山道期刊

The Body and Israelite Society: An Old Testament Perspective

CHAN Yew Ming

Religion plays a significant role in both past and current social institutions. A group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage or tribe, would adopt a specific object to serve as its emblem, thereby declaring its cultural identity, and to a certain extent, its religious relationship with the group’s acknowledged deity. Functionally, the adopted symbol defines certain religious features and distinguishes the sacred from the profane. Such definition and distinction also serve to reveal the social structure and its power. For ancient Israel, the witnesses, as presented in the Old Testament, show these definitions and distinction via the portrayal of the body. This portrayal reveals more than just the physical bodies of human beings and animals. Instead, the body language indicates the Israelites’ understanding of themselves, the relationship of their community with Yahweh, and the contemporary social reality. As the paper’s analysis unfolds the details of this understanding, it can also serve as a reminder to modern readers that our biblical hermeneutics must consider the significance of this “theology of the body.”

Disability and Service: Leviticus 21:16-23 Revisited

WONG Fook Kong

This article begins with discussions of three questions regarding Leviticus 21:16-23: (1) Who are being prohibited; (2) what they are prohibited from doing; and (3) why the prohibition. Regarding the first question, the prohibition concerns priests who have certain disabilities. However, the disabilities mentioned are just examples and the prohibition covers a wider group than those mentioned here. These priests are prohibited from offering sacrifices to the LORD in the temple. On the other hand, they have a share in the portion of the sacrifices allotted to priests and they are expected to perform other priestly duties. The reason for the prohibition is that their disabilities render them ritually unclean. Other forms of uncleanness also make priests unclean but they could be ritually cleansed. Since most of these disabilities are permanent, the disabled priests are permanently unclean.

The second part of the article deals with its meaning today. One Jewish explanation for the prohibition is that a disabled priest distracts the believers from their worship. If the priest is already well-known to the congregation, this is no longer a problem. Consequently, a disabled priest who is well-known to the people is allowed to minister before the LORD since distraction is no longer an issue. For Christians, the issue of ritual purity is not a problem. Rather, moral purity is the overriding factor. Thus, the question of whether a disabled person can serve the LORD or not is not raised in the New Testament.

The article ends by cautioning against trivializing the suffering of the disabled or the ministry. Disability of any kind should be acknowledged and should be either healed or accepted by the community. People are more than their eyes, ears, or limbs and they should be accepted and appreciated as a whole. At the same time, ideally, the best person for a ministry should be chosen for the job. This may limit a disabled person from certain ministries, but it also means that they should be chosen for other ministries which they are qualified for, despite their disabilities.

Re-reading the Notion of “St. Paul’s Analogy of Union of Head and Body Does Not Destroy Individuality of the Person” in Theology of the Body in Light of the Reinterpretation of Household Code in the Book of Ephesians

Addson CHAN

John Paul II uses Ephesians 5 as his biblical support for his proposal of the concepts “bi-subjectivity” and “union” in conjugal relationship in his theology of the body. John Paul II proposes that husband and wife are united by the bond of marriage while in this union and, at the same time, retain each of their own individuality. Love is the essential element that joins individuals while at the same time enables individuality.

In New Testament studies, the analogy of Christ and the Church in conjugal relationship is understood in relation to Ephesians 5:21, “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” (ESV). The idea of “submitting to one another” in Ephesians 5 was subversive because in the first-century Greco-Roman culture, wives were supposed to be submissive to husbands while on the contrary, husbands were not supposed to be submissive to wives. The submissiveness of wives was suggested in the household codes in Greco-Roman culture. Household code was a long-standing tradition that helped maintain the stability of the power hierarchy in a society. It maintained political stability through empowering the male head in a household with status, entitlement and superiority. Wives, children, freemen, and slaves were submissive to the male head in a family according to the household code. Political stability was ensured with familial and social stability. In Ephesians 5, however, a new hierarchy was introduced. Christ is the head in the hierarchy of a Christian household. Out of the reverence for Christ, husbands and wives were supposed to submit to one another.

The Gospel is the parameter. In Ephesians 5, Christians are asked to reexamine their values and world views according to the Gospel. In the first-century, Christians worshipped at home. True and Spirit-filled worship (Eph 5:18-21) should lead to transformation of interpersonal relationships within a household. While Paul the Apostle requested followers of Christ to transform their values and world views, not according to the long-standing culture and tradition, but to the Gospel, he was also challenging the ideology behind the social culture.

The reinterpretation of the household code in Ephesians reminds us today that we should let the Gospel speak for its superiority in our culture. The reexamination of values and world views in our culture in the light of Gospel is challenging. Paul himself works on his theology in real life situation that speaks to a long-standing tradition and ideology. The Gospel has the subversive power to challenge and to transform. Reinterpretation of Scripture serves the purpose of letting the Gospel speak for its superiority, worthiness and meaning at different times.

The Theology of Access and the Development of Divine-human Relationship for People with Intellectual Disability

LEE Fu Ho William

People with disability is not excluded from the gospel. The church and Christians should provide them access to approach God, as it is mandated by the gospel. The salvation of God is universal and granted to all people including those with intellectual disability. Therefore, a theological rationale needs to be developed for the sake of completing our discussion of soteriology to include people with intellectual disability. Reasoning, cognition, or usage of words and language are not necessary keys to build up a relationship with God and to our salvation; otherwise people with intellectual disability would be ignored and excluded in divine-human relationship. In other words, a solid and well-grounded theological rationale is needed to facilitate such a religion of inclusiveness; and we usually call it the theology of access. The theology of access will make the theological discussion of inclusiveness no longer speculative. Inclusiveness is always practical, and also has to be ecumenical. Therefore, the discussion of the theology of access cannot be separated from the “mainstream” discussion of theology, and it could in fact enrich the discipline of theology to manifest the Christian faith as universal and ecumenical as Christian theology should be.”God loves the world”; God’s love to the creature is unconditional. He unconditionally accepts all the mankind, including those with intellectual disability.

The aim of the theology of access is to include people with disability in soteriology or ecumenism. To achieve this, their responsiveness is important. It includes “the non-symbolic mode of responsiveness,” i.e. the responsiveness between people with or without disability, which is manifested in the friendship between them, and enriched by their mutual responses to each other. Therefore, the church should offer access to people with intellectual disability to make friendship in the church, so that their relationship with God could also be built up. However, this is not the only way to facilitate their divine-human relationship. People with intellectual disability could also use “symbolic mode of responsiveness” to respond to God, and thus receive access to build up a relationship with God. I argue that approaching Christian liturgy is a symbolic mode of response, and this includes following the practices of and participating in the rituals inherited from the Christian tradition. People with intellectual disability could discern the Spirit via participating in the Christian liturgy, and develop a positive divine-human relationship. Christian liturgy is not only for people with the capacity of reasoning, but also for people with less cognitive ability to discern the Spirit and to build up a proper relationship with God.

The Aesthetic Implication of Theology of the Body

CHIU Shung-ming

For a long time, many theologians have tended to do theology in a rational way, so the aesthetic dimension of Christian theology has been seriously neglected. If it is necessary to develop and strengthen the aesthetic dimension of theology, the author believes that theology of body plays an indispensable role. This article demonstrates the aesthetic implication of the theology of body by explaining God’s beauty from two levels of God’s body, the beauty of the created world as God’s body and the beauty of Jesus Christ as God’s incarnation. The former is especially reflected in the sex and love between men and women. The latter is manifested in the sacrifice of the incarnated Christ. In conclusion, it is obvious that the beauty of God is revealed by God’s love manifested in His economic act.

Contemplation on Jesus’s Figure: A Perspective through Spirituality of Aesthetics in the Experience of Vulnerability

PAN Yi Jung

In the practice of Christian Art, the expression of body was often categorized in the scope of the physical figure. Many authors and Christian artists have tried to integrate faith and art into spiritual practice and formation. Moreover, some Christian scholars used historical research approach to describe the development of visual art in the church history in order to reflect on the dimension of spirituality in artworks. This essay attempts to employ the approach of practical theology to explore Jesus’s vulnerable figure from a contemplative perspective. The exercise of contemplation on Jesus’s vulnerability not only can be articulated in words but also can be experienced from an aesthetic perspective. It means that the aesthetic perspective is formulated by both the spiritual appreciation of artworks and the exercise of contemplative painting.

In this essay, three famous pieces of artworks on Jesus’s vulnerable figure were interpreted from a contemplative perspective: The Virgin of Vladimir, the Christ of Saint John of the Cross, and the Pietà. Then, theological reflection was drawn by my contemplative appreciation on these artworks as well as by my personal resonating with Jesus’s life and suffering in the human body.

