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No Handle on the Cross: An Asian Meditation on the Crucified Mind
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4.07 · Rating details · 15 ratings · 2 reviews
Hardcover, 119 pages
Published January 1st 1976 by Orbis Books
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**true rating 4.5
There’s a light-hearted yet explosive quality to Kosuke Koyama’s theology. He’s always a delight to read because he’s such a playful writer. He just doesn’t take himself too seriously. But his playfulness does not shy him away from making incisive claims, especially about Western Christianity and mission practices in South East Asia.
Drawing from his years as a professor at Thailand Theological Seminary and his correspondence with South East Asian theological colleagues, Koyama presented on the kind of Christian theology South East Asia needed and wanted but ultimately did not receive at the 1975 Earl Lecture at Pacific School of Religion, California. From these lectures, No Handle on the Cross was compiled into book form.
Paul said with such audacity that he decided to know nothing but “Christ crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). Koyama calls this the ‘crucified-mind,’ or a crucified theology. It is an ‘inefficient’ theology because it is a theology that carries the handle-less cross. It does not boast in its superiority, comprehensiveness, resourcefulness, efficiency, and convenience because it simply refuses to be these things. A handle-less theology is, therefore, a non-grabbing theology. It does not grab God nor people for self-aggrandizement.
Sadly, Koyama thinks much of Western Christian missionary enterprise has been in the past and ongoing present riding on the high-horse of Western superiority with their resourceful ingenuity and efficient technology. It is a Christianity that does not respect other people’s history and, thereby, their culture and religions like how God respects our history. God rules history, yes, but God does not disrespect it. Rather, God comes to history and dwelt among us.
Koyama goes at length of the commonality -- as well as differences -- between Christianity and the other great faiths: Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism. Koyama believes the message of self-denial is what connects all these, and this is a good that should not and cannot be ignored in missiology and inter-religious dialogue. At this point, it’s tempting to think that Koyama is a pluralist or relativist, but I think that is too flat. There’s a difference between “all religions are the same” (pluralism) and “all religions are different” (Koyama). Koyama is comfortable without feeling the need to assert Christianity’s superiority and allowing Christianity to work with other faiths without compromising their own message of Christ crucified. With Barth, Koyama thinks Christianity will also stand under Jesus’ judgment, and Koyama is both comfortable and uncomfortable with this tension.(less)
There’s a light-hearted yet explosive quality to Kosuke Koyama’s theology. He’s always a delight to read because he’s such a playful writer. He just doesn’t take himself too seriously. But his playfulness does not shy him away from making incisive claims, especially about Western Christianity and mission practices in South East Asia.
Drawing from his years as a professor at Thailand Theological Seminary and his correspondence with South East Asian theological colleagues, Koyama presented on the kind of Christian theology South East Asia needed and wanted but ultimately did not receive at the 1975 Earl Lecture at Pacific School of Religion, California. From these lectures, No Handle on the Cross was compiled into book form.
Paul said with such audacity that he decided to know nothing but “Christ crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). Koyama calls this the ‘crucified-mind,’ or a crucified theology. It is an ‘inefficient’ theology because it is a theology that carries the handle-less cross. It does not boast in its superiority, comprehensiveness, resourcefulness, efficiency, and convenience because it simply refuses to be these things. A handle-less theology is, therefore, a non-grabbing theology. It does not grab God nor people for self-aggrandizement.
Sadly, Koyama thinks much of Western Christian missionary enterprise has been in the past and ongoing present riding on the high-horse of Western superiority with their resourceful ingenuity and efficient technology. It is a Christianity that does not respect other people’s history and, thereby, their culture and religions like how God respects our history. God rules history, yes, but God does not disrespect it. Rather, God comes to history and dwelt among us.
Koyama goes at length of the commonality -- as well as differences -- between Christianity and the other great faiths: Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism. Koyama believes the message of self-denial is what connects all these, and this is a good that should not and cannot be ignored in missiology and inter-religious dialogue. At this point, it’s tempting to think that Koyama is a pluralist or relativist, but I think that is too flat. There’s a difference between “all religions are the same” (pluralism) and “all religions are different” (Koyama). Koyama is comfortable without feeling the need to assert Christianity’s superiority and allowing Christianity to work with other faiths without compromising their own message of Christ crucified. With Barth, Koyama thinks Christianity will also stand under Jesus’ judgment, and Koyama is both comfortable and uncomfortable with this tension.(less)
Nov 27, 2011Curtis rated it really liked it
Excellent treatise on mission work in Asia. Could easily be applied to mission work in the US though.
