by Romeo L. del Rosario

“They were excited and amazed, and said: Don’t all these who are speaking come from Galilee? Then why do we hear them speaking our very own languages? Some of us are from Parthia, Media, and Elam. Others are from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, parts of Libya near Cyrene, Rome, Crete, and Arabia. Some of us were born Jews, and others of us have chosen to be Jews. Yet we all hear them using our own language to tell the wonderful things God has done” (Acts 2: 7-12).

I was born in Manila and grew up in the Metropolitan Manila area, speaking Tagalog as my first language and Pampango as n(y second. I began learning English before I entered first grade in elementary school and was required to begin learning Spanish by the time I was in the fifth grade. I was raised in a family that loved to sing. We sang Tagalog and Englishsongs. We sang at home. We sang in church. We sang heartily in either language. Bu~ I discovered quite early that songs sung in Tagalog were somehow able to express sentiments, thoughts and feelings that come “from the depths” in a way that songs sung m English could not.

Years later (in the 70s and 80s), I was serving Rosewood United Methodist Church, a largely Filipino church in the Hollywood-Los Angeles area. One of the active members of that church was a retired pastor by the name of Damiano Narvaez who had served in Tagalogspeaking churches for many years in the Philippines. He was more fluent in Tagalog than most, if not all, of the Tagalog speakers that I knew, so much so that even though Rosewood was English-speaking, we encouraged this retired pastor to speak in Tagalog as often as there was opportunity. This he did in the midweek Bible study meetings and thanksgiving services in the different homes. Eventually, a vesper service in Tagalog was organized, and he became one of the regular preachers for that service. Members of the church and I loved hearing him pray and preach in Tagalog. When he did, he was able to reach us and touch us in the deepest parts of our spirits and souls.

At about the same time, many of my relatives including my aunt Nigang, the only aunt I have remaining on my mother’s side, moved to Los Angeles. My aunt spoke some Tagalog. mixing it with Pampango. Of course she could express herself better in Pampango than in Tagalog. Those of us close to her, always ask her to pray in Pampango whenever the opportunity arises. I am very sure that my aunt’s deepest thoughts, joys hopes, fears and longings are in Pampango. She is able to reach our deepest feelings in Pampango.

I served in Sierra Leone, West Africa, from 1985 to 1989 as a lecturer in the Seminary. The impact of British colonization lies heavily upon the structure and nature of life in Sierra Leone. English is the medium of instruction in schools, and many of the churches in the larger towns and cities hold services in English. These services, however, tend to be staid or sedate, quite a contrast to the worship services in the Krio-speaking or Mende or Temnespeaking churches, which are so much livelier. When people worship in their own language, they beat their drums, they stomp their feet, their bodies sway, they dance. Krio, Temne, or Mende reaches them in their depths in a way that English does not. I know from personal experience that each time I switched to Krio in class, the response of the students became more animated.

Palestinians in Israel and Palestine are impressive English speakers. In 1989-92, I served with the Middle East Council of Churches as a United Methodist liaison pastor involved in the efforts toward peace and justice based in Jerusalem. I discovered during those years what a rich language Arabic is, even though I never learned to speak it fluently. Since I assisted in both the English and the Arabic services many times, I had the opportunity to listen to the Palestinian pastor preach in both languages. Even with my limited grasp of the Arabic language, I knew without doubt that he preached more powerfully in Arabic than in English.

Purpose: To Search for a Model of Doing Theology that Incorporates

I now teach in Sabah Theological Seminary where I am also the current Dean of Studies. Bahasa Malaysia or Melayu’ is the official language of the country and the medium of instruction in public schools. Bahasa Malaysia is a second or third language for all our Bumiputra (tribal) students, and I have often wondered how much of the wealth of the theologizing process is lost simply because our students are being trained to think, feel, imagine, and theologize in a language that is not their mother tongue. Students arrive at the seminary from their kampungs (villages) and families with marks of God’s action already etched upon their lives. How could they to bring in the wealth of their experiences with God among God’s people, among their own people, to their seminary education if this had been written in their hearts and minds in their own language? Yet have to communicate it in borrowed tongue. I cringe at the thought that the more we train our students, the further they are drawn from the poetry and the arts, thought forms and patterns, the hermeneutics, the sentiments and feelings, the imaginative and visioning processes of their people. And yet the very purpose of their training is that they might go back and theologize, serve, train, educate, disciple their own people, and participate in transforming their communities.

Among the courses I teach in Sabah Theological Seminary is Asian Theology. Most of the books on Asian Theology are available only in English in our library, except for the few that are available in Bahasa Indonesia, a language that is a close relative of Bahasa Malaysia. Our students either read Asian theology in Bahasa Indonesia, or I provide them my own translation of the reading materials in Bahasa Malaysia -- after these have gone through my mental and theological sieve in English, Tagalog, or Pampango. I often tell my students that Asian Theology written in Sabah will be written by them, hopefully in their mother tongues-- Rungus, Murut, Lundayeh or Dunsun/Kadazan, etc. But why are we teaching them Asian Theology in Bahasa Malaysia then?

Conclusions and Proposals:

Over fifty languages are spoken in Sabah alone. In Sarawak and the Malay Peninsula, many more languages are spoken. All in all, approximately 141 languages are spoken in Malaysia. How could Malaysians speak to each other without a common language? Obviously, the choice of one dominant language as a common language for everyone in Malaysia has validity. There is also a need in Malaysia for an international language for communication with the larger world. These days, English is being re-emphasized in schools as an international language. These needs are real. They must be kept in balance with the need for the use of the local language or dialect. What would a theological education that is cognizant of these needs look like? What would it mean to contextualize in a context where all the above language needs are real and valid? How much weight should be given to concerns of practicality and cost?

Or is it our understanding of context that needs to be drastically changed? What is context? The kampung or desa? The town? Or is it the more cosmopolitan district or region of many desas and many towns speaking several languages? Is it for us, who live and work in Sabah, the whole of Sabah? The world? Considering how communications technology will eventually make some international language(s) even more predominant, will people lose their original languages anyway? Is raising the issue of the place of indigenous languages in contextualization something like crying over what is tantamount to spilled milk?

The Diaspora Jews who were gathered in Jerusalem during the time of the Pentecost were excited to hear the wonderful things God has done in their own languages. In doing contextual Asian theology, do we continue to expect the excitement of Asian people when they hear, in their own languages, the wonderful things God has done?

I submit the following as initial proposals: