“How can one develop a theological voice?” asked one of the
participants at the Asian Theological Summer Institute.
“It is a lifelong process,” I replied.
The Asian Theological Summer Institute (ATSI), funded through
the Luce Foundation, offered a four-day seminar for Asian and Asian American
doctoral students at The Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia (LTSP)
in the last week of May.
Dr. J. Paul Rajashekar, Luther D. Reed Professor of
Systematic Theology at LTSP, saw the need to offer such a mentoring program
because Asian and Asian American doctoral students often do not have the help
and support of an Asian professor at their schools. The students came to
present their dissertation proposals and work in progress and received feedback
from a group of professors in different theological fields.
Just as in any art, developing your individual and unique
voice in theological scholarship and style requires much learning, practice,
coaching, and responding to feedback. But in many theological schools, Asian
and Asian American doctoral students do not find the coaching they need to
develop their scholarship and the community of discourse to try out new ideas.
Even though a student’s supervisor may be supportive, he
or she may not know the social and cultural context of the student sufficiently
well to give informed feedback. Worse, some professors treat the student as a
“native informant”—the one to educate them about the particular culture or
community.
One of the recurrent feedback from ATSI participants is that their work has been taken very seriously at the seminar. They do not need to explain their culture to people who have little knowledge about Asian and Asian American culture and history. The discussion can therefore move further along to explore the theological issues involved in the dissertation and the different theories and theological traditions to address them.
Developing your theological voice requires a lot of
confidence in yourself. You need to have the courage to speak your mind,
disagree with what has been said, offer a viewpoint that has not been tried,
and/or suggest fresh new ideas.
Many educational systems in Asia are good at impacting knowledge, but not so good at encouraging students to challenge established authorities and think for themselves. Thus when Asian students come to the US to attend graduate schools, they often find the academic culture demanding and difficult to adjust to.
A dissertation needs to make some original contribution to
the field. Where does that originality come from? Would it come from questions
and issues arising from an Asian and Asian American context? Would it come from
seeing a misfit of an established body of theories when applied to a new situation?
Would it come from constructing new knowledge based on qualitative research?
Would it come from developing new models that are culturally specific?
These are questions that beginning Asian and Asian American scholars often ask. In To Open Minds, Howard E. Gardner, an
expert on multiple intelligences, compares Chinese and Western approaches to nurturing creativity, using learning Chinese painting as an example. He says
that in China, one needs to spend years mastering the techniques and imitating great artists before developing one’s style. In sharp contrast, the
American system values too much individuality and personal expression,
sometimes at the expense of basic skills and training. He says that a balance
between the two approaches will be beneficial.
The ATSI, now in its seventh year, has provided the space
for more than 130 budding scholars to listen to themselves and others, hone
their academic skills, and sharpen their theological thinking in a
supportive environment. They have been encouraged to take the beginning steps,
however tentative, to develop a life-long pursuit of scholarship and nurture a
theological voice that is distinctly their own.
I wish I had such a seminar when I began. It has been a privilege to be able to accompany many of these students and play a small part in their journeys.