Irish Theological Quarterly

http://itq.sagepub.com Whose Experiences? Whose Interpretations? Contribution of Asian Theologies to Theological Epistemology
Peter C. Phan Irish Theological Quarterly 2006; 71; 5 DOI: 10.1177/0021140006072559 The online version of this article can be found at: http://itq.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/71/1-2/5

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Pontifical University, St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland

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Irish Theological Quarterly 71 (2006) 528 2006 Irish Theological Quarterly Sage Publications [www.sagepublications.com] DOI: 10.1177/0021140006072559

Whose Experiences? Whose Interpretations? Contribution of Asian Theologies to Theological Epistemology

Peter C. Phan
A contrast is evident between the historical, literary, and cultural criticism, which is dominant in Western academies and which privileges the written text, and the Asian hermeneutical method that takes into account the multifaceted sources and resources, written and unwritten, of the Asian context. In light of these sources and resources, the author introduces a number of Asian hermeneutics with a view to enriching the Western hermeneutical methods.

hen the apostle Philip asked the Ethiopian eunuch, who was reading the prophet Isaiah, whether he understood what he was reading, and the latter replied: How can I, unless someone guides me? (Acts 8:31), the Christian science and art of hermeneutics was born. Of course, it is arguable that Christian hermeneutics enjoys a nobler pedigree than apos) tolic origin since the risen Jesus himself had interpreted ( the Hebrew Scriptures to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, explaining the things about himself in all the scriptures (Luke 24:27). Whatever the parentage of Christian hermeneutics, it is clear from these two incidents that its primary focus is the written text and, more precisely, the Hebrew Scriptures. This emphasis on textual reading was continued in the patristic era in which, inspired by Pauls statement that the letter kills, but the spirit gives life (2 Cor 3:6), theologians, especially Origen and Augustine, developed strategies to extract from the Bible the spiritual sense, hidden behind or beyond the text, in addition to the literal sense, given in the very letter of the text. The medieval fourfold scheme of the senses of the Bible (i.e. the literal, allegorical, tropological, and anagogical), summarized in Nicholas of Lyras mnemonic formula: littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia, perpetuated the traditional understanding of hermeneutics as interpretation of text. This emphasis on the text as the object of interpretation was strengthened by the Reformers theological principle of sola scriptura and their understanding of biblical inspiration as verbal dictation, with the attendant claim that
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the Bible requires its own interpretive method and strategies, a hermeneutica sacra distinct from the profane hermeneutics. Finally, even the modern methods of historical, literary, and cultural criticisms, which rejected Orthodox Protestantisms demand of a special status for the Bible and developed techniques for reading the Bible as any other human document, still regarded the written text as the privileged if not exclusive object of interpretation. The questions Whose experiences? and Whose interpretations? in the title of this article intend to challenge, from the perspective of Asian theologies, the customary practice of granting texts the monopoly of being objects of interpretation, especially when the function of interpretation is seen as supplying facts and data for systematic theology, as well as to question the hegemony of the modes of interpretive analysis and criticism currently regnant in Western academies.1 My aim is to explore the possibility of expanding the sources and resources for theology and devising appropriate methods for interpreting them. What will emerge is an enriched theological epistemology, or to put it simply, an Asian style of doing theology. I will begin with a brief presentation of how Asian theologians understand the task and method of theology. Second, I will explain how different strategies of interpretation are used in Asian theologies to gather data for systematic theology. Finally, I will illustrate these interpretive strategies with a concrete example taken from a well-known Taiwanese theologian. Doing Theology, Asian Style It is very significant that discourse on method, to parody Descartes, is not, for Asian theologians, something that must be done at the outset of their theological work as its condition of possibility, as if it were the foundation on which the theological edifice is built.2 Rather, reflection on
1. The phrasing of the title of the essay is a faint echo of Alasdair MacIntyres Whose Justice? Whose Rationality? (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988) insofar as it points out the connection between the way the text is conceived as the exclusive interpretandum of Christian theology and the various interpretive strategies of the currently regnant modes of hermeneutics in Western academies, just as MacIntyres book highlights the connection between different and incompatible conceptions of justice and different and incompatible conceptions of practical rationality. 2. By Asian theologians I mean primarily the bishops as well as their theological advisors working in the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences and its various standing offices. The FABC was founded in 1970, on the occasion of Pope Paul VIs visit to Manila, the Philippines. Its statutes, approved by the Holy See ad experimentum in 1972, were amended several times and were also approved again each time by the Holy See. For the documents of the FABC and its various institutes, see Gaudencio Rosales and C. G. Arvalo (eds), For All the Peoples of Asia: Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences. Documents from 1970 to 1991 (New York/Quezon City, Manila: Orbis/Claretian, 1992); Franz-Josef Eilers (ed.), For All the Peoples of Asia: Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences. Documents from 1992 to 1996, vol. 2 (Quezon City, Manila: Claretian, 1997); and id. (ed.), For All the Peoples of Asia: Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences. Documents from 1997 to 2002 (Quezon City,

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method, as Choan-Seng Song puts it, is an after-thought, as well as a forward-thought, since it is simply an attempt to understand what one has been doing and a signpost guiding ones continuing theological journey.3 This is so because theology in Asia is regarded not primarily as scientia or sapientia but, like Latin American liberation theology, it is viewed as a critical reflection on praxis in which praxis obtains primacy over and directs theorizing. To use Gustavo Gutirrezs memorable expression, theology is only a second step following the first act, which is active solidarity with the poor and the oppressed.4 The Pastoral Cycle Interestingly enough, when the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences (FABC) first developed a method of theological reflection appropriate to the Asian context in 1986, it simply articulated the way it had been theologizing since its foundation in 1970. The FABC called it the pastoral cycle to show that theology is intrinsically connected with the ministry of the church indeed, with what it proposed as a new way of being church in Asia. The pastoral cycle is composed of four interconnected steps. The first (exposure-immersion) exposes the theologians to and immerses them in the concrete situation of the poor with whom and for whom they work: Exposure is like a doctors visit for diagnosis; immersion is like the visit of a genuine friend entering into the dialogue-of-life. Exposure-Immersion follows the basic principle of the Incarnation.5 The aim of this first step is to provide the theologians with an experiential knowledge of and concrete solidarity with their suffering people. This is the perspective in which the theological labor will be carried out, and not from some abstract doctrinal principles. To put it in Jacques Dupuiss language, this personal exposureimmersion will prevent theology from using a dogmatic and deductive

Manila: Claretian, 2002). These will be cited as For All Peoples, followed by their years of publication in parentheses. For a brief history of the FABC and a summary of its theological orientations, see Edmund Chia, Thirty Years of FABC: History, Foundation, Context and Theology. FABC Papers, no. 106 (Hong Kong: FABC, 2003). (eds), Peter C. Phan and Jung Young Lee 3. See C.-S. Song, Five Stages Toward Christian Theology in the Multicultural World, in Journeys at the Margin: Toward an Autobiographical Theology in American-Asian Perspective, (Collegeville, MN.: Liturgical Press, 1999), 1. 4. See G. Gutirrez, A Theology of Liberation, rev. edn., trans. Sister Caridad and John Eagleson (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1988), 9. 5. For All Peoples (1992), 231. This exposure-immersion should not be seen merely as a temporary phase, though often it takes place in a short period of time. The FABC repeatedly insists that the church must share the lives and the poverty of the people to whom it proclaims the Good News: Quite clearly, then, there is a definite path along which the Spirit has been leading the discernment of the Asian Church: the Church of Asia must become the Church of the poor (For All Peoples 1992, 145). This phase corresponds to praxis which Latin American liberation theology insists is the methodological presupposition for doing theology.

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method that starts from general principles in order to apply them concretely to problems of today and will make use of the inductive method in which the problem is no longer that of coming down from principles to concrete applications, but rather moving in the opposite direction that of starting from reality as now experienced with all the problems that it entails, in order to seek a Christian solution to such problems in the light of the revealed message and through theological reflection.6 The second step is social analysis. The objects to be investigated include the social, economic, political, cultural, and religious systems in society as well as the signs of the times, the events of history, and the needs and aspirations of the people. Indeed, without this technical analysis, as the FABCs International Congress on Mission in 1979 in Manila pointed out, the naivety of all too many Christians regarding the structural causes of poverty and injustice often leads them to the adoption of ineffective measures in their attempts to promote justice and human rights.7 The FABC does not specify which method of social analysis is to be employed. However, it warns of the danger of deception either by ideology or selfinterest and of incompleteness.8 This brings us to the third step, namely, integration of social analysis with the religio-cultural reality, discerning not only its negative and enslaving aspects but also its positive, prophetic aspects that can inspire genuine spirituality.9 This step requires contemplation in order to discover Gods active presence in society and preferential love for the poor. This contemplative dimension brings the theologians into a sympathetic and respectful dialogue with Asias great religions and the religiosity of the poor. Through this double dialogue, the authentic values of the Gospel are discovered and appreciated such as simplicity of life, genuine openness and generous sharing, community consciousness and family loyalty.10 The fourth step is pastoral planning, which seeks to complete the first three steps by formulating practical and realistic policies, strategies, and plans of action in favor of integral human development. As these policies,
6. J. Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, trans. Phillip Berryman (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002), 8. 7. For All Peoples (1992), 145. Indeed, almost all documents issued by the FABC and its various institutes invariably begin with a careful analysis of the social, political, economic, cultural, and religious condition of Asia or parts of Asia as appropriate. 8. For All Peoples (1992), 231. Implicitly, the FABC considers Marxist social analysis, which was favored by early Latin American liberation theology, insufficient for the Asian situation. The FABCs Fifth Plenary Assembly says: Social analysis [must] be integrated with cultural analysis, and both subjected to faith-discernment. See For All Peoples (1992), 285. 9. For All Peoples (1992), 231. 10. For All Peoples (1992), 232. Aloysius Pieris calls this step introspection: He argues that a liberation-theopraxis in Asia that uses only the Marxist tools of social analysis will remain un-Asian and ineffective until it integrates the psychological tools of introspection which our sages have discovered. See his An Asian Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1988), 80.

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strategies and plans of action are implemented, they are continuously submitted to evaluation by a renewal of the first three steps of the pastoral cycle. Thus the ultimate test of the validity of theological insights is their ability to generate concrete actions in favor of justice and liberation.11 Doing theology in Asia, then, is much more than an academic enterprise. Of course, theology always is intellectus fidei understanding of the faith no matter where it is done. However, the starting point of Asian theologies is, as we will argue below, neither the Bible nor Christian Tradition from which conclusions are drawn by means of deductive logic and then applied to particular situations and circumstances. Rather, Asian theologians are implicated from the outset in the socio-political, economic, cultural, and religious conditions of their suffering and oppressed people with whom they must stand in effective solidarity. It is from the perspective of this praxis that Scripture and Tradition are read and interpreted. Asian Integral Pastoral Approach Nearly a decade later, in 1993, at a consultation on integral formation in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, this theological method was re-baptized under the name of Asian Integral Pastoral Approach (ASIPA) in order to root it more deeply in the new way of being church in Asia that had been emerging in various documents of the FABC.12 This new ecclesiology consists mainly in making the Church, in the words of the Fifth Plenary assembly of the FABC in 1990, a communion of communities, where laity, Religious and clergy recognize and accept each other as sisters and brothers . a participatory Church where the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to all the faithful lay, Religious and clerics alike are recognized and activated. a Church that faithfully and lovingly witnesses to the Risen Lord Jesus and reaches out to people of other faiths and persuasions in a dialogue of life towards the integral liberation of all a leaven of transformation in this world and a prophetic sign daring to point
11. See For All Peoples (1992), 232. There is a parallel between the FABCs pastoral cycle and the method of Latin American liberation theology. Clodovis Boff describes the method of liberation theology as composed of three mediations: socio-analytic mediation ( social analysis), hermeneutic mediation ( contemplation), and practical mediation ( pastoral planning). These three mediations are preceded and accompanied by praxis in favor of justice and liberation ( exposure-immersion). See Clodovis Boff, Theology and Praxis: Epistemological Foundations, trans. Robert R. Barr (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1987). 12. On this ASIPA, see For All Peoples (1997), 10711 and 1379. The ASIPA was developed along the lines of the Lumko Approach, a pastoral training program that Bishop Fritz Lobinger and Fr. Oswald Hirmer originated to promote lay participation through Basic Christian Communities in South Africa.

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beyond this world to the ineffable Kingdom that is yet fully to come.13 By Asian in this approach is meant a deep sensitivity to the peculiar situation of Asian countries: socio-political and economic conditions of oppression, exploitation and poverty; religious pluralism; and rich cultural traditions. Hence, the necessity of Christian mission conducted in the mode of a triple, intrinsically connected, dialogue: with the poor and the marginalized people of Asia, in particular, women and youth (liberation and integral development); with Asian religions (interreligious dialogue); and with Asian cultures (inculturation). By integral is meant wholeness in communicating the contents of the Christian faith, collaboration among all members of the Church, and coordination of Church structures at different levels. Pastoral emphasizes the primary goal of being church in Asia in a new way; that is, by becoming a participatory Church. Approach refers to a pastoral process made up of various but related programs to realize this new way of being church in all the local Churches. Hermeneutics: Whose Experiences? Whose Interpretations? Underlying this Asian style of doing theology, epitomized by the two slogans the Pastoral Cycle and the Asian Integral Pastoral Approach, is a distinctive understanding of what constitutes the text to be interpreted and of the interpretive methods and strategies that would be most appropriate to this interpretandum. Before expounding the FABCs conception of text and hermeneutical procedures, it would be helpful to outline the various models or paradigms of biblical interpretation currently in widespread use in Western academies.14 This sketch will serve as a useful foil to limn the characteristics of Asian hermeneutics. Historical, Literary, Cultural Criticisms In Fernando Segovias reading, the history of Western biblical interpretation can be summarized in three competing interpretive paradigms: historical
13. For All Peoples (1992), 2878. 14. I am indebted to Fernando F. Segovia for the following summary. See his Decolonizing Biblical Studies: A View from the Margins (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2000). My own methodological reflections may be found in Christianity with an Asian Face: Asian American Theology in the Making (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002), especially Chapter 1: The Experience of Migration as Source of Intercultural Theology in the United States; Chapter 2: A Common Journey, Different Paths, the Same Destination: Method in Liberation Theologies; Chapter 3: Inculturation of the Christian faith in Asia through Philosophy: A Dialogue with John Paul IIs Fides et Ratio; The Wisdom of Holy Fools in Postmodernity, Theological Studies 62 (2001): 73052; Doing Theology in the Context of Cultural and Religious Pluralism: An Asian Perspective, Louvain Studies 27 (2002): 3968; Multiple Religious Belonging: Opportunities and Challenges for Theology and Church, Theological Studies 64 (2003): 495519.

