Christian Faith 101: The Basics and Beyond Book

Chung Hyun Kyung offers a brief and accessible introduction to Asian women's theology as it stood in 1990. For her, the task of Asian women's theology is to create a theology from the ground up that emerges from the lived experiences of Asian women who have suffered at the intersecting oppressions of colonialism, patriarchy, and classism. This theology should result in the liberation and full humanity not only of Asian women, but all people.

She begins with chapters on the historical and social contexts of Asian women's theology, then devotes chapters to anthropology, Jesus, Mary, and spirituality. She closes with a chapter that looks to the future of Asian women's theology and that explores theological method. She makes generous use of quotations from Asian women writers, including poetry, giving the book a very multi-voiced feel.
I personally found the chapter on Mary and the final chapter on theological method particularly engrossing. As someone who primarily comes out of Protestant traditions, I haven't reflected much on Mary let alone mariology from a feminist perspective, so this opened some new doors for me. The closing chapter offers some great challenges and models for what theology is and how it can be done.

Just a few of the many things that caught my attention:
-The openness to syncretism. While syncretism is usually a dirty word among Christian theologians, the author believes that Asian women's theology ought to embrace it, being willing to draw on liberating traditions not only from the Bible and Christian theology but from indigenous traditions. She uses the phrase "survival-liberation centered syncretism."
-The call to make storytelling the first step in the theological process, to root theology in lived experience, for Asian women to trust their "guts", and for Asian women theologians to see themselves as "the text."
-The author recognizes that most published Asian women theologians are middle class women writing in languages of colonizers, and that they cannot speak for poor Asian women. I think there are some good things that all of us who hold varying forms of privilege can learn from her discussions of creating solidarity with poor Asian women. Drawing on Elizabeth Tapia she uses the image of "echo" -- that middle class Asian women theologians can echo the voices of the poor:
"Tapia wants her theology to become an echo for poor Filipino women by lifting their concerns when appropriate. Tapia wants the silenced voices of poor Filipino women to be heard by her becoming an echo of their cries. By echoing their cries, Tapia is participating in the struggle of Filipino women. Echoes do not change the original sounds; echoes resound the original sounds. In this sense such echoes are the most honest and powerful testimony to the poor woman's voice of truth when the 'culture of silence' suppresses women's truth-telling with various political, economic, and social devices which destroy any coherent sound from women. This image of echo will be the vital image for the educated, middle-class women doing theology in solidarity with poor women in Asia until that time when the echo changes into a symphony in which every woman, regardless of background, with the fullness of her humanity, is able to make her own sound of truth heard" (103).

The author also uses the language of "accountability." Middle class women theologians don't create theologies for the poor, but are called to create theologies that are accountable to them. For me that's part of why it is important for those of us who hold various forms of privilege to read books like "Struggle to be the Sun Again" -- it's one of the ways that we can be accountable to our oppressed siblings and neighbours in the struggle for justice.

A worthwhile read for anyone interested in third-world, liberation, and feminist theologies -- or anyone with just a general interest in theology. I think it's accessible for those who don't have formal theological training. You might also check out the journal "in God's image," which the author draws on quite a bit: