Why Water Buffalo Theology?

One of the most intriguing books I read in the mid-1970s was Waterbuffalo Theology by Koyama Kosuke. In 1999 the 25th anniversary edition (revised & expanded) was published as Water Buffalo Theology. But what kind of theology is that?! 

First edition cover

Who was Koyama?

Koyama Kosuke was a Japanese theologian who was born 90 years ago today, on December 10, 1929. He was less than two months younger than C.S. Song, the Asian theologian I wrote about in October (see here), but unlike Song, who is still living, Koyama (and that is the family name) died in 2009 before his 80^th birthday.

Koyama studied in the U.S. from 1952 until he finished his Ph.D. at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1959. During those years he met and married Lois Rozendaal, a Dutch-American woman. 

For most of the next decade (1960~68) he served as a pastor and teacher in Thailand, being sent there as a missionary by the United Church of Christ in Japan.

Following several years (1968~74) serving in Singapore and then in New Zealand (1974~79), in 1980 Koyama became a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Upon his retirement in 1996 he became the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Professor Emeritus of World Christianity.

Why Did Koyama Write about Water Buffalos?

Koyama gained attention in the theological world after his seminal book Waterbuffalo Theology was published in 1974. But why did he write about water buffalos?

Because his first field of service after completing his Ph.D. was as a pastor in northern Thailand, Koyama recognized the need for communicating with the people in his congregation, many of whom were farmers who used water buffalos in their daily work. 

Thai farmer plowing with a water buffalo

In my 1/22/2010 blog article I wrote about the importance of contextual theology. Koyama’s development of contextualized theology in Thailand was one of the main examples I used in the theology courses I taught in the late 1970s, and afterward.

According to an article written soon after Koyama’s death in 2009 (see here), Donald Shriver, president emeritus of Union Seminary, said that Waterbuffalo Theology was “one of the first books truly to do theology out of the setting of Asian villages.”

In the same article, a historian for the Church of Christ in Thailand called Koyama’s book “one of the classic works of contemporary Asian theology.”

The article concludes with Shriver telling how someone at Union noticed that Waterbuffalo theology had landed on the discard pile outside the library. Apparently, a librarian had concluded that the prestigious school had no program for teaching theology to water buffalos.

But since Koyama was joining the faculty there, his book “was quickly and quietly returned to the shelves.”

What Can We Learn from Water Buffalo Theology?

After locating in New York, Koyama didn’t write about water buffalos anymore. He was in a different context, and his writing reflected that new setting.

Koyama’s second most important book is probably Mount Fuji and Mount Sinai: A Critique of Idols, which was published in 1985. His “context” then was the world threatened by nuclear war. He explained,

I have written this book with a keen awareness of the global peril of nuclear war. Wars are waged ‘in the name of God,’ that is, with ‘theological’ justification. Such justification is idolatry” (p. x).

The background “context” was the destruction of warring Japan in 1945. Koyama became a baptized Christian in 1942; three years later he saw Tokyo “become wilderness by the constant bombings.” And then, of course, there were the catastrophic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

If Koyama were still writing today, perhaps he would applaud an article that appeared last week on the Rolling Stone website: “False Idol—Why the Christian Right Worships Donald Trump.”

That long article, which I recommend you taking the time to read (here), helps us understand the political context that challenges theologians, and all of us, today.

Still Fed Up with Fundamentalism’s View of War

For all of my life since high school days until the present, I have considered myself a pacifist. Thus, I have always been at odds with the predominant “just war” tradition in most Christian denominations—but never more so than for the support for war by conservative evangelical Christians in the U.S. after the tragic events of September 11, 2001. 

The Support of War by the Christian Right

Until the fourth century, almost all Christians eschewed war, but things changed dramatically after Roman Emperor Constantine adopted Christianity for political and military reasons in 312 A.D.

Augustine (354~430) was one of the first great Christian theologians, and he developed a position that came to be known as the “just war” tradition. That position became predominant in the Roman Catholic Church—and then later in most Protestant denominations.

In this century, however, Christians who are now generally called conservative evangelicals have been the main supporters of the USAmerican “war on terror,” and they were especially prominent in giving President Bush almost unqualified support in launching the attack on Iraq in 2003.

Moreover, the mass of conservative evangelicals who are Trump supporters are highly favorable, it seems, to the military build-up by the U.S. government since 2017.

Nationalism and the Christian Right

As I explain in the seventh chapter of my book Fed Up with Fundamentalism, to which this article is linked, there was a proclivity toward patriotism in the first decades of fundamentalism in this country.

There is nothing wrong with patriotism, unless it is carried to an extreme. But patriotism becomes a problem when it morphs into nationalism, as it often does.

