The Gospel in Asian Culture (WM623) (Draft) Fall 2012; Wednesday and Friday: 10:45 am -12:15 pm Instructors: Dr. Kevin Xiyi Yao, Office Hours: ROM GL 114; Times: Monday: 9:30-11:30 AM; Tuesday: 2:00-4:00 PM; Friday: 8:30-10:30 AM (Always best to make appointment) Contact Information: E-mail: xyao@gordonconwell.edu; Tel: 978-646-4286 Byington Scholar: Course Website: Log into sakai.gcts.edu and click on the tab labeled AP/WM 623 HA. Course Description and Learning Objectives As the home of major world religions and cultural traditions. Asia poses special challenges to Christian missions. This course aims to trace Gospel s historical encounters with the religions and cultures in East, South, and West Asia, to survey current issues at stake, to identify existing missionary approaches, and to explore possible missiological breakthroughs. The Learning Objectives of this course are stated as follows: First, students will understand the major Asian cultural contexts shaped by such world religions as Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and Confucianism, and identify the characteristics and their implications for Christian missions of each cultural and geographic zones in Asia; Second, Students will be given opportunities to examine and reflect missiologically on the historical experience of the Christian incarnation in Asian contexts, and to grasp its uniqueness and richness by comparing with the gospel s encounters with the cultures in the other parts of the world. As a result, our understanding of the gospel s incarnation will be deepened and enriched. Third, A special attention will be given to the current relations between the gospel and Asian cultures. We will explore the contemporary revival movements of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, and their challenges to the churches in Asia; 1
Fourth, Students will be given opportunity to survey the current status of Christian missions in Asia, and to grasp their dynamics and issues in relation to Asian cultures. We will highlight the significances of Asian churches endeavors to global Christian movement and the ways we can get involved. Requirements 1, Three integration papers summarizing course contents, readings, and personal reflections. Length: five to seven pages for each, double-spaced, turned in the middle and end of the term. The due dates: the first on 17 Oct, the second on 21 Nov., and the third on 14 Dec. Hard copies are required. (40%) 2, One research paper. The subjects must be related to the course topics (particularly on a country or region)and need to be approved by the instructor. The length: 15-20 pp, double-spaced, with footnotes and bibliography as needed. Research paper topic due date: ; Paper Due date: 17 Dec. A hard copy is required. (50%) 3, Class presentation: In Week 12, 13 and 14 each student is required to present the results of their research for the term paper to the whole class, and responsible for 25 minutes in one class session, including presentation and Q & A time. Each student can design the format of their presentation, and employ any audio-video means or multi-media to articulate their points.(10%) Assignment and Grading Summary Assignments should be turned in (hard copy) in class on the due date. Assignment Weight Due Date Three integration papers 40% 17 Oct., 21 Nov., 14 Dec. 2
Assignment Weight Due Date One research paper 50% 17 Dec. Class presentation 10% Required Textbooks Kim, Sebastian C., ed., Christian Theology in Asia. Cambridge University Press, 2008. (ISBN-13-978-0-521-68183-4) Call No. BR 1065 C42 2008 Lopez, Donald S., Asian Religions in Practice, An Introduction. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999 (ISBN 0-691-00513-3). Call No. Global BL 1032 A85 1999 Moffett, Samuel H., A History of Christianity in Asia. Vol. 2. 1500-1900. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998 (ISBN 1570754500). Call No. Global BR1065 M63 1998 Phan, Peter C., ed., Christianities in Asia. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011 (ISBN 978-1-4051-6090-2). Call No. Global Shelf 210 Some articles and materials will be assigned in class during the semester. Other Texts Included in Readings Athyal, Saphir, ed., Church in Asia Today, Challenges and Opportunities. Singapore: The Asian Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, 1996. (Goddard Call No. BR 1065 C48 1996) Bailey, Betty Jane & J. Martin Bailey, Who Are the Christians in the Middle East? Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans: 2010 (ISBN 978-0-8028-6595-3). Call No. BR1070, B25 3
