Week 6 – Monday – Class Reflection

I agree with what the Professor said that it is declining to bring people to church. It’s not effective that much because of the image of the church is not so positive for a lot of people nowadays. Well, we rather have to bring church people to outside and build a small church right at the spot where people are. It makes more sense in terms of the ways of mission Dei. Jesus came to the world to save it in stead of staying at his throne just praying for it.

week 5 – The New Colonizer Arrives – Moira Ferguson – Castle

The relation between the two characters, Antoinette and Rochester in this article seems to me that it is not an easy task to be emancipated from a situation that has once has been colonized. This shows that removing a colonizer can create another colonizer in a different way. What is significant though is that there is a ceratin voice for true freedom and it remanins through this kind of literature I’ve read. I was amazed how the book Wide Sargasso Sea influenced the great immigration movement of the Caribbean black people to Britain.

week 5 – Crimes and Punishments – Bob Hodge and Vijay Mishra – Castle

I think I’ve learned from this article that the historical change of the penal system in Britain has a lot of meaning to postcolonial stuies. Especially when we deal with narratives out of the vary mouths of the prisoners, we would be able to understand more of the convict myth and punishment myth.

Week 5 – Negotiating Caribbean Identities – Stuart Hall – from Castle

I was shocked at what Hall said in this article that at one moment he came to know he was a black immigrant when he heard from his father. And then what is more surprising is that he just gave up on his “own identity” he had been developing by himself, which was he’d never thought that he was an immigrant. It’s amazing to witness that circumstances and histories could change one’s identity at once.

Week 5 – Response to Terry Mak

You’re right Terry. If the kingdom has to be a consequence of the corrupted churches, it will be meaningless to distinguish the kingdom of God and the church. However, I guess fortunately I see them as different concept, though they interact very tightly with each other. What is wrong is not the kingdom of God and the church but the people who are contaminating those. Me too, I see a lot of politics and its corruptions. A lot of protestant churches nowadays are too much focusing on their gatherings and the status quo of the church power, trying to make it bigger rather than focusing on expanding the kingdom of God. They gather together just to “gather.” But I would say kingdom of God is more about spreading out throughout the world. I believe that the kingdom of God is outward-oriented while the church is inward-oriented, therefore, when we acknowledge their interaction and put them together, the church must be a gathering to spread out for the kingdom of God. What I’m basically saying is that I wish the church would know that they have to focus more on the kingdom of God with evangelistic mindset than on the “power generating.”

Week 5 – The Church in the Context of the Kingdom – Fuellenbach

From this chapter I have tried to withdraw my own understanding of the relationship between the kingdom of God and the church. I think the kingdom of God is broader concept that leads the church what it supposed to be. And the church is the essential vessel for the kingdom to be realized. In short I am with what Lumen Gentium declares: “There can be no kingdom without the Church…..no church without the kingdom (:89).

Week 5 – The Sign of Orpah – Donaldson – Sugirtharajah

This article gave me a very interesting chance to think about a “hidden meaning” about Orpha who did not follow Naomi while her sister did. Interrelated with the reduction of Cherokee women’s matrilineal system by the imperial period, Orpah can be a heroine to keep her own clan and purity. However, as Donaldson says at the end, the indigenization of the text requires of consideration of historical and contextual areas in order to be more canonically applicable to the Indian women’s situation.

Week 5 – The Implications of the Text of Esther – Mosala – Sugirtharajah

It is impressive to learn how to interpret the story of Esther to understand the African Women’s struggle for liberation. On the contrary, the patriarchal text tries to skip the gender issue to keep its dominant power over the women. I learn from this article that how to interpret a single Bible story can either let the oppressed more oppressed or liberate them.

week 5 Wednesday – Class Reflection

What a powerful impact of one misconception about race. The mistaken or intentional idea of race made slavery, world division, world war, and massacre for a long time. I wonder how the theologians of that time couldn’t really think of the equality of human beings under the creation of God. Wouldn’t they have made any movements against the racism if they had known the simple truth that God created the human race in His own image?

Week 5 Monday – Class Reflection

 Again I appreciate the discussion that reminded me of who I was—Korean. It moved me from simple accepting my ethnicity to reasoning why I was Korean. I set forth two terms that are found only in Korean culture, which are ‘jeong’ and ‘haan.’ The former one can be translated to be unconditional affair toward someone. This emotion includes a feeling of hate, which makes it distinguished from other similar feelings. The later one is a quite deep sad emotion that has been accumulated for a long time without having ever been vented out. – I do have both deep inside of my heart, therefore, I am Korean.