Building Communities: Asians in Search of New Pedagogies of Encounter
Wong Wai Ching Angela^[1]

As I prepared this keynote address, I could not help looking back at the journey we have traveled from the first Congress of Asian Theologians in 1997 to this fourth one. Envisioned as an independent and yet joint cooperative effort to bring together young and veteran Asian theologians, CATS has already cleared a path for the future of Christianity in Asia. What the first CATS called for in its theme, "Doing Theology in a Changing Asia: Asian Theological Agenda Towards the 21^st Century," has taken effect in subsequent gatherings: in "Celebrating Life Together" in Bangalore, India (1999) and "Visioning New Life Together Among Asian Religions" in Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2001). This year, "Building Communities: Asians in Search of New Pedagogies of Encounter" is only a natural step following what had preceded it.

As the CATS III Continuation Committee met in December 2001, the tragedies of September 11 and subsequent war in Afghanistan occupied our hearts and minds. Despite years of efforts in building peace and reconciliation, rival communities are confronted again with destruction and hatred mounting in an unprecedented scale between "us" and "them." Feelings of devastation and helplessness have been overwhelming. With the world's strongest military power determined to eradicate whatever is against it, how can the world ever be one piece or at peace again? With this precedence of wars declared unilaterally by basically one country, how can we build communities that are supposed to bring people of different origins and creed together? How can we build communities in the midst of deeply entrenched feelings of fear, threat, betrayal, hatred, and revenge? With the fragility of trust between communities of conflict, how can we continue to believe that peace processes are worthwhile? The scale of violence on September 11 is extensive but what really aggravates our calamities is the sweeping resolve to use violence for violence from all sides in the subsequent days. The situation calls for more fervent determination to re-build communities across divisions and boundaries. For that we need not only a theoretical acknowledgement of pluralism but also pedagogies of encounter: the various ways of people living together despite the tragedies that divide them into strangers and enemies. This is the task requested of this Congress. Towards this I offer my thoughts on theological paradigms of encounter.

Religions and Cultures in a Global Age

In his description of religions around the world, Mark Juergensmeyer uses an interesting image of a map, where a map of world religions is colored according to various religions by regions, countries and areas. His point is that religious identity has never been territorial bound. Take a look at the world of religions around us:

Hindu India was a quarter Muslim before Pakistan was created, even today 15 percent of the Indian population reveres Islam. Indonesia � the largest Muslim country on the planet � is the home of a rich Hindu culture in Bali and contains at Borabadur one of the world's most important ancient Buddhist sites. China has such diverse religious strata... that most scholars prefer to speak of a multicultural "Chinese religion"... Much the same can be said about the religions of Korea and Japan. In the Western Hemisphere, Haitians are said to be 90 percent Roman Catholic and 90 percent followers of Vodou; needless to say, it is the same 90 percent. Jews, of course, are everywhere, and have been since biblical times.[2]

This is the world we know. Scarcely any region is composed solely of members of a single strand of traditional religion. A more accurate coloration of the religious world would show dense areas of colors here and there, with enormous mixes and shadings of hues everywhere else. This reminds us not only of how the modern mind compartmentalizes human ways of belief and living but also that religion has always been part of a fluid process of cultural interaction, expansion, synthesis, borrowing, and change. In the same sense, religion has always been global and boundaries between religious communities and traditions always permeable. While most religious traditions claim some ultimate anchors of truth that are "unchangeable," it is indisputable that every tradition contains within it an enormous diversity of characteristics and elements gleaned from its neighbors. Similarly, cultures have never been territorial bound. Long before the recent debate on globalization, religions have played an important role in defining our cultures across regional, national and geographical territories. The global diasporas of peoples and cultures have been spreading, sustaining and transforming customs and ways of life around the world. In the course of hostile interaction between new and earlier settlers, new forms of religions and cultures emerged: some re-found their fundamentals, some adapted or mixed values and norms, and others gave birth to new religions and practices.

Perhaps the religions and cultural traditions with universal pretensions and global ambitions such as Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism are more problematic. Many of the followers of these religions believe that their faiths are universally true and applicable and their ideas and ways of life intellectually superior to others so much so that they have asserted models of faith seeking to live above or conquer (other) cultures. Seldom mentioned among fervent followers of these "universal" religions is that they too have evolved and continuously evolve with the changes of the world. Today Islamic groups are just as diverse and varied, and their origins as eclectic as Christian and Buddhist groups. Even within these three major "universal" religions are schools insisting on the role of religion as soul purifying, bringing harmony and spiritual union alone, while others believe that fighting for their country is divinely sanctioned.