2010. Farah, Caesar E., Islam, Beliefs and Observances. Barron, 1994 (ISBN 0-8120-1853-2). Call No. Global BP 161.2 F3 1994 Gallagher, Robert L. and Paul Hertig eds., Landmark Essays in Mission and World Christianity, Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2009 (ISBN 978-1-57075-829-4). Jenkins, Philip, The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia---and How It Died, New York: Haperone, 2008 (ISBN 978-0-06-147280-0) Call No. Global BR165 J46 2008. Topics and Required Readings (The readings will be assigned prior to the opening of the semester.) Part I East Asia China, Japan, Korea, Tibetan Buddhist Regions Week 1, 12 & 14 Sept Introduction: review of syllabus; The cultural challenges to Christian missions in Asia The religions and cultures in East Asia Malls, Andrew, The Gospel as prisoner and Liberator of Culture, in Gallagher, 133-145 Kim, ch.1 Phan, Preface, ch.1 Athyal, Introduction Prescott, Ian, The Complex Spiritual Mosaic of East Asia, in Taylor, 421-438 Week 2, 19 & 21 Sept Korea, China 4
Lopez, 56-121 Phan, ch. 8,9,, 11 Kim, ch. 5, 7 Moffett, ch. 6, 24 Week 3, 26 & 28 Sept China, Japan Lopez, 154-174 Moffett, ch. 4, 23 Phan, ch, 10 Kim, ch. 6 Week 4 3 & 5 Oct The Tibetan Buddhism Lopez, 123-153 Kim, ch. 8 Week 5, 10 &12 Oct Reading Week: summarization of Part I Moffett: ch. 1,2, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28 Part II South and Southeast Asia Week 6, 17 & 19 Oct India Lopez, 8-55 Phan, ch. 2 5
Kim, 3 The first integration paper due on 17 Oct. Week 7, 24 & 26 Oct India and its neighbors Phan, 2,3 Kim, 13 Week 8, 31 Oct & Nov 2 Southeast Asia Phan, 4,5,6,7 Kim, ch.4 Part III The Islamic World in West Asia Week 9, 7 & 9 Nov Islam: history and belief Farah, ch.1, 6,7, Week 10 14 & 16 Nov Reading Week: Summarization of Part II Farah, ch.14, 15, 16 Bailey, Part I Week 11 21 &23 Nov 6
Central Asia Bailey, Part II, 168-173 Phan, 12 The second integration paper due on 21 Nov. Week 12, 28 & 30 Nov Arab Peninsula Students presentations Bailey, 141-163, 173-184, 189-194, 199-209 Moffett. Ch. 20 Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, ch. 1 Week 13, 5 & 7 Dec Conclusion and Reflection Students presentations Phan, Conclusion Week 14,12 & 14 Dec Final Exam Students presentations The third integration paper is due on 14 Dec. Term paper due on 17 Dec. All topics and required readings are subject to change without notice. Selected Bibliography Abbott, Freeland, Islam and Pakistan (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1968). 7
Ahmad, Khurshid, ed., Islam: Its Meaning and Message (London: Islamic Council of Europe, 1976). Aikman, David, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power.(Regnery Publishing, 2003). Bays, Daniel H., A New History of Christianity in China. (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012). Bays, Daniel, Christianity in China: From the eighteenth century to the Present. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University press, 1996) Betts, Robert Brenton, Christians in the Arab East, A Political Study. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1978. (ISBN 0-8042-0796-8). Call No. BR1067 A7 B47. Boff, Leonardo & Virgil Elizondo, eds., Any Room of Christ in Asia? (London: SCM Press, 1993). Branley, Brendan R., Christianity and the Japanese (Maryknoll, NY: Maryknoll Publications, 1966). Cragg, Kenneth, The Arab Christian, A History in the Middle East. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/ John Knox Press, 1991. (ISBN 0-664-21945-4) Call No. BR1067 A7 C74 1991. Covell, Ralph R., Confucius, the Buddha, and Christ, A History of the Gospel in Chinese. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986 (ISBN 0-88344-267-1) Daughrity, Dyron B., The Changing World of Christianity, The Global History of a Borderless Religion (Peter Lang, 2010). Call No. Global Shelf 211. Drummond, Richard Henry, A History of Christianity in Japan (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1971). England, John C., The Hidden History of Christianity in Asia, The Churches of the East 8
