Theology of Dialogue: Vision of the Catholic Church in Asia
Edmund Chia [1]

Introduction

Interreligious dialogue has taken on increasing prominence in recent decades in part because of the process of globalization. As the world "becomes smaller" religions have no choice but to interact and be in contact with one another. These contacts could be either productive or destructive. Enough has been said about the latter, which manifests itself in the many tensions, conflicts, and wars committed between religions and in the name of God. The productive interactions, though less frequently reported, have also been significant in shaping the socio-political cultures of various parts of the world.

While it is mainly individual scholars and thinkers who are at the forefront of advancing constructive interreligious dialogues, religious institutions and communities have also played no less significant roles. For instance, the Roman Catholic Church's adoption of more positive doctrinal positions towards other religions during the Second Vatican Council is a significant landmark for ushering Catholics into the activity of interreligious dialogue. If we consider that this was not the case for the most part of its 2000 year history and even as recent as fifty years ago, one can better appreciate whatever efforts the Church as an institution has made. In this regard the efforts of the Asian Church's pastoral magisterium is even more significant and therefore worth exploring. Not only has it been urging Christians to develop more positive attitudes towards peoples of other religions, it has also been proclaiming that unless one engages in interreligious dialogue one cannot be regarded as a true Christian.

This paper explores this very radical proclamation on the part of the Catholic Church in Asia in view of proposing that the Asian Church could provide useful directions for the universal Church to follow. This is done by looking at the vision and directives advanced by the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC) which can rightly claim to be the only organization which represents the Catholic Church in Asia. A federation of all Catholic episcopal conferences in Asia, FABC has, in the past thirty years of existence, been proposing new concepts of being Church and being Christian in Asia, and that the Church has to embrace dialogue as the mode of evangelization in Asia. By this Asian bishops suggest that interreligious dialogue has to be an essential component of how Asian Christians live their faith amidst their neighbors of other religions.

The Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences

Conceived in 1970 as a response to the Second Vatican Council's call for the development of local Churches, FABC is a voluntary association of episcopal conferences in South, Southeast, East and Central Asia. At present its membership includes episcopal conferences from more than twenty countries across Asia. Since the episcopal conferences speak on behalf of local Churches which they represent, FABC can rightly claim to be an institution which represents the more than 100 million Catholics from all across Asia. The principal agencies through which FABC functions are the many assemblies and seminars organized for bishops and other church leaders of Asia. These usually culminate in some sort of statement which offers new visions and directions for the Church in Asia. These statements are usually guided by the basic theological orientations which undergird the whole of FABC. An examination of the many FABC documents reveals that the concept of dialogue features prominently in the Asian Church's theology. For instance, at its very first meeting in 1970, the Asian bishops had already pledged themselves "to an open, sincere, and continuing dialogue with our brothers of other great religions of Asia, that we may learn from one another how to enrich ourselves spiritually and how to work more effectively together on our common task of total human development" (ABM, Resolutions: art. 12). [2]

Throughout the more than thirty years of FABC existence this theme of dialogue kept emerging at practically every assembly and seminar, prompting Indian theologian Felix Wilfred to assert that the word 'dialogue' can more or less summarize the entire orientation of FABC. [3] Dialogue is the way of being Church in Asia. Dialogue is also the method for doing theology in Asia. In short, dialogue is the life and mode of the Asian Church. It is in this context that the present paper regards the theology of FABC as a "Theology of Dialogue."

Colonial Roots of the Church in Asia

FABC's theology of dialogue did not appear from the heavens, as it were, but from the concrete experience of the local Churches in Asia, shaped to a great extent by its contextual realities. For example, the notion of "foreignness" is one of the most conspicuous characteristics of the Asian Church and so features in its theology. That is why the question of identity is an issue the FABC continually needs to deal with, even until today. The Seventh Plenary Assembly of FABC in 2000 emphasized the need for the "Asianness" of the Church to emerge. [4] An earlier FABC theological consultation on evangelization in Asia outlined the issues pointedly:

