CUAC Triennial 2008 is coming. Before we know it, over a hundred of us will be in Hong Kong in May 2008 learning more about the history, present context and future hopes and dreams of Anglicans in higher education in East Asia and elsewhere. Excellence, character and service—values and expectations that are embraced not only in the Anglican world but also in the Christian oikoumene and human society—are excellent common starting points to inspire thoughtful and non-complacent conversation. However, if you are like me, you might have already been actively—or passively—keeping track of written and electronic resources that help keep the intellectual and theological inquiry juices flowing. Here are some recent examples with web site URL addresses that are some good resources:
1. Anglican Online’s church history resources on the Anglican presence in Asia contains a wealth of web site links for exploration: http://anglicansonline.org/resources/history.html#asia
2. October 19, 2007 - An article on recent initiatives from the Amity Foundation, a Chinese Christian volunteer organization whose president of the board is Anglican Bishop K.H. Ting, focusing on the shape and importance of charity and charitable acts in Chinese Christian identity and practice: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_91106_ENG_HTM.htm
3. July 2, 2007 – An article from Ecumenical News International featuring comments from a leader of the Orthodox Church in South East Asia, Metropolitan Nikitas Lulias which include “Christians in many Asian countries are facing serious persecution”: http://www.eni.ch/
4. October 29, 2007 - Asian theologians and scholars from Asia and the United States wrestle with reconciliation issues at Historic Exchange Forum at Church Divinity School of the Pacific in an article from Episcopal Life Online: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_91399_ENG_HTM.htm
Embarking on a journey through the particularities of the Anglican/Episcopal presence in East Asia inspires me to pay attention to places like Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines and People’s Republic of China. Some other mental wonderings have arisen that I would like to share. Hopefully, these wonderings will inspire contact with the CUAC office at office@cuac.org with suggestions of other hard copy and electronic resources that would further inform our upcoming conversations. Here are some questions which got me meditating.
“How conscious am I that, from the beginning, Christianity was an Asian religion that was exported from and shaped in its earliest years by and in a “Global South” context?” This October 11, 2007 article from the National Catholic Reporter I came across is a report on an international conference offered at Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, CA on October 6-7, 2007. The keynote speaker for the conference, Roman Catholic Vietnamese theologian Fr. Peter Phan of Georgetown Universit, addressed the issue of the need for the Church to re-think its current attempts—or lack of attempts—to embrace today’s Christian “non-European” communities, as well as a revisiting the true trajectory of the foundation and spreading of Christian witness in the early years of Christianity from and within an Asian context: http://ncrcafe.org/node/1369/print
“Have I, in this age of globalization, conquered the tendency to see and treat those from parts of the world as exotic?” In this very substantial article printed in the Chronicle of Higher education, a female Iranian scholar shares her assertion that a “new Orientalism”—a tendency to explain the countries and cultures in the Middle East, and especially Iran--has developed where countries are described as “victims and villains” and not as “vibrant and multifaceted” cultures. I can say as an American that we in the United States have not necessarily learned about in school or embraced in popular culture a wealth of Anglican persons and viewpoints that aren’t articulated in controversial news stories of influential magazines and journals, especially persons and viewpoints that come from Africa, Asia and the Pacific Rim. http://chronicle.texterity.com/chronicle/20070713b/?sub_id=B3jrqlOj6syu7
“In the world of Internet institutional and self-education where the old national and continental borders often become ambiguous or disappear all together, are colleges and universities necessary to share and interpret the Gospel at all?” A New York Times article makes me wonder about the phenomenon of creating and using Christian-based social networking web sites or learning how to report, film and write on religion in the U.S. by engaging in a “virtual world” site created in Second Life Cable Network. Is a college and university (much less a lone individual like myself) still a relevant “medium” for sharing the Gospel message? http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/30/us/30religion.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=119523274008NZ6L43zfyGeVaoB4xLdg)
With these questions, I hope to bring an open and listening ear and heart to obtain answers—and if not answers, then--I am sure--a wealth of questions and experiences that will inform my own learning and growing in human society with God in Christ through the Spirit.