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criticism, literary criticism, and cultural criticism, henceforth designated for convenience as first, second, and third. Each of these modes of discourse conceives the six categories of hermeneutics as follows: (1) With regard to the nature of the text and its meaning, the biblical text is approached in the first as the means to reconstruct the world behind the text as well as its author to determine its meaning; in the second, as the medium or the message between the author and the reader to determine the aesthetic character and formal features of the text; in the third, as both the means and the medium to delineate the texts broader cultural and social dimensions. (2) As for reading strategies, they consist for the first in an archeological, vertical excavation of the text regarded as the result of a long process of accretion and redaction full of aporias and ruptures; for the second, in a horizontal, from beginning to end reading of the text regarded as a unified and coherent whole whose rhetorical and thematic harmony is often ascribed to the authorial intention itself; for the third, in neither a diachronic nor synchronic reading but in the proper decoding of the economic, social, and cultural codes contained in the text regarded as sociocultural entity within a larger sociocultural context. (3) Concerning philosophical foundations, the first is heavily influenced by positivism and empiricism according to which the meaning of the text is univocal and objective, and hence in principle retrievable by means of historical research. The second is also influenced, albeit somewhat less than the first, by positivism and empiricism and therefore still holds that the meaning of the text is univocal and objective, and hence in principle retrievable but now by means of literary or psychoanalytic analysis. The third is also influenced by positivism and empiricism, perhaps more so than the first two, and firmly holds that the meaning of the text is univocal and objective, hence in principle retrievable but now by means of the methods of the social sciences which are regarded as more scientific and rigorous than the tools of historical and literary analysis. (4) With regard to the readers of the text, in the first, they are regarded as faceless, universal, and informed critics who should assume a position of neutrality and objectivity, and hence enjoy a high degree of authority. In the second, they are also regarded as universal, informed, technically proficient, and ideologically neutral, and hence also enjoy a high degree of authority. In the third, readers are by contrast regarded as informed, interested, and engag critics (in neo-Marxist criticism) or as faceless, universal, and informed critics (in a sociological approach), and as informed and culture-specific critics but able to transcend the limitations imposed by their cultures (in an anthropological approach). (5) Concerning theological orientation, the first has a strong theological stance, regarding itself either as an exercise distinct from theology

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proper but providing it with facts and data for theological systematization or as part of fundamental theology. The second conceives itself less as a theological enterprise and more as an exercise in literary history, though very helpful to the appreciation of the beauty and power of the Word of God. The third also sees itself as less directly involved in theological reconstruction and more directed toward socio-political and economic transformation and liberation (in neo-Marxist criticism) or as completely divorced from any type of theologizing (in sociological and anthropological approaches). (6) Concerning academic training and pedagogical method, the first puts a premium on the acquisition of linguistic skills and the mastery of historiography and its preferred teaching method is learned impartation and passive reception, highly hierarchical and authoritative in character. The second emphasizes academic training in literary, psychoanalytic, structuralist, and rhetorical theories, and its preferred pedagogical model is also sophisticated impartation and passive acquisition, highly authoritative and hierarchical in character. The third equally requires high-powered training in the social sciences such as politics, economics, sociology of religion, and anthropology, and its mode of teaching is also learned impartation and passive absorption, and highly authoritative and hierarchical in nature. Whose Experiences? In spite of their different reading strategies and their acrimonious battles to dislodge each other from their entrenched positions in academic institutions, the three interpretive paradigms described above share certain basic convictions such as their empiricist and positivistic foundations, their demand for scientific and scholarly training as a sine qua non prerequisite for the interpretive task, and their authoritative and hierarchical pedagogical methods. They differ of course most conspicuously in their reading strategies which are borrowed from other academically respectable disciplines. But even in their methodological differences there are several fundamental common, unquestioned, and non-negotiable assumptions. First, the privileged and quasi-exclusive object of interpretation, the immediate interpretandum, is the written text (e.g. the Bible). Second, the meaning of the text, however discovered, is an objective, universally valid, and permanent entity, resident in the text and in principle retrievable from the text. Third, the product of the interpretive act is another written text, usually a learned commentary. Fourth, the presumed reader is a universal and informed critic or at least potentially so by means of appropriate training. Even in the reader-response school of literary criticism, where a more active role is assigned to the reader in the production of meaning, the reader is still an abstract, bloodless, ethereal ghost for whom, in spite of

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the assertion of the polysemic nature of language and the plurality of interpretations, the meaning of the text is already permanently inscribed and circumscribed in the text, which consequently imposes certain constraints on the readers interpretation. To put it differently, whose experiences are to be taken as the interpretandum to be decoded and interpreted? Are they those of people of the past and are they now to be accepted as normative because they are inscribed in the written text declared divinely inspired and sacred? The result of this deeply ingrained bias in favor of the written is that only what is written down (the Scripture) can count as normative and worthy of interpretation, and other media of communication such as visual and dramatic productions are dismissed as unscholarly and popular interpretive instruments, unworthy of serious attention, as any member of committees for tenure and promotion can readily attest. As a consequence, a host of experiences are eliminated from the realm of resources and sources for theological reflection, or if they are admitted at all, they are relegated to secondary status. An even more deleterious consequence of the privileging of the written text as the interpretandum is the exclusion of non-readers and non-literates from the process of interpretation, and in Asia this means a majority of people, in particular, women, among whom illiteracy is disproportionately greater than among men. This is an unfortunate impoverishment, especially for religious experiences. As is well known, religious experiences are told primarily in myths. Mythos can mean simply anything delivered by word of mouth, narrative, and conversation. In contemporary parlance it tends to signify a fiction, but a fiction that conveys a truth too deep to be communicated adequately by means of discursive reasoning.15 It is this sense of myth that is of interest to us here. It refers to story-telling not just as an art form but as epistemology and rhetoric, a way of knowing and communicating truths that affect human living so profoundly and extensively philosophic and religious truths that cannot be fully known and conveyed by logic and concepts. It is the vehicle of ultimate meaning about the divine, the world, the self, and other selves. Rather than relying on discursive reason, myth makes use of the imagination as a means of access to reality. Through its

15. Not all theorists of myth accept the explanatory function of myth. Whereas there are scholars who insist on the explanatory power of myth, though not in the literalist way, others prefer to emphasize the social and psychological functions of myth (e.g., B. Malinowskis functionalism), or to regard myth as a kind of language with a surface and deep structure composed by invariant features. E. Thomas Lawson groups recent explanatory approaches under four types which he terms the theory of formal continuity but idiomatic discontinuity, the theory of conceptual relativism, the theory of rational dualism, and the theory of situational logic. See his The Explanation of Myth and Myth as Explanation, Journal of the American Academy of Religion XLVI/4 (1978): 50723. See also Jack Carloye, Myths as Religious Explanations, Journal of the American Academy of Religion XLVIII/2 (1980): 17589.

