Papua theology a new paradigm in theology

At Ipenburg Papua Theology. A New Paradigm

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. The new context for theology and its challenge 3

3. Secularization 6

4. New tasks for academic theology 6

5. The challenge for Christian theology 8

6. Three models: God, humanity or the world as “object” of theology 12

7. Theology as a theory of faith 15

8. Papua theology 16

9. Conclusion 18

10.Bibliography 19

Towards a Theology “From Below”

1. Introduction

In this paper I want to set out a way how to come to a new way of practicing

systematic theology that is adequate with modern or even post-modern society.

I will try to evaluate some different approaches in systematic theology, including

the so-called “theologies of the genitive hermeneutics”, that is feminist theology,

liberation theology, African and Asian contextual theology, Black theology. These

theologies may be considered one-sided or even marginal form the perspective of

the traditional “grand system” systematic theologies like those of Thomas

Aquinas, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Karl Barth, Paul Tillich or Karl Rahner to

mention a few great systematicians. However, I consider a main advantage of

the “theologies of the genitive hermeneutics” that they are equally interested in

the context, in the receivers of the Gospel message as in the analysis of the

Gospel message itself. These are theologies at least of “flesh and blood.” In that

they are in accordance with the dominant metaphor in Christianity of the

Incarnation. These theologies are clearly free from the Docetic error!

I will look for a common ground in these theologies. I will suggest that these

theologies have in common that their focus is on people who are in one way or

the other, politically or culturally, oppressed. These people are inspired by the

1


Gospel to liberate themselves and they use the stories of the Scriptures to

analyze their situation for new hope. The Gospel helps them to gain a new

awareness of the oppression and provides metaphors for the struggle for

liberation. I assume the reality of divine revelation. The “Anknuepfungspunkt” is

where divine revelation touches the human heart and makes people moving in

accordance with eth Gospel of Jesus Christ. The task of theology is to observe

and analyse people’s theologies in liturgies, hymns, prayers, forms of worship

and social action. The methods are derived from the social sciences. Though this

theology is close to science of religion it is different as one assumes the reality of

divine revelation, God’s continuing involvement with humanity. The Scriptures are

an example of God’s close involvement with the patriarchs, the people of Israel,

and with the whole of humanity and the world. These provide also for modern

times consolation and metaphors that make people move into action. This

theology “from below” is inspired by my stay in West Papua as a lecturer at a

theological college of the Evangelical Christian Chucrh in Papua Land from 1995

till 2002. The Papuans since the annexation of their land by Indonesia in 1962

have been suffering discrimination, severe violations of their human rights, the

robbing of their ancestral lands. There is a great risk that they are doomed to

extinction in one generation. West Papua does not has only very few professional

theologians, because of the deprivation in the area of education. Moreover

Papuan society, like the San society in Southern Africa, is highly egalitarian. This

egalitarianism, or democratic attitude in traditional society, has determined their

role theologians choose for themselves, that is to analyse the way ordinary

Christians practice their faith and struggle for freedom. I will analyse the methods

of two Papua theologians, Dr Benny Giay and Neles Tebay M. Th. Both lecture in

West Papua, Both originate from the Me area of the Highlands. Benny Giay

defended a doctoral thesis at the Free University of Amsterdam on the Wege

Bage Movement, an independent church in his home area. Neles Tebay studied

the contents of hymns in the Me language composed by lay people in his Roman

Catholic Church without interference of Europeans missionaries. I consider both

theologians as representatives of a “theology from below”.

2. The new context and its challenge for theology

2


The past century the world has changed beyond recognition in the area of

science, education, politics, communication, transport, technology and customs.

This has an effect on the church and on the way systematic theology is defined

and practiced. The world has become, increasingly, a world without political,

religious, ethnic and cultural borders. One can have encounters with people of

different ethnic, cultural and religious groups. “Closed” societies are being broken

up. This not only refers to so called “tribal” societies, but also to traditional

agricultural or fishing village communities of Holland and other countries. Human

beings, men and women, feel that they can make and have to make their own

choices what education and career to choose, what marriage partner to share

one’s life with, the sexual orientation one wants to follow, the number of children

one wants to take care for, the place where one lives and increasingly also the

country and part of the world where one wants to live.

How far modern society, or rather post-modern society, has been transformed

compared with the traditional agricultural society the world has know for millennia,

could be illustrated by the idea of the of cyber world. When one moves into this

world on the World Wide Web all certainties disappear: gender, age, skin colour,

prejudice, and nationality. Everything is a matter of choice, using “skins”.

