ASIAN LIBERATION THEOLOGY 

DR. JUAN A. CARMONA 

The vast, sprawling continent of Asia, exhibits even more variety than do Africa and Latin America.  Each country has its own distinctive history and traditions, and each has had its own unique encounter with Western colonialism.  More than 85 percent of all Asians suffer from abject poverty and oppression (Dean William Ferm, Third World Liberation Theologies: An Introductory Survey. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1986, p. 76.)

An added ingredient in the Asian setting is the living presence of many major religions competing for the allegiance of humankind.  To be sure, Latin America has its indigenous religions-heretofore ignored by their liberation theologians-but Catholicism has been the dominant faith there for the past four centuries. Native American religions have not only survived the aggression of Christian and Muslim invaders, but have become a rich source of of spiritual insight for African theologians.  The situation in Asia is unique, however, for here we find Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism Jainism, and other religious traditions coexisting in an infinite variety, compounding rather than alleviating certain forms of human oppression-for example, discrimination against women.  A further complicating factor is that Asian Christians are a tiny minority, but with 3 percent of Asians identifying themselves as Christians and with only the Philippines claiming a majority of Christians.  It is ironic that most contemporary Asians consider Christianity, despite its roots in the Middle East, a foreign religion, a product of Western colonial expansion (There are important exceptions -e.g. the Orthodox churches).

Asian liberation theology has thus had to contend with two additional components that set it apart from most forms of liberation theology in Latin America and Africa.  First, it daily encounters other major living religions. Secondly, in most Asian countries, Christianity is a very small minority group.  Both of these factors have had a profound impact on the content and methods of liberation theology in that part of the world (Ferm, op. cit.).  

Christianity-Protestantism in particular-had very little impact in Asia until the nineteenth century, which witnessed the rapid growth of First World missionary societies that established outposts throughout the continent.  Like their African and Latin American counterparts, most Western missionaries stressed the importance of individual conversion to Christ, with little emphasis on the social dimension, and with even less appreciation for the positive values to to be found in other religions.  In the twentieth century, the burgeoning of anti-colonial, anti-Western sentiment has seen the development of forms of Christianity divested of foreign cultural baggage baggage and leadership, a step vitally necessary to the survival of Christianity in Asia (Ibid., p. 77).  

U Ba Hmyn of Burma set the future course clearly at the third Assembly of the World Council of Churches in New Delhi in 1961 when he said: No theology will deserve to be called ecumenical in the coming days which ignores Asian structures.  It may use the term "ecumenical," but it will really be parochial and Western only (Hans-Ruedi Weber, Asia and the Ecumenical Movement, 19895-1961. London, SCM, 1966, p. 15). 

There is no adequate way to give even a postcard summary of developments in recent Asian theology that have led to the emergence of liberation theology. Asia is a many-splendored continent. It demands many distinctive strategies tailored to the indigenous specifications of particular areas (Ferm, op. cit., p. 77).

Asian liberation theology is a rapidly growing, multifaceted phenomenon similar in its basic aspirations to African and Latin American liberation theology,  yet distinctive  in its pluralistic religious setting (Important Asian liberation theologians include Koson Srisang of Thailand,  Khin Maung Din of Burma, James A. Veitch of Singapore, Vitalino r. Gorospe of the Philippines, and C.S. Song of Taiwan). 

One should not even begin to speak with a shred of confidence about the "pros and cons" of Third World liberation theology until one gains some degree of sensitivity to and appreciation for its multiple Asian versions.  Asian liberation theology is original, complex, rich bewildering, and immensely fertile.  It provides important models for liberation, not only for the Third World, but also for the First World (Ferm, op. cit., p. 99).

This essay is submitted in the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen!

Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Past Professor of Theology

Tainan Theological College/Seminary