Despite internal and global diversities, religious traditions are categorized monolithically and placed in boxes of "us" versus "them". European imperialistic conquest of land and goods in the last three centuries has defined religions and cultures of the West against those of the East: "West" being the rational, scientific, and civilized one; "East" as the exotic, mystifying, and backward one. The politics between East and West since the Second World War has aggravated the division and hostility among the universalistic religions and turned neighbors of the same areas into enemies. The growing politicization of religious conservatism can be seen as a result of the provocation of a clash of civilizations as pointed out by Samuel Huntington. At present, conflicts and violence resulting from communalism and state-engineered religions dominate regional and national scenes. Thus, the role of religion as a useful resource in an emerging global civil society is being seriously doubted.

Confronting the Empire of Our Times: Need for a Global Community

Despite doubts over a universal role of religions, we cannot envision a global community without religions. It was M. M. Thomas who appealed for the establishment of a "secular fellowship" � by which he meant that all who are interested in the humanization of life, whether Hindus, Muslims, Christians or Marxists, belong to a 'fellowship' or a community of struggle. [3]

On 22 July 2003, the South China Morning Post, a local English paper in Hong Kong, listed three article titles: "Taking World Trade to the Next Level," "Why US Sanctions Won't Stop China's Missile Exports," and "The Rise of a New, Pro-American Triple Alliance." The three titles succinctly stated the very dilemma we face in a global world today: the sweeping tides of the First World-led free market economy; the revival of military contests among major political powers; and the emergence of new alliances for as much as against the dominance of the United States. The 'old' vision of living in one peaceful and harmonious world is full of challenges.

In 2000, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, known as two neo-Marxists of the Internet age, co-authored a book titled Empire. It has aroused a heated debate on whether the two have successfully contributed to a new understanding of 'Empire'. Written before 11 September 2001, the book was particularly telling in its prophecy of a unilateral declaration of wars on terrorism by the United States. Most amazingly, they foresaw the wars to be declared "just wars" fought in the name of justice and peace for the world. They distinguished the new "Empire" from the old, contending that it is no longer built on coercion and force but "sacrality" of right and peace. The emergence of this new Empire marks the birth of a new global notion of right, a single logic of rule, and a new authority to produce its ethical truth.

The ethical composition of this new Empire is compelling. Moral persuasion becomes an important part of its operation. Its labor force is not so much classified by its manual tasks and obvious exploitative relationship between management and workers. Rather, labor of our present liberal, technological economy is less differentiated and by nature more communicative, cooperative and affective. Our rules of governance are no more confined to the political and economical sphere; it penetrates the society "regulating social life from its interior," a so-called bio-political production. Replacing the sovereignty of nation-states, Empire comprises a series of national and supranational organisms and emerges as a new form of sovereignty. Rather than the old model of imperialism of territorial conquest, Empire needs no territorial center and can exercise its power from almost anywhere. It consists of progressively expanding frontiers, incorporation of hybrid identities, flexible hierarchies, and plural exchanges through modulating networks. As complex as globalization, it differentiates as much as homogenizes, de-territorilizes as much as re-territorializes. [4]

I find this analysis of Empire helpful in three ways. First, it distinguishes the nature of contemporary emergence of Empire from Europe-led imperialism of the last three centuries that it is not only about coercion and military conquest but moral persuasion. Second, it underlines once again the interconnectedness of our world, not only politically and economically but also socially and culturally; that the life of one is almost organically produced by what is happening in the world. Third and most important, it highlights the complexity of the many processes of globalization: that it is not a unitary one-way process happening only on a socio-economic plane. Interactive processes internal to Empire including the action and reaction of NGOs underline the active agency of the peoples of the two-thirds of the world, making possible the development of a counter-Empire within Empire. Seeing it as simply the latest extension of the Western world in the exploitation of resources and labor undermines the similarly emerging global resistance of the peoples of the two-thirds of the world. Fast communication through technological advancement such as internet and alternative media has made possible the organization of world scale protests in Melbourne, Seattle, and the recent anti-American/war movement around the globe. These creative forces of people are capable of autonomously constructing an alternative political organization of global flows and exchanges. What Empire places before us is the need to deal with our world "globally," that it is both transnational and no longer territorial bound, and that our identity � whether religious or cultural - must be sought in dialogue with a global vision articulated for the building of a global civil society.

