The growing literary, political, and social impact of Christianity in many Asian nations has obliged Asianists without the least interest in Christianity—including those, like a former Oxford college head and acquaintance, who “didn't believe Christianity should be in Asia”—to keep abreast of developments, as they impact fields beyond religious studies. This volume, with its concentration on the challenges to “Western” Christianity that Asian Christians bring, and emphasis on the pluriform nature of Asian Christianities in dialogue with local cultures, is a good place to start. Like feminist theology, which has required theologians of all stripes to reassess fundamental presuppositions, proponents of Asian Christianity are adamant that the experiences of contextual theologians demonstrate that all theology is contextual, that there is no benchmark, no universal (“Western”) form, and that this relativization changes how theology is taught and constructed everywhere.
Asian and Oceanic Christianities in Conversation provides many excellent case studies of local theologies, such as Hisako Kinukawa's essay on pacifism in Japan and the possibilities of ethical mission activity between nationals at war, or Seforosa Carroll's study of the effects of migration on religious identity in Australia following the abolition of the White Australia policy. The volume also presents a number of helpful theoretical studies, mainly, although not exclusively, in the first section, “Hermeneutical Lenses for Reading Asian Experiences.” These include, for example, Peter Phan's historical survey of the three-stage move from a colonialist “Asian Christian” identity among Roman Catholics, through a stage as Christian Asians, towards a model of mutuality and partnership as Asian-Christians, or Anri Morimoto's essay on constructing a “theology of tradition.” The volume is less strong on the “in conversation” aspect, either in linkages between the individual studies, or in a theoretical assessment of the interaction between these local Christianities: it provides a polyphonic starting point for conversation, rather than commentary on the dialogue. Perhaps this is what the editors aimed for: the volume was intended to act as a common forum for connecting Oceanic and Asian thinkers around the Pacific, and as a counterpoint to North American dominance of Asian American theological writing. (Asia still dominates, inevitably, with only three essays on Oceanic or Pacific Islander themes.)
The primacy given to local expressions of Christianity raises, as the editors acknowledge, the question of what binds these local manifestations together. M. Thomas Thangaraj proposes “Kiristubhakti” as the answer, an attachment to Christ seen in devotion or piety rather than in action or knowledge, and rooted in local cultural forms. For Peter Phan, the Asian-ness of Asian Christianity is seen in its regnocentric (i.e., kingdom-of-God oriented) and theocentric forms, a response to its multireligious environment. Others are more radical: Heup Young Kim develops the concept of “theotao” that he has proposed elsewhere, in a move that allows Christians to “own up to” their own native religious languages, and acknowledge that native spiritual and religious traditions are part of the DNA of Asian Christians and should be integrated into their resultant Christianity. R. S. Sugirtharajah, in an essay on violence and biblical interpretation in Sri Lanka, argues in a similar vein that the time has come for Asian Christians to distance themselves from a divisive monotheistic-centered discourse, and celebrate their pluralistic heritage, which “permits us to borrow, exchange and celebrate, relive and recreate each other's Gods, rituals, and stories” (p. 88). Such moves can have interesting side effects: one problem with Kim's theotao paradigm, for example, is not so much its reassessment of traditional doctrines of original sin and the like from a Korean worldview, or even its insistent characterization of Western theology as individualistic and predicated entirely on Greek dualisms, but that the version of Confucianism Kim wants to embrace as his spiritual DNA is deeply anti-feminist, and liberative for only half of the Christian population.
A second premise that shapes the volume and is explored by the preface writers is the primacy given to the lived life of the church. “Theology” is taken to be always a secondary activity, articulating the local expression of Christianity in prayer, worship, song, or dance. While this emphasis is not new, the insistence that the church community is the source of the historical reality of theology creates a tension in its relation to previous (written) theologies. Morimoto's essay on a “theology of tradition” is a useful contribution here—although its conversation partners are Schreiter, via Chomsky and grammar, and Kathryn Tanner on culture, rather than any Asian theorists—as is Benoît Vermander's study of diversity, globalization, and peacemakers in East Asia, which shows the circularity of experience enriching interpretation. One of Vermander's conclusions seems a fitting summary for the volume as a whole: that cultures and creeds are being reformulated by the interpretive resources of other cultures and creeds, an operation that happens simultaneously for all participants, so identity is always in relation to the other—but this identity remains discrete and localized. The question of how these are specifically Asian identities demands continuous attention, but the volume opens up a range of perspectives on a topic with repercussions well beyond its own field.
