CHRISTOLOGICAL REFLECTION OF KOSUKE KOYAMA, C.

SSONG, ALOYSIUS
PIERIS AND KWOK PUI-LAN

1. KOSUKE KOYAMA

Christological background reflection as par Kosuke Koyama.

Kosuke Koyama on Christ decrees the notion that “Jesus Christ frees and unites means that Jesus
Christ makes us truthful to ourselves and others and, by doing so, works healing and integration
in our broken human communities”. Making us truthful means „making us free‟ and making us
free means „making as truthful‟. The free community is a truthful community who are truthful
and free. As Jesus Christ “is the centre of this truthful relationship, he distinguishes truthful
freedom and unity from untruthful freedom and unity”.39 Koyama in his book “No Handle on
the Cross” advocated the accompaniment of self-denial in following the cross as Christ did not
carried the Cross like a business people carry a briefcase.40 Koyama made a comparison
between the cross without a handle and a lunch box with a handle where handle stands for an
efficient control over things. The crucified mind is that which could handle the weight of the
cross without and handle as against a crusading mind that employs a handle to carry resources.
The crusading mind needs to be comprehended in the light of the crucified mind to be crucified
and risen. The image of Christ under the weight of the heavy cross provides impetus for
missiological image for the native Asian people. The understanding of Christ like a business
person with a briefcase betrays the very notion of understanding of Christ for the native Asian
people. The “image of Christ without a handle is the primary image for understanding and
explication of the Christian truth urgently needed today in Asia”. There arises the need to gives
importance the theological resources that emerges from Asia and Africa along with that of the
Western understanding and articulations. All theological resources need to be crucified in order
to be risen so also with the mission vision and statements.

2. CHOAN-SEN SONG

Christological Reflection by C.S.Song

C. S. Song Choan Seng Song is a Chinese theologian, born in 1929. He received his Ph. D from
Union Theological Seminary, New York in 1965. C.S. Song Immanuel that is God is with us
talks of its relevance in Asian Continent. Song highlights the people theology or the popular
theology that have always been part and parcel of the people in the Asian continent. For instance
Gandhi weapon on ahimsa and Satyagraha against oppression declares the presence of God with
the Asian people. C.S. Song on contextualization of Christ talks of Christ as the mask of God. In
the mask dance the performer‟s plays out their struggles, sufferings and sorrows of life. In a way
it is a depiction of real life situation in a drama situation. In the same way through the mask
dance experiences the pain and suffering that Jesus underwent for the salvation of humanity.
Jesus as the mask of God is the mask of God who created the heaven and the earth and whose
will is for the redemption of the creation. Jesus as the mask of God is not only the faith and
beliefs of the early Christina faith community. Jesus as the mask of God provides the notion that
whoever have heard Christ have heard God and that whoever have seen him and touched by
Christ have experience the touch of God. As God is not hidden somewhere in a remote and
unreachable place rather God dwells and live among the people and that God is the God of the
poor, oppressed, lost and the outcaste. Jesus as the mask dance of God continues the
performances of the dance until people realizes the presence of God in their life reality. Jesus
mask dance saw its beginning in the declaration of the year of God favour in the Nazareth
manifesto. The declaration of Nazareth Manifesto is a declaration of hope and year of release for
who are in bondage and captivity. Song held the view that the cross is not a myth or a legend
rather it is a historical event that happened in the land of Jerusalem. Song was also critical of
usage of the term Christos Victor a term popularised to put forward Christian missionary
activities. Song argument was that how does one understand the term Christos victor as to a
place where there exist hardship of life due to political and social oppression.47 Song gave a new
understanding of the cross apart from that of the dominant western theological articulation and
interpretation. For Song the cross is the suffering of Jesus of Nazareth and the suffering of the
humanity. The cross portrays the violence nature of the human being against their fellow human
beings. The “cross in reality is the height of human defiance against that Abba-God. It is a
violence committed not by that Abba God but by self-serving humanity. It discloses the dept of
God sin”.

3. Aloysius Pieris
Context for the emerging of Pieris Christology

Pieris is not fully satisfied with the title of the Christ but Pieris is interested in the Jesus of
Nazareth. The Title does not give any meaning but his work particularly the ministry of Jesus in
the Earth, in Pieris word “Jesus work between his two Prophetic gestures i.e. appearing in Jordan
and secondly in the Cross”. Pieris understands the religiousness that Jesus adopted at the Jordan
to be informed by prophetic asceticism, as opposed to what he terms “the Zealots' narrow
ideology, the Essenes' sectarian puritanism, the Pharisees' spirituality of self-righteousness, and
the Sadducees' leisure-class spirituality”. Jesus did not follow any of these groups but follow the
prophetic asceticism and this prophetic asceticism is essentially a liberative religiousness. He
revealed his salvific mission by entering into the soteriological nucleus of his culture.