In the first volume of his three-volume Systematic Theology (1951), the eminent theologian Paul Tillich wrote about idolatry and averred that the best example of such is the “contemporary idolatry of religious nationalism” (p. 13).

If Tillich (1886~1965) were still alive and writing today, he would most likely say the same sort of thing even more emphatically.

Near the end of last month, a group of Christians issued a statement titled “Christians Against Christian Nationalism” and asked those who agreed with their statement to sign it. I did, and I encourage you Christians to access that here and to consider doing the same.

The Position of the “Christian Left”

In contrast to the Christian Right, which is the political/social stance of most conservative evangelical Christians of the present or fundamentalists of the past, there are those who hold a much different position. For convenience, I am calling them the Christian Left.

In the seventh chapter of my book, I refer to them as “Christians for Peace and Justice.” They are the ones who advocate taking a consistent “sanctity of life” position. In that connection, I quote Jürgen Moltmann, the renowned German theologian, who wrote in The Spirit of Life (1992; German ed., 1991):

. . . anyone who really says “yes” to life says “no” to war. Anyone who really loves life says “no” to poverty. So the people who truly affirm and love life take up the struggle against the violence of war and the injustice of poverty.

But, sadly, conservative evangelicals in the U.S. have often been supporters of war and the strengthening of military armaments at tremendous cost—and the latter being done by cutting back on funds that might be used for helping those caught in the web of poverty.

Above all else, followers of Jesus are expected to seek God’s Kingdom, a realm characterized by righteousness (=justice) and shalom (see Matt. 6:33). That expectation, though, clashes with the longing of many conservative evangelical Christians to “make America great again,” a stance that could even, God forbid, lead to another major war.

What Is Your Ultimate Concern?

Several years before Polish priest Maximilian Kolbe died (was killed) in the Auschwitz concentration camp (see my previous article), Paul Tillich, a university professor in Germany, criticized the Nazis in public lectures and speeches and then left the country in the year Hitler became Chancellor.

Paul Tillich

Today (August 20) is the 130th anniversary of Tillich’s birth in a small village that is now known as Starosiedle, Poland. When he was a young teen, his family moved to Berlin. Then after completing his Ph.D., and following in his father’s footsteps, Tillich was ordained as a Lutheran minister in 1912.

During World War I Tillich served as a chaplain in the German army. After the war he became a university professor. Because of his public opposition to the Nazi movement, though, he was dismissed from his position as Professor of Theology at the University of Frankfurt in 1933.

Tillich then fled to New York, where he became a professor at Union Theological Seminary. In 1940 became a naturalized U.S. citizen. Then from 1955 to 1962 he was a University Professor at Harvard Divinity School.

During his teaching and writing career of more than 30 years in the U.S. Tillich became one of the world’s most influential theologians.

Tillich Park

On the first day of our June car trip to Maryland, my wife and I stopped by New Harmony, Indiana, for a far-too-short-visit of that historic town. At the impressive visitors’ center we learned much about the town’s history.

It was started as a utopian community in 1814. Then in 1824 the whole town was sold to Robert Owen, a wealthy Welshman who similarly wanted to build a model community for social reform. 

We also visited the Paul Tillich Park in that quaint little town of New Harmony. That park was dedicated in June 1963, and after Tillich’s death in October 1965 his ashes were interred there. Along the park’s walkway there are several large stones with inscribed quotations from Tillich’s writings. 

There is also a sculpture of Tillich’s head, and this is the picture I took of it: 

Ultimate Concern 

Tillich authored many significant theology books, and as a seminary student in the early 1960s I read several of those books with great interest (although the three volumes of his Systematic Theology were not particularly easy to read and understand).

In 1963 I also had the privilege of hearing Tillich give a lecture in Lexington, Kentucky. At that time he was 77 years old and still a professor at the University of Chicago, where he had moved just the year before.

One of Tillich’s smaller, and most influential, books is The Dynamics of Faith (1957). In the very first sentence he asserts that faith is “the state of being ultimately concerned.” In other words, what we consider as more important than anything else is our “god,” and our allegiance to that god is the basic meaning of faith. 

From the standpoint of Christianity, the Creator God should be one’s ultimate concern, and if anyone’s ultimate concern is something else, that person has faith in an idol.

Thus, having ultimate concern for one’s family, for the nation (such as Hitler demanded for the Third Reich), or for recreation/entertainment (which seems highly popular at the present time) is idolatry. 

Tillich encouraged ultimate concern for “the God beyond god,” that is, the God who is beyond all tribal, national, or limited concepts of God. Such concern is faith in God who, to use his terms, is Being-Itself or the Ground of Being. 

What is your ultimate concern?

Super Bowl Idolatry

Like many Americans, I enjoy a good football game. While not particularly a professional football fan, I do follow the Kansas City Chiefs. (As many of you know, the Chiefs played in the very first Super Bowl, which was on Jan. 15, 1967.) I watched at least some of almost all the Chiefs games in their rather mediocre 2014 season.