Is it still feasible or worthwhile to build communities with a "global" vision today? Can we not settle with the acknowledgment of plurality and conclude that one global community is no more desirable? In his study of global religious culture, Simon Coleman looks carefully at the effects of globalization and its transnational processes on the Faith Movement (Pentecostal revivalism) of the States. He finds that the Movement's original search for fixed orientation points and action frames has been triggered by their awareness of the influences from open-ended global flows. The latter allows their members to affirm old boundaries as well as to construct new ones. In their experience, allowing global flows of influences does not mean diminishing commitment to the local; rather it subjects the specific religious community to "dialectical processes of flow and closure, flux and fix," and prevents it from narrowing down to national political contexts. [5]

In order for religion to play a useful role in the global society, a balance between cultural diversity and a global vision of just and right must be sought. When shall one decide on where a particular religion or a traditional culture should defend its 'uniqueness', and how far should it open up for oppositions and changes? Debates are most acute in the cases of women and minority. Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? (1999) is a collection of essays rethinking multiculturalism from the perspective of women. [6] Too often practices concerning women are considered culture specific and not a problem of human rights. Some contend that the Western concept of 'right' should not apply to other cultures and traditions. Unfortunately, multiculturalism is sometimes used as an argument to fence off international dissent and prevents various communities from entering serious debate on controversial issues surrounding the place and role of women or the right of sexual minorities. The need for the articulation of some universal ethical norm is clear.

Despite the fragility of its realization, such a vision is said to be the original idea behind the formation of the United Nations. It was argued that only when the partial ordering of the domestic law of nation-states rejoins the universality of the international ordering would conflicts between states of unequal power be put to an end and equality established as the principle of real international community. Ecumenical councils � at world, regional and national levels � are some of the venues where such a vision is being articulated and continuously tested. It is a call to bring our diverse communities to "speak" to each other in search of a certain 'global' ethical idea by which the world as a universal community lives. Just shortly before he died, Ninian Smart presented a positive vision of religion's role in an increasingly global world. In face of globalized threat posed in the name of religion, he was optimistic about the emergence of a spiritual and ethical dimension of global civil society that would provide the cultural basis for international order and transnational regulations. He called this new form of religiosity "the coming global civilization." [7]

There is certainly a dire need for the creation of a counter-empire. It may sound too grand a dream. But what intellectual thinking can contribute is perhaps the uplifting of such a dream, for only from there can a deep critique of the situation emerge and a motif in continuous engagement in hope.

From "One Country, Two Systems" to "One World, Many Communities"

In Asia long before September 11, we experienced the pain of major ethnic rivalries among our peoples. No one can ignore the conflicts between the Sri Lankan government and the armed militants of the Tamil minority. The use of violence against the minority in this case was notorious and the retaliation was also brutal, inhuman and merciless. For over 20 years, it has been a traumatic experience to everyone in the country. Children grew up hearing only about death and destruction. Marked by a complete lack of respect for human lives, it was agreed to be one of the bloodiest conflicts the world has witnessed in decades. The people's determination to end it is strong. Holding onto the governments' late promise of cease-fire, they are seeking a different type of relationship with the State. The search for lasting peace is earnest.

In our world of pluralities, it is impossible to live by a day without running into conflicts of ideas or practices. At the same time, in such a global age, none can live without relating to another when he or she is practically 'alien' to you.

When the Beijing government asked for the return of Hong Kong to China at the height of the latter�s prosperity in the eighties, the late Chinese National Chairman Deng Xiaoping engineered the concept of "one country, two systems". This was to allow a gradual transition of Hong Kong from the freest capitalist economy to a Socialist city with Chinese characteristics. When Deng promised to grant Hong Kong "50 years unchanged," he estimated that the Chinese economy would pick up and that the British legacy would be put behind before the expiry of the term. The real genius of the project of "one country, two systems," however, lies in its political ambiguities, its logical self-contradictions, and its historical "non-precedence" which is in effect open for interpretation. Until now, the incredible imagination of such a concept succeeds in holding together a wide range of political opinion and cultural differences among the people of Hong Kong.

This peculiar history and location of Hong Kong contributes to a people of "one country, multiple cultures." On the one hand, people in Hong Kong were drawn to colonial rule in many ways but have never been willing and adoring subjects of the British. On the other hand, most of Hong Kong people came from China but prolonged separation from the mainland geographically and politically since 1949 means that any Chinese identity there was had been continuously reconstructed. Paradoxically, after 99 years of separation, Hong Kong people have constructed themselves as separate from the 'other' (China):

[a]s a historical and sociological concept, Hong Kong is highly fluid in that different social classes, ethnic groups, status groups, gender groups, etc., compete for self-expression and self-definition. Like any other geographical, national or ethnic label, Hong Kong is a hotly-contested entity, and it should rightly remain so...[A] thriving, fluid Hong Kong culture after 1997 will be a very good indicator of the state's tolerance of cultural diversity. [8]

No matter what the reason was for immigration, Chinese immigrants who chose to submit themselves to British rule until 1997 have adapted to a life in the colony by drawing on the cultural resources at hand. This, coupled with the British policy of racial segregation and indirect rule, set forth a rebuilding of Chinese communities along folk, traditional lines. According to the analysis of two Hong Kong critics, Ng Chun Hung and Choi Po King, the fluid and uncertain situation of migration and rapid urbanization did not allow the successive waves of Chinese immigrants to cultivate high profile of nationalism. Rather, they submit their Chinese identity to their daily living and struggle against changes and displacements. [9]

After half a century of social changes independent of the mainland, Hong Kong has acquired a newfound local identity and culture. Among other things, the Cold War generation of Hong Kong and their own children have been free from state-orchestrated nationalism in their formative years. This, coupled with their generally cynical attitude towards the colonial government and, paradoxically with a more western education, allowed the more reflective among them some room for independent thinking. All this, however, does not count in the state rhetoric of China, which portrays Hong Kong essentially as a modern, prosperous yet soul-less city at best and a remnant of shame resulting from imperialistic ravages at worst. [10] A recent demonstration by over 500,000 people against the passing of the National Security Bill is a good example of conflict.

I have discussed the problematic of a Chinese national identity in "The Poor Woman": A Critical Analysis of Asian Theology and Contemporary Chinese Fiction by Women (2002). Recent studies in modern Chinese history find that there has never been one unified Chinese; rather there is a prevailing tension between cooperation and competition in the creation of provincial, prefectural or village identities. It is now generally accepted that Chinese, especially those of the coastal areas, have always had multiple identities. For historians of Southeast Asia such as Wang Gungwu, the situation is more or less the same in coastal cities around the area. Sited in direct confrontation between traditional heritage and modern foreign values, and in the dilemma of parochial sentiments and cosmopolitan practices, people in coastal cities always find themselves pulled at least between two worlds and never able to ground themselves fully in any of them. [11

Since the nineteenth century, questions of history have been dominated by the quest for identity, particularly the identity of a people and a nation. Throughout the period of nationalism in Europe in the early nineteenth century, people struggled to identify themselves with an ethnic, linguistic or religious tradition or within a certain geographical location. Many historians now point out that this affiliation to a certain national identity in most present-day European countries was more provisional than innate. It is provisional in the sense that one�s 'national' identity often emerges out of confrontation with a certain political, social or economic crisis. It is rarely a result of one's sense of belonging to a particular language, ethnicity or geographical location. [12] Rather, a particular identity of a people, community or nation is at best 'imagined' because of certain historical accidents encountered in the course of its past. [13]

The idea of a community being 'imagined' signifies a fluidity within a highly complex process of negotiation, and sometimes, manipulation of one's or a group's sense of identity. For within such a process, concepts such as faithfulness or loyalty constitute the dominant language. For example, China's claim of a nationalistic unified nation is a way to legitimize its ruling power over ethnic and religious minorities on its border provinces such as Tibet and Yunnan, and coastal territories such as Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. In each case, a nationalistic narrative tries to reign and rule over the dissenting sentiments or opposing views of a local people, who have enjoyed speaking a different language, developing a different culture and history over the past hundred years. Nevertheless, because of the existence of this highly political pressure from the 'center', each of these local people have to find their own way to negotiate with the dominant power and 'create' a rediscovered sense of local identity.

In Hong Kong and other Asian cities, our peoples, cultures and societies have not been defined by one single tradition or history. Except in the deep interior of China or the Indo-china subcontinent, exchanges of peoples and cultures have been constant. No identity is formed in a pure and exclusive process. In a more dramatic way of saying it, we are multiple by birth. That is to say that though we might be bonded to each other by race, ethnicity, language or color, we are born into multiple identities from the start. We may live in one world but we are many.