As a social institution the Church is perceived as a foreign body in its colonial origins while other world religions are not. The lingering image survives in its traditional ecclesiastical structures and economic dependence on the West. This gives ground for suspicion. The Church is even sometimes seen as an obstacle or threat to national integration and to religious and cultural identity. Alignments between the Church and socio-political elites often legitimize and preserve the socio-political status quo and do not succeed in obviating this image. The Church remains foreign in its lifestyle, in its institutional structure, in its worship, and in its western-trained leadership and in its theology (art. 13). [5]

In such a context it makes sense that the priority for the Church in Asia is to develop an appropriate local Church with a truly Asian identity. The first step to take leads one to look at what has been, in view of developing what should be. An ideological critique of the past old model of being Church in Asia is necessary in order to discern why there exists the enmity and hostility towards the Church. The most relevant datum on this is that the Church of Christ came to Asia along with European colonial expansion. It is therefore inevitable that the Church is associated with imperial powers, whose primary aim was the conquest of the lands of Asia. It is thus a fact of history that the Cross of Christ came together with the swords and guns as well as the looting barrels in what Sri Lankan theologian Aloysius Pieris calls the "unholy alliance of the missionary, the military and the merchant." [6] Just as the imperialists' aim was the plunder of the resources of Asia, the Church was also viewed as coming to plunder the souls of the people of Asia.

It is not surprising then that the early missionaries had little respect for the people of Asia, much less their cultures and religions. The late Indian theologian Stanley Samartha illustrates this situation appropriately by drawing an analogy with the arrival of a helicopter in Asia. [7] When descending upon Asia -- from above, of course -- the helicopter blew away all that was on the ground to pave the way for the European Church to land. It also made so much missiological noise that the people of Asia were so annoyed that they not only rejected its message but regarded whatever the Church had to offer with hostility and suspicion. The Church, on its part, made little effort at adapting its message to the culture of the people; instead, it practically transplanted the norms and patterns of the Church in Europe to the lands of Asia. Such a transplanted Church never took root in Asian soil and so remained largely a European Church, even after having been in Asia for several centuries.

Contextualizing the Church in Asia

In view of such alienation, later missionaries have been concerned about ways to make Christianity more recognizable and, hence, acceptable to the people of Asia. Efforts at contextualization (variously called inculturation, indigenization, localization, etc.) were tried out over the years, decades and centuries. At times this meant making the Gospel more understandable by translating it to a local language or adapting it to an indigenous world-view with the concomitant local concepts, images, and culturally specific symbols. These represent the translation and adaptation models of attempts at constructing local theologies. [8] While these efforts continue through this day, with many more aspects of the faith being translated or adapted, the Church remains largely unaccepted in Asia. This is because the translation and adaptation models, while easily effected, are but short-term measures of inculturating Christianity. They do not address the critical issues of the Church's identity. At most, the external manifestations of being Church are changed or adapted, but with little or no consequence whatsoever to the deeper issues of the Church's identity. What is lacking is a thorough attempt at contextualizing the Christian faith, of "examining the cultural context in which Christianity takes root and receives expression." [9] Indian theologian Michael Amaladoss posits that inculturation entails a "transformation of the life of a community of believers from within by which the Good News becomes the principle that animates their attitudes, world-view, value system and action -- in short their whole life." "This," Amaladoss insists, "is the very process of Christian living." [10] Thus, what is needed for the Church in Asia is a thorough process of inculturating and contextualizing Christianity.

This process of contextualization must take seriously the world of Asia, in particular the plurality of its cultures, the diversity of its religions, and the distress of its poor. Using Samartha again, one can describe the nature of this authentic contextualization by depicting the Church as a bullock-cart. A vehicle indigenous to Asia, the bullock-cart portrays a Church which is at once truly native and local as well as modest and humble. Coming from below and in touch with Asian soil, the bullock-cart Church is certainly more in touch with the people, religions and cultures of Asia. It is therefore a Church which is more acceptable to the people of Asia. Just as it is necessary for the bullock-cart to be in continuous contact and friction with the ground for it to move forward, the Church too must be in continuous contact and friction with the people and religions of Asia if it wants to move forward. Contact and friction are therefore the modes by which the evangelizing mission of the bullock-cart Church is actualized.