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distinctive form, that is, narratives and symbols, it points to a reality beyond itself and thus contains in itself a surplus of meaning.16 As a way of knowing, myth-making or story-telling presents the wisdom of the community not as a system of clearly and definitively formulated truths that can be written down in a book but as a dance of metaphors that guide the communitys thinking and acting. Story-telling resists all attempts to encapsulate wisdom in timeless propositions and freeze them in a fixed time and space. Story-tellers do not prize uniformity, consistency, and linearity. No story is told the same way twice; rather, the shape of the story depends on the audience, the context, and the purposes for which the story is told. In some way, the story is the common creation of its teller and listeners. The very act of story-telling and myth-making assumes that change, emendation, revision, expansion, and plurality are the stuff of life. Story-telling also presupposes that human beings are primarily agents or doers story-making and story-telling within the continuum of past, present, and future and that who they are is revealed in their actions that make up their life stories. If human beings are myth-making and myth-telling animals; if the symbol gives rise to thought (Paul Ricoeur); and if human understanding is inevitably an essentially temporal event, a dynamic and open-ended process of interpretation upon which history exercises its influence,17 what has brought about the depreciation of mythos as a way to wisdom in the West? Contrary to popular perception, the cause of the eclipse of myth as a way of knowing reality and hence as a path to wisdom is not the contrast between mythos and logos as epistemological instruments, the former allegedly naive and archaic and the latter critical and scientific. It is true that the distinct form of mythos is narrative and that of logos is discursive reasoning. However, this difference did not by itself lead to the depreciation of mythos as a way of knowing. Rather this was due primarily to the move from orality to literacy. With the rise of writing and literacy, orality, through which myths and stories are transmitted, declined and, as the result of this decline, the way of thinking in abstract terms and the tendency to view the world in mutually exclusive terms increased substantially. Not only the knower became separated from the known, but also the literate from the illiterate. With Gutenbergs invention of the printing press, this separation became vastly exacerbated. As Walter Ong has shown, the printing press diffused knowledge as never before, set
16. For this concept, see the works of Paul Ricoeur, in particular, his The Symbolism of Evil, trans. Emerson Buchanan (Boston: Beacon, 1967) and Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, ed. and trans. John B. Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 17. For this notion of Wirkungsgeschichte, see the works of Hans-Georg Gadamer, especially his Truth and Method, 2nd rev. edn., trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Crossroad, 1989). For helpful general studies of Gadamers hermeneutics, see The Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer (Chicago: Open Court, 1997); Jean Grondin, Introduction Hans-Georg Gadamer (Paris: Cerf, 1999); and Lawrence K. Schmidt, The Epistemology of Hans-Georg Gadamer: An Analysis of the Legitimation of Vorurteile (New York: Peter Lang, 1987).

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universal literacy as a serious goal, made possible the rise of modern science, and altered social and intellectual life.18 The invention of the printing press aided and abetted the rise of modernity. In return, modernity favored reading and writing over story-telling and listening; information and proofs over stories; texts, preferably portable (e.g. pocket edition and paperback) that can be read in private and controlled over the free and unpredictable to-and-fro of conversation; the written contract over an oral agreement. The printed text becomes the privileged path to knowledge and wisdom. The truth is now inscribed and located in the text, and because it is written down, the truth remains unchangeable and permanent. Indeed, unless recorded in texts, nothing is reliable, authoritative, and true, as the expression as it is written (today, the equivalent expression is as seen on TV!) suggests. Furthermore, those who can read texts are authorities and have power over the illiterate. The latter are dependent on the former to know what the text says, or more precisely, what they say that the text says. In the process, the written text itself becomes the channel of truth and wisdom and the source of power and privilege. Coming to know the truth is made possible only though an objective and scientific interpretation of the text, especially classics and sacred scriptures. No wonder, in many European languages, to read means to interpret, as in the question: What is your reading of this situation or this person? As a consequence, truth becomes a commodity at the disposal of the intellectual elite and the powerful class, and logos is an instrument for reasoned and discursive argument. By the same token, oral myth-making and story-telling are considered an inferior, imprecise, primitive guide to truth and wisdom. It is no accident that since the 19th century, myth has often been sharply distinguished from history which alone concerns reality. Mythic consciousness is judged to represent an inferior and primitive stage of mental development incapable of expressing an abstract philosophical truth which should now be made accessible by means of demythologization.19 Resources for Asian Theology In light of what is said above about the manifold resources for theology besides the written text, sacred or otherwise, it is interesting to note that
18. See Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London: Routledge, 1988), 11718. See also his Worship at the End of the Age of Literacy, in Faith & Contexts, vol. 1: 19521991 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1992), 17588; Writing, Technology, and the Evolution of Consciousness, in Faith & Contexts, vol. 3: 19521990 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1995), 20214; Interfaces of the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982); and The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1967), 19. On demythologization, see Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology (London: SCM, 1966) and New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings, selected, ed. and trans. Schubert M. Ogden (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1984). See also Hans Werner Bartsch (ed.), Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate (New York: Harper & Row, 1961).

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when the FABCs Office of Theological Concerns describes the sources and resources of theology in the Asian context, they do say that as Christians, we rely first on the Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture but hasten to add that as Asian Christians, we do theology together with Asian theologies, insofar as we discern in them Gods presence, action and the work of the Spirit. We use these resources in correlation with the Bible and the Tradition of the Church. The Office of Theological Concerns points out the important fact that use of these resources implies a tremendous change in theological methodology.20 As to the resources themselves, the document lists them briefly: The cultures of peoples, the history of their struggles, their religions, their religious scriptures, oral traditions, popular religiosity, economic and political realities and world events, historical personages, stories of oppressed people crying for justice, freedom, dignity, life, and solidarity become resources of theology, and assume methodological importance in our context. The totality of life is the raw material of theology. God is redemptively present in the totality of human life. This implies theologically that one is using context (or contextual realities) in a new way.21 In contrast to the common use of context to mean merely the background against which theology is done and to which the Christian message is adapted, the Office of Theological Concerns holds that context, or contextual realities, are considered resources for theology (loci theologici) together with the Christian sources of Scripture and Tradition. Contextual realities become resources of theology insofar as they embody and manifest the presence and action of God and his Spirit.22 These contextual realities as resources for Asian theology include, among others, the following.23 The first resource is billions of Asian people themselves with their stories of joy and suffering, hope and despair, love and hatred, freedom and oppression, stories not recorded in history books written by victors but kept alive in the dangerous memory (Johann Baptist Metz) of the underside of history (Gustavo Gutirrez). Preferential love is reserved for the migrants, refugees, the displaced ethnic and indigenous peoples, exploited workers, especially the child laborers.24 In recent years, people as doers of

20. Office of Theological Concerns, Methodology: Asian Christian Theology: Doing Theology in Asia Today. FABC Papers, no. 96 (Hong Kong: FABC, 2000), 29. Henceforth cited as Methodology. 21. Methodology, 29. 22. Methodology, 30. 23. For the following paragraphs, see P. Phan, Doing Theology in the Context of Cultural and Religious Pluralism: An Asian Perspective, 547. 24. Christian Discipleship in Asia Today: Service to Life. Final Statement of the FABCs Sixth Plenary Assembly, 1995, in For All Peoples (1997), 4.

