Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Moravian Theological Seminary

Grace Ji-Sun Kim received her PhD from the University of Saint Michael’s College at the University of Toronto. She is an associate professor of doctrinal theology at Moravian Theological Seminary and is the author of The Grace of Sophia: A Korean North American Women’s Christology (Pilgrim Press, 2010) and The Holy Spirit, Chi, and the Other: A Model of Global and Intercultural Pneumatology (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). Kim is serving her second term on the AAR Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession Committee and is a steering committee member on AAR’s Comparative Theology Group and Women of Color Scholarship, Teaching, and Activism Consultation. She sits on the editorial board for the Journal for Religion and Popular Culture and is a referee for both the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion and the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture. Kim is currently working on a biblical commentary on First and Second Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah for the series Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Westminster John Knox Press).

Theology from the Underside

In March 2011 I took my class “Theology from the Underside” on an immersion travel experience called Borderlinks©. The students were required to read and study prior to the trip, to become active participants while on the trip, and then to theologically reflect on their learning afterward. We traveled to the border region of Tucson, Arizona, and Nogales, Mexico, to experience the path that migrants take as they cross the hot desert into the United States in search of work to support their families. The students experienced some of the dangers of the crossing by examining the border wall, walking through the desert, and conversing with captured migrants who were being cared for in a women’s shelter in Nogales. We heard first-hand accounts of how the migrants risk their lives by crossing the border through the desert. The American government criminalizes migrants by using terms such as alien, clutter, and illegal, and categorizes them as the “Other.” When migrants are viewed as the Other, it is easier to treat them as subordinate and undesirable beings.

When my “Theology from the Underside” class returned from our trip, the students had to write reflection papers, engage in public awareness of the problems endured by the migrants, and take part in some local action aimed at eliminating the process of Othering. The students spoke at their local churches and social agencies to raise awareness of the legal problems surrounding the harsh and inhumane treatment of migrants caught by border patrols. They also preached and taught Bible studies highlighting how people migrated during biblical times and how we are all essentially migrants. As we recognize our own selves and migrant selves, we need to reexamine the laws that treat migrants as radically Other. 

The process of Othering not only happens to migrants who come from south of the border, but also to those who come into the United States as legal immigrants. The issue of embracing/accepting the Other is significant to our present world context as there is rapid diversification of cultures, customs, and traditions. It is a “globalized” world and it is crucial for students of theology to acknowledge this reality and allow it to inform how they understand God, the gospel, and the Bible in our time. The problem of the Other has become an important issue in theological discourse as the community of faith interacts with many world communities. Postcolonial theory seeks to address the needs and aspirations of the exploited, and is concerned with the effects of unequal power relations between groups of people.

Many of the students enrolled in “Theology from the Underside” seek to engage in a lived-out theology rather than simply a philosophical exercise. As I reflect on my own teaching, I also strive to be a model learner, as learning is a lifelong journey. I realize that adults come with much life experience and this needs to be respected. I try to begin where the students are, and pay special attention to the connection between reason and experience. I also hope to make theological material exciting and relevant to the learner’s present time and place.

My research deeply informs how and what I teach in the classroom. The process of making people who are different from the dominant white culture the “Other” has long been of interest to me. Anyone who is of a different skin color is looked down upon as lesser and undesirable. This dangerous phenomenon occurs and reoccurs in Western society and even in our classrooms. Thus, classroom pedagogy needs to be negotiated and renegotiated in light of the various dangerous ‘isms’ such as racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism etc., that occur in our society and within the classroom. These dangers influence my pedagogy, particularly in respect to how sensitive I need to be when I prepare my class and when I enter the classroom. My own beliefs and understandings also inform how I am to teach prophetically and instrumentally in the classroom.

My theological pedagogy is based on both traditional and modern approaches to education. Traditionally, I agree with Heinrich Pestalozzi, who said education is based on love. Thus love needs to be the beginning point of our theological pedagogy. Pestalozzi also asserted that we need to train people to be independent, so students must be taught to think for themselves and develop their own theology from their experiences, encounters, and revelations. I concur with the liberative approach of teaching holistically. This modern view asserts that people learn through all their senses, and thus teachers need to incorporate various teaching methods. I believe every student in the class has unique gifts and talents, and my role as a professor is to encourage each student to find his/her own gifts and use them to the fullest of his/her capacity. I want each class to be a learning experience for every student, and hence will use various teaching methods (discussion groups, workshops, student presentations, storytelling, audio equipment, etc.) in order to address different learning styles. People learn, develop, and categorize information in many different ways, and it is important to be aware of these differences. It is also important to give students a voice so that they can claim theology as their own.

My model of theological pedagogy is also based on “faith seeking understanding.” Theological study must lead to a deeper understanding of God and it should also lead to praxis, which is action with reflection. Thus, theological studies need to begin with a committed action, followed by reflection, and then return again to action. Much of my teaching leads to committed action, such as social justice, equality, and liberation. With this premise, I design my liberation theology class to incorporate a praxis component to make it a lived-out theology.

Theology must seek to love and welcome those who are the least of us. Orientalism is a tendency to dichotomize humanity into we-they contrasts and to essentialize the resultant Other (see Said). It represents a white Euro-American power over the Orient and has been used by Europeans and North Americans as a way of dominating and having self-ascribed authority over the East. European culture gained in strength and identity by setting itself against the Orient as a sort of surrogate. In the North American context, the Others are our neighbors, who differ from us by culture and whose very Otherness is often a factor in our conflicts with them. 

In one’s own pedagogy, it is important not to make a stranger the Other. With increasing immigration, globalization, and migration, it is imperative to welcome the Other if we are to live in harmony within diversification. This needs to be lived out in the classroom as students experience this amongst themselves. It needs to become a lived-out pedagogy rather than a philosophical one that does not take into consideration the context, the situation, and the being as a whole.

In this context, the Othering of women merits particular attention and theological analysis. The lives of women in the industrialized world have improved enormously in the last hundred years and especially in social, cultural, and political terms in the last forty years. But, throughout the rest of the world, a great many women lead lives of misery and even plain horror. In many cultures, women have been, and in some cases still are, viewed as inferior and simply as the Other, which allows terrible acts of violence, dominance, sexual objectification, and slavery to occur. This issue is significant to the North American church today, as churches must respond to the outcry of women who have suffered in the name of religion. We must develop and enact new ways of viewing and treating women — and, in particular, immigrant women.

A broader theological method of welcoming the Other lies in reconceptualizing the Divine in terms other than Euro-American thought. One approach can be found in understanding the Spirit from a global perspective. My book The Holy Spirit, Chi, and the Other (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) develops an intercultural understanding of the Spirit that combines the Asian concept of Chi with the Christian understanding of the Holy Spirit in an attempt to facilitate a deeper theological discourse about the divine that is unrestrained by culture, society, and religion. Chi is the Eastern term for life-force energy, which manifests the idea of wind and spirit. Chi is commonly discussed in Asian cultures, but it is also found throughout the world as most, if not all, ethnic groups have a concept of Chi. In the Chinese worldview, Chi is understood as air, breath of life, and vitality. Western language translations of Chi include air, wind, vapor, breath, gas, vital spirit, anger, appearance, intelligence, vital fluid, energy, material force, vital force, and subtle spirits (Rainey, 263). 

Chi and the Christian understanding of the Holy Spirit share many commonalities. The Old Testament ruach and the New Testament pneuma carry the same ambiguity of multiple meanings as does Chi. The word ruach has its etymological origin in air, which manifests itself in two distinctive forms — that of wind in nature and that of breath in living things. Because God as the Spirit manifests herself as wind, or ruach, she is also Chi. Wind symbolizes the power of life in nature, while breath symbolizes the power of life in the living (Karkkainen, 26). Recognizing the similarities between these two perspectives will pave the way for a deeper theological dialogue across cultures, ethnicities, and races. As we recognize the commonality and sameness among people, it will be easier to embrace and accept the Other. Spirit is a universal concept that can be used to discover new methods of addressing, thinking about, and conceptualizing God. A step towards this conceptualization will be to reexamine the notion of Spirit-Chi in order to enable us to embrace hybridity within the modern world. 

Spirit-Chi is beyond culture, religion, and society as it is the undergirding ethos of people around the world. Therefore, the concept of Spirit God can provide a more holistic understanding that extends beyond skin color, culture, religion, and power within society. If people recognize this, it will open up doors for further dialogue, understanding, and acceptance. The more language that we have to talk about the divine, the more we open up our discourse and work towards accepting, welcoming, and embracing those who are different, subjugated, and Othered. It is important to understand God as Spirit-Chi as a way to work towards breaking down barriers that colonialism has securely built up.

The understanding of Spirit God will overcome the dangers of dualism and try to present the goodness of creation. If people can recognize this, it will lead to further dialogue, understanding, and acceptance. An ethos inspired by God as Spirit-Chi has the potential to homogenize and champion the voice of the disparate spiritual Others and promote hybridity within the North American church. Within theological schools, there is an increasing diversity of cultures, ethnicities, faith traditions, and religious backgrounds. Therefore, it is important to recognize similarities within the differences in order to make a large impact on the lives of students. It is important to keep various understandings in mind as one develops a pedagogy that works towards inclusion rather than exclusion within the classroom. And it must be an inclusion of ideas and thoughts, as well as people.

Julia Kristeva writes that the reason we have a hard time living with diversity, whether diversity of ideas, peoples, or nations, is that we do not recognize Otherness in ourselves (see Whelan). As we realize the commonality and sameness between people, it will be easier to embrace and accept the Other. The Spirit-Chi is present in many religious traditions and, as we examine the similar concept of the Spirit, we will begin to see the Otherness in ourselves. Part of theological education is to welcome and embrace the Other. Our conceptions of God need to encourage this and not diminish it. It is a joy to encourage students to think theologically and to think beyond their own boundaries of theological discourse. As students are introduced to new theological ways of understanding the Divine and with new theological methods such as postcolonial theory, it broadens their perspectives of God and helps them to move towards a more sustainable world where people of different races, color, and ethnicities can all live together in love and harmony with one another. When this aspect of teaching is accomplished, there is a great sense of achievement and satisfaction.