Kwok Pui-lan

I felt humbled, challenged, and in awe of Pui-Lan's wide-ranging survey of feminist and postcolonial criticism. She proposes a variety of different ways of engaging with culture and society from a theological standpoint that doesn't privilege Eurocentric ideals or ignores the lives and voices of women on the margins.

The author bravely proclaims she is "one of the few theologians interested in postcolonial studies", and using a "fresher approach", she examines the relation between theology and the study of religion "within the larger sociopolitical matrix of colonialism" from which academic studies of religion have emerged. [188] She poses the ironic question of whether the modernist paradigm, under color of "value-neutral" objectivity, is in fact a further "colonization" of the field. A concrete example show more of imbrication and imperialization. She notes Chidester's observation (pub. 1996) that as missionaries arrived in southern Africa in the early nineteenth century "they could not find religion in Africa" because of their own Christian assumptions. [188] In opening up Comparative Theology, Kwok cites Richard King's argument that "religion" is a concept created in the Western imagination "which serves as a cognitive map" of diverse terrains and spheres of human life. [189]

Pui-lan provides an important perspective on Schleiermacher, the founder of modern theology. "Theology, for Schleiermacher, does not begin with revelation, but begins with an analysis of the religious consciousness of humankind. Jesus is unique and exemplary because in him we can fully witness the consciousness of the feeling of absolute dependence on God." [189-192]. She fairly expresses Schleiermacher's comparative explanations for why he believed "Christianity is the most perfect of the most highly developed forms of religion". [193]

The author notes that Schleiermacher exposed "an interesting gender dimension": "While the Enlightenment philosophers had constructed the 'Man of Reason', Schleiermacher valorized what was traditionally regarded as the feminine; intuition, feelings, and devotion to spiritual values. His emphasis on the feeling of absolute dependence places the experiencing subject in a passive-receptive position vis-a-vis the infinite or the Eternal. He indicates that such feeling can be found in "almost all women" (47). But as Katherine Faull points out, Schleiermacher's experiencing subject is still male; only his religious consciousness is mediated through the feminine. Schleiermacher uses "heterosexual intercourse as an important metaphor" to understand the individual's experience of the Universe: "I lie on the bosom of the infinite world. At this moment I am its soul, for I feel all its powers and its infinite life as my own; at this moment it is my body, for I penetrate its muscles and its limbs as my own, and its innermost nerves move according to my sense and my presentiment as my own." Pui-lan credits Faull with the observation that Schleiermacher endows nature and the Absolute with female physical attributes and "she becomes his body as he penetrates her muscles and limbs." Pui-lan concludes that "Schleiermacher's gender-inflected and class- and race-conscious definition of religion exerted tremendous influence on subsequent discussions...".

Pui-lan steps through the 19th century effort to reconstruct a "historical" Jesus by Muller and Renan in a naked (and futile) attempt to de-Judaize the "Galilean" Christ. She proceeds to Troeltsch's challenge of the Wahrheitsanspruche "truth claims" in the face of comparative religion studies emerging from anthropology. [196] Noting that liberal confidence and Schleiermacher's optimism was shattered by the First World War, "Karl Barth's neo-orthodoxy signals the diametric opposite". Barth's negative view of religion as unbelief (Unglaube) and revelation as its abolition --"Nein!") also unfolded a feminine position vis a vis the Infinite, running ironically parallel with Schleiermacher. In Barth's case, the "Wholly Other" invokes an image of a gender-inflected experience of religious consciousness mediated through the feminine. [193, 196].

Pui-lan concludes Chapter 8 with an invocation raised by the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi of Iran. "Let us hope with her that "patriarchal culture and the discrimination against women ... cannot continue forever." For if it does, then as Christian theologians we have failed to take up the challenge of seeing "religion" as an integral pan of culture and society, which cannot be construed as concerned only with the sacred and not with the mundane. And we have failed to challenge intrareligious and interreligious networks of power relations that seek to maintain control over women. " show less

A very good introduction to Asian Feminist Theology.

Readers will get a good sense of the pluralistic religious environment of Asia that theologians of all perspectives must understand and address. Whether or not the reader accepts the perspectives and conclusions of Asian Feminist Theologians, this volume is helpful to gain an understand of the historical, social, economic, political, and religious issues that need to be accounted for in the development of an Asian theological show more perspective.

The author also helps the reader to be aware of the western theological issues that have no relevance in the Asian arena. This will be extremely helpful for the newcomer to the study of Asian theological perspectives. show less

As in many such anthologies, there is a fair amount of repetition. In this case the individual articles are kept quite short, and are mostly fairly interesting, and there are few enough that you can read it through.