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theology have assumed a special role in Asian theology.25 Korean theologians have developed a distinctive theology called minjung theology as a faith reflection of, by, and for the mass in their struggle against oppression.26 In India, there is Dalit Theology, a liberation theology that incorporates the sufferings of the people known as the casteless, the fifth caste, the scheduled caste who form the majority of Indian Christians.27 In addition, there is also in many Asian countries Tribal Theology which calls attention to the oppression of the indigenous peoples.28 The second resource is a subset of the first, namely, the stories of Asian women and girls. Given the pervasive patriarchalism of Asian society, the stories of oppression and poverty of Asian women occupy a special place in Asian theology. As Chung Hyun Kyun has said, womens truth was generated by their epistemology from the broken body.29 First, the womens stories (Korean minjung theologian Kim Young Bok calls them socio-biography) are carefully listened to; a critical social analysis is then carried out to
25. For reflections on theology by the people, see S. Amirtham and John S. Pobee (eds), Theology by the People (Geneva: WCC, 1986); F. Castillo, Theologie aus der Praxis des Volkes (Munich: Kaiser, 1978); and Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1976). 26. Minjung, a Korean word, is often left untranslated. By minjung are meant the oppressed, exploited, dominated, discriminated against, alienated and suppressed politically, economically, socially, culturally, and intellectually, like women, ethnic groups, the poor, workers and farmers, including intellectuals themselves. See Chung Hyun Kyun, Han-pu-ri: Doing Theology from Korean Womens Perspective, in Virginia Fabella and Sun Ai Lee Park (eds), We Dare to Dream (Mary Knoll, NY: Orbis, 1990) 1389. For a discussion of minjung theology, see Jung Young Lee (ed.), An Emerging Theology in World Perspective: Commentary on Korean Minjung Theology (Mystic: Twenty-Third, 1988); and David Kwangsun Suh, The Korean Minjung in Christ (Hong Kong: Christian Conference of Asia, 1991). 27. The Dalits (literally, broken) are considered too polluted to participate in the social life of Indian society; they are the untouchable. Between two-thirds and three-quarters of the Indian Christian community are dalits. On Dalit theology, see Sathianathan Clarke, Dalit and Christianity: Subaltern Religion and Liberation Theology in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998); James Massey, Towards Dalit Hermeneutics: Re-reading the Text, the History, and the Literature (Delhi: ISPCK, 1994); id., Dalits in India: Religion as a Source of Bondage or Liberation with Special Reference to Christians (New Delhi: Mahohar, 1995); and M. E. Prabhakar, Towards a Dalit Theology (Madras: Gurukul, 1989). 28. On Tribal Theology, see Nirmal Minz, Rise Up, My People, and Claim the Promise: The Gospel among the Tribes of India (Delhi: ISPCK, 1997) and K. Thanzauva, Theology of Community: Tribal Theology in the Making (Aizawl, Mizoram: Mizo Theological Conference, 1997). See also Frontiers in Asian Christian Theology: Emerging Trends, ed. R. S. Sugirtharajah (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1994), 1162. The FABCs Seventh Plenary Assembly (January 312, 2000) draws attention to the plight of the indigenous people: Today, in many countries of Asia, their right to land is threatened and their fields are laid bare; they themselves are subjected to economic exploitation, excluded from political participation and reduced to the status of second-class citizens. Detribalization, a process of imposed alienation from their social and cultural roots, is even a hidden policy in several places. Their cultures are under pressure by dominant cultures and Great Traditions. Mighty projects for the exploitation of mineral, forest and water resources, often in areas which have been the home of the tribal population, have generally worked to the disadvantage of the tribals. See A Renewed Church in Asia: A Mission of Love and Service. FABC Papers, no. 93 (Hong Kong: FABC, 2000), 11. 29. Chung Hyun Kyun, Struggle to Be the Sun Again: Introducing Asian Womens Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1990), 104.

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discern the complex interconnections in the evil structures that produce womens oppression; and finally, theological reflection is done on them from the relevant teachings of the Bible.30 The third resource is the sacred texts and practices of Asian religions that have nourished the life of Asian peoples for thousands of years before the coming of Christianity into their lands and since: the Hindu prasthanatraya (triple canon) of the Upanishads, Brahma Sutra, and the Bhagavadgita; the Buddhist tripitaka (the three baskets) of the vinaya pitaka, the sutta pitaka, and the abhidhama; the Confucian Analects and the Five Classics; and the Taoist Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu, just to mention the best-known Asian classics. These writings, together with their innumerable commentaries, serve as an inexhaustible fountain of wisdom for Christian theology. Intimately connected with these religious texts is the fourth resource known as philosophy, since, in Asia, religion and philosophy are inextricably conjoined. Philosophy is a way of life and religion is a worldview, each being both darsana (view of life) and pratipada (way of life). To explicate Christian beliefs, Asian theology makes use of, for instance, the metaphysics of yin and yang rather than Greek metaphysics or process philosophy.31 The fifth resource is Asian monastic traditions with their rituals, ascetic practices, and social commitment. This last element, namely, social commitment needs emphasizing. Pieris has consistently argued that the most appropriate form of inculturation of Christianity in Asia is not the Latin model of incarnation in a non-Christian culture nor the Greek model of assimilation of a non-Christian philosophy nor the North European model of accommodation to a non-Christian religiousness. What is required of Asian Christians is the monastic model of participation in a non-Christian spirituality. However, this monastic spirituality is not to be understood as a withdrawal from the world into leisurely prayer centers or ashrams. Asian monks have always been involved in socio-political struggles through their voluntary poverty and their participation in social and cultural activities.32 At any rate, interreligious dialogue in all its multiple forms is an essential element of an Asian theology.33
30. See Chung Huyn Kyun, Struggle to Be the Sun Again, 1039. 31. See, for instance, Jung Young Lee, A Theology of Change: A Christian Concept of God from an Eastern Perspective (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1979) and The Trinity in Asian Perspective (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1996). 32. See Pieris, An Asian Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1988), 518 and Love Meets Wisdom (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1988), 6172, 8996. 33. The Vatican has spoken of four forms of interreligious dialogue: dialogue of life, dialogue of action, dialogue of religious experience, and dialogue of theological exchange. See the document Dialogue and Proclamation jointly issued by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (June 20, 1991) James A. Scherer and Stephen B. Bevans (eds). New Directions in Mission and Evangelization I: Basic Statements 19741991 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1992). For a discussion of the method of interreligious dialogue as theological exchange, see Peter C. Phan, The Claim of Uniqueness and Universality in Interreligious Dialogue, Indian Theological Studies 31/1 (1994): 4466.

