Japanese Perspectives on the Death of Christ: A Study in Contextualized Christology by How Chuang Chua

Abstract

Reviewed by: Japanese Perspectives on the Death of Christ: A Study in Contextualized Christology by How Chuang Chua Andrew Ronnevik Japanese Perspectives on the Death of Christ: A Study in Contextualized Christology. By How Chuang Chua. Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2021. x + 308 pp. Only about 1% of Japan's population are Christians, but this book shows how members of the small community have made significant theological contributions. The author, How Chuang Chua [End Page 103] (1959–2015), was a Singaporean evangelical theologian and missionary to Japan. A revised PhD dissertation from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, his book examines the lives and writings of three twentieth-century Japanese Christians—Kazo Kitamori, Shusaku Endo, and Kosuke Koyama—in relation to Christ's death. It is an exemplary work of contextual theology, drawing attention to how the word of the cross has been received in distinctive ways in Japan. The three opening chapters orient readers to biblical and Western theological interpretations of the cross, approaches to contextual theology, and the history of Japanese Christianity. More engaging are the following three chapters. Each of these is devoted to one Japanese-Christian writer and engages insightfully with both biography and texts. Chapter four presents the theologian Kitamori (1916–1998), best known for his 1946 Theology of the Pain of God. Chua carefully describes Kitamori's notion of divine pain, the result of God encountering the sinner with wrath and love. Lutheran readers will be interested to see how Luther's theology of the cross influenced Kitamori's thought, along with personal, cultural, and biblical factors. Chua is appreciative of how seriously Kitamori takes human sin and divine wrath, but he rightly criticizes Kitamori for overreaching in the claim that pain is an ontological attribute of God. Chapter five takes up the Catholic novelist Endo (1923–1996), famous for his Silence (1966). Chua shows how Endo, attuned to dissonances between East and West, believed that Christ could never be at home in the "mudswamp" of Japan as a triumphant (Western) savior but only as the crucified, weak, humiliated companion of the suffering. While Chua is sympathetic to Endo's effort to indigenize Christ, he criticizes Endo's pluralistic-syncretistic trajectory