05.10.07
Posted in News at 3:03 pm by Kam Weng
Many friends have been asking what happened to the Dialog: The 6th Building Bridges from May 7-11, 2007 convened by the Archbishop of Cantebury, Dr. Rowan Williams. The Dialog is supposed to bring together 30+ Christian and Muslim scholars from all over the world to discuss on the topic “Humanity in Context: Christian Muslim Perspectives on Being Human.� Thank you for your encouragement and prayers when I was preparing one of the plenary papers. I owe you an update.
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05.05.07
Posted in Covenant Theology/Philosophy, Theological Issues at 4:42 pm by Kam Weng
The image of God becomes most evident in the unique human capacity to respond to God’s offer of covenant relationship. To echo Robert Jenson, human distinctiveness is simply that we are related to God as his conversational counterpart. Because God speaks to us, we know he is personal. As we answer him, we too are personal.
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04.15.07
Posted in Public Theology, Social and Political Philosophy at 11:46 pm by Kam Weng
Hospitality most fittingly captures the ways and welfare of the pilgrim peoples. In the act of sharing we achieve freedom from the strangling and suffocating attachment to worldly goods. When we share and receive from one another, we are reminded that we are merely stewards of God’s gifts to be used for the common good. In offering hospitality to strangers we affirm we are merely fellow pilgrims en route to the heavenly city of God.
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03.26.07
Posted in Ethics, Public Theology, Theological Issues at 3:19 pm by Kam Weng
Perhaps a fruitful model may be found by integrating the covenant model of society with ideological critique represented by the critical theory of the Frankfurt School. Insofar as the church exists as a social phenomenon, the church is open to social forces operating in society. As such, relevant social analysis must be brought to bear on the historical form assumed by the church to uncover any hidden structures that contradict its professed identity.
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03.15.07
Posted in Ethics, Public Theology, Theological Issues at 9:50 am by Kam Weng
Thesis 1: The process from Christ to social praxis is mediated through a specific anthropology, philosophy of history and social structure. Christological anthropology, that is, the concepts of freedom and cohumanity in Christ conceives of man as acting under divine determination and enables social praxis to maintain a relational view of man which is necessary to keep the community in view.
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02.26.07
Posted in Hermeneutics, Theological Issues at 3:12 pm by Kam Weng
It has become fashionable in some Christian circles to deride the need for theory or to disabuse the importance given to doctrinal orthodoxy as a poor substitute for living faith. Indeed, it is claimed that pre-occupation with doctrinal orthodoxy leads to judgmentalism. Hence the favourite slogan “From absolute to authentic”. I think these criticisms are unfair. . .
Given the distinction between, but inseparability of theory and practice, it is unnecessary and unacceptable to emphasize any one of the components over the other. After all, “truth as transformation always involves truth as disclosure; speaking the truth is never separable but is distinguishable from doing the truth.�
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02.11.07
Posted in Christology (Systematic), Theological Issues at 6:15 pm by Kam Weng
Bonhoeffer never conducted theology merely as an academic exercise. He insisted that acquired knowledge cannot be divorced from the existence in which it is acquired. Theology is an expression of belief since “only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes� (CD 69). For Bonhoeffer, there can be no abstract Christology.
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01.29.07
Posted in Christology (Systematic), Theological Issues at 1:28 pm by Kam Weng
In their protests against established religion, many youths today cry aloud the slogan, “Hostile to the church, but friendly to Jesus.� The question, however, is, which Jesus are they friendly with? Is it the Jesus of the liberal theologian, the liberationist, the Gnostic or even perhaps the Jesus of Hollywood? Bonhoeffer would certainly approve of their insistence on the centrality of Christ, unclouded by traditional religious trappings. We must, however, be fully aware of the great temptation to substitute the Christ of tradition with a Christ who is constructed out of some current concerns or personal fancies.
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01.16.07
Posted in Christology (Systematic), Dialog, Islam at 3:20 pm by Kam Weng
The Gospels make clear that Jesus was not only bringing a special message. He personified what God reveals. He was not only an ‘emissary’ but the personality in and through whom God is known. Whereas in Islam the Quran is the very ‘text’ of divine truth, the New Testament is the access to the Christ-expression of God. The Scripture has its being by derivation from the prior and primarily reality of ‘the Word made flesh’
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01.05.07
Posted in Christology (Biblical), Dialog, Islam, Theological Issues at 1:06 pm by Kam Weng
Christians buttress evidence for the historical factuality of the cross by appealing to eyewitness-accounts and reports found in non-Christian historical sources (Josephus, Tacitus). Muslim critics therefore grudgingly acknowledge that historically a crucifixion did occur. However, they suggest that someone other than Jesus was crucified. They argue that Christians have misunderstood the significance of the cross because they are victims of an illusion. God, they claim, replaced Jesus with someone that bore his likeness.
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