However, real encounters emerge out of this virtual world, like people finding their

marriage partner there. One can also buy and sell real items, play games, watch

movies and so on. This new medium provides the opportunity of real encounters

across human made, artificial borders

Science has to be free to be able to advance. In Soviet Union technological and

scientific advances in those sectors where the state had an interest in: defence

and spacecraft. Here the state created an isolated environment of intellectual

freedom. But in the area of consumer technology the Soviet Union failed to make

much progress. In the arts (history, literature, philosophy, theology,) there was

equally little progress. Some very gifted authors like Solzhenitsin ended up in

prison. As the state (or party) tried to control the minds of its citizens it prevented

the possibilities of the development of information technology through the use of

personal computers. This in the end, in my mind, more than anything else led to

the downfall of, apart from the USA, the only other superpower.

3


This may prove that also in the area of religion control of the minds and hearts of

the faithful can not be enforced by a system of central ecclesiastical authority, the

formulation of fixed dogmas, the control by the churches of education from

nursery to university, control of the choice of marriage partners of its adherents

(only form ones own religion or denomination), condemnation of other

denominations and religions, whose followers are condemned to eternal

punishments, though no fault of themselves, to eternal fire in the hell together

with the devils and demons. There is an emancipation of church adherents from

the church. The rules and regulations with regard to moral conduct are more and

more only accepted when the people personally agree with them and when they

are workable in practice. An example in case is the ruling of the Roman Catholic

Church on the use of any form of birth control except that of periodical exemption.

The use of condoms, advocated by governments and health organisations, to

prevent the spread of Aids, is forbidden. In practice, this ruling is universally

ignored as it is too unpractical. Also the need for some ruling on voluntary

euthanasia, the legal arrangement of same sex relationships and the right to

abortion has been implemented without or at times even against rulings by

churches. The Roman Catholic Church, the largest Christian Church even

opposed strongly all of these. Systematic of dogmatic theology used to have the

role of legitimizing positions of the church in the area of science, morals,

cosmology and so on. In view of these developments of a moving apart of the

church as an institution, including the rationalisation of its position on so many

issues as done in theology, from the practice and faith of its own adherents, there

seems a is a need for an emancipation of theology away from control by the

churches. This will also challenge the methods used in theology. It will not do to

base oneself on the authority of previous theologians. It will also no longer do to

assume as infallible one particular way of exegesis (one’s own) of the Bible as a

Holy Book, assumed to be directly inspired by God.

The Church is an integral part of society and is affected by changes in society.

The Church as an institution can not separate itself from society by assuming a

tension or even a conflict between the two. There is now the insight that there is

no visible “eternal” church, which is the Body of Christ in a concrete way. That the

4


visible, institutional Church could be identified with the Church as the mystic Body

of Christ was the dominant view of the Roman Catholic Church till the Vatican

Council II. Outside the Church (i.e. the visible Roman Catholic Church as an

institution) there is no salvation. Without the visible and concrete sacraments of

the Church like baptism there was no salvation. The Church could in a concrete

way handle (sell, dispense) the excess of good deeds of saints. The spiritual is

made concrete; the supernatural has been made natural. The transubstantiation

is another example. The concrete bread and wine of the Eucharist becomes real

flesh and blood of Christ, though in a mysterious and scientifically not verifiable

way.

Theology has been a theology from above. It is part of the Constantinian

dispensation. In exchange for support by the state the Church had to submit to

the interests of the state, even to the extent of giving away the right to appoint its

senior clergy or seeing the Emperor presiding over Ecumenical Councils settling

theological disputes and determining what doctrines are heretic and what

doctrines are orthodox. As the Empire is a top down institution in the same way

the doctrine of God and Christology is developed top down. God is “the King of

Kings”. The Messiah, though on earth a peripatetic preacher without any worldly

possessions, became pictured as the Son of a King, descending from His

heavenly abode, a palace, with a throne. Like God He was seen as eternal and

all-powerful like the dynasties of the Roman Empire and Europe between the 9th

and the 19th century. There is a clear analogy of a specific type of social structure

and the way the Bible is exegeted, and the doctrine of God and Christology is

developed. Pelikan1 finds not less than 18 titles for Jesus or rather ways to

describe his mission between the first and twentieth century. Jesus as “King of

Kings” is developed in the time of Emperor Constantine. Jesus as “Son of Man” is

developed at a time of the decline of the Roman Empire in the West by Saint

Augustine. The latter legitimated the first and the first the latter. Opposition

against one means punishment by the other! This even led to the Inquisition

where torture and capital punishment was applied to eliminate doctrinal errors.2

1 See for a very enlightening exposition of this phenomenon Jaroslav Pelikan 1985, Jesus through the Centuries, New Haven/London (Dutch translation, 1987. Jezus door de eeuwen heen. Zijn plaats in de cultuurgeschiedenis, Kampen). 2 The Inquisition properly so called did not come into existence until 1231, with the constitution Excommunicamus of Pope Gregory IX. In 1252 Pope Innocent IV, under the influence of the revival of Roman law, officially sanctioned the use of torture to extract the truth from suspects. Tomás de

