The purpose of exploring Homeland Theology is to examine its role in addressing the issues of the oppression and suffering of the Taiwanese people (colonization. Kuomintang, land rights, human trafficking, etc.). These conditions and issues gave rise to the emergence of a home-grown theology in Taiwan. This paper focuses on the writings of Wang Hsien-Chih, who was a former professor at Tainan Theological College/Seminary.
The concept of doing theology in context was articulated and introduced by Chang-Hui Hwang (also known as Shoki Coe) and his colleagues of the Theological Foundation Fund of the World Council of Churches in the early 1970's, getting a positive response from Taiwan. Before serving as the director of the Fund, Hwang, the first Taiwanese principal of Tainan Theological College/Seminary, had already invited the churches in Taiwan and South East Asia to reflect on theological education in their own contexts in a paper entitled "A Rethinking of Theological Training for the Ministry in Younger Churches Today." Afterwards, Choan -Seng Song, in his inauguration as the first principal of TTCS after Wang, had advocated a theology of the Incarnation, proposing that the Gospel must be incarnated on the land and in the people of Taiwan. Obviously, the contextual theology was not new to the church in Taiwan. However, it was Wang Hsien-Chih, a theologian who suggested that Taiwanese Christians focus on the contextual issues, i.e. the issues of homeland at that time, and proposed a "homeland theology (Chen Nan-Jou, ed. A New Testament to Taiwan Homeland Theology:The Essential Writings of Wang Hsien-Chi. Yeong Cultural Enterprises Co..Ltd. August 2011, p. ix).
"Homeland" was taken as a theological issue in the time of "debate" on homeland literature" in Taiwan society in the 1970's, especially in 1977 and 1978. Those who identified Taiwan, not China, as their homeland, were severely censured and persecuted by the Nationalist totalitarian regime. Though the theological motives of Homeland Theology are ethnicity, land, power, and God, Wang stated that the core of these four motives was the people of Taiwan who strived to search for and to construct the Taiwanese identity, an identity denied by the Chinese government, both in China and Taiwan (Ibid., p. 22). In other words, we may say that the main concern of Homeland Theology was the issue of identification (Ibid., p. x).
The social-political situations have changed a lot in the last two decades. The martial law which lasted nearly 40 years was lifted in 1987. The Nationalist Party's regime which had ruled Taiwan for 50 years was defeated by the presidential elections in 2000 and 2004, respectively. However, the pernicious effects of the Nationalist totalitarian regime's egregiousness are still in existence. The issue of identification is still a crucial one in today's Taiwan. "Identification" has been a key word in the Taiwanese contextual theology. One of the impetuses behind the socio-political concern and involvement of the Christian churches in Taiwan is identification, i.e. identifying with the people of Taiwan (Ibid.).
To continue the spirit of the theological endeavor of the Homeland Theology, the contextual theology in Taiwan nowadays must be toward a theology of identification (Nan-Jou, "Contextualizing Catholicity: A Taiwanese Theology of Identification," in Asia Journal of Theology, Vol. 17, No. 2, October 2003, and Nan-Jou, "Involvement of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan on the issue f the Future of Taiwan-A Theological Reflection," Asia Journal of Theology, Vol. 9, No. 2, October 1995, pp, 256-262).
This theological construction can be described in the following three aspects:
1. Identifying with the sufferings and the hopes of the people of Taiwan, especially striving for the human rights of self-determination.
2. Identifying with the history and cultures of the people of Taiwan, i.e. discerning the theological meaning of Taiwanese history of cultures.
3. Participating in the building of koinonia to transform society, that is identifying Taiwan as the homeland (Nan-Jou in Wang Hsien-Chi, p. xi).
In fact, one of the main themes of the Bible is also identification. In the Old Testament, God heard the groaning of the people of Israel, saw their situation of being under oppression and was concerned about them. God's love and justice made God identify with the oppressed and suffering Israelites by sending Moses to them. In the New Testament, the loving God was revealed through the incarnation of Jesus. The incarnation means God's identifying with human beings, particularly the enslaved, the suffering, the suffering, the marginalized, and the oppressed. The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan also confesses that God is the Lord of history and the world, and to be a servant of God today means to do what Moses did. The Church must also imitate Jesus's incarnation, to identify with the suffering of Taiwan, so that the people might be liberated from oppression, and own a new identity to bring new life (Ibid.).
The motif of identification was the core of Wang's Homeland Theology and is still a key to doing theology in the Taiwanese context today. In order to participate in the Missio Dei (God's mission), to build a new Taiwan and to be part of the human community, Christian communities in Taiwan have to move toward a theology of identification (Ibid.).
Homeland Theology entails the theological exploration and exposition of nation-building arising from the peculiar context of Taiwan. Taking the book of Exodus as a paradigm,, nation-building, and exiles of Israel in the Hebrew Scriptures, Homeland Theology reckons that the issues of ethnicity (people), land, power, and God as the main theological themes for the Israelites and the Taiwanese as well. But in the New Testament, the theological focus of nation-building was transformed into the community-building (ecclesia) in the light of the reign of God proclaimed and realized by Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. This nation-building coexists with the community-building under the reign of God. The global conflicts among nations should be reconciled and redeemed through the sovereignty of God and neighbors as themselves (Wang Hsien-Chi, "Homeland Theology," in a Dictionary of Asian Christianity. Scott W. Sunquist, ed. Grand Rapids, Michigan: W.B. Eerdmans, 2011, p. 345).
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Dr. Juan A. Carmona
Past Professor of Theology
Tainan Theological College/Seminary
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