Calvin. History and Reception of a Reformation Week 5. Reading Calvin Today Sequence 5. Asia Welcome to this sequence on Calvin and Asia. This sequence is being filmed in the Korean House of Geneva. With me is Hyonou Paik, who is from Korea and who is a doctoral candidate in systematic theology at the University of Geneva. He is going to tell us about Calvin's reception and influence in Asia. Before we talk about Calvin, Christianity in Asia is something Westerners tend to know little about. Can you provide us with a quick overview? There is not one Asia but many: Asia includes a diversity of cultural, socio-political, linguistic and religious contexts. As far as religion is concerned, Western Asia is the birthplace of Judaism, Christianity and Islam; South Asia saw the development of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc.; East Asia is the birthplace of Confucianism, Taoism and the Shinto religion. Let's focus on East Asia for a moment. The region consists of two parts: China, Korea and Japan, connected geopolitically along the Beijing-Seoul-Tokyo axis, make up what is generally referred to as East Asia or the Far East (although Northeast Asia would be more accurate). Indochina, the Philippines, Indonesia, etc. form a second geographic group, usually called Southeast Asia. East Asia is a region in which Christianity's presence is limited, with a few exceptions: the Philippines and South Korea feature large groups of Roman Catholics and Protestants, respectively. Korea has about 8 or 9 million Protestants, that is, about one-fifth of the country's total population. It tends to be a militant, confessional brand of Protestantism. In China and Japan, however, Protestantism has struggled mightily to gain a foothold ever since its introduction in the 19th century. The association of Christianity with the West has prevented the Chinese church from developing an independent and nationally-accepted Christianity. In the early 1980s, the Chinese government loosened its grip on religion, albeit with the provision that no religious group be placed under foreign control. Today, there is an explosion of unofficial churches, called "house churches." A recent study claims that 7 to 10% of the Chinese population belongs to such congregations. This represents about 1 million people, and this figure is probably a conservative estimate! And although Protestant churches represent less than 0.5% of Japan's population, there is something quite surprising about Japanese Protestantism -- more on that later... What can you tell us about the Calvinist tradition in Asia today? Many of the Protestant churches in Asia owe their existence to the efforts of English-speaking missionaries during the 19th century. Presbyterians enjoy a particularly widespread presence. The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) has over 60 member churches in Asia. For example, in Korea (the Asian country I'm least ignorant about), Presbyterians constitute the absolute majority of Protestant churches. Although a variety of currents have developed within the Presbyterian church in its short history (just over one century), they share many of the defining traits of the Reformed tradition: ecclesiastical organization, liturgy, a concern with ethical and social issues. The major themes of Calvinist theology are a constant presence in sermons: the absolute sovereignty of God, the glory of God which illuminates the world, the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, the grace of God which operates both within us and in the world, the idea that faith
must become visible for the glory of God in the lives of Christians through action and ethics. What does John Calvin represent for these Churches? As Reformed Protestants, they do a good job, it seems to me, of following Calvin's injunction to "give the glory to God alone." At the same time, we must not forget that Protestantism in Asia was "imported," like several other Christian faiths (Roman Catholicism in particular), at a time when ecumenism was unheard of. Asian Protestants tend to hold a somewhat simplistic interpretation of the history of Christianity, according to which the light of the Gospel was dimmed, so to speak, by the medieval Catholic Church before being rediscovered and rescued by the 16th century Reformers, whose intent was a return
to the spirit of the early Christians. Calvin is seen as foremost among these Reformers. But there's more to the story. The more Asians came to accept Christian theology and acquire a deeper understanding of the Church's history, the more they developed an interest in Calvin and his theology. These young Churches began to study their own genealogy and reflect on ways to apply the ideas developed by Calvin in the 16th century to their present-day reality. Despite being a tiny minority, Japanese Protestants were the first to undertake meaningful Calvinist studies. In 1934, Calvin's great work, the "Institutes of the Christian Religion," was translated in Japanese; a committee for the translation of Calvin's works in Japanese was formed in the early 1960s (1962-65). It was also under the impetus of a Japanese man, Nobuo Watanabe, that the Asia Congress on Calvin Research was created in 1985. It has since held 11 conferences, attended primarily by Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese theologians. It is somewhat surprising that the "Institutes of the Christian Religion" was only first translated into Korean in the 1970s, and that the first Korean doctoral thesis on Calvin dates back to 1984. It is the work of Soo-Young Lee, who served as president of the aforementioned Congress for 14 years before passing the torch to its current president, the Taiwanese theologian Yang-En Cheng. Since Lee's thesis, the ranks of those who study Calvin in Korea have swelled considerably. There is an effort to fill the gaps in this field, and the Korean contribution to Calvinist studies is becoming increasingly substantial. At the same time, a distinction must be made between strictly academic research and the work produced by Calvinist theologians. One well-known example of the latter is Minjung theology, a liberation theology elaborated in the 1970s within one of Korea's Presbyterian churches. Will the next surprise come from China? The dynamism and enthusiasm that characterize the young Protestant churches of China, and the level of interest they are generating in Calvin's theology, are remarkable. One reason for this is that, in Calvin's theology and in the tradition it carries with it, Chinese Calvinists have found a framework that echoes their own aspirations: freedom through an uncompromised Gospel and the strength to resist a political order that seems to them contrary to
God's truth. In your opinion, what does the future hold for Calvinism in Asia? Let's return to the example I just mentioned. The Chinese Church must compete with other religious traditions, and in particular with Confucianism, which is being promoted by the powers-that-be as a unifying ideology in the face of the growth of religious practice in China. Asian Christianity is going to have to address its situation as regards the region's traditional religions (Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, to name just the main ones). These religions are too intimately connected with Asian culture to be ignored; they are too sophisticated to be simply dismissed as religions surpassed by Christianity. An authentic dialogue is necessary, no matter how lengthy it might be. Chinese Calvinists have already started down this road by working to contextualize Christianity in a situation of socio-political urgency. Elsewhere, some Asian theologians have begun to think of Calvin's vision of the Christian life as a starting-point for dialogue with the traditional religions. They point out that these traditional religions are fundamentally articulated around an ideal of the human being and his life. Religiosity is often understood in Asia in relation with the sudden or gradual transformation of human existence, and the ethical consequences of such a transformation. The central place occupied in the Calvinist tradition by the idea that the Christian life is indistinguishable from the harmony it produces with the divine will is liable to resonate profoundly with traditional Asian cultures. The Church in Asia in still young; no doubt it has many beautiful surprises yet in store for us, including as relates to Calvin's theology.