On the eve of Hong Kong's historical handover to China in 1997, July 1 Link, a network of local and Asia-based NGOs held a conference calling for the establishment of "a global civil society." In the preface of its subsequent publication, Rose Wu, conference coordinator, explained that July 1 Link aimed to link a specific moment in Hong Kong history with the global world, believing that local issues would only be transformed with the involvement of the international community. In the face of the overwhelming power of governments and transnational business in directing our lives, Wu emphasized that "a strong global civil society is necessary if ordinary people are to counter this force over their lives and to reclaim their seat as a major participant in the decision making process." [14] Asian communities may be many but we are also one.

Encountering the Stranger: A Theological Proposal

How to build communities between many and one is the task before us. There is no question of going back to one monolithic world with a universal religion or a higher civilization as envisaged by the American missionaries in the beginning of the twentieth century. Our world is irredeemably heterogeneous and our cultures and religions are multiple and mixed. Whether we like it or not, our sense of community cannot be built on a unitary group of people with a fixed core of beliefs and practices. Our identities have moved and are still moving along with the changes of the world. The task is to make the best of these changes to "re-organize or re-direct Empire" to build "lasting" peace for all. And to this task, all religions are obliged.

I propose here a paradigm of theology to help us move beyond fixed boundaries or areas of security and comfort to meet a destiny known to God but not necessarily known to us. I propose to think in terms of "the stranger." "Strange" in Chinese is mai, which literally means �the path�. Together with qian, it makes up qianmai which defines the fields, land and, hence, the territories of a family, village, province or kingdom. Interestingly, the word, which defines the territory of a certain lordship, is also used to characterize a stranger, mairen, meaning literally 'someone on a path'. Whenever there is the presence of a mairen � someone on a path � there is the emergence of the question of identity. How will this 'someone' relate to our already 'clearly' defined community? To whom will this person belong, 'us' or 'them'? In most literature where the word mai is used, there is always a sense of anxiety, insecurity, uneasiness, and fear of threat generating from someone 'on the path,' someone who is not-at-home or simply not one-of-us. This conception of the 'stranger' is not hard to understand given the strong emphasis of kinship in the organization of Chinese society; yet this understanding is insufficient for the context of communal conflicts and rivalries today. We definitely need to conceive relationship between 'us' and 'them' � the strangers � beyond that of families and kinship.

Not surprisingly, there is a very rich tradition of dealing with strangers in the Bible. It actually starts with the identification of oneself as stranger and then expounding on the conception of protection and hospitality to be provided to the 'strange' others. In a subtle way the category of a 'stranger' (Hebrew word: ger) pertains to our re-conception of the often-held static understanding of identity and from it an ethical imperative. In naming his son Gershom, Moses declared: "I have been a stranger in a foreign land" (Exod. 2: 22). This is how a leader, bringer of a people from captivity to liberation, understands himself in a situation which constitutes his life and mission. Similarly, what is portrayed in the introductory passage of the patriarchal and matriarchal cycle in Genesis is the very idea of a stranger in a foreign land. "Go you from your land, your clan, your fathers' house to a land which I shall show you" (Gen. 12:1) is a radical demand to leave behind ancestral, geographical, material and physical attachments, which are conventionally assumed as indispensable elements that define the identity of a community. Ironically, one is to give up one's tradition, ethnicity and family ties before being commissioned as a blessing to families of the earth. This new perception of community as strangers in Gen. 12:1-3 sets the tone for the narration of the "Torah Story" recited by the covenant community in various occasions in the life of the people (e.g. Deut. 26:5-9). According to von Rad, this concept of the people as strangers in the land forms the basic theological framework even for the final shape of the Pentateuch, which ends with the landless community in anticipation of encountering others in the land. Subsequently the imperative to live with other strangers in justice becomes the leading motif. [15]

You will not oppress the strangers; you know how a stranger feels, for you yourselves were strangers in Egypt (Exod. 23:9).