Jesus' immersion into the religiousness of the poor was followed and completed by his baptism
of the cross of poverty on Calvary. To understand the nature of this poverty, Pieris reminds us
that in the Bible as well as in the Asian context, the opposite of poverty is not wealth but
acquisitiveness and greed (which the Buddha identifies as the cause of all sufferings in his
second "Noble Truth": tanha, upadana, lobha). In Pieris's view, Jesus' poverty did not consist
merely in being materially poor; more important than that was his struggle against Mammon, the
god opposed to his Abba. It is Jesus' struggle against mammon that led to his being crucified on
Calvary. He believes that religiousness and Poverty together can be salvific that has been enacted
in a unique way in Jesus of Nazareth. These two elements are not different but the two side of the
same coin. he criticizes the two models of Christology which have existed in Asia and which he
terms "Christ against religions" and "Christ of religions."
 The "Christ against religions" model where the Christians shows other religion as heathen and
consider themselves as superior and never sees any good thing in other religion, even did not see
any liberative aspects. Christ of religions that is developed by the Asian theologians in the recent
past i.e. Gnostic Christ who is presented in every religion and provides the redemption to all, but
fails to accept the fact that religion also relieve the material poverty. Secondly the Ashramic
Christ who is seen to be a monk who functions against the forced poverty but failed to address
the issue of religion and structural poverty and thirdly the Universal Christ where the theologian
tries to appropriate the language and symbol of the other religion but fails to link the religion and
liberation. The result of this Christology was irrelevant to Asia. The reality or the context of the
Asian people is untouched.

Jesus as the Poor Monk It is in this context of amalgamated Asian religious poverty and poor
religiousness that Pieris sketches his liberationist Christology of Jesus as the poor monk. The
monk personifies in himself both religiousness and poverty. He is characteristically one who has
renounced mammon for religious reasons (struggle to be poor through voluntary poverty) so that
he may help the poor socioeconomically (struggle for the poor by radically transforming
oppressive social structures operated by mammon). With the former the monk achieves interior
liberation from covetousness, with the latter he brings about social emancipation from structured
poverty imposed upon the masses. Buddhist monks, of course, do not live alone but in
community (sangha), one of three jewels in which Buddhists take refuges (the tri-ratana). The
sangha is a visible community of religious poverty and poor religiousness, of a few who assume
voluntary poverty to remove the forced poverty of the many. Such a community is therefore not
purely spiritual but political as well. Indeed, by practicing what Pieris calls "religious socialism,"
Buddhist monastic communities, especially those in rural areas, have preserved the seeds of
liberation that religion and poverty have combined to produce? Furthermore, by adopting a
republican form of government these communities are presented as the ideal society in which
there is no room for caste differentiation and in which the ruler is obedient to the will of the
people The Christology of the poor monk combines of two basic goals of all religions: wisdom
and love. As poverty and religiousness constitute the two fundamental poles of Pieris's Asian
liberation Christology, so wisdom and love are the two cornerstones of his liberation theology of
interreligious dialogue, which he calls “gnosis and agape” respectively. Although the former is
conventionally associated with Asian religions, especially Buddhism, and the latter with Western
religions, especially Christianity, gnosis (salvific knowledge) and agape (redemptive love) are
two poles of a tension present in all religions, irrespective of geography. Each by itself is
incomplete, and therefore they complement and correct one another. An Asian Christology of
Jesus as the poor monk must employ both the "agapeic gnosis" of Christians and the "gnostic
agape" of Buddhists

4. Kwok Pui- Lan Kwok Pui-

Jesus as Fully Liberated Human Being

Philippine island and nation have been under the colonial domination of Spain for three hundred
years and America for fifty years. During the time of colonial regime Filipino Feminist
theologian decreed Jesus Christ as the “liberator, or Christ as fully liberated human”. The
Filipino women tried to draw strength in their struggle against suffering through internalising the
suffering of Christ on the cross. The Filipino feminist understanding of Christ as fully liberated
human being is based on the notion that the importance is on the life and ministry of Christ rather
than the death and the passion. And that the promise of peace and justice in the reign of God is
for all men and women.

Jesus as a Priest of Han

The word Han in the Korean dialect declares the express of hopelessness due to the bitter
experience of suffering and injustice. Han depicts the expression of the injustice against
unjustifiable suffering. For the Korean women their experience of Han is derived from the
oppression under the male dominated society. The Korean women seeks the help of the Shaman
a Han priest and a woman to restore their health and peace in the family in times of trouble.
Therefore for the Korean women Jesus as a priest of Han who restore their health and led them
wholeness of life.

An Organic Model for Christology

The Chinese world view postulates the need to view Jesus with metaphors of women and men
with various objects and concepts. The plurality of the image of Christ provides perspectives in
reconstructing Christology using various organic models. “An organic model of Christology
explores the implication of organic and natural metaphors for Christ, rediscovers the potential of
wisdom Christology and proposes to see Jesus as one epiphany of God”.

Christ as the Embodiment of Feminine Principle

Indian feminist struggle includes the fight against caste system, violence against women,
illiteracy and caste system. The social evil and challenges that Indian women faced were the
evils of sati, dowry and the practice of untouchables. The Indian women were denied of all
religious sanctions and functions. Indian feminist attempts to affirm Christology through using
culture of the past. As such attempts have been undertaken to describe Christology based on
Shakti a feminine principle the source of life and energy on the universe.