Contextualization for the bullock-cart Church then refers to a mutually critical correlation and confrontation between Christianity and the other religions and cultures of Asia. This critical correlation and confrontation imply the process of dialogue. Dialogue is the process by which the Church makes contact with the contextual realities of Asia, especially its cultures and religions. This process is as much for the purpose of enabling the Church to become more authentically local as it is for the purpose of enabling the people of other religions to better acquaint themselves with the Church. Through this process of dialogue the Church could hopefully become more acceptable to the people of Asia and be even regarded as one of Asia's own.

What are the elements of this dialogue? Whom does the Church dialogue with and why should the Church do so? How does dialogue relate to the making of an Asian theology and what are the constituents of this theology? What are the peculiar characteristics which make for a distinctive theology in Asia and what does a theology of dialogue look like? These are questions to keep in mind as one attempts to postulate an Asian Theology of Dialogue. To begin the search, reference is made here to the wisdom of Aloysius Pieris, one of Asia's foremost contextual theologians. In his seminal article Toward an Asian Theology of Liberation, Pieris writes:

Any discussion about Asian theology has to move between two poles: the Third Worldness of our continent and its peculiarly Asian character. More realistically and precisely, the common denominator linking Asia with the rest of the Third World is its overwhelming poverty. The specific character defining Asia within the other poor countries is its multifaceted religiousness. These two inseparable realities constitute in their interpenetration what might be designated as the Asian context, the matrix of any theology truly Asian. [11]

Evangelization through Triple Dialogue

The contextual reality referred to in the preceding quote has influenced Asian bishops so much that they have come to speak of the evangelizing mission of the Church as addressing issues of poverty and attending to the religions of Asia. Such a mission is the task of the local Church. Hence, the priority is the creation of a local Church, a task which can be accomplished only through an integral process of what has come to be known in FABC documents as the "triple dialogue" (FABC VII, part I, A:8). [12] Construing this as the threefold dialogue of the Church with the cultures, the religions and the poor of Asia, the Asian bishops state categorically that this dialogue represents the primary means by which the Church evangelizes in Asia. [13] It is through the process of dialogue that the Church inculturates itself and contextualizes its mode of being and operating so as to give birth to a truly local Church in Asia.

Advocating the triple dialogue, Aloysius Pieris points out that the process of inculturation can never be effected by a mere translation or adaptation of Christian symbol systems. Inculturation, Pieris contends, "happens naturally". "It can never be induced artificially. The Christian tends to appropriate the symbols and mores of the human grouping around it only to the degree that it immerses itself in their lives and struggles. That is to say, inculturation is the by-product of an involvement with a people rather than the conscious target of a program of action." [14] In the context of Asia, inculturation is effected, first of all, through the dialogue with Asia's poor, in view of facilitating their integral liberation. Second of all, because the other religions have their own views of what liberation and salvation mean and because the majority of Asia's poor owe their allegiance to these other religions, the process of inculturation, which entails the Church's dialogue with the poor, must also include dialogue with the religions. In short, inculturation, interreligious dialogue and the process of integral liberation are mutually involving ministries, all of which are integral to the evangelizing mission of the Church in Asia. [15]

That Asia is poor is beyond dispute. The FABC has noted over and over again that Asia, with its teeming masses and underdevelopment, coupled with mismanagement and corruption as well as the ravages of conflict and war, is truly a suffering continent. It is therefore in need of liberation which Jesus Christ offers and which the Church can bring. In other words, Jesus and the Church are necessary in Asia, not so much because the majority of Asians are not Christians but because they are suffering and poor. Any Asian contextual theology, therefore, will have to take this fact of poverty, oppression and exploitation seriously. The Asian bishops consider this the principle ingredient for an authentic theology for the Church in Asia. What is essential is that the theology has a liberative thrust to it, i.e., a theology which includes the element of praxis, leading to the reality of liberation. For this purpose, an Asian perspective of interpreting the Bible is a necessary starting point.

Asian Biblical Hermeneutics

To begin this exploration into an Asian perspective of interpreting the Bible, it has to be clarified first as to who exactly is meant by the poor, since the dialogue with the poor features prominently in Asian theology. Reference is made here to the reflections of the late Indian scholar George Soares-Prabhu who is renowned for his biblical theology. After searching through the Old and the New Testaments, Soares-Prabhu came to the conclusion that the poor refers to three principal concepts: (i) The poor (anawim) in the Bible as a sociological group. They are those who are deprived of the means or dignity to lead a full human existence; the economically afflicted, the dispossessed, the marginalized, the exploited, the oppressed; (ii) The poor in the Bible as a dialectical group. They are poor because another group determined or caused them to be poor. The poor, therefore, stand in opposition to this other group. Poverty is an evil and has to be eliminated. The poor are blessed, but not poverty; and (iii) The poor in the Bible as a dynamic group. The poor are not depicted as a pitiable group which is of no historical significance. Instead, because of their poverty and victimization, they are the beneficiaries of salvation as well as the mediators of this salvation to others. [16]

The above is a description of one group of people who are poor and not to be confused with another group who are also poor, viz., those who opt to be poor. The former are poor by circumstance; their poverty is forced upon them. The latter, on the other hand, are poor by choice; they embrace poverty voluntarily. Aloysius Pieris calls those who embrace the evangelical voluntary poverty the followers of Jesus (Mk. 4:21, 28; Lk. 5:28, etc.). They are the disciples of Christ. The other group who are forced into an anti-evangelical poverty and are poor not by choice are the vicars of Christ (Mt. 25:31-46; Mk. 9:36-37; 41, etc.). They represent Christ who said "if you did this to the least of my brethren, you did it to me." The two groups are necessarily related in that as "Yahweh's proxies on earth," the forced poor, the vicars of Christ, "share Yahweh's divine prerogative of making demands" on the followers of Christ, the disciples of Jesus. The poor by circumstance need the intervention of the poor by choice. The voluntary poverty of the disciples of Jesus must be oriented towards the alleviation of the forced poverty of the vicars of Christ as "the evangelical poor receive their mission through their solidarity with the socially poor." The disciples of Jesus are the proclaimers of God's reign while the vicars its inheritors. In other words, Pieris asserts, there is "no salvation outside God's covenant with the poor." For, it is through this solidarity with the poor in discipleship praxis that the "Kingdom Community" is given birth to. [17] In the words of the Asian bishops:

Necessarily, the Kingdom of God confronts the forces of injustice, violence, and oppression. These forces combined form structures of sin, from which we need to be liberated. We uphold the preferential option for the poor, since they are victims of these structures. Hence, solidarity with the poor is a response to the Good News of God's Kingdom. Where this solidarity exists, there the power of Christ's Spirit is working. The work of the Spirit appears in the struggle for a better world in all its forms. We see people of all faiths participating in that struggle (BIRA IV/10, art. 8). [18]

This brings us to the question of how dialogue with other religions is related to dialogue with the poor. How do we integrate interreligious dialogue with the ministry on behalf of integral liberation? How do we get the people of other faiths to participate with us in the struggle against mammon? How is the Church accepted by the people of other faiths in the first place? In addressing these questions, Pieris draws our attention to the idea that Jesus' baptism under John the Baptist was Jesus' first prophetic gesture. [19] Through this prophetic act, Pieris discerns four missiological principles relevant for the Church in Asia. First, John the Baptist was from the Deuteronomic tradition of prophetic ascetism; one of liberative religiousness. Jesus opted for this brand of spirituality from among the many available during his time -- the Zealots, the Essenes, the Pharisees, etc. Second, at the Jordan, Jesus came before the Baptizer as well as those to be baptized. The latter were the anawim, the poor, the outcast, the lepers, etc. By opting to be baptized instead of to baptize, Jesus joined the ranks of the latter group, identifying himself with the poor. Third, by submitting himself to baptism, Jesus receives his missionary credentials. It was in his baptism, an event carried out in the presence of the poor, that he receives his authority: "Hear ye him." Fourth, the Jordan was a self-effacing act on Jesus' part. By submitting himself humbly to be baptized, he was losing his identity. But, it was precisely in this loss of identity that Jesus discovers his authentic selfhood: the lamb of God, God's beloved Son, the Messiah. [20]

With his identity clarified and authority bestowed, Jesus set off on his prophetic mission, a journey which saw him in defense of the poor and in confrontation with mammon. Pieris speaks of Jesus as God's defense pact with the poor and in a collision course with mammon. [21] It was this, especially his challenge of the ruling religious elites and colonial powers that led to Jesus' death. The journey which began at Jordan in humility was to end on Calvary, not only in humility but also shame; both events incidentally have been described in the New Testament by the same word, "baptism" (Mt. 3:13-15; Mk. 10:35-40; Lk. 12:50). "The baptism of the cross, therefore, is not only the price he paid for preaching the good news, but the basis of all Christian discipleship (Mk. 8:34)." [22]

From Church in Asia to Church of Asia

The foregoing reflections clearly show that the task of developing a local Church has to be through the process of dialogue, where the term "dialogue" is used loosely to refer to the interactions, relationships and involvement between one group and another. Dialogue with contextual realities of Asia, therefore, demands that the Church takes seriously the people who make up the cultures and religions of Asia. In particular, the Church, as disciples of Jesus, must also walk in the footsteps of him who humbled himself in order to serve the poor of his time. The events which took place at Jordan and Calvary are significant markers which the Church in Asia can learn from.

Significantly, it was at the river Jordan that Jesus received his first baptism. This was a baptism into the religiousness of the culture of his time. It was through this act of baptism that Jesus received the necessary credentials to exercise his prophetic mission. Following in the footsteps of Jesus, the Church in Asia has to also take this first step, which is to submit itself to a baptism by the river of Asia's religiousness. In effect, this means that the Church must be extensively immersed and involved with Asia's other religions. Essentially, this first step requires the Church to fulfill "the prophetic imperative to immerse [it]self in the baptismal waters of Asian religions" so that it becomes a local Church "'initiated' into the pre-Christian traditions under the tutelage of [Asia's] ancient gurus." Because this is something the Church has hitherto not done in many parts of Asia, it continues to lack the authority to minister to the people in Asia. In the words of Pieris, it would mean the Church "will continue to be an ecclesiastical complex full of 'power' but lacking in 'authority'." In this baptism, the Church, like her Master Jesus, will have to simply "sit at the feet of Asian gurus not as an ecclesia docens (a teaching Church) but as an ecclesia discens (a learning Church), lost among the 'religious poor' of Asia, among the anawim who go to their gurus in search of the kingdom of holiness, justice, and peace." [23]

The second baptism, the one of Calvary, which Jesus received is even more significant. In current ecclesial language, one could refer to it as the sacrament of confirmation. It was a confirmation of all of Jesus' signs, preaching, teachings and actions which began with the baptism of water at Jordan and which ended with his execution in what Pieris calls "the baptism of the cross." This was "a cross that the money-polluted religiosity of his day planted on Calvary with the aid of a colonial power (Lk. 23:1-23)." It is not without connection that prior to arriving on Calvary Jesus' journey had taken him through terrains where he had openly challenged the status quo and ruling elites. His was a "calculated strategy against mammon whom he declared to be God's rival (Mt. 6:24). The kingdom he announced was certainly not for the rich (Lk. 6:20-26). It takes a miracle for a rich person to give up wealth and enter the kingdom (Mk. 10:26-27). His curses on the 'haves' (Lk. 6:24-25) and his blessings on the 'have-nots' (Lk. 6:20-23) are sharpened by his dictum that it is in and through the poor (the hungry, the naked, etc.) that he would pass his messianic judgment on entire nations (Mt. 25:31-46)." [24] As the Asian bishops also realize, "opting to be with the poor involves risk of conflict with vested interests or 'establishments,' religious, economic, social, political. It also involves for leaders of the Church especially, loss of security, and that not only material but spiritual [as well]" (BISA I, art. 6). [25] But such is the way to Calvary and, more significantly, such is also the way by which the Church would acquire its authority. It is in the losing of its security that the Church will discover its identity, viz., that it is a "Church of the poor," the same group whom the Church's Master had identified with. This is the calling which the Asian bishops have been making ever since the 1970 Asian Bishops' Meeting, reiterated forcefully at the First FABC Plenary Assembly in 1974, and repeated ever since: The Church must become a Church of the poor, if it is to be relevant to the people of Asia.

