Marginality: The Key to Multicultural Theology

by Jung Young Lee (Editor)

To transcend or to live in-beyond does not mean to be free of the two different worlds in which one exists but to live in both of them without being bound by either of them. - Jung Young Lee In this work Jung Young Lee proposes a framework that justifies and undergirds development of contextual theologies without becoming itself dominating. Lee aims to address the dilemmas of contextual theology not by moving one or another group from the margin to the center, but by redefining marginality itself as central. Marginality, he contends, is not only the experience of being outside the dominant group or in-between groups, but also "in-beyond"-a holistic, process-oriented definition that highlights the catalytic, transformative potential of living at the creative nexus of worlds. Lee's insight into marginality leads him directly into a new model for contextual theologies that focuses not on historical experience but on creative potential. His chapters work out concretely what such a notion can mean culturally, methodologically, and doctrinally to a movement that professes to follow the very paradigm of creative marginality, Jesus Christ.

Genres: Theology

216 pages, Paperback

First published July 11, 1995

Reviews

[Sooho Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Theology is autobiographical..."

As an Asian American, Jung Young Lee is a marginalized person. He is neither fully accepted by Asia nor America. He lives in the in-between (neither/nor), being pushed outward by both worlds. However, he also lives in the in-both (both/and), reaching inward into both worlds. This paradoxical place allows him to be in-beyond: total negation (in-between) and total affirmation (in-both). The fluidity and resistance to complete and stagnant conformity condition him, and other marginals, to participate in the marginal person par excellence: Jesus Christ, the marginal Jew. Jesus was both divinely marginalized (Incarnation) and humanly marginalized (outlier-Jew). Jesus is the "creative core" and the "margin of marginality." Only in and through this marginal God-Man, can redemptive marginal existence flourish and overflow.

As a marginalized person myself, I applaud Jung Young Lee's audacious take on a marginal theology--contra centralist theology. However, there are several theological claims he makes, or jumps to, that I cannot and would not make (whether he would blame my hesitance on my 'centralist-brainwashed-mind' or not cannot be determined nor assumed). He makes questionable claims that invite more question than clarity. But, perhaps, this is part of his assertion that theology should always be work in progress.

cf. www.sooholee.wordpress.com