For
ATL Consultation-Bangkok, Feb., 2003
Rita M. England
Building up Resources for Theological Education in
Asia
I
would like to begin by quoting from a report (in National
Catholic Reporter) of last year’s conference
“Rescuing the Memory of our Peoples” –an
international gathering to discuss the whole question
of Archives, particularly those relating to mission.
“At the beginning of the 20th century, 80 per
cent of Christians lived in the west. At the beginning
of the 21st century, between 50 and 60 per cent live
in Africa, Asia and Latin America” – quoted
from Andrew Walls. I would add to take that further
by saying that in our region we find almost half the
world’s Christian population, as also half the
world’s Christian history – and also theology.
At
the end of the report Andrew Walls is again quoted.
Two of his graduate students, completing doctoral
dissertations, dealt with Christian Mission in Ethiopia
– one drew on material now held in Canada, the
other on oral history interviews with the region’s
people. “Regarding the works, you could be forgiven
for thinking these students were writing of two different
places” says Walls. For the material found in
Canada reflected the work and insights of the missionaries
who had worked in this region of Ethiopia after WWII
and of a miraculous turning around of these people
to become followers of the Christian faith –
while the local story told of an indigenous prophet
in the 1930s who had attacked the village-based tribal
cults before the missionaries arrived, thus making
the ground fertile for the message of a universal
god and for the seeds of the Christian faith.
This
story could be repeated in every country of our region
– including my own. Maori had themselves come
across Christianity before the missionaries came to
NZ. They prepared the way for the first missionary
workers, traveling with them, interpreting for them
– and they also are not given the credit due
to them, even ignored, by many later mission historians!
We have in these examples two different histories
or stories – depending on our point of view,
on where we stand as we look at the story of our peoples’
life and faith.
ORIENTATION
–
a) Where do we stand?
Think about your library. What do you consider to
be the most important shelves in your library –that
is after a collections of Bibles? ….. What would
it mean if the next most important to these shelves
were a constantly growing collection of Christian
writings from the Asian region (and perhaps neighbouring
regions - Inner Asia/ Pacific) and Christian writings
from our own country and people were to be found?
What would it mean in your own understanding, your
plan of work, the proposals you make to your committee,
colleagues or support group?
You
will know that I like to use the phrase ‘where
are your feet’! The view from the path is different
depending on which direction you are walking. And
this is especially so for theological education and
in library work. The task of Christian education,
the mission work of your church, the importance of
meeting with and being alongside people in your area,
the focus and emphasis of theological education and
the library holdings are all quite different when
viewed from within the place where you stand, or the
direction in which you are walking. The two papers
on Ethiopian Christian history noted above show this
clearly.
But
where are these stories of our people to be found
in our libraries? Does it worry us that so much of
our own story is mis-told, misrepresented, unknown?
Or do we also think the story of our churches began
with the missionary and that the story as seen through
the eyes of the mission boards is all there is?
b)
Tradition in which you stand
You
will be aware by now of the book Ministering Asian
Faith and Wisdom. In chapter 2 of this you will find
the long history of libraries in our region outlined.
This gives a picture of an early “seminary in
exile” 70 AD (p.14), and notes the spread of
the written word across Asia to the east, and the
development of multiple copies of writings, including
of course the Gospels. It tells of libraries of indigenous
materials held in India since the 2nd century, in
China since the 7th century, in the Philippines from
the mid-16th century-as only a few examples. It talks
also of important institutional and personal libraries
of the 19th-20th centuries. We stand in a long tradition
of developing library collections of locally important
materials!
Today
we need to become more aware of this rooting of our
library collections, this history to which we belong.
We seem to have forgotten that we have a Christian
story, in many countries, as old or older than anything
in the west! We rely heavily on publications that
come out of the west instead of looking to our own
materials for the task of undergirding theological
education in our own country. We have been blinded
by so many things coming from elsewhere that we cannot
see the importance of what is to hand, or the Christian
story has been overlaid by other stories and needs
to be recovered. Refer briefly to The Da Qun project
and Martin Palmer’s The Jesus Sutras. Note also
Saeki’s The Nestorian Documents and Relics in
China; T.V.Philip East Of the Euphrates; J.C. England
The Hidden History of Christianity Asia …and
many others that should be found in your library!
c)
The Resources we have
These
are some of the resources we have but are only a beginning.
We are working here againts a major misconception
that must be countered –the idea that there
is very little writing from each of our countries
or from Asia as a whole, even in today’s lively
theological scene. Some suggest that if we rely only
on our own resources we will have very thin library
collections. We hope that the publication of Asian
Christian Theologies will show that this is not so!
You will see that much of this Research Guide is in
bibliographical form – well over 1,000 pages
of bibliography is found in the 3 volumes.
But
listing the material is not enough. As librarians
the task has only just begun with the publication
of Asian Christian Theologies. So where to begin!
In introducing this Guide to groups of teachers or
researchers I have likened the task to the launching
of a ship, and emphasised that a book like this is
not to be put on a shelf as reference only, but to
be used to the full. I have suggested that we must
chart our course with all the seriousness of a captain
piloting the ship through wide, perhaps unknown, seas.
And we must respond to the wind of the Spirit to move
us along our way. How do we equip ourselves for this
task? You will find much in MAFW to help you and your
ideas will be useful additions to this text.
IMPORTANT
STEP BY IMPORTANT STEP TO BE TAKEN
1)
Have you made a survey of the Asian materials held
in your library? (refer MAFW chapter 1). The first
step towards building up of your Asian theological
resources is to know what you already have. And that
often also raises the question ‘can we find
what we already have?’, or is it “lost”
among other holdings? swamped by other materials?
stowed away in a corner because it has not been considered
important? in the too-hard basket because we don’t
quite know what to do with it? uncatalogued because
western cataloguing systems to not expand to cover
the intricacies or different perspectives of Asian
though?