5


3. Secularization.

There has been at least in the traditional Christian countries, like those in

Western and Southern Europe, an enormous loss of influence and power of the

established churches. This is with regard to church participation, membership,

but also control by the church over education, health services, voluntary

organisations, trade unions, women and youth organisations, the media, politics

through religious and denominational parties and so on. This regards mainly the

institutional aspect. There remains a general and large interest in spirituality, but

also is there an increased interest in issues which really belong to the essence of

the diaconal tasks of the church, like the preservation of the environment, the

struggle against violations of human rights, equality and legal protection of all

citizens, the provision of basic rights, like the right to work, to housing, to good

health care, a fair and easy access to essential drugs independent of social,

ethnic of economic status (eg. the HIV drugs in Africa), the right to life, access to

proper education, the fight against corruption and discrimination, liberation and

emancipation of the oppressed and so on. Many of these issues are clearly an

essential part of the Gospel message as found in the New Testament. We could

see here a deinstitutionalisation. The values and norms, the church has been

propagating, have moved out into the world, in a way like the biblical salt, yeast or

a light metaphor, to transform the world. Many of these religious and Christian

values in turn get institutionalized, like the Charter of the Human Rights of the

United Nations, confirmed in various binding protocols, national legislation with

regard to right to a social minimum income for unemployed, homeless or the

handicapped. The Government, at least in many Western and developed

democratic countries, has become, especially in the past five decades, a loving

and caring institution (though very bureaucratic) taking over traditional diaconal

tasks of the church like in health care, care for the old aged, care for orphans and

widower and widows. The state now persecutes those who discriminate women,

foreigners, ethnic minorities. It gets involved in peace missions to prevent war in

hot spots in the world like Bosnia, East Timor, Afghanistan, Palestine, Liberia and

so on. I consider secularization as a form of inculturation of gospel values, and in

Torquemada, the first and most notorious grand inquisitor, in the Spain of Philips II, alone had thousands of reputed heretics executed. The Inquisition in Spain was only suppressed as late as 1834.(Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2002).

6


as far as these values are realized and institionalised I want to see secularization

is as something positive.

4. New tasks for academic theology.

Academic theology could find itself new and challenging tasks in view of these

changes in politics and society, and the changing relationships between church

and state to investigate where and how the Spirit makes people moving. I define

(Christian) theology as the study of (Christian) faith. What are the values inherent

in the Gospel message? How are these realized in the concrete world? How get

people inspired by these values? This is not restricted to Christianity and can be

and should be recognized and honoured in other religions.

We live increasingly in a world without borders, the result of globalisation, and of

the formation of large political units like the European Union. Because of the

exponential growth of air transport, new forms of communication through

television and through the internet and mobile phones the world is shrinking. The

idea of the global village has already been realized when young people find a

soul mate through chatting on the internet, where they also play games and find

the information needed for their studies. One can speak about the end of the

Constantinian era for the church, which lost a lot of influence, at least the

established churches, especially in Western and Northern Europe. Through the

onslaught of secularisation, the church as an institution lost its grip on the people,

who no longer needed the church for finding a partner, livelihood, work, status, or

influence. The other side of the medal of secularisation has been individual

emancipation, where issues like abortion, euthanasia, same sex partnerships

could be discussed openly without moralizing and could become a matter of

individual choice. This very much improved the well being of the individuals

concerned. In due time these opportunities for choice became individuals rights

enshrined in laws. Notwithstanding the decline of the role of the church as an

institution the way the (Western) Christian theologians, apparently remained

unchallenged, continued to operate from a particular denominational base. The

type of theology practiced, remained dominant at a world level, at least in

academia. The major theologians, who set the tone are from Western Europe,

Northern America or South Africa belong to mainline churches. They are

7


generally speaking male and white or of European (Caucasian) descent, like for

instance Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Karl Rahner, Schillebeeckx, Johannes Metz,

Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jurgen Moltmann, Bishop John Robinson, Hans Küng and

Adrio König. The theologians from other areas, women, and non white, are given

a marginal role as theologians of a “genitive” and so a partial theology, like Black

Theology (J. Cone, S. Maimela), Liberation theology (Gustavo Gutierrez, Miguez

Bonino, Leonardo Boff, Assman), Feminist theology (Mary Redford Ruether,

Sallie McFague) and African (S. Kibicho, Laurenti Magesa, Teresa Okure) and

Asian theologies (Aloysius Pieris, Michael Amaladoss). In theological textbooks,

in international conferences and in theological journals the former type of

theologian dominate. In the field, however, it is the other way around. The

dynamism, the growth of the church is in Africa, Latin America and in Asia and

with charismatic and Pentecostal churches and Independent Churches. We need

a theology that is faking these churches serious. Here different, often pluralist,

theologies are emerging.