Next Sunday I am going to be preaching for the first time in many months, so I am looking forward to doing that. As one of the lectionary Scripture passages is from 1 Corinthians 8, I decided to preach about idolatry, past and present.

Upon realizing that February 1 is Super Bowl Sunday, I began to reflect upon the idolatrous characteristics of the Super Bowl. In searching the Internet, I found that I am not the first to have such thoughts.

Thus, I may not watch any of the Super Bowl—mainly because with all of the hype it seems to border on being idolatrous.

New USAmerican "Golden Calf"?

Consider the cost of attending the Super Bowl. Five days ago I checked to see what it would cost to purchase a ticket. The most expensive one, and there was only one at this price, was $115,000!

Most were much cheaper: I found 64 tickets priced from $10,000 to $13,500. The cheapest tickets, and there were 226 of them left, were $2,491.35. That is the price for just one football game! And even the parking costs more than $100.

In addition, millions are spent for the television advertisements: it is reported that a 30-second TV ad during the Super Bowl costs $4,500,000—not to mention the cost of making the ads.

In addition to those exorbitant prices, the football “idols” make outlandish salaries. For this past season, the top twenty players in the NFL made salaries of from $14,000,000 to $22,000,000. Some made more than $1,000,000 a game!

Tom Brady, the quarterback for the New England Patriots who will be playing in the Super Bowl, isn’t even in the top 20. But he, and others, makes a great sum of money from endorsements.

Of course, there are other idolatrous segments of American society, such as is seen in the world of entertainment and advertisement. For example, Tom Brady’s wife is Gisele Bundchen, a model.

According to this August 2014 article on Forbes.com, since 2002 Gisele has made more money than any other model in the world. “At 34, she is still sitting pretty at the top of the world’s highest-paid models list, pulling in an estimated $47 million before taxes and fees in the last 12 months.”

The article goes on to say, “Bundchen also made about $16 million more than quarterback husband Tom Brady’s $31.3 million annual paycheck.”

Actually, Super Bowl is just one part of the extensive hedonistic idolatry of this country with such excessive emphasis placed on pleasure and consumption, spurred on by millionaire models and multi-million-dollar Super Bowl ads.

In a Jan. 22 online article in Christianity Today, Kutter Callaway of Fuller Theological Seminary says, “The NFL is, in a real sense, our civic religion. It has Sunday worship services, mid-week Thursday celebrations, patron saints (Hall of Famers), and a liturgical calendar that begins with the NFL draft (in April) and ends with the Super Bowl (in February).”

But rather than confronting Super Bowl idolatry, many churches buy into the hype and have watch parties and other activities embracing it. Pastors.com even suggests making Super Bowl day “Football Sunday.”

There is a legitimate place for athletic contests, even championship football games. But let’s not make an idol of them!

The Idols of Harajuku

A few days ago the Winter Olympics in Vancouver ended, and it was quite a spectacle. But do you remember where the Summer Olympics were held in 1964? Yes, they were in Tokyo, and the Yoyogi National Gymnasium was one of the facilities built for those Olympic Games. That striking structure (picture here) was within comfortable walking distance from where our family lived when we first went to Japan, just two years after the Olympics.

Harajuku Station is the train station closest to the National Gymnasium, and you can see a picture and read about that well-known station here. Departing from the station, it is only a minute’s walk to the huge torii (the “gate” that marks the entrance into sacred space) in front of Meiji Shrine, the most important and most popular Shinto shrine in Tokyo.

Several years ago, some missionaries and other Christians in Japan announced that there was going to be prayer-walking in front of Meiji Shrine. That was being planned, of course, because Shinto was seen as a rival to Christianity and the devotion of the Japanese people going there was thought to be idol worship.

Hearing about the planned prayer-walking, I remarked that it was my opinion that the youth culture so prominent on the other side of Harajuku Station was the real opponent to Christianity and that attention ought to be focused there rather than on Meiji Shrine.

The youth culture of Harajuku seems to be unmitigated hedonism. And in Japan the word idol is regularly used to refer to cute young women in their teens and early twenties who appear regularly in the mass media. Probably few “idols” actually go to Harajuku, but most of the young women who go there would very much like to be idols.

While I would be surprised if most or even many of the Japanese who visit Meiji Shrine actually experience God there, I would not be surprised if some of them do. By contrast, it seems to me that the hedonistic young people who frequent the streets of Harajuku are quite unlikely to experience God there—or anywhere. So, I am far more concerned about the “idolatry” of Harajuku, and the hedonism of the young people of Japan in general, than about the perceived idolatry of Meiji Shrine.

The torii (sacred gate) at Meiji Shrine near Harajuku Station in Tokyo.