in their history."LKSeathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08860725174433173015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-73022321177059512992019-10-22T20:07:27.577-05:002019-10-22T20:07:27.577-05:00That’s the way I’ve been leaning, but it does make...That’s the way I’ve been leaning, but it does make for more difficult conversations with my Buddhist and Sufi and atheist friends. I suppose we could find some common ground if they took my cosmic Christ, say, as their cosmic Buddha, or their cosmic Allah, or an embodiment of their Humanist Manifesto. But … in most cases, they won’t. And I’m unsure if this is exactly what I should be encouraging.Fredhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15701771893425250142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-9382678427319818552019-10-22T13:50:16.745-05:002019-10-22T13:50:16.745-05:00Thanks for reading and for raising important quest...Thanks for reading and for raising important questions, Fred. As we have talked about the "universal Christ," people of all the world (and of all religions) known God primarily through Christ and Jesus must always be seen as Jesus Christ. The life (and death/resurrection) of Jesus as well as the teaching by and about Jesus are of crucial importance, I believe, but, no, I don't think that acceptance of world's religions requires a diminishing of Jesus but a greater recognition of Jesus as the cosmic (universal) Christ. LKSeathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08860725174433173015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-2241577843854931562019-10-22T13:06:12.467-05:002019-10-22T13:06:12.467-05:00Leory, thank you as always for the post. I alway...Leory, thank you as always for the post. I always read with interest. I too encountered Song's work in Japan and appreciated and learned from the Asian perspective very much. Sometimes I wonder if I can still preach in English in the West! I was not aware of Jesus, the Crucified People, but when I finish James Cone's The Cross and the Lynching Tree, maybe I will revisit Song. Thank you sharing your poem also. <br />Lydia Barrow-Hankinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11006326863672775252noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-82119795105947060302019-10-22T12:04:56.691-05:002019-10-22T12:04:56.691-05:00I could only gather quick peeks into Song’s theolo...I could only gather quick peeks into Song’s theology from what you shared here, but it raised questions that have been pressing on my mind: Do we know God mainly through Jesus? How special are the Bible’s narratives and how critical are they to gain an understanding of God and God’s will for us? Does acceptance of the plurality of the world’s religious thinking require, in any sense, a diminishing of Jesus?<br /><br />These are real questions for me; though I might have leanings, I don’t yet have conclusions.<br />Fredhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15701771893425250142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-16329599777359224592019-10-21T07:10:23.536-05:002019-10-21T07:10:23.536-05:00Other than a few emails just thanking me for this ...Other than a few emails just thanking me for this article, not many comments have been received to this point. But I appreciate the following words from Thinking Friend Ichwei Indra of Indonesia, who came to Japan in the early 1990s to do graduate student in the Asia Baptist Graduate Theological Seminary consortium.<br /><br />"Thank you for the blog that reminds me of my Asian theological study under your tutorship years ago in 1993, of which CS Song was one of my favorite Asian theologian." LKSeathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08860725174433173015noreply@blogger.com