At Independence in the 1960s many African countries introduced the discipline

Religious Studies at their newly built universities. With this they deviated from the

traditional pattern to establish theology departments. Also the syllabi of religious

education for primary and secondary schools were of an interfaith character,

though often taught by Christian priests or ministers. This was true even in

countries like Zambia where the great majority of the people are Christian. I see

here an intention to open oneself up for pluralism and accepting it as a fact. In the

past four decades the religious picture in Africa has become more pluralist. In a

country like Ghana one can find neo Hindu sects like Ananda Marga, the

Bhagwan, Sai Baba, Hare Krishna, next to Muslims, mainline churches like the

Presbyterian Church, the Methodist Church or the Roman Catholic Church an all

kinds of African Initiated Churches. There is in Ghana also a new resurgence of

African Traditional Religion, which is modelling itself organisationally after African

Initiated Churches.

5. The challenge for Christian theology

(a) The Constantinian period

In the Constantinian era pluralism could be ignored. To maintain the harmony and

8


consensus dissenters could be persecuted as heretics. They could be ostracized,

expelled, banned, and brought to court and so on. In the Constantinian era there

is “a theology from above”, an authoritative theology, establishing religious truth,

needed for salvation, often expressed in written down doctrinal statements, which

are authoritative. Social institutions controlled by the church, like schools,

hospitals and professional associations would enforce the doctrines upon the

participants. People had to avow, often with a signed declaration, adherence to

the basic doctrines like the Three Statements of Christian Unity (“De Drie

Formulieren van Enigheid”), or had to have active church membership in order to

get employment. The church would get support from the state. In turn the church

would provide theological legitimation to the state, in the form of establishing a

divine right of rulers, finding parallels between the benevolent rule of God over

humankind with the present incumbent of the royal office. The church would also

be actively present at royal marriages, coronation ceremonies, royal jubilees, and

national memorial days. The context in which theology was practised had its

effects on the contents. God is at the top of the pyramid, sending his son to the

earth as his representative. The believer is the passive receiver of the gift of

salvation. There are necessary intermediaries in the salvation process, like

priests or ministers holding the monopoly of the sacraments without which one

still could risk one’s damnation.

(b) The pluralist era

In the pluralist ear there is no dominant religion anymore in the metropolitan

areas where before the world political and economic power was firmly

established. Part of the new pluralism came, in fact, as a result of the “burden of

empire” when people form the colonies went to the universities of the

metropolitan power or large numbers of workers went from poor countries in the

so-called Third World to work in the industries of the First World. This process is

still going on. South Africa being economically more developed than its

neighbours has received its share of migrants from abroad, extending the existing

pluralist character of the nation culturally, ethnically, and religiously. In America 5

% of the population are Muslims.

The Netherlands, previously known as a bastion for Protestant orthodoxy

protecting the legacy of the Synod of Dordt, has now one million Muslim. On a

9


population of 16 million only about 40 % are Christians, of which again a minority

is religiously active. It has become to a large measure a post-Christian nation.

Nevertheless many values which are intrinsic to Christianity have remained and

found a new organisational form. In correlation with the decline of religious

participation is the rise of all kinds of new organisations getting massive support

of the people, like Green Peace, Oxfam Netherlands (Novib), WWF,

Natuurmonumenten, Verreniging Milieudefensie, the Red Cross, Foster Parents

Plan, Foundation For Refugee Aid (Stichting Vluchtelingen werk), and Amnesty

International. These organisations are in fact doing the diaconal work of the

churches. Christian values are also entrenched in the social policy of the

government, protecting widows, widowers and orphans, the unemployed, the

homeless, the political refugees, the sick and handicapped. One could see it as a

kind of institutionalisation (“incarnation”) of the Gospel.

In many African and Asian countries one can not find the same level of welfare of

the citizens. Here churches and other religions still have the role in providing

education, health service, and shelter for the homeless, to help women, workers,

victims of human rights violations and so on. Churches very often also play a role

in strengthening one’s identity, in empowering the powerless by providing an

institutional from where people can feel at home and exercise a position of

influence and authority not possible in secular society. This has been the role of

African Initiated Churches, like the Zulu Zion Church in South Africa and in

Zimbabwe, Zambia, Zaire and Nigeria.

For a South African example of the pluralist challenge for Christian theology we

could mention the Roman Catholic Zulu priest who is asked to conduct a funeral

service. After he has finished with it he knows that the people who remain will

now start the traditional Zulu rites for the spirit of the deceased, which is forbidden

by the Roman Catholic Church. As a Roman Catholic priest he has to condemn

these rituals. However, as a Zulu he sees these as indispensable to please the

spirits of the ancestors and as essential for the well being of the living clan and

tribesmen and women. Another African example is about a person who suffers

from a particular ailment like barrenness or impotence but does not find a cure

with the medical doctor. He or she goes to a healing church specializing in this

10


type of ailment and find his complaint redressed. We find in one and the same

person the influence of a mainline church, an African Initiated healing church,

traditional religion with its veneration of the ancestral spirits and possibly

influence of a modern secularised scientific world view.

How to meet the challenge of a new theology which can cover these

experiences? In the first place we have to take the spiritual experiences of the

common people in the context where they are living serious. In the second place

we will have to assume the existence of something like divine revelation. This

revelation manifests itself in the human person as faith. We can go along with the

approach of Prof. Van Niekerk, who sees theology as a theory of faith. (Van

Niekerk, 1988: 127 ff) In this approach the links between church and church

structure on one hand and theology on the other hand have been severed.

Theology has emancipated itself and has become a tool for the ordinary believer

to understand his faith. This is a “theology from below” as its starts by analysing

the statements, hymns, prayers of common man/woman produced in that

particular political, cultural and social context in which he or she lives and

celebrates his or her faith. together with the (religious, ethnic, cultural) community

of which he or she is part. This approach empowers the believers, teaches the

people to do the theologising themselves. It is not a normative theology, but its

results are validated by criteria derived from the Christian Gospel like justice,

peace, life, hope and love.

If we look at the history of theology we see that the “object” of theology

alternated among three uniting concepts of God, Humanity and the World, which

respectively, roughly, represents the orthodox approach, the liberal approach and

the “scientistic” approach, represented by the theologians Karl Barth, Friedrich

Schleiermacher and Wolfgang Pannenberg. (Van Niekerk: 101). We follow Van

Niekerk (Study guide) about the role of theology in the modern age. Van Niekerk

(5) argues that we should reject secularization, or rather in his terminology, “the

secularization hypothesis” as secularization is by no means universal.

Secularization means that the sacred and the profane are separated, also in

institutions. It means that God’s primary area of revelation is the church and its

community. This ignores experiences of God outside the church. This view has

11


far going consequences for the identity of theology, for the identity of the church,

for the way the church relates to other religions. Van Niekerk’s theology is

unorthodox in that he rejects the Bible as the sole source of knowledge about

God. He also rejects the notion that God is revealed only in Israel and Jesus

Christ. He uses the authority of the Bible to prove his point. (Amos, Rom. 1) (13).

This is a paradigm shift, which is timely, as we live, increasingly, in a world

without borders, where we have to orient ourselves to a larger world, and where

we should be ready for an encounter with other religions and ideologies on a

basis of dialogue and mutual respect..

In my opinion one has to have an “Anknüpfungspunkt” , a point of contact,

between divine revelation of any nature and the objective, empirical world in

which we live and which we experience. My assumption is that there is something

like “revelation” that has an impact on human individuals, giving them inspiration

and perspective. In orthodox theology God is, in fact, placed outside our world.

“God is not part of human reality.” This theology wants, however, still say

something about God, apart from and beyond his revelation This is also what

Barth is doing. For Barth there is no “Anknupfungspunkt”, but miraculously, God’s

Word, as a stone thrown from Heaven, comes about when the preacher start

climbing the pulpit. For Schleiermacher this Anknüpfungspunkt is a sense of

unconditional dependance (schlechtsinniges Abhängigkeitsgefühl). This is not so

much a feeling, but something that comes about from a real encounter with the

Holy, about which his student Rudolph Otto wrote a famous monograph. For

Pannenberg the Anknüpfungspunkt is the experience of the accomplished totality

of meaning. This is a chiliasm.The task of theology is to deal in hypotheses to

measure to what extent that which features as implicitly, proleptic meaning in an

experience is formulated explicitly in the proposition of religious tradition.(:125-

126) . This is, apparently, a kind of proleptic vision of the totality we will

experience when we are “all in all” at the end of times.

For Van Niekerk dualism should be avoided, in particular the dualism implicit in

secularization. Van Niekerk rejects the three main methods or approaches in

theology, because in one way or the other they bring in the secularisation

hypothesis. In secularization, or rather in secularism, there is a dualism between

12


God and the world. This leads to an isolation of the church, to a a ghetto position.

For Van Niekerk human faith is the Anknüpfungspunkt. In faith God meets the

human. Faith is oriented toward the world and tries to be relevant in the world.

This theology may target on the church as the community of the faithful, but in no

way theology should be subservient to the church. It should not be an

ecclesiastical science. Only with this view theology in the modern age takes its

rightful place among the scientific disciplines at a university, relevant for and in

dialogue with other disciplines and with other religions.