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The sixth resource is Asian cultures in general with their immense treasures of stories, myths, folklore, symbols, poetry, songs, visual arts, architecture, music, and dance. The use of these cultural artifacts adds a very distinctive voice to Christian theology coming from the deepest yearnings of the peoples of Asia. For example, minjung theology has made a creative use of real-life stories and folktales. These stories are narrated and sung at Korean mask dances (talchum), opera (pansori), or shamanistic rituals (kut). Asian theologies can make full use of these and other contextual realities of Asia because of two theological convictions. As the Office of Theological Concerns has pointed out, First, Christian faith considers the whole universe, all of creation, as a manifestation of Gods glory and goodness, and secondly, Christian faith affirms that God is the Lord of history. that God, who created the universe and humankind, is present and active in and through his Spirit in the whole gamut of human history, leading all to the eschaton of Gods kingdom.34 Whose Interpretations? In his evaluation of historical, literary, and cultural criticisms, Fernando Segovia argues that their most serious lacuna is a lack of an adequate understanding of the real reader, or in his words, the flesh-and-blood reader. Except for the neo-Marxist view of the text as an ideological product, of the world behind the text as a site of struggle, and of the reader as a committed critic, the ideal reader is conceived as an objective, detached, neutral critic since the meaning of the text to be deciphered is an objective, stable, and permanent entity resident in the text itself. Such a view of the reader, Segovia points out, grows out of the classic ideals of the Enlightenment: all knowledge as science; the scientific method as applicable to all areas of enquiry; nature or facts as neutral and knowable; research as search for truth involving value-free observation and recovery of the facts; and the researcher as a champion of reason who surveys the facts with disinterested eyes.35 However, these ideals of the Enlightenment have been effectively challenged by the emerging and ever-increasing voices of real, flesh-andblood readers who are not exclusively male, clerical, and Western: voices of Western women, lay people, non-Western (Third-World) critics and theologians, and non-Western minorities in the West. These new arrivals to the hermeneutical domain, like immigrants in a new country, disturb the intellectual ethos and change the sacrosanct rules and practices of the academy.
34. Methodology, 38. The text adduces two celebrated statements of John Paul II. First, The Spirits presence and activity affect not only individuals but also society and history, peoples, cultures and religions (Redemptoris Missio, 28). And second: Every authentic prayer is prompted by the Holy Spirit, who is mysteriously present in every human heart (Redemptoris Missio, 29). 35. F. Segovia, Decolonizing Biblical Studies, 36.

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The new mode of discourse may be called ideological criticism. In terms of the six categories of hermeneutics, it may be described as follows:36 (1) The text and its meaning do not exist out there, independently of being actually read or seen or contemplated or performed or celebrated, to include non-literary interpretanda. Rather the text is a construct that becomes text in the encounter between text and reader. As Segovia puts it, meaning emerges, therefore, as the result of an encounter between a socially and historically conditioned text and a socially and historically conditioned reader.37 Consequently, the text can be viewed as a means to reach the world behind it (as in historical criticism), or as a message between an author and a reader (as in literary criticism), or as a construct created by the interaction between the text and its reader (as in cultural criticism). More precisely, any interpretation of the text is both re-construction of its context and re-creation of its meaning by real, flesh-and-blood readers from within their specific social locations and with specific interests in mind. (2) Its reading strategies can comprise vertical, from-the-bottom-up excavation to highlight the aporias of the text (as in historical criticism) or horizontal, from-beginning-to-end reading to illustrate the coherence of the text (as in literary criticism), or a neither-synchronicnor-diachronic decoding of the economic, social, and cultural codes of the text (as in cultural criticism). The important point here is not whether a specific reading strategy is used, but rather the reason why and for what purpose a particular interpreting strategy is employed rather than another. (3) Concerning philosophical foundations, ideological criticism rejects both empiricism and positivism. It does not accept the existence of a univocal, universal, stable, independent meaning of the text. There is not, nor can there be, a final and definitive recreation of meaning and reconstruction of history. All recreations of meaning and reconstructions of history are products of real, flesh-and-blood readers who are differently situated and engaged, and all recreations and reconstructions must be subjected to critical analysis for their meaningfulness and validity. (4) As to the reader, his or her face and voice must be foregrounded with their social locations, commitments, and interests. Their voices are not neutral nor impartial but positioned and engaged. Furthermore, all voices must be heeded to seriously, whether learned or uneducated,
36. The following six points are developed along the lines proposed by F. Segovia, Decolonizing Biblical Studies, 4250. 37. F. Segovia, Decolonizing Biblical Studies, 42.

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academic or popular, high or low. No voice is granted a special status merely because of its socio-economic class, sexuality and gender, race and ethnicity, political and religious affiliation, etc. (5) As to theological presuppositions, ideological criticism explicitly and self-consciously acknowledges that all interpretations are theological in nature, both because of the religious nature of the text and because of the goal of the interpretive enterprise which may be yielding new data for theology, or leading to a deeper appreciation of the Word of God, or contributing to the liberation of the poor and the oppressed. (6) Concerning training and pedagogical method, ideological criticism abandons the highly authoritative and hierarchical mode of teacherstudent learned impartation and passive assimilation. Rather it calls for a critical, multicentered, multilingual, multiperspectival dialogue among all real, flesh-and-blood readers. An Asian Multi-Pronged Hermeneutics In practice, such ideological criticism makes use of historical, literary, and cultural criticisms, with two conditions, namely, that the interpretandum be not restricted to or composed mainly of written texts; and that all the voices of real, flesh-and-blood interpreters be truly and seriously valorized. With regard to Asia in particular, in addition to these criticisms, three modes of interpretation have been urged as highly appropriate and urgent: multifaith, postcolonial, and people-based. A brief word about each.38 Multifaith Hermeneutics The first important hermeneutical approach of Asian theologies is what has been called multifaith or multireligious or cross-cultural or crosstextual or comparative or contextual reading. As the Office of Theological Concerns puts it, Asian interpreters of the Bible, both at the scholarly and the popular levels, search for the meaning of biblical texts: (1) in relation to Asian worldviews and cultures which are cosmic, Spirit-oriented, family and community-oriented; and (2) in relation to Asian situations in the socio-economic, political and religious fields.39 This approach obviously requires a competent knowledge of how other religions interpret their own sacred scriptures: If Christians wish to understand and dialogue with peoples of other faiths, it is important they understand how they have interpreted their text down the ages.40
38. For a more detailed exposition, see P. Phan, Doing Theology in the Context of Cultural and Religious Pluralism: An Asian Perspective, 5967. 39. Methodology, 412. 40. Methodology, 3940.

