Asian Christian Spirituality
Peter C. Phan
The Oxford Handbook of Christianity in Asia
Edited by Felix Wilfred
Print Publication Date: Jul 2014S
Christian Spirituality as Life in Communion with God Mediated by Jesus and Empowered by the Power of the Spirit
Contours of an Asian Christian Spirituality: Newer Inculturated Forms
Christian Spirituality as Interreligious Spirituality
Further Reading
Notes
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Abstract and Keywords
Chapter 32 discusses the different ecclesial communities within Asian Christianity that have preserved their own distinct spiritual traditions. In its narrowest sense, spirituality refers to the religious way of life by which one enters into communion with the transcendent reality however this is interpreted and named. It may also refer to a particular way of living out one’s relationship with this transcendent reality, through specific beliefs, rituals, prayers, moral behaviors, and community participation. The chapter begins with reflections on spirituality as human self-transcendence in the Spirit, followed by a discussion of the major features of Asian Christian spirituality. An unusual dimension of Asian Christian spirituality—its interreligious nature—is then discussed, together with the contributions of representative theologians from different Christian traditions to Asian Christian spirituality.
Keywords: ecclesial communities, spiritual traditions, spirituality, way of life, transcendent reality, human self-transcendence
Peter C. Phan
Peter C. Phan is the inaugural holder of the Ignacio Ellacuría Chair of Catholic Social Thought at Georgetown University and is the founding Director of the Graduate Studies Program in Theology and Religious Studies. He has earned three doctorates: Doctor of Sacred Theology from the Universitas Pontificia Salesiana, Rome, and Doctor of Philosophy and Doctor of Divinity from the University of London. He has also received two honorary degrees: Doctor of Theology from Catholic Theological Union and Doctor of Humane Letters from Elms College. Professor Phan began his teaching career in philosophy at the age of eighteen at Don Bosco College, Hong Kong. In the United States, he has taught at the University of Dallas, TX; the Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, where he held the Warren-Blanding Chair of Religion and Culture; Union Theological Seminary, NY; Elms College, Chicopee, MA; and St. Norbert College, De Pere, WI. He is the first non-white to be elected President of Catholic Theological Society of America. In 2010 he was awarded the John Courtney Murray Award, the highest honor given by the Catholic Theological Society of America for outstanding achievements in theology. His publications in theology are wide-ranging. They deal with the theology of icon in Orthodox theology (Culture and Eschatology: The Iconographical Vision of Paul Evdokimov); patristic theology (Social Thought; Grace and the Human Condition); eschatology (Eternity in Time: A Study of Rahner’s Eschatology; Death and Eternal Life); the history of mission in Asia (Mission and Catechesis: Alexandre de Rhodes and Inculturation in Seventeenth-Century Vietnam) and liberation, inculturation, and interreligious dialogue (Christianity with an Asian Face; In Our Own Tongues; Being Religious Interreligiously). In addition, he has edited some 20 volumes (e.g., Christianity and the Wider Ecumenism; Church and Theology; Journeys at the Margins; The Asian Synod; The Gift of the Church; Directory on Popular Piety and Liturgy; Christianities in Asia, and The Cambridge Companion to the Trinity). His many writings have been translated into Italian, German, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, Arabic, Croatian, Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, and Vietnamese. He is the general editor of a multi-volume series entitled Theology in Global Perspective and a multi-volume series entitled Ethnic American Pastoral Spirituality. His writings have received many awards from learned societies.