Note
also that now we have Directory of Asian Theological
Libraries and Librarians. We are deeply indebted to
Karmito and Cahyana for the work they have done, and
continue to do, to plot the resource collections we
already have in Asian theological libraries. This
is a tool to be used for the documenting and locating
of resource collections, and could be expanded with
a wider cooperative effort. We should all join this
team/or is it crew!?!
2)
Next, an acquisition plan needs be developed –
where are the major gaps to be found in your collection?
What will you try to get for your library? Who else
nearby holds these materials? Can a group of libraries
together? (See page 50, e.g. in MAFW. )
3)
Along with this is the question of the materials themselves
– what are they? And here Asian Christian Theologies
is an important resource. Included in the bibliographies
you will find not only books, and articles, but letters,
archival materials and some web-sites. Publishing
detail, or journal titles and issue numbers, are given
wherever possible. In this way a search can begin
towards building up a valuable collection in your
library.
And
where are they to be obtained? Here MAFW also gives
basic information, along with bibliographical listings.
See particularly Part 3 – bibliographical sources;
regional Asian resources; basic country references;
key periodicals; publishers and agencies to help,
and so on.
4)
But very soon you will find a number of problems.
The book you want for you library is out of print;
the publisher no longer exist; many documents are
only held in the west or in a person’s private
collection; the journal has been lost or is not now
known or remembered; the item is extremely rare or
deteriorating badly, and so on. So what to do!! We
do, of course, need a publishing, re-publishing, restoring
programme. We also need to cooperate in the searching
and the sharing of what we find. To adequately work
on something as large as this we need an active team
who are hunting our materials, letting others know
of what is found, encouraging each other on the way
– perhaps here is an important role for future
networking between librarians in this region. As librarians
we need to give some thought to this together and
make plans as to how we will overcome these obstacles.
5)
It also raises the question of what small items (letters,
pamphlets, memorial minutes, etc. – see MAFW
chapter 7) or what archival holdings are available
and accessible. These should be searched out and deposited
in a safe environment (MAFW chapter 8). We are looking
here not only at the archives of your college or your
church, but also those of other groups and agencies
in our communities – of society-oriented groups,
of NGOs, of women’s work, education, health,
rural or urban centres of concern, and so on. All
these are a part of the resource required in the task
of training the theological student or committed lay-person
for the work which he/she will do in the community
upon graduation. They are a part of the resources
needed to fill out the sails, or power the engines,
in our traveling with Jesus and his people. (I am
sure we will hear more to help us in this from the
archieve conference referred to earlier – “Rescuing
the Memory of our Peoples”)
6)
In all this the role of the librarian, your role,
is essential, not only in gathering and documenting,
but in promoting and turning around the focus of the
library holdings as a whole towards local and nighbouring
materials – the Asian, the Philippine, the Indian,
the Malaysian…heritage. Gather this material
together and highlight it. This may be both a physical
gathering and that of a union listing. Having these
materials together, seen and available, underlines
their importance and assists in research. (MAFW chapters
9 & 10)
7)
The support of college staff, and others, is also
essential in enabling this redirecting of the focus
and goal of theological library holdings so that this
immense resouce – of over half the world’s
Christian heritage and today’s activity –
becomes available. So – the importance of having
a committee and other support groups and also the
importance of support and networking within the region.
(See MAFW chapters 14 and 15)
8)
As this journey continues, with you as the venturers/as
crew, you will find entries in Asian Christian Theologies
which you feel should be changed or corrected. In
a work of this size/magnitude/coverage – cooperative
effort is needed. Let editors know. (Addresses for
John Prior and John England are on the Brochure).
You
will also find ways of handling the many tasks asked
of theological librarians in Asia which
will be helpful to others. Many of the suggestions
found in MAFW have come from people like you –
but these are only first steps. Some means of communicating
with each other throughout the region, or sharing
new finds or ways of doing things, of assisting each
other in this huge and so very important task must
be found. Perhaps ForATL will look at this question
later in the week. But in any case individual contacts
kept fresh and alive will help everyone involved.
9)
And finally there must be a commitment to this whole
task of building the resources for theological
education in Asia, both for students of our seminaries
and also for Asian Christhian themselves, wherever
they may be found and in whatever work they may be
engaged. This is our mission. We are called by Christ
into this frontier work, to sail these seas or walk
this road, with the One-living-God whom we all serve,
and who is at the helm, or on the road ahead of us.
This
commitment will include, at least
-
a programme to develop Research Centres and libraries
for Asian theological materials, both nationally and
sub-regionally;
- a strategy for finding aand reclaiming the materials;
- the development of a safe, secure repository, available
to all who wish to learn from and act upon their own
Christian story – for these materials belong
to a particular local community and country, and must
become a living resource in centres of learning and
action in your area. Such a resource is vital for
the future development of relevant theology in your
area;
- taking the necessary steps to work together –
to network through a strong ForATL – so that
librarians may support each other, may speak to each
other across the distances, may realise the visions
we have of Asian libraries for Asian peoples, may
find inspiration ever new beginnings in walking together
along this road.
Remember,
in all these tasks as librarians we are not only custodians
but ministers of the holy, mediators of wisdom. The
library is a chapel where God’s presence is
more fully known (See MAFW pages 25f and 35f). And
here, in the library, is the “Place of the Cure
of the Soul” – (found over door at Ramesseum,
Thebes and later at Alexandria).