Week 1 – Response to Beth’s blog

I’d like your question: what it means when we say “This is our church.” Well my comment is this. Church as Jesus said in Matthew 18:20 “where two or three come together in my name, there am I among them,” I think church is more like a gathering in Jesus’ name rather than a building. So when we say this is our church, pointing out a building, I’d say this actually means that we “gather together” in this building. To an extant, if there is no gathering in a church building, I’d say, that is not a church but a building for church service, which is no more used.

God bless!
- Hang

Week 1 – Discrepant Experiences – Edward W. Said

This article has reconfirmed my presumptions about the discrepancy between the knowledge that I have learned from the school and its textbooks and the experiences that the actual witnesses on the both sides, the colonizer and colonized, in colonies.  I agree with Said in terms of the importance of rediscovering the “configuration” that lies in the power and nations in terms of colonialism in order to have critical eyes for the discrepancy in colonial history.

Week 1 – Charting the Aftermath – R. S. Sugirtharajah

One thing that struck me from this article is that M.A.C. Warren claimed positive aspects between colonialism and imperialism. He believes that imperialism was used for God’s purpose to “bring mankind to a true knowledge of Himself who is Love, Power and Justice” (: 18). My question is this: How could the “love of God” possibly be justified by the use of atrocities and violence? Of course, my question has a theological presupposition that Jesus brought “peace” while God in the O.T used violence for His good. Therefore, since Jesus, using violence to reveal God’s love doesn’t make sense to me.

Week 1 – Biblical Criticism and Postcolonial Studies – Segovia

This article has helped me to take the postcolonial studies as intercultural studies and discipline rather than to take it as an study about historical facts, raging especially from 15th to 18th centuries. According to Segovia, postcolonial studies is an effort to transform all the mistaken thoughts and concepts about the colonialism and imperialism and to bring ”liberation” and “decolonization.” – I love these last two words.

week 1 wednesday

The professor clarified sort of historical procession of the definition of culture. That was very helpful for me to clear the inter-relationship between the Western civilization, Christianity and the cultures of countries, which were actually considered by the West as “uncivilized area.” Pondering McGavran’s experiential mission, a culture seems to me something stronger than any Christian institutions, which were made on the basis of different culture.

Week 1 Monday

I’ve been really interested in emerging churches, which try to realize the kingdom of God through the community of believers in their lives, catching up the rapid chage of the culture in “postmodern society” in the westernized countries. On this my interest, I’m expecting something more foundational for my knowledge about the kingdom minded mission in church when it comes not only to the cultural changes in the West but also to the postcolonialism in the Third World.