week 10 Wednesday – Class Reflection

It’s been inspiring class that helped me think about the whole spectrum of the Imperialism and colonialism that affect the world and cultures. What I want to do more is to apply to my own ministry in terms of any sort of leftovers in either a good or bad way. I appreciate both the professor and the TA for their awesome guidance on the postcolonial studies along with the way of Jesus.

Week 10 Monday – Class Reflection

I like the lecture today. It helped me to think about one of the practices of Yoder’s Body Politics. I guess my church has a serious generational gap between old and young generations due to the several issues of immigrating settle-down from Korea. They do have different language and culture and it makes them not communicate with each other in a healthy way. They often conflicts because of the two different worldviews and Christian cultures. They really needed reconciliation and forgiveness to each other.

Week 9 Reply to Alex Lazo’s Weblog

I think that you are right that some American churches are trying to show off of their programs and activities. I want talk about a church that can be one of the competitive churches in Southern California. I visited Saddleback church (Rick Warren) and was so amazed at the decoration of the church building and the size of the programs. It was really spectacularly competitive with other churches. What really struck me though was the population of the church members. I heard that most of them were evangelized by this church. In a sense, I think this is good to be “seeker-sensitive,” but then the problem is that the new members do not seem to grow deeper into spirituality compared to other models such as Pentecostal or Charismatic because all of the setup is fixed for entertaining the seekers. I may be wrong at this view since I just visited only one time and heard about it from others. But I believe that there are pros and cons in this type of model.

Week 9 Cutchery Tamil Versus Pure Tamil – Hephzibah Israel – Sugirtharajah

I think the most important thing to consider in the issue of translating the Tamil Bible is not the issue of “whose Tamil or whose translation” (:280) but the canonical matter that can deliver the message of God to the audience in the closest way that God wants to speak. This article reminds me to think about the power of language even in the translating the word of God into a colonial society. But I believe that using the native language because it is more helpful for the Tamil society to catch the closer meaning of God’s intention through the Scripture of their own language.

Week 9 How Local Divine Powers Were Suppressed: A Case of Mwari of the Shona – Dora R. Mbuwayesango – Sugirtharajah

 This is amazing to witness from this article how European colonialism and Christianity were interwoven with each other to make the Shona to be religiously and politically suppressed to the colonial power and religion. What makes me think deeper is that God, supposed to be kept shrine, seemed used for a wrongful purpose by the colonial mission. But then, can “the God” the natives believed at that time the same God that we believe? I doubt it.

Week 9 Sheroes and Villains: Conceptualizing Colonial and Contemporary Violence Against Women in Africa – Amina Mama – Castle

I was surprising that even the violence against women in Africa was affected by the British colonialism. These colonial gender ideologies have been intertwined with the European patriarchal imperialism and the masculine administration structure. What really struck me is that even the natives were part of the acceleration of the violence during this colonial period “primarily in the form of neocolonialist economic policies” (:251).

Week 9 – Survival and Invention: Indigeneity in the Caribbean – Peter Hulme – Castle

Definition of the indigeneity of the Caribs is I think very hard to make because there are not a lot of resources found, and if any, there are mostly by “visitors.” Therefore, I support what Hulme says that it is crucial that the Caribs open to other groups outside the island to gain wider angle to see themselves as Hulme points out.

Week 9 Representing Sati: Continuities and Discontinuities – Rajeswari Sunder Rajan – Castle

The paradox in this article makes me sad. The Indian widows in the precolonial period were sacrificed to the crucial ritual that they were to choose or forced to be burned alive. And even though widows in the British India were emancipated from the ritual, their lives were still miserable, living in death for the pressure of the tradition. Rajan tells me well to understand the paradox through the three different periods: precolonial, colonial and postcolonial working along with feminist literatures.

Week 9 Ch. 8 Mission of the Church – Fuellenbach

I think the whole point of this chapter is the kingdom of God and its mission through the church. I agree that today’s Christian churches should consider the inculturation of the Christian message and dialogue with other religions, which are addressed in this article. Above all, God loves the world and wants to fulfill His love towards every nation, race and culture; therefore, the church as His servant must follow the universal love of God.

Week 9 Wednesday – Class Reflection

Today’s class gave me a chance to consider the attitude of my church toward the youth group. My church is conservative Presbyterian and it does not seem to understand the “transformation of secular realm,” which is one of the aspects of the emerging churches. Once I started hip-hop worship dance and the more than a dozen of nonbelievers came to church for 6 months until the church committee stopped them from dancing in the church. I remember what a book says, “There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred.”