Week 10 – Wednesday’s Class

New thoughts to ponder today: The Church is now a secular institution in a spiritual society. The Church can jump into culture and create communities that are very spiritual. People outside the church serve the poor together and talk about what they can do that improves the environment, but the Church doesn’t know what to do with these movements.

 

Week 10 – Monday’s Class

I appreciate Wes’ preparation, lecture and fielding of questions today. One of his important points was: “The Church points to the Kingdom, but is not the Kingdom. (Our mission should change as the culture changes around us)”. Perhaps this idea is not new to people, but it is often difficult to implement, because a large portion of the population is resistant to change. I liked his quotes so much I went out and bought two of the books!

Week 9 – Response to Paul Kim

Serving in a church of a different culture is a new experience for me, so it is interesting and helpful to hear Paul describe Korean American churches.  My Japanese-American church  has the same problem:    exclusiveness toward other cultures and hierarchical in structure.  And yes, that results in an irrelevant church.  Is it the result of a Buddhist background in previous generations?  I agree that this situation needs to change for the sake of the Missio Dei and that their strategies and frameworks should be spiritual, communal, and holistic.

Week 9 – Mission of the Church – Fuellenbach

Fuellenbach makes good observations concerning the church of the future and its major issues in  dealing with being faithful to the kingdom:  inculturation and solidarity with the poor.   SCC’s and BEC’s appear to be developing nicely and having good success in Africa and Latin America within the confines of local parishes of the Catholic Church. However, I am glad he notes that these models have differences which are culturally conditioned and cannot just be exported or imported to other  zip codes around the globe.

Week 9 – Exodus-Toward-Egypt – Fernandez (Sugirtharajah)

Filipino-Americans immigrants who are dealing with binaries such as captivity/liberation, closure/promise, blessing/alienation, and outsiders/insiders have genuine needs that need to be addressed.  It is sad but helpful to learn that they feel like second-class citizens in America and are still colonized. Here is a wonderful opportunity for us to minister to an ethnic group on our doorstep, waiting to be accepted, loved, and incorporated into the greater community.

Week 9 – Canonization and Marginalization – Karen L. King (Sugirtharajah)

I was unaware that  a “Gospel of Mary” existed until I read this discourse, but now I can see why it was not included in the Biblical canon.  After reading the text online, it surprises me that others think it provides an authoritative resource  for advocating women’s leadership.  Accusing patriarchal exegetes of wanting to discredit Mary of Magdala does not ring true.

Week 9 – Cutchery Tamil Versus Pure Tamil Hephzibah Israel (Sugirtharajah)

This narrative presents some interesting solutions to the problem of  finding an appropriate Tamil Bible translation during colonial times.  Creating an alternative social identity by gaining literacy, education and government jobs as a  Protestant Tamil is not a bad thing, especially since the people were already believers and did not become Christians for the sake of supplemental benefits.  Certainly, Onesimus in Philemon benefited socially by becoming a believer.  I can understand the challenges involved in the situation, but then the kingdom of God includes lifting up the marginalized.  In this case,  it came about unintentionally.

Week 9 – How Local Divine Powers Were Suppressed: Mbuwayesango (Sugirtharajah)

Missionaries have bypassed the oral tradition of indigenous cultures for years with disastrous results.  All cultures contain seeds of the gospel, therefore Shona stories and traditions do too.  The prevalent danger facing them is the same one that faces us all:  the  danger of syncretism. Hopefully, we are learning that we should stick to allowing the Holy Spirit reveal His truth through the oral presentation of the gospel, regardless of the language from which it has been translated.

Week 9 – God at the Crossroads: Sophia – Mayra Rivera (Sugirtharajah)

 Rivera states:  “Among theologians, Sophia has been recognized in the multidimensionality of the Trinity as Spirit-Sophia, Jesus-Sophia, and Mother-Sophia . . .”  (239).  I may be missing something here, but I am unable to get in sinc with this postcolonial feminist writer. I acknowledge that Wisdom is personified in the book of Proverbs as female, but this Sophia I do not understand.

Week 9 – Racial Discourse and Irish History – Luke Gibbons (Castle)

James Joyce’s writings have been harshly criticized in powerful contemporary critiques, because he is viewed as being identified with the colonial administration in his own country, and in “subjection to English society” (497).  This brings up a question for us as believers, regardless of the nation-state we live in:  Whose kingdom do we represent when there is a collision of values between the two:  our nation’s or God’s?