before 1500 (ISPCK, Delhi, 1998). Esposito, John L., and Others, Asian Islam in the 21 st Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Fenton, John Y., Religions of Asia (New York: St. martin s Press, 1988). Call No. Global BL 1032 R45 1988. Francis, T. Dayanandan & Franklyn J. Balasundaram, eds., Asian Expressions of Christian Commitment (Madras, India: The Christian Literature Society, 1992). Frykenberg, Robert E., Christianity in India, From Beginnings to the Present (Oxford University Press, 2008). Call No. Global Shelf 203. Gabriel, Theodore, Christian Citizens in an Islamic State, The Pakistan Experience. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company (ISBN 978-0-7546-6036-1) Call No. Global Shelf 204. Gladney, Dru C. Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People's Republic. (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1991). Hargreaves, Cecil, Asian Christian Thinking, Studies in a Metaphor and its Message (Delhi: ISPCK, 1972). Hastings, Adrian, ed., A World History of Christianity, Grand Rapid, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1999(ISBN 0802824420). Hedlund, Roger E., ed. Christianity Is Indian: The Emergence of an Indigenous Community (Delhi: ISPCK, 2000). Hussain, Monirul & Lipi Ghosh, eds., Religious Minorities in South Asia, vols. 1-2 (New Delhi: Manak, 2002). Call No. Global Shelf 203. Isaacson, Jason F. and Colin Rubenstein. eds., Islam in Asia, Changing Political Realities (New Brunswick, NJ, 2002). 9
Jenkins, Philip, The new faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford University Press, 2006). ------, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2002). Jongeneel, Jan A.B. and others, eds., Christian Presence and Progress in North-East Asia, Historical and Comparative Studies (Peter Lang, 2011). Johnson, David L., A Reasoned Look at Asian Religions (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers). Call No. Global BL 1032 J64 1985. Koschorke, Klaus and others, eds., A History of Christianity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, 1450-1990, A Documentary Sourcebook (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2007). Call No. Global Shelf 212. Kung, Hans and others, Christianity and the World Religions, Paths of Dialogue with Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, INC, 1986). Call No. Global BR127 C46513 1986. Kuriakose, M.K., com. History of Christianity in India: Source Materials (Delhi: ISPCK, 1999). Kymlicka, Will & Baogang He, eds., Multiculturalism in Asia (Oxford University press, 2005). Call No. Global Shelf 203. Lipman, Jonathan Neaman. Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China. (Seattle: University of Washington, 1997). Lumsdaine, David H., ed., Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Asia. Oxford University Press, 2009 (ISBN 978-0-19-530825-9) Call No. Global Shelf 204. Moffett, Samuel H., A History of Christianity in Asia. Vol. 1. Beginnings to 1500. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1992 (ISBN 1570751625). Call No. Global BR1065 M63 1992 Muck, Terry and Frances S. Adeney, Christianity Encountering World Religions, The 10
Practice of Mission in the Twentieth-first Century. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009 (ISBN 978-0-8010-2660-7). Call No. Global Shelf 210 Neill, Stephen, The Cross over Asia (London: The Canterbury, 1948). --------, The Story of the Christian Church in India and Pakistan. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1970. Call No. BR1155 N317. Pacini, Andrea, ed., Christian Communities in the Arab Middle East, The Challenge of the Future. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998). Call No. Global Shelf 203. Sanasarian, Eliz, Religious Minorities in Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2000). Call No. Global, Shelf 203. Shushtery, A.M.A., Outlines of Islamic Culture, vol 1, Historical and Cultural Aspects (Bangalore: Bangalore Press, 1938). Swearer, Donald K., The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia (State University of New York Press, 1995). Call No. Global BQ 410 S93 1995. Takenaka, Masao, God Is Rice, Asian Culture and Christian Faith (Geneva, World Council of Churches: 1986). Taylor, William D., ed., Global Missiology for the 21 st Century, The Iguassu Dialogue Grand Rapids, MI, Baker Academic, 2000. Westerlund, David and Ingvar Svanberg, eds., Islam outside the Arab World. Curzon Press, 1999 (ISBN 0-7007-1142-2). Call No. Global BP 163 I763 1999 Yoshinobu, Kumazawa, & David L. Swain, com. And eds., Christianity in Japan, 1971-90, Successor to the Japan Christian Yearbook (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1991). 11