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Concretely, there must be an effort in Asia to learn about how Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Confucians, and Taoists read their own sacred scriptures.41 In familiarizing themselves with these interpretative methods, Asian theologians may learn that not only are there striking parallels between these methods and the traditional Christian approach to the Bible but also that these methods are more in tune with the Asian worldviews and mode of knowing and speaking than the Western ones and therefore can enrich Christian hermeneutics. Thus, for example, Christian theologians can learn from classical Vedantas teaching on the three steps in the process of moving from the desire to know Brahman to the liberating experience of Brahman in the perfect integration (samadhi) of the self (atman) and Absolute Reality, that is, hearing (sravana), reflecting (manana), and meditating (nididhyasana), each containing in itself various acts of interpretation. From Buddhism, Christians will learn the necessity of taking refuge in the Three Jewels, that is, the Buddha, the Dharma (his teaching), and the Sangha (the community) and its four rules of interpretation.42 In relation to Islam, Asian theologies can benefit from the Sunnite emphasis on exegesis through the traditions (hadith), from the Shi.ite stress on allegorical interpretation (tawil), and from the Sufi preference for mystical interpretation.43 Confucianism teaches Christian interpreters the necessity of linking knowledge with action and the use of images, stories, parables, and dialogues as ways to convey truths. Finally, from Taoism, Asian theologians learn the mode of apophatic thinking appropriate to dealing with the eternal and nameless Tao, the mystery upon mystery. This interfaith or multifaith hermeneutics abandons the earlier apologetical approach of using the Bible as a yardstick to judge the sacred texts of other religions. Rather it reads the Bible in light of the other sacred texts and vice versa for mutual cross-fertilization.44 The purpose of such
41. For a helpful overview of these five hermeneutical methods, see Methodology, 4384. 42. The four rules are: The doctrine (dharma) is the refuge and not the person; the meaning (artha) is the refuge and not the letter; the sutra of precise meaning (niartha) is the refuge, not the sutra the meaning of which requires interpretation (neyartha); direct knowledge (jnana) is the refuge and not discursive consciousness (vijnana). See Methodology, 556. 43. Methodology highlights the following three Islamic hermeneutical principles: i. that the meaning should be sought from within the Quran, and never should a passage be interpreted in such a manner that it may be at discrepancy with any other passage; ii. no attempt should be made to establish a principle to establish on the strength of allegorical passages, or of words liable to different meanings; iii. when a law or principle is laid down in clear words, any statement carrying a doubtful significance, or a statement apparently opposed to the law so laid down, must be interpreted subject to the principle articulated. Similarly, that which is particular must be read in connection with and subject to more general statements (63). 44. For examples of interfaith hermeneutics, see the brilliant essays of Samuel Rayan, Reconceiving Theology in the Asian Context, in Virginia Fabella and Sergio Torres (eds). Doing Theology in a Divided World (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1985), 1349; Wrestling in the Night, in Marc H. Ellis and Otto Maduro (eds) The Future of Liberation Theology: Essays in Honor of Gustavo Gutirrez (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1989), 45069; Peter K.H. Lee, Re-reading Ecclesiastes in the Light of Su Tung-pos Poetry, Ching Feng 30, 4 (1987):

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reading is not to prove that the Christian Bible and the sacred scriptures of other religions are mutually compatible, nor to find linguistic and theological parallels between them for some missiological intent, but to enlarge our understanding of both, to promote cross-cultural and crossreligious dialogue, to achieve a wider intertextuality.45 To carry out this exercise successfully, what is needed is what Kwok Pui-lan calls the dialogical imagination. She explains the implications of this dialogical model: A dialogical model takes into consideration not only the written text but also oral discussion of the text in different social dialects. It invites more dialogical partners by shifting the emphasis from one scripture (the Bible) to many scriptures, from responding to one religious narrative to many possible narratives. It shifts from a singleaxis framework of analysis to multiaxial interpretation, taking into serious consideration the issues of race, class, gender, culture, and history. It emphasizes the democratizing of the interpretative process, calling attention to the construction of meanings by marginalized people, to the opening up of interpretive space for other voices, and to the creation of a more inclusive and just community.46 In this way Kwok Pui-lan suggests that the Bible be seen not as a fixed and sacred canon giving rise to one normative interpretation but as a talking book the juxtaposition of talking with book highlighting the rich connections between the written and the oral in many traditional cultures. The image of the Bible of a talking book puts the emphasis not on the text but on the community that talks about it; not on the written but the oral transmission of the text; not on the fixed but the evolving meaning of the text; not on one canonical but many voices, often suppressed and marginalized, in the text; not on the authoritarian decision about the truth of the text but on the open, honest, and respectful conversation about what is true.47

21436; id., Ta-Tung and the Kingdom of God, Ching Feng 31/4 (1988): 22544; id., Two Stories of Loyalty, Ching Feng 32/1 (1989): 2440; Choan-Seng Song, Tell Us Our Names: Story Theology from an Asian Perspective (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1984). See also the essays in the fourth part of Voices from the Margin, ed. R. S. Sugirtharajah, 299394 and Frontiers in Asian Theology, ed. R. S. Sugirtharajah, 65137. 45. George M. Soares-Prabhu, Two Mission Commands: An Interpretation of Matthew 18: 1620 in the Light of a Buddhist Text, Biblical Interpretation 2/3 (1994): 282. See also Archie Lee, Biblical Interpretation in Asian Perspective, Asia Journal of Theology 7/1 (1993): 359. 46. Kwok Pui-lan, Discovering the Bible in the Non-Biblical World (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1995), 36. 47. Discovering the Bible in the Non-Biblical World, 42.

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Postcolonial Hermeneutics Because most countries of Asia have been devastated by a long history of Western colonialism and imperialism, a reading of the Bible in relation to their socio-economic and political situations inevitably leads to a postcolonial hermeneutics. As R. S. Sugirtharajah has amply demonstrated in the Indian context, historical-critical methods were not only colonial in the sense that they displaced the norms and practices of our indigenous reading methods, but in that they were used to justify the superiority of the Christian texts and to undermine the sacred writings of others, thus creating a division between us and our neighbors. Such materials function as masks for exploitation and abet an involuntary cultural assimilation.48 In contrast, a postcolonial scriptural reading is marked, according to Sugirtharajah, by five features. First, it looks for oppositional or protest voices in the text by bringing marginal elements to the front and, in the process, subverts the traditional meaning. Second, it will not romanticize or idealize the poor. Third, it will not blame the victims, but will direct the attention to the social structures and institutions that spawn victimhood. Fourth, it places the sacred texts together and reads them within an intertextual continuum, embodying a multiplicity of perspectives. Fifth, it will address the question of how people can take pride and affirm their own language, ethnicity, culture, and religion within the multilingual, multiracial, multicultural and multireligious societies.49 People-Based Hermeneutics Kwok Pui-Lans image of the Bible as a talking book mentioned above brings us to the third track of Asian interpretive method, namely, peoplebased hermeneutics. In Asia, the biblical interpreters are not only professionally trained scholars, whose work is of course important for the community, but also the ordinary believers themselves, especially as they gather in basic ecclesial communities for Bible study and worship. Furthermore, people-based hermeneutics makes extensive use of popular myths, stories, fables, dance, and art to interpret biblical stories. The most prominent advocate and practitioner of this hermeneutics is Choan-Seng Song, a Taiwanese Presbyterian.50 To one of his justly celebrated
48. R. S. Sugirtharajah, Asian Biblical Hermeneutics and Postcolonialism: Contesting the Interpretations (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1998), 127. See also F. Segovia, Decolonizing Biblical Studies, 11942. 49. See R. S. Sugirtharajah, Asian Biblical Hermeneutics and Postcolonialism, 204. 50. The following are Songs most important works: Third-Eye Theology, rev. edn (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1990); The Compassionate God (London: SCM, 1982); Tell Us Our Names: Story Theology from an Asian Perspective (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1984); Theology from the Womb of Asia (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1986); Jesus, the Crucified People (New York: Crossroad, 1990); Jesus and the Reign of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1993); Jesus in the Power of the Spirit (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1994); and The Believing Heart: An Invitation to Story Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1999).