6. Three models: God, humanity or the world as the “object” of theology?

(a) Orthodox theology

In orthodox theology God is the “object” and focus of theology. God is studied as

He is revealed in documents, like the Bible, pronouncements of church councils,

the confessional writings of the Reformation, the decisions of synods etc. It is Karl

Barth (1886-1968) who tried to make orthodox theology relevant for the 20th

century. Barth tries to refute the liberal theology of the 19th century, in particular

the theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher. God is to be God again. God should not

be brought into the world of science, where He could be grasped by scientists

and intellectuals. God, according to Barth, is not part of human reality. God can

be known by God alone. Because God knows us, we are able to know God. We,

however, do not know God as God knows us, and we do not know God in the

way we know one another. Though God is an “object”, He is it in a way different

from any other “object”, just as Israel is separated from the other peoples as a

holy people, and as the church is separated from the world. All other objects

(peoples, cultures?, religions?, ideologies?) are also divinely determined (but not

holy). God is self-posited in free grace as an object of divine revelation to human

beings. Divine revelation is a form of sacramental reality: God elevates and

selects a definite subject-object relationship as the instrument of the Covenant

between Creator and creature. God meets the human subject halfway in His

Word and through the Holy Spirit. (104). There is an interactive relationship

between God and humanity. Human thought, following divine revelation, is

different from our self-determined existence (105). The surrender in faith

presupposes and includes within itself the union and distinction which the human

fulfills between him/herself and God, who makes it possible and necessary (106).

13


Barth’s whole systematic theology (church dogmatics in his words) is exclusively

christocentric. In the human nature of Jesus Christ, the incarnation of the eternal

Word, is the sacramental reality of revelation. Through proclamation of the

Gospel message this unique event, the incarnation of the Word, and so creaturely

unity with God, is repeated (108).

Van Niekerk sees a dualism in Barth’s theology as, one the one hand, there is

“the divinely determined” totality, and on the other hand the human “pre-arranged

mode of existence.” (112). Van Niekerk rejects Barth’s position that “the

eschatological suspense in which we live ... derives from the “immanent” logic of

a dialectic between God’s power of disposal over us in faith and ours over other

objects.” Van Niekerk sees at as very important to maintain that the perfect

salvation of the world is still to come. If not, faith becomes “the one proleptic

cipher of salvation.” and “a ghetto in human life with minimal socio-political

relevance”.(115). I would suggest, against this view, that faith has both an

“already” and a “not yet” character. If only the “not yet” is stressed as Van Niekerk

(and Pannenberg) are doing, the unique salvific work of Christ on the cross and

with the Resurrection is downplayed. If only the “already”is stressed there is a

risk of a Christian faith that no longer is salt and a lamp in the world. This basic

duality in our human existence can not be ignored. There is a duality of life and

death (though we have, in faith, already eternal life), light and darkness (though

we have moved out of spiritual darkness into the light), the spirit (that is willing)

and the body (that is weak), sin and salvation.. Another criticism of Van Niekerk

against Barth is that if God is the object of theology it implies that God can not be

the object of other sciences, because the vertical subject-object relationship is

structured like other (horizontal) subject-object relationships. If God who is above

and in everything is defined in terms of a structure normally applied to the

everything, it means that God has to be removed from that everything. In my

opinion this is not necessarily so. The statement that God is above and in

everything is a statement of faith. This statement would not withhold any scientist

to study God, though on his/her own conditions, as a scientist of religion, a

psychologist, or a philosopher. What all scientific disciplines have in common is

some basic agreement about the discourse, about scientific communication and

the scientific method.. Methods of astronomy and philosophy or psychology differ

14


widely, so theology could have its own methods. Theology, however, can not

claim a position of supremacy because its object is so all-encompassing.

(b) Liberal theology

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) tried to bring theology “down to earth” and

relevant for the atheistic or agnostic intellectual of the 19th century, who began

adhering to a scientific view of life. Schleiermacher maintains that one can only

speak about God in human terms (116). Theology must get together with other

sciences and find some mutually accepted concept of science. All the

propositions of Christian dogmatics must be interpreted either as descriptions of

the conditions of human life or as conceptions of divine attributes or as

statements on the nature of the world. Schleiermacher’s central concept is “piety”,

an empirical fact, which is determined by “a feeling of immediate self-

consciousness.” (117) Our relationship to God is a sense of unconditional

dependence (schlechtsinnige Abhängigkeitsgefühl). But God can not be identified

with this feeling (118) as God can not be made into an object. One discovers

within oneself the all-embracing Whole that supports the objective world; God is

the source of the human sense of dependence (119). Piety, linked to the sensory

self-consciousness, effects the encounter between self and the world, and the all-

embracing, all-supporting ground of existence, is discovered. Humanity is the

“object” of theology because all statements about God and the world are

developed as a translation or modification of pronouncements about the self

(120). Van Niekerk (122-3) is of the opinion that “stealthily” the secularization

hypothesis re-emerges, because “piety” in the thinking of Schleiermacher is a

religious province in human consciousness, which is a substantialism in respect

of the human being. .