It is therefore quite clear that the only way by which the Church in Asia can discover its identity and acquire its authority is if the Church consciously submits to the challenge of the other religions and the challenge of the poor. Unless the Asian Church is baptized in the "Jordan" of Asian religions and confirmed by the "Calvary" of Asian poverty, it will remain foreign and unacceptable by the majority of the people of Asia. Such is the process of inculturation and such is the challenge which the Church knows it has to accept if it wants to become an authentically local Church in Asia. Realizing this, the Asian bishops are of the mind that "the primary focus of our task of evangelization then, at this time in our history, is the building up of a truly local Church.... The local Church is a Church incarnate in a people, a Church indigenous and inculturated. And this means concretely a Church in continuous, humble and loving dialogue with the living traditions, the cultures, the religions" (FABC I, art. 9, 12). [26] Implicit in this inculturation process is the transformation of the Church's image and ways of functioning so as to embrace what the Asian bishops call the New Way of Being Church. This "new way" of "being" entails a relinquishing of the Church's image of power and wealth in favor of a Church which is meek and humble and involved in the lives and struggles of the people of Asia. [27] It is in the shedding of the "helicopter" image of the Church in favor of the "bullock-cart" image, where the Church is identified with the religions, the cultures and the poor of Asia. When that happens, the Church would have integrated itself into the Asian cultural fabric and be recognized and accepted as one of Asia's own. When that day comes, the Church would have moved from being merely a Church in Asia to becoming a Church of Asia. It would no longer be a European Church in Asia but truly an Asian Church serving the people of Asia.

Conclusion

As can be seen from the preceding reflections, what the Catholic Church in Asia has been proposing is by no means insignificant. It can even be regarded as radical if seen in the context of Asia where religious institutions are more prone to promote itself rather than the spirit of dialogue and collaboration. In advancing this New Way of Being Church the Asian bishops hope that Asian Catholics will shed their colonial exclusive mindset in favor of a truly Asian spirituality of inclusivity and mutuality. The next step, of course, is the actualization of this vision.

This is where the Church in Asia remains essentially lacking: while a Theology of Dialogue has been developed, the praxis of dialogue is something which is still in need of greater development. What exists is a vision and blueprint for the contextualization of the Church in Asia. The implementation of this vision, however, is another matter. It constitutes a serious problem and challenge for most of the local Churches across Asia. Many Asian Catholics have either not heard about FABC's vision of a dialogical Church or do not subscribe to it. This problem is evidence of the deeper reality that despite efforts at inculturating and contextualizing the Christian faith, believers continue to resist the demands of these efforts. This is not surprising as the demands placed upon Christians who truly desire to live an inculturated faith are tremendous. Of significance is that one has to adopt a self-effacing attitude which has no place for any triumphalistic display of Christianity. Such an attitude also embraces a kenotic spirituality, with the concomitant openness to learning from and with persons of other religions. These are great demands for the actualization of a truly local Church which embraces the challenge posed by the Theology of Dialogue. This, unfortunately, is not a reality yet in the Asian Church. The Theology of Dialogue remains essentially a theory and a vision of the FABC, and hitherto, this vision resides principally in FABC documents.