When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God (Lev. 19:33-34). [16]

The past and present experience of being stranger constitutes the moral and ethical incentive for the life and vision of the community of Israel in the biblical tradition. Such a tradition continues into the New Testament and the ultimate stranger is God appearing in the scene of judgment: "I am a stranger and you welcome me" (Matt. 25:35). It is a challenge to the Christian community to care for the stranger, the outcast, the different, the outsider and the other. [17]

Relations between oneself and the stranger have since become central to our moral understanding. A Christian ethicist, Thomas Ogletree, contends that regard for strangers in their vulnerability and delight in their novel offerings presuppose that we perceive them as equals, as persons who share our common humanity in its myriad variations. The stranger is vulnerable, in need of recognition and service; he or she is in an unfamiliar place and does not know what to expect. [18]

One of the most visible groups of "strangers" in Asian societies today is the community of migrant workers. In Hong Kong every Sunday we see migrant domestic workers gathering on the parks, singing, dancing or simply chatting at different corners of the parks. This is a scene that is strange to the eyes of Hong Kong local people who have never populated the public parks of Hong Kong so much. Why would someone choose to stay in the hot and humid outdoors instead of the cool and dry indoors of shopping malls is still a "mystery" for many Hong Kong people. Although living in the same house, most people still find their foreign domestic helpers strangers whose language, food or loves and hates remain unknown to them. How do we relate to strangers is to us not a theoretical question but a daily task with grave responsibility.

Yet besides hospitality to the stranger, the so-called stranger also serves as an indivisible other to us, for from them we learn about a world beyond our knowing. Whether we like it or not, the exchange with strangers necessarily shakes the foundation of our life if we really see them in the face. They display the hosts' finitude and relativity of their own orientation to meaning. Through sharing of potential threatening stories, the stranger does not simply challenge or subvert our assumed world of meaning; he or she may enrich, even transform, that world. [19]

I have this deeply moving experience when I visited Phnom Penh three years ago. It was my first visit to the school-turned museum. During the rule of the Khmer Rouge, the place was used as a concentration camp where political opponents were trailed and tortured. On display today are basically the different tools and rooms that were used to torture the party's captives. On the walls of one major hall of torture are posters listing rules for the guards, instructing them that all "enemies" are to be hated and beaten up, that their bodies and minds should be broken so that there will be no turning back to evil; that for the enemies no kindness is to be permitted and no cruelty will be too much. A most astonishing scene for me was the hall where photographs of all captives are displayed, each locked up in photo-frames of five by seven feet on the wall. I have never been confronted by strangers who 'looked' so closely at me. There are mothers, young children of my daughters' age, young and old men with weary, lonely eyes. Some are even calm and thoughtful. The faces are so real that they still remain with me. And since then, my feeling towards people who have died in the distance has forever changed. They may be strangers to me in name but no longer in face.

This keenness in dealing with strangers in our midst or in territories we call home is encouraging but not sufficient. This is the least we should do. The Leviticus command is to treat a stranger as a native to us, and to love them as ourselves. This is the greatest command given to us but there is still another aspect I found significant in the biblical conception of a stranger.

The original adoption of stranger for one's self-understanding by Moses, Abraham and Sarah demands something more than caring for a stranger as host. It demands a complete abandoning of one's possession and a willingness to wander into an unknown land. If we think we have a degree of security being a host and it is our generosity to go out to treat some strangers, this does not constitute the biblical meaning of the word. The Leviticus command ends with the appeal, "for you were aliens in the land of Egypt." God was challenging the Israelites' fundamental sense of identity by the reminder that they were strangers in a foreign land.

This is where I see the story of Ruth contributing to the problem of conflicts emerging between rival communities. I always regard Ruth 1:14-17 as one of the most moving passages in the Bible. It is not only in the bonding of women that most feminists have found comfort, but also the difficult political message it entails. "Do not press me to leave you and to turn back from your company, for wherever you go, I will go, wherever you live, I will live. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Wherever you die, I will die and there I will be buried." A revisit of the story of Ruth here aims to highlight her imposition on herself of the identity of a stranger.

Given the time when purity was the key concern of the Jewish people, the story of Ruth provides a completely new approach to the question of identity amidst ethnic rivalries and conflicts. Her daring to join a people who adopt a hostile tradition towards her own provides an alternative to an authoritative assertion of one's identity and history. That is, the building of one�s identity and history that does not denigrate the will and interest of a 'different' other, not to say that they are to be fought for through violent and suppressive means.

While Christians like to see Ruth as a new convert to their religion, Ruth is in fact challenging the idea of living in fixed boundaries, relating to people of one's own kindred, and praying to a God of one's own origin. This is the conflict between Jews and Moab of her time; this is the ground for manipulation by our political leaders today. It probably takes a woman or a next-door neighbor to be able to transgress boundaries of nations, ethnicity and religion, while battles for identity and names are very much a game of rulers or people in power. To see Ruth as choosing for herself a position of stranger reminds us once again how one can move from the security of home and venture into new relationship with people in a foreign land. Perhaps meeting with strangers as strangers is required of us in building communities in this vast, dynamic pluralistic world.

