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Contextualization and the Old Testament: Between Asian and Western Perspectives
Christianity is often viewed in Asia as a Western imposition. Challenging this, Dr. Jerry Hwang examines the Old Testament’s cultural engagement of its ancient Near Eastern context, arguing that Scripture itself provides the ultimate model for contextualizing theology in Asia.
While it is common for missiological studies to ignore the Old Testament in their discussion of contextualization, truly biblical contextualization must include the whole Bible, not simply the New Testament. This study provides insightful discourse between the Old Testament and various Asian contexts, while demonstrating how Asian perspectives can help overcome the Eurocentrism prevalent in Old Testament scholarship.
This is an ideal resource for scholars and practitioners interested in a biblical perspective of contextualization, especially as related to constructing theology that honors the truth of Scripture in the context of Asia.
While it is common for missiological studies to ignore the Old Testament in their discussion of contextualization, truly biblical contextualization must include the whole Bible, not simply the New Testament. This study provides insightful discourse between the Old Testament and various Asian contexts, while demonstrating how Asian perspectives can help overcome the Eurocentrism prevalent in Old Testament scholarship.
This is an ideal resource for scholars and practitioners interested in a biblical perspective of contextualization, especially as related to constructing theology that honors the truth of Scripture in the context of Asia.
363 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 26, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 8, 2024
This is a really really good and insightful book that unfortunately will be difficult to get through for many because of its fairly technical presentation.
The book comes out of the field of Asian missiology and the struggle of Asian Christians to articulate a truly Asian theology, having been taught and conditioned by mostly Western missionaries and seminaries to view the Western theological tradition as simply "objective theology". Asian Christians face the dillema of either seeing Christianity as a "Western religion", or trying to contextualize the faith to Asian practices and cultures and being accused of syncretism - mixing the idea of God inappropriately with other religions or cultures. This book puts Western theology and Asian culture into dialogue on various different Old Testament interpretive topics, showing how Asian cultural ideas productively shed light on OT passages, simultaneously showing that some "traditional" Western views are themselves contextual (and perhaps even bordering on syncretistic).
Some of the topics I enjoyed the most were the discussion on the Same God Question (Does the word "God" in English mean the same thing as the word "Allah" in Arabic?), the discussion of the OT's view of time as cyclical vs. linear, and Dr. Hwang's chapter on guilt vs. shame. The latter chapter was especially helpful in pointing out that the simple dichotomy of "Eastern shame cultures" vs "Western guilt cultures" has actually been discarded in sociology in lieu of more complex models like the Group/Grid model which Dr. Hwang presents.
Through each of these topics, the Dr. Hwang builds a surprising case - that the Old Testament itself has no qualms about making use of cultural or even religious ideas from other cultures to make theological points. For example, the power of Yahweh is often expressed in the Old Testament by describing him in ways similar (yet superior to) the neighboring Canaanite or Egyption deities - he has similar powers, is associated with similar natural phenomenon, etc. Today, attempts to describe God by ascribing to him the power of the nature gods of Shinto, or to compare the wisdom of Jesus to the Buddha, for example, would probably be accused of syncretism . And yet, Dr. Hwang argues that this precise thing happens in the Old Testament. The implication is that if the gospel story of God is not expressed apart from culture even in the scriptures, then perhaps it can only be experienced and expressed from the vantage point of one's culture - including today. And if this is so, it must be possible to discover a truly Asian expression of the gospel, as well.
The book comes out of the field of Asian missiology and the struggle of Asian Christians to articulate a truly Asian theology, having been taught and conditioned by mostly Western missionaries and seminaries to view the Western theological tradition as simply "objective theology". Asian Christians face the dillema of either seeing Christianity as a "Western religion", or trying to contextualize the faith to Asian practices and cultures and being accused of syncretism - mixing the idea of God inappropriately with other religions or cultures. This book puts Western theology and Asian culture into dialogue on various different Old Testament interpretive topics, showing how Asian cultural ideas productively shed light on OT passages, simultaneously showing that some "traditional" Western views are themselves contextual (and perhaps even bordering on syncretistic).
Some of the topics I enjoyed the most were the discussion on the Same God Question (Does the word "God" in English mean the same thing as the word "Allah" in Arabic?), the discussion of the OT's view of time as cyclical vs. linear, and Dr. Hwang's chapter on guilt vs. shame. The latter chapter was especially helpful in pointing out that the simple dichotomy of "Eastern shame cultures" vs "Western guilt cultures" has actually been discarded in sociology in lieu of more complex models like the Group/Grid model which Dr. Hwang presents.
Through each of these topics, the Dr. Hwang builds a surprising case - that the Old Testament itself has no qualms about making use of cultural or even religious ideas from other cultures to make theological points. For example, the power of Yahweh is often expressed in the Old Testament by describing him in ways similar (yet superior to) the neighboring Canaanite or Egyption deities - he has similar powers, is associated with similar natural phenomenon, etc. Today, attempts to describe God by ascribing to him the power of the nature gods of Shinto, or to compare the wisdom of Jesus to the Buddha, for example, would probably be accused of syncretism . And yet, Dr. Hwang argues that this precise thing happens in the Old Testament. The implication is that if the gospel story of God is not expressed apart from culture even in the scriptures, then perhaps it can only be experienced and expressed from the vantage point of one's culture - including today. And if this is so, it must be possible to discover a truly Asian expression of the gospel, as well.
April 28, 2024
I would not recommend this book to any layperson, unless they are extremely interested in Asian religion/missiology. The book is extremely dense in content and terms specific to missiology and OT scholarship(Google was my friend). That being said, Hwang's analysis of avoiding syncretism and using contextualization to better reach various Asian cultures is extremely helpful and informative. He was thorough in his research and thus, the sources he pulls from are extremely helpful. It was fascinating to see how the OT can build on some specific cultural values in a case by case basis. I especially enjoyed Hwang's analysis of the Same God Question(i.e. Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?), as well as his analysis of shame, guilt, and honor, which went into the depth of Japanese shame culture and the gradual transformation of Japan's culture by Christianity.
July 14, 2024
Phenomenal book on a much-overlooked topic!
March 20, 2025
Very good work on a complex conversation.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews