TASK 15. CHRISTIANITY AND ASIA

DIANA CATHERINE BARAHONA GARCIA

ENGLISH II

A critical issue for Asian Christians

It is important to be aware and know the differences that distinguish us from Asia, their culture,

their language, their customs and their various forms of spirituality to understand the fundamental

question of Christianity in Asia. The different religions of Asia have traveled in over time and have

left their mark on the history of these nations and their generations to political, economic and

geographical level, but it changes according to the modernity of the time, have transformed the

religiuos beliefs of this part of the world, seen today in the growth that the Christian religion is

having in parts of Asia. Factors such as education, language, technology, and other aspects of global

order, called attention to the new generations and are attracted to this new experience of faith in

Christianity.

However, when the incoming segment is reached, surely will be offset by the fundamentalists of

other religions, there emerge some fundamental questions for Christianity in Asia. The strong

ancestral roots govern all the idiosyncrasies of a country, in their different ways, spirituality is

strongly linked to other areas of society, in turn, is crucial for any type of relationship with the

environment. Well Küng1 formulates a programmatic phrases which may depend on the survival of

the human species:

Not there will be peace between

Nations without peace among religions.

There will be no peace between

religions without dialogue between the religions.

There will be no dialogue between the religions

If the fundamentals are not investigated religions.

Is precisely the ignorance of the religious foundations which generates more conflicts. Trying to

christianize a continent as old, as also are their religions, it is believed that Asian values can not be

easily replaced by a Western culture, therefore the growth of the Christian religion gets involved in

an atmosphere of constant threat, scorn and rebuke. This has generated a very heartfelt in believers

needs, whereby Asian theology has addressed the problem from a perspective liberationist, using

the concepts of indigenization and contextualization to justify the development of their theologies2.

Many theologians, for example, hold that God's revelation came in Scripture through a cultural

especific form, as in the New Testament, when God used Jewish and Hellenistic cultures to register

his revelation. Therefore, the Gospel should be translated also in particular forms of Asian cultures,

and therefore many theologies are intended to represent Asian cultural forms.

In this way, the proliferation of theologies of Asia will continue to increase dramatically and very

likely will multiply in the future. This undoubtedly will produce a huge impact, as well as the

conflicts and confusion in theological institutions and Christian churches in Asia.

1 KÜNG, Hans. EL ISLAM. Historia, presente y futuro. 2004. pp.9. 2 BELIEVE. Religious Information Source. Web-site http://mb-soft.com/believe/tsom/asian.htm