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exemplifications of Asian hermeneutics we now turn in concluding these reflections on Asian contributions to theological epistemology. The Tears of Lady Meng The Tears of Lady Meng is a folktale known to every Chinese child under the title The Faithful Lady Meng. The story is short and can be cited in full: This happened in the reign of the wicked, unjust Emperor Chin Shih Huang-ti. He was afraid at this time that the Huns would break into the country from the north and not leave him any peace. In order to keep them in check, he decided to build a wall along the whole northern frontier of China, but no sooner was one piece built than another fell down, and the wall made no progress. Then a wise man said to him: A wall like this, which is over ten thousand miles long, can be built only if you immure a human being in every mile of the wall. Each mile will then have its guardian. It was easy for the emperor to follow this advice, for he regarded his subjects as so much grass and weeds, and the whole land began to tremble under his threat. Plans were made for human sacrifices in great numbers. At the last minute an ingenious scholar suggested to the emperor that it would be sufficient to sacrifice a man called Wan since Wan means ten thousand. Soldiers were dispatched at once to seize Wan who was sitting with his bride at the wedding feast. He was carried off by the heartless soldiers, leaving Lady Meng, his bride, in tears. Eventually, heedless of the fatigues of the journey, she traveled over mountains and through rivers to find the bones of her husband. When she saw the stupendous wall she did not know how to find the bones. There was nothing to be done, and she sat down and wept. Her weeping so affected the wall that it collapsed and laid bare her husbands bones. When the emperor heard of Meng Chiang and how she was seeking her husband, he wanted to see her himself. When she was brought before him, her unearthly beauty so struck him that he decided to make her empress. She knew she could not avoid her fate, and therefore she agreed on three conditions. First, a festival lasting forty-nine days should be held in honor of her husband; second, the emperor, with all his officials, should be present at the burial; and third, she should build a terrace forty-nine feet high on the bank of the river, where she wanted to make a sacrifice to her husband. Chin Shih Huang-ti granted all her requests at once. When everything was ready she climbed on to the terrace and began to curse the emperor in a loud voice for all his cruelty and

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wickedness. Although this made the emperor very angry, he held his peace. But when she jumped from the terrace into the river, he flew into a rage and ordered his soldiers to cut up her body into little pieces and grind her bones to powder. When they did this, the little pieces change into little silver fish, in which the soul of the faithful Meng Chiang lives for ever.51 The Tears of Lady Meng was originally C.-S. Songs D. T. Niles Memorial Lecture entitled Political Theology of Living in Christ with People at the General Assembly of the Christian Conference of Asia held in Bangalore, India, May 1828, 1981. Published later, it was subtitled A Parable of Peoples Political Theology.52 Though quite short (some 30 pages), the text represents Asian hermeneutics at its most distinctive and arguably at its best. In it Song hopes to show that theology is a synthetic art, as it were, projecting a picture, an image, a symbol, about reality on the basis of the Bible and out of life that flows in our veins and in the veins of our people. The Story of God this is what theology essentially is is the story of people, not just of Jewish-Christian people, but of millions and tens of millions of people here in Asia.53 This is not of course the place to make an extended commentary on Songs interpretation of the Chinese folktale. Suffice it to highlight some key features of Songs reading of the story as exemplifications of the art of Asian hermeneutics expounded above. First of all, Songs political theology begins and is rooted in a folktale: Folktale political theology is conceived in the womb of peoples experience. In the darkness of that womb a new life is hatched in peoples tears and laughter; it struggles to grow in peoples hope and despair. It is this kind of political theology that we find in some of the finest folk literature, folk songs, folk dance, and folk dramas.54 By making use of these resources including non-literate ones Songs hermeneutics is not only liberated from the Western bias for the written text but also becomes multicultural and multifaith. Second, as reader, Song is no neutral and objective critic. Rather he is a real, flesh-and-blood reader. He makes his social position as a Christian Taiwanese explicit, his theological commitments plain, and his political interests obvious. Though historical, literary, and cultural criticisms are by no means absent, they function at the service of ideological criticism. It is significant that the original title of the folktale is changed from The Faithful Lady Meng to The Tears of Lady Meng. The interest is not in reiterating the moral lesson on marital fidelity (which, in a patriarchal culture, may lead to abuses of women) but in showing the political power of
51. Folktales of China, ed. Wolfram Eberhard (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 256. 52. The Tears of Lady Meng (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1982). 53. The Tears of Lady Meng, vii. 54. The Tears of Lady Meng, 29.

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the tears of the people that is, their suffering and hope. It is this double significance of tears that Song highlights throughout his lecture. Third, the meaning of the folktale is not something fixed, stable, permanent, and universal, forever inscribed in the text. Rather it is recreated and reconstructed in the encounter between the historically positioned and conditioned text and Song as a positioned and conditioned reader. The socio-political situation in which the text was read (and also illustrated with drawings by the Brazilian artist Claudius Ceccon) was that of Asia in the 1980s when many of its countries were suffering from dictatorship and economic poverty: the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, mainland China. It is in this cauldron of widespread injustice and oppression that Song forged, through the story of the victory of female weakness (Lady Meng) over male power (Chin Shih Huang-ti), of people over autocratic regime, his critique against the ideology of national security, and his appeal to the people to speak truth to power. Fourth, in developing his argument, Song makes ample use of biblical texts and non-canonical materials, from the prayer of a Korean mother whose two sons were arrested for speaking out for human rights and democracy, to a Vietnamese poem on a statue that does not shed tears, to statements about the Buddhas being moved to compassion and pity, to a Korean Christian lay mans meditation on strength in weakness, to a Taiwanese ministers poem on imprisonment, to a Peking underground poem. These and other texts are not used simply as illustrations for the biblical texts; rather they and the biblical texts are interlaced together to throw light on and enrich each other. Finally, implicit in Songs reading is a postcolonial hermeneutics. He makes clear that the sufferings of the Asian people are not caused simply by individual ill-will and cruelty but are deeply embedded in structures of economic exploitation and political oppression from which Western countries stand to benefit. On the other hand, Song does not blame the victims but encourages them to rise up and confront the powers with their tears and their truth. In retrospect, Asian hermeneutics does not stray very far from the way the apostle Philip and Jesus himself interpreted the Scripture. Philip, impelled by the Spirit, approached the Ethiopian and inquired whether he understood what he was reading. Unfortunately, Acts does not report what Philip told the Ethiopian except saying that starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus (Acts 8:36). It is very important to note that this scripture that Philip expounded on is Isaiahs text about the Suffering Servant who like a sheep was led to the slaughter and in whose humiliation justice was denied him. Asian hermeneutics, too, focuses on the injustices and sufferings of the Asian people and sees therein Gods good news about liberation and salvation. In the story of the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, Jesuss interpretation of the Scripture made

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IRISH THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

their hearts burn within them (Luke 24:32) but they did not recognize Jesus until he broke bread and shared it with them: Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him (Luke 24:31). In Asia, too, hermeneutics of the written text is necessary and useful, and it may warm the hearts of many Asians. But by itself it is important to make Asians recognize the face of Jesus in their daily sufferings. Only a hermeneutics of solidarity and sharing, part of what the FABC calls pastoral cycle or Asian Integral Pastoral Approach, can achieve what interpreting the Bible is all about. PETER C. PHAN, Ignacio Ellacuria Chair of Catholic Social Thought, Theology Department, Box 571135, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057, USA. Pcp5@georgetown.edu

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