Abstract
This small but significant book is part of the DLT ‘My Theology’ series which invites theologians to reflect on how their lived experience helped shape their theology. It is refreshing to read a theologian speaking of childhood memories and experiences and how these planted seeds for later work. We are so often encouraged to believe that academics simply live in their heads and make objective rational disembodied pieces of work. This is not at all surprising particularly in theology where for centuries objective truths/doctrines have been there for the glimpsing by those sufficiently removed from embodied experience.
Grace Ji-Sun Kim was born in Korea and the family moved to Canada where she found herself as a young child placed in a world that did not look like her or her family and unable to speak the language. Worse still, it was a world extremely conscious of her difference which did not hold back from telling her in derogatory ways how different she was. She was of course at the time aware of how hurtful such remarks were and how it made her feel as if she did not belong, but it laid the foundations for her fierce critique of white nationalism and its connection with Christianity. Her childhood was heavily influenced by churchgoing both to Korean churches and to ‘white’ churches which her father thought would help them develop their English. In both, she experienced the patriarchal culture which even as a young child she felt was unjust. She notes that her first experience of sexism was at home and in the Korean church. Within Korean culture, girls are expected to obey their fathers and then when married to obey their husbands, while widows are expected to obey their sons. This expectation was not diminished by locating to another country and culture. The same pattern of obedience and subservience was evident in the Korean church where power lay exclusively in the hands of men.
Both of these experiences laid the foundations for increasingly complex reflection in her theological work. She says she grew up with white Christianity and did not know any other form could exist; this was a form with a white God and a white Jesus which even invaded their home as hanging on their wall was the Head of Christ by Sallman. The consequence of this white version of Christianity is that whiteness is seen as closer to God and thereby allows white Christians many societal privileges and views non-white people as somehow inferior and undeserving of any societal or political benefits. Bad enough that this form of Christianity should be rife in America, but it was also exported along with missionaries and laid the foundations for people of colour to see themselves as inferior. I have heard that in some parts of the world, it is still held to be true that white prayers are heard by God above those of others. Grace says it clearly that white Christianity has been at the base of genocides around the globe as well as a form of capitalism that believes people of colour are lazy and want handouts. In the United States, this white Christianity has taken on Christian nationalism which believes that people can be divided into distinct cultural groups which should have their own nations. This form of Christianity does not only do violence to people of colour but indeed to Jesus himself as it distorts the message of love and inclusion. The problem is that this form of Christianity has a strong hold in the United States and does exert political power.
As Grace has thought more about sexism and racism, she has concluded that the fight against both is a spiritual fight grounded in how we understand the Godhead, and she suggests moving away from a male God to a Spirit God. This becomes the base of her hybrid theology and Chi-Spirit theology. She tells her readers that hybridity has always been part of Christian development, that is, as it grew and expanded throughout the world, it encountered other cultures and an inevitable mixing took place. Therefore, it is not an outrageous suggestion that the Asian American experience should have an influence on Christianity in America. Not outrageous but she thinks it will be alarming for many white Christians. It is a tool of postcolonial theology as it aids people of colour in their struggle to rid themselves, body, mind and soul, from Western philosophy, ideology and religion. It is a way in which something new emerges from the meeting of different cultures. Grace had firsthand experience of this simply by being who she is living where she did, an Asian in a white culture. Hybridity does not wish to dismiss the differences between people and cultures but rather to create something new from the conversation.
In her work, she has brought together the cultural background of Korea with Christianity, for example, she examined biblical wisdom and Christology by looking at Confucianism and Buddhism, and while she does not wish to suggest there are no doctrinal differences, she says there are also many similarities. Further work in this way led her, a Presbyterian minister, to develop what she calls a Spirit-Chi theology. Her research looking for a female divine led her to Sophia wisdom, but she found that not all religions have a concept of wisdom while all have a concept of Spirit. This discovery sparked her interest and led her to abandon her wisdom Christology and replace it with a search for Chi in Christian texts. The translation of Chi is wind, spirit, breath or energy which resonated with ruach in the Hebrew Bible. Grace comments on how important it is to decentre the English language in a postcolonial theology; there are at least 65,000 languages in the world, and so priority to one is nonsensical. Chinese doctors had discovered chi before Western doctors understood blood flow in the body and noted how important it is for health. Once chi is blocked, ill health follows, but it can be unblocked with acupuncture. This physical and embodied nature of chi makes the idea of god even more embodied; chi is not some distant concept, it is the very health-giving energy in our bodies. This concept has huge theological significance as well as cultural resonance. Grace concludes that chi theology helps to rectify the worst excesses of white Christianity such as racism and sexism and even opens the way for interfaith dialogue.
This is a short but powerful book which I would encourage people to read.