After introducing the spiritual meaning of each of these famous artworks, there follows a description of a piece of my contemplative paintings. The three pieces of my creative paintings were created after my contemplating on these three famous artworks. However, I gave new titles to my creative works: The Gentle and Compassionate Mother, The Passion, and The Compassion. My contemplation on these artworks was made during the Lent in 2021, with Jesus’s passion and compassion as the main themes. By painting, I contemplated on the vulnerability of Jesus’s figure and acquired new insight into His passion and compassion. Through the re-interpretation of Jesus’s vulnerable figure in my artistic expression, His vulnerability became a window which could draw a practitioner toward God’s presence, grace and love.

The essay concludes that contemplative interpretation on the vulnerability of human body from an aesthetic perspective can become a view of the theological reflection on humanity and bring transformative experience of God’s mercy and love to the practitioner.

A Quest for Baptist Beginnings in Hong Kong (1842-1900)

Alex K. TO

Baptists started the first church in Hong Kong in the mid-nineteenth century. However, with regard to the exact date of its establishment, there seem to be no consensus among the various church historians, Hong Kong Baptist Church and the Hong Kong Baptist Convention . Concerning which is the oldest Baptist church in Hong Kong, both Hong Kong Baptist Church and Cheung Chau Baptist Church appear to be claiming the honor. The purpose of this study is to clarify the early history of Hong Kong Baptists in the nineteenth century.

When the pioneer Baptist missionaries, Issachar Roberts, Jehu Shucks, and William Deans, arrived in Hong Kong in 1842 respectively, they worked among different Chinese dialect groups and in various locations on Hong Kong Island, the Kowloon peninsula, and nearby outlying islands such as Cheung Chau. The first Baptist church, Queen’s Road Baptist Church, was soon established on May 15, 1842. Shortly after that, Bazaar Baptist Church, How Wan Baptist Church, Hong Kong Swatow Baptist Church, and several outstations including one in Stanley and one in Cheung Chau were also founded.

Despite their success in establishing churches and outstations as well as gaining a few converts within a short time, these early missionaries did not stay for long, and soon departed for a much larger gospel field in mainland China. Issachar Roberts and Jehu Shucks left for Canton in 1844 and 1845 respectively. Due to health concern, William Deans returned to the United States at the end of 1844. As a result, almost all churches and gospel stations, except perhaps for one or two places, were closed after their departure. Although there were other Baptist missionaries, such as John Johnson, arriving to continue the gospel ministry, the American Baptist mission decided to sell all its mission properties in Hong Kong and moved the headquarter in southern China to Chaozhou (also known as Swatow), Fukien Province in 1860. Since then, no more missionary was assigned to station in Hong Kong. After the departure of Baptist missionaries, a local Chinese lay leader, A Tui, helped maintain the gospel work and gather people to attend meetings whenever there were missionaries visiting Hong Kong from mainland China. However, he too left Hong Kong and retired to Chaozhou, his hometown, in 1873.

In 1875, Mrs. L. W. Johnson, the second wife of John Johnson, came to Hong Kong to resume the work left behind by her husband. She employed Tang Si-tang from Ling Tung Baptist Church in Chaozhou to teach in her school and assist in church works in Hong Kong. Baptist ministries revived and continued to grow from then on. Hong Kong Baptist Church, which is situated on Cain Road, can trace her history back to 1875. With regard to the Cheung Chau ministry, unless new historical evidence is found showing her uninterrupted existence in the nineteenth century, the present Cheung Chau Baptist Church can only claim that her continuous history started at the beginning of the twentieth century.

“Love Thy Neighbor”: Theological Interpretation of Karl Barth

SHEA Chi Fung

“Love thy neighbor” is one of the most popular biblical phrases. We often use it to advocate caring for the poor in our communities. This paper is intended to offer a different reading. In Church Dogmatics I/2, Karl Barth suggests that the biblical notion of “my neighbor” is not a receiver of help but a benefactor sent from God to bring the divine compassion to God’s children. The main contribution of this paper is to make available this theological reading to the Chinese Christian communities. The paper has four sections. The first two sections are an account of Barth’s objection to the popular reading of this commandment and his exposition of the story of Good Samaritan (Lk10:25-37). They are followed by an analysis of the Christological ground of his reading. In the final section, a critique from Christian educational perspective is offered and some practical suggestions to Barth’s theological interpretation from the tradition of Spiritual Senses are given.