(c) “Scientistic” theology

The third method takes the world or history as the mediating function between

God or divine reality and human awareness (124). How can the totality of finite

reality inherent in the concept of God provide a feasible criterion for the

verification of statements about God? According to Pannenberg the total reality

has a “not yet” character as it has not yet been consummated to its proper totality

(125). This totality can only be experienced in the form of anticipations, which is

15


the theme of religion. Therefore religion is the immediate object of theology.

“Theology deals in hypotheses to measure to what extent that which features as

implicitly proleptic meaning in other experience is formulated explicitly in the

propositions of religious tradition” (126).Here s, according to Van Niekerk, there is

a risk that Pannenberg is seeking the substance or essence of things, the old

problem of classical metaphysics, taking the totality of reality as the primary field

of his theology. Theology then becomes a philosophy that sees the totality of

reality in respectu Dei.(126).

7. Theology as a theory of faith

To overcome the limitations in the three previous methods Van Niekerk suggest

to take faith as the “object” of theology. This is in line with how theology, generally

speaking, is defined. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines theology as “a

rational analysis of a religious faith.” William Madges also defines theology as

“the process of reflecting critically upon the way people ... should live out their

faith.” (Hill, 1997: 286) or as “the rational reflection upon and the systematic

expression of the meaning and significance of any religious faith.” (Hill, 1997:

289) or even more detailed as “the process and product of conversation between

the Christian tradition and our contemporary situation, aiming at the deepening of

our understanding of Christian faith and our commitment to transform the world.”

(Madges in Hil, 1997: 4)..

Faith is something essentially human, a basic function of human nature. Faith is

intrinsically human. Unlike faith, grace is a divine affair, to be used by theologians

- and all other people - for actual salvation and reconciliation. Theology is the

perspective of faith, but the theoretical perspective of faith. There is the everyday

experience of faith (the praxis) and the theoretical reflection on faith (theory)

(128). Hill defines faith as “a human response to the experience of Transcendent

Mystery (Hill, 1997: 1).Here it remains open what this “Transcendent Mystery” is.

It seems similar with the “numenous” of Otto. Is it any transcendental mystery? Is

this purposeful? Is it benevolent? Does it have a focus, a use? How is experience

the mediating factor? One should, in my opinion, add “a positive human

response” to the mystery. How does this relate to the Calvinist view of revelation

in the Word of God as found in the Bible? How does the concept of salvation

16


come in? If theology is then defined as “the critical reflection upon the response of

faith and the expression of religion ” there are new problems. Faith is itself

defined as “a response”, while religion is the context of the response.

Van Niekerk defines theology as the theory of faith with reference to the uniting

concepts of God, humanity and the world, or those of origin, totality and the

coherence of meaning in relation to faith. Theology deals with the church as the

communion of the faithful. However, theology is a free discipline in the context of

a university with other disciplines, with mutual cross-fertilization; theology is not

an ecclesiastic science. (129). This view overcomes the limitations of the

traditional methods of theology, evaluated above. It also allows for a monist view

of reality, overcoming the secularization hypothesis. The view has similarities with

the liberal approach of Schleiermacher and Otto, in that the focus is on where

revelation has its impact, in the human person, who has faith. In his monism, Van

Niekerk, shows similarities with the process theologians, where also the unity of

God and the world is stressed. In process theology God is involved with nature

and with the world. By (over)stressing the need for a monism, and the rejection of

secularisation, there is a risk that some of the paradoxical or even contradictory

character of the human condition and of reality, as we experience it, is ignored.

8. Papua theology

As a case study of this “theology from below” I will analyze Papua theology. The

Papuans of West Papua belong culturally and ethnically to Melanesia. In 1962 the

Dutch handed West Papua over to Indonesia, which is part of an Austronesian

culture. Since that time Papuans feel that they are treated as second rank citizens

in their own country. Any protest is violently repressed. For most of the period the

territory was under military emergency rule (“Area of Military Operation”). Most of

the Papuans are Protestant Christians. The churches are nominally following the

Calvinist theology. This is also taught at the theological college. There is not yet a

Papua theology established like Black theology or African theology in Africa and

America, because of the relative backwardness of the educational system and the

open discouragement of anything which gives support to a Papuan identity,

separate form, the Indonesian identity in the unitary state. At the congregational

level the situation is quite different. People at the grass roots used the Gospel to

17


express a liberation theology. Jesus was the Liberator, the one who would

remove injustice and oppression. People were speaking about the period of

Indonesian rule as a period of the Babylonian captivity. Or they saw the period

after 1963 as a period of living like the people of Israel in the desert. Forty years

after the departure into the desert they would arrive in the promised land, that is

get back their own country.