But, having the vision is itself already a significant accomplishment. Even if this vision has not been fully imbibed, its very existence is not an unimportant fact. At the very least, it can be referred to as the preferred direction for the future of the Church in Asia. The praxis which is to follow the theory may take longer than desired. Nevertheless, without the theory Asian Catholics would not even have a vision to guide them or a measure by which to evaluate the Church's development. One therefore is thankful that the FABC has a Theology of Dialogue. It points towards the future promise of hope for a truly local Church which is at once authentically Asian and authentically Christian.

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Notes:

[1] Bro. Edmund Chia <[email protected]> is the Executive Secretary for the Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences. He has a Ph.D. in Theology from the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

[2] Asian Bishops' Meeting ABM (Manila, 1970), A Message and Resolutions of the Asian Bishops' Meeting, in For All the Peoples of Asia: Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences, Documents from 1970 to 1991, vol.1, ed. Gaudencio Rosales & C. G. Arevalo (Quezon City: Claretian, 1997), 3, 9. [For All the Peoples of Asia, vol. 1].

[3] Felix Wilfred, The Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC): Orientations, Challenges and Impact, in Ibid., xxiii.

[4] Seventh Plenary Assembly of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences, FABC VII, Renewed Church in Asia: A Mission of Love and Service, in For All the Peoples of Asia: Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences, Document from 1997 to 2001, vol. 3, ed. Franz Eilers (Quezon City: Claretian, 2002), 8. [For All the Peoples of Asia, vol. 3].

[5] FABC Office of Evangelization: Conclusions of the Theological Consultation (Hua Hin, 1991), in For All the Peoples of Asia, vol. 1, 337.

[6] Aloysius Pieris, "Asia's Non-Semitic Religions and the Mission of Local Churches", in An Asian Theology of Liberation (Quezon City: Claretian, 1988), 50.

[7] Stanley Samartha, One Christ - Many Religions: Toward a Revised Christology (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991), 115.

[8] Robert Schreiter speaks of three broad types or models of constructing local theology, namely, the translation models, the adaptation models, and the contextual models. See Robert Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1985), 6-12.

[9] Ibid., 12.

[10] Michael Amaladoss, "Inculturation: Perspective and Challenges", in Making All Things New: Mission in Dialogue (Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1990), 65.

[11] Aloysius Pieris, "Toward an Asian Theology of Liberation", in An Asian Theology of Liberation, 69.

[12] FABC VII, in For All the Peoples of Asia, vol. 3, 4.

[13] See Edmund Chia, "Interreligious Dialogue: Priorities for the Church in Asia", in UCAN (12 July 1999); also in Asia Focus 15/28 (23 July 1999): 3.

[14] Aloysius Pieris, "Asia's Non-Semitic Religions and the Mission of the Local Churches", 38.

[15] See Edmund Chia, "Wanted: Interreligious Dialogue", in Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 12/1 (2002): 101-110.

[16] G. Soares-Prabhu, "Class in the Bible: The Biblical Poor as a Social Class", in Theology of Liberation: An Indian Biblical Perspective, ed. Francis D'Sa (Pune: Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth, 2001), 93-109.

[17] Aloysius Pieris, God's Reign for God's Poor: A Return to the Jesus Formula (Kelaniya: Tulana Research Centre, 1999), 42, 60-61.

[18] Tenth Bishops' Institute for InterReligious Affairs on the Theology of Dialogue, BIRA IV/10 (Sukabumi, 1988), in For All the Peoples of Asia, vol. 1, 314.

[19] See Aloysius Pieris, "Asia's Non-Semitic Religions and the Mission of Local Churches", 45.

[20] Aloysius Pieris, Ibid., 46-48.

[21] Aloysius Pieris, God's Reign for God's Poor, 57.

[22] Ibid., 49.

[23] Ibid., 47.

[24] Ibid., 47.

[25] First Bishops' Institute for Social Action, BISA I (Novaliches, 1974), in For All the Peoples of Asia, vol. 1, 200.

[26] First Plenary Assembly of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences, FABC I (Taipei, 1974), in For All the Peoples of Asia, vol. 1, 14.

[27] See Edmund Chia, "New Way of Being Church", in Focus 17/2 (1997): 91-104; also republished in SEDOS 30 (April 1998): 106-112.