At another place I have used the metaphor of an exile to outline a spirituality of encountering the unfamiliar. A description of an exile fits well such an understanding of a voluntary stranger:

The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign land. The tender soul has fixed his love on one spot in the world; the strong man has extended his love to all places; the perfect man has extinguished his. [20]

I am not sure if being 'perfect man' is our goal. But what is described here is a sense of forgoing our territory, our sense of security and belonging, and preparing to meet the unknown and to love those who are most unfamiliar to us. An exile always risks, entering the territory of not belonging, living a life outside habitual order, nomadic, and de-centred; preparing to be always erupted by new unsettling force. This is the same significance as the life of a stranger. This is the weary road to Emmaus where the sojourners are tired, confused, and lost, but where the companionship of Jesus was made available throughout the journey.

There is another image of a stranger in the Bible: the strange woman in the Book of Proverbs. The strange woman is often put in contrast with the woman of wisdom and is equated with foolishness and lust. Claudia V. Camp has extended this image of the strange woman to address issues of justice for sexual minorities. While the issue of sexuality divides many of our communities, I hope that the woman of wisdom who invited all to her meal-table (Prov. 9: 1-3) could be revived to include the strange woman in their midst. In her Religious Education in Context of Plurality and Pluralism (2003), [21] Hope Antone uses the image of Asian meal-table sharing to capture a pluralist approach to building community. "In the moment of sharing, the partakers live out true communion and real companionship. Together they build community," she writes. Meal-table sharing could be an Asian way to iron out conflicts and divisions; it is an image of living together and sharing together whatever resources one has. An Asian meal-table also knows no stranger, when one sits down to eat one becomes a member of that community. It should not surprise us that Jesus very often ate with sinners and women of low social status.

The call for a "relational" understanding of the stranger in our societies is urgent. When I search again into the Chinese conception of the stranger, I begin to see the other less centrally utilized image of mai. Whereas qianmai was first drawn up as part of the imperial program to define the ruling territory and, by inference, the law and order of the early Qin in 314 BC, [22] the same term was included in the first narrative account of the Chinese utopia and remained there as a prominent element in the Chinese utopian tradition. The well-known story of the Taohuayuan (The Plum Flower Garden) has been upheld as the Garden of Eden of the Chinese literary tradition since Jin (265-420 BC). This story of Taohauyuan comes from a short narrative and poem by Tao Qian (365-427), which describes the accidental discovery by a Wuling fisherman of a community of political refugees who had been isolated from events and changes in the outside world for hundreds of years. The land hidden by a forest of plum trees is a land of supreme serenity. It is a land where people who lived there know not of dynasty changes and are unaffected by wars; they know only laughter and joy. Most interesting for us here, the description of this land of lasting peace is characterized by qianmai. The original, politically charged term for defining the imperial territory was shifted to designate instead a community who knows no imperial rules or kings. Qianmai here is used to describe the livelihood of people and in fact, the harmonious living together of people who are more than ready to receive 'strangers'. In fact, the crossings of qianmai (different pathways) in Taohuayuan are exactly where people freely mix with each other and exchange greetings and views. In the subsequent tradition of the Chinese scholar-gentries, this utopian account of a peaceful community runs through their literary and political imagination for over a thousand years and has provided us with an alternative way of understanding mairen, the stranger in our midst. Hence the meeting of 'someone on the path' may not always be threatening but rather a source of richness and enlightenment to 'us'.

What I have done so far is to review the situation we face as Asians seeking to understand the very complexity of identity and conflicts within our societies. I have attempted to reflect on the boundaries we have been setting for ourselves in terms of culture, religion and identity politics among various communities in Asia. Living as an Asian woman, educated and working mostly with a highly western academia in Hong Kong, I find that my strength is not so much from a fixed identity of a nation or even a particular culture but across the margins of more than one identity. I find great stimulation and courage from the richness between boundaries and the liberation from being tied down to one. As a modern traveler between countries and cultures, I also find that the moment one leaves a place one could never return the same. This is why I propose a rethinking of the paradigm of a stranger, not only as someone coming from outside barging into my territory; but also as part of me, always landing on some places I did not already know. The experience is both exciting and terrifying. It is exciting because it always stretches my horizon; it is terrifying when I see that this someone I do not understand and is unknown could be inside of me. Sr. Mary John Mananzan spoke of global sisterhood as an ideal to be achieved and which we will always be in the process of trying to reach to. That we could free ourselves from a fixed territory, a secure identity and familiar ideology or political stance is a step towards that ideal.

Finally, I want to take the chance to say a few words about CATS as a community. Asian theology started as a movement against Western domination over the life and thought of churches in Asia. It has then grown into more institutional forms such as the CCA, ATESEA, SATHRI, PTCA, etc. From what I understand, CATS is an attempt to move beyond institutional lines. This itself is a meaningful community in process.

Local Christian churches may act as the mustard seeds for building communities of alternative values and lifestyles; ecumenical bodies may utilize their capacity to form global networks of connection and resources. It is the task of theologians to imagine and articulate how and why these should be done. [23]

It might be time for Asian theologians to move not only away from the theological comfort of the West but also from the security of an identity box of ethnicity, nationality, or region and on to non-territorial, non-sectarian, and non-polemic ways of being Christian for the building of a global society; one that holds together many cultures and religions and a shared vision of being one community.

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Notes:

[1] Wong Wai Ching Angela <[email protected]> is associate professor at the department of modern languages and intercultural studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and was co-moderator of the Fourth Congress of Asian Theologians. 

[2] Mark Juergensmeyer, "Thinking Globally about Religion," in Global Religions: An Introduction, ed. Mark Juergensmeyer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 4.

[3] Quoted from S. Wesley Ariarajah, "Asian Christian Theological Task in the Midst of Other Religious Traditions," in Visioning New Life Together Among Asian Religions, ed. Daniel S. Thiagarajah and A. Wati Longchar (Hong Kong: Christian Conference of Asia, 2002): 24.

[4] Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000): xii-xiii.  For further explanation of biopolitical production and biopower, see Hardt and Negri, 23-24.

[5] Simon Coleman, "The Faith Movement: A Global Religious Culture?" in Culture and Religion 3.1 (2002): 5-6.

[6] Cf. Joshua Cohen, Matthew Howard, and Martha C. Nussbaum, eds., Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999).

[7] Quoted in Juergensmeyer, 13.

[8] Choi Po King and Ng Chun Hung, "Between the Dragon and the Lion: The Story of Hong Kong Culture and Identity," in 1997: Building a Global Civil Society, ed. Lida Nedilsky and Bruce van Voorhis (Hong Kong: July 1 Link, 1997), 51.

[9] Choi and Ng, 43.

[10] Choi and Ng, 49.

[11] Wai-Ching Angela Wong, "The Poor Woman": A Critical Analysis of Asian Theology and Contemporary Chinese Fiction by Women (New York: Peter Lang, 2002): 70-71.

[12] Cf. E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Rev. 1990; Cambridge: University Press, 1994).

[13] Cf. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Rev. ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

[14] Rose Wu, "Opening Address," in Choi and Ng, 2.

[15] Gerhard von Rad, The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965): 1-78.

[16] Patrick D. Miller, "Israel as Host to Strangers," in Israelite Religion and Biblical Theology Collected Essays (Sheffield Academic Press, 2000): 548-571.

[17] Francis W. Nicholas, ed., Christianity and the Stranger, Historical Essays (Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1995).

[18] Thomas W. Ogletree, Hospitality to the Stranger: Dimensions of Moral Understanding (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985): 2-3.

[19] Ogletree, 2.

[20] "The mind of winter: Reflections on a life in exile," in Harper's Magazine 269 (1984), quoted from Bill Aschcroft and Pal Ahluwalia, Edward Said: The Paradox of Identity (London: Routledge, 1999): 51.

[21] Hope S. Antone, Religious Education in Context of Plurality and Pluralism (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 2003), 104-105.

[22] The Book of Han , compiled in 83 A.D. by Bangu records that Minister Shang Yang assisted the King of Xiao to reorganize the social and economic systems of early Qin dynasty and thereby established a firm basis for the emperor's rule over other dukes in the territory.  The economic system employed was based on a re-distribution of lands by drawing up qianmai.

[23] Kwok-Keung Yeung, "Utopian Visions, Local Alternatives: Resistance to Globalization in a Developing Asia," The Journal of Theologies and Cultures in Asia 2 (2003): 91.