Jesus is called “The King of Papua” (Raja Papua). The Papuans have a special

role in the God’s salvation plan for the world. The Papuans are faced with a

majority of non-Christians. Nevertheless they remain faithful to Jesus. Maybe

soon, maybe next month already, as a result of prayer, all the Muslims will leave

the country and they will leave behind their cars, their houses and their other

belongings. Jesus will not forget his people, his Papuans. The Morningstar flag,

(Sang Bintang Kejora) often raised at great personal risk in 1999 and 2000 is

itself a strong messianic and eschatological symbol. It is symbol of Manseren

Mangumbi, while in the book of Revelations Jesus is called the Bright and

Morningstar Rev.. 22, 16b). It is now still dark, but the day and light will surely

come, as certain as we can see the Morningstar. Praying and the singing of

hymns is a major method of political action. “Onwards Christian Soldiers” is

popular in this context.. In December 1998 the Papua traditional leader Theys

Eluay in Sentani called upon his followers to pray without stopping till the

Papuans would heave realized their freedom. People were again asked to pray

and to fast for three days on 3, 4 en 5 September and to decorate the house with

a cross. One should pray that “the mighty hand of the Lord would accomplish the

complete work of the demand of the struggling people of Papuans to achieve the

recognition of the right to sovereignty in elation to Independence.” (Open Letter,

dated. 28-8-1999) The letter ends with an identification of the suffering of the

Papua people with the suffering an death of Christ on the cross. The final call was

one for forgiveness as they “have no knowledge of what they are doing” (Luc. 23,

34).

Is this people’s theology legitimate? I would argue that it is. The basis of the

Christian faith as expressed for instance in the Apostolic Confession of faith is

that Jesus Christ was a historic person. He came in the flesh. He really lived and

18


suffered and was crucified in Jerusalem under the Roman consul Pontius Pilates.

God has a plan with individual persons who may be called like Noah, Abraham,

Moses, David, but also with whole peoples. God made the people of Israel, some

bands (or tribes) of nomadic pastoralists his chosen people, promising them a

land of their own, the Promised Land. This promise still stands. It is a miracle that

Israel managed to get the country after being away from it for almost nineteen

centuries.

9. Conclusion

In this world of globalisation where through exponential development of the

transport facilities and the means of communication (television, hand phones,

internet with chat forum and mailing list facilities) there is an unprecedented

increase in the exchange of ideas and people. This demands a Copernican

revolution of theology. It has to leave its Western bias. Theology has to take as its

base the location where divine revelation meets the human heart that is faith.

Theology is to be defined as a theory of faith. The sources for this theology are

the hymns, prayers, and statements of the common believer validated by that

what can be seen as the essence of the Gospel: love hope, life, reconciliation,

peace, and forgiveness.

There is need for a new paradigm in theology. It is important that theology claims

its right as an academic discipline among other disciplines. It is also important

that theology is freed from control of the church. With faith as the “object” of

theology, Christian theology opens itself for dialogue with other religions and

other theologies. As a concrete example of a theology on the basis of the

assumptions implicit in this approach is a study as done by Karen Armstrong, A

History of God. From Abraham to the Present. 4,000 Year Quest for God, which

is a huge best seller, reaching a public which normally is not open for theological

reflection. A topic for research, emerging from this approach, could be a study of

the relationship between praxis and theory, i. e. between the praxis of theologians

and their theologies. How can the theory of faith make faith relevant for the

problems this world at this age faces?

I do not agree with Van Niekerk where he rejects the secularisation hypothesis.

There is no harm in accepting a moderate dualism, which is implied in the

19


concept of secularism. The secular attitude has brought benefits which are

consonant with the Gospel message, like emancipation in science and society,

civil liberties, including human rights, women emancipation, emancipation of the

Black people, democracy, in short he modern world as we know it. Faith is to be

salt and a lamp in the world. Faith is the contents and the church is the

wrappings. To become effective the faith in the Gospel has to be relieved of the

institutional form. This is valid as much for the institutionalized church as for the

theology that is imprisoned by the institutionalized church. Academci theologians

have to unlearn their theoretical assumptions and to search for people’s

theologies, the true place where faith is seen in action, where divine revelation

meets the human heart and the people’s heart.

Bibliography

Hick, John 2001. Dialogues in the Philosophy of Religion, Houndmills: Palgrave

Hill, Brennan R., Paul Knitter and William Madges, 1990. Faith, Religion and

Theology. A Contemporary Introduction, Mystic (Conn.): Twenty-Third

Publications

Van Niekerk, E., 1988 (2nd ed.). Systematic Theology (Honours BTh). Only Study

Guide for STH411-T (Theological Methodology), Pretoria: Unisa

Verklaring over de Houding van de Kerk ten Opzichte van de Niet-Christelijke

Godsdiensten. Consitituties en Decreten van het Tweede Vaticaans

Oecumenisch Concilie (VI), Amersfoort: De Horstink (Katholiek Archief)

(Declaration Nostra Aetate)

20

Papua theology a new paradigm in theology

Spiritual

Transcript of Papua theology a new paradigm in theology