Christ and the Tao Paperback – November 1, 2010
by Heup Young Kim (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars 1 rating
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Print length
196 pages
This volume is a collection of six essays that Dr. Kim published in various journals over the past several years. They represent the early period of Dr. Kim's theological journey into Christian faith as a Korean Christian or, more broadly, an East Asian Christian. These essays deal primarily with religio-cultural themes related to my existential situation.
- from the Preface
Editorial Reviews
Review
"This book provides for Christian theology what has long been needed: a sustained and original analysis of the relationship between the Taoist and Christian traditions. An important study."
David Tracy, Andrew Thomas Greeley and Grace McNichols Greeley Distinguished Service Professor of Catholic Studies and Professor of Theology and the Philosophy of Religion, University of Chicago Divinity School --Wipf and Stock Publishers
About the Author
Heup Young Kim is Professor of Systematic Theology at Kangnam University, Korea, and former Dean of the College of Humanities and Liberal Arts and the Graduate School of Theology. He received his BSE degree from Seoul National University, M.Div. and Th.M. from Princeton Theological Seminary, and Ph.D. from Graduate Theological Union. Awarded as the 2009 Alum of the Year by the Graduate Theological Union, he is a co-moderator of the Congress of Asian Theologians and a founding member of the International Society for Science and Religion. Professor Kim has published numerous works in the areas of interfaith dialogue, theology of religions, Asian theology, and theology and science, including Wang Yang-ming and Karl Barth: A Confucian-Christian Dialogue (1996).
Product details
Publisher : Wipf and Stock (November 1, 2010)
Language : English
Heup Young Kim
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Biography
Heup Young Kim is a former professor of Systematic Theology at Kangnam University, South Korea, and a former dean of the College of Humanities and Liberal Arts and the Graduate School of Theology. He received his BSE degree from Seoul National University, M.Div. and Th.M. from the Princeton Theological Seminary, and Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union. He is a fellow (a founding member) of the International Society for Science and Religion and was a president of the Korean Society of Systematic Theology and a co-moderator of the Congress of Asian Theologians, an ecumenical network for theologians in Asia. Professor Kim was a recipient of Graduate Theological Union's 2009 Alum of the Year Award and has published numerous works in the areas of interfaith dialogue, comparative theology, East Asian constructive theology (theology of Dao), and religion and science.
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Top review from the United States
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Justin Gohl
4.0 out of 5 stars Engaging Effort in Contextual Theology
Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2008
Kim has produced an engaging, if at times repetitive, volume which seeks to offer East Asian Christians (and any others interested in the dialogue) a synthesis of Christianity and Confucianism/Taoism.
This synthesis is *not* however an attempt at syncretism but rather contextual theology. For East Asian Christians (especially Koreans), Kim says, (Neo-)Confucianism is simply a cultural given. Thus, any Christian theology done in this context must reckon with the cultural and linguistic heritage of East Asians.
Kim's book unfolds in six chapters which were originally produced independently of each other (hence the repetition); hence this book is essentially a collection of essays. The first three chapters comprise the "descriptive-comparative stage" (p. 7) of Kim's work in which
Kim sets the Neo-Confucianism of Wang Yang-ming alongside of the theological anthropologies of Karl Barth and John Calvin. (Presbyterian-Reformed Christanity is the most prevalent form of Christianity in South Korea.)
The second half of the book (which comprises 1/3 of the book) represents the "normative-constructive stage" (p. 7) of Kim's project. The synthesis Kim tries to achieve amounts to seeing Jesus as the Tao (and vice-versa). "Tao" simply means "way," and Kim points back to the NT where Jesus describes himself as "the way" to God (Jn 14.6) and the nascent church goes by the name of "the Way" (e.g., Acts 16.17).
The payoff of this connection for Kim is the reconceptualization of Christianity it offers. For too long, Kim suggests,
Christianity has been laboring under "logos"-understandings of Jesus/theology, which then creates a dualism between thinking and action, or theology and ethics.
While noble in its efforts, liberation theology perpetuates the dichotomy by essentially substituting and/or collapsing orthopraxy for/into orthodoxy.
The idea of "tao" however moves beyond both of these and the dichotomy they support by conceiving of right-thinking and right-action as dynamically unfolding *within* the life lived by love, that is, modeled after the supreme embodiment of Tao/Way, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the "crossroads" of the Heavely Tao and human tao.
That is, Jesus embodies in his life *true humanity* which is itself a function of living according to the "Way" of the universe which comes from God.
Jesus' "way" or embodiment of "true humanity" becomes a paradigm for his followers to embody as well, and as such this embodiment supports no dichotomy between "thought/theology" or "praxis/ethics."
Following the "tao/way" of Jesus is "being [human] in the process of becoming [human]."
Kim's work can be fairly situated within the broad stream of liberationist and post-colonial theology/discourse, as exemplified in its emphases on the "preferential option" for
- oppressed life,
- an ecological sensibility,
- the advocacy of feminine images/metaphors for the Deity,
- the rejection of monarchical and androcentric models of power, etc.
One perhaps, however, does not sense in Kim the level of antipathy towards Western Christianity that frequently characterizes this stream of discourse.
And this is refreshing. At the same time, though, one wonders what is to become of "orthodoxy" for Kim.
True, dogmatic-doctrinal-creedal systems are no substitute for the faithful embodiment of Jesus' "Tao," but neither are they dispensable *for Christians* in coming to know *who Jesus is* and thus *what they are to do.*
But perhaps this difficulty of mine is due to my "Western mindset" which automatically differentiates between "propositions" and "praxis"--the dichotomy Kim is explicitly trying to overcome for his context.
At any rate, Kim has produced an interesting book which could function as a nice model for inter-religious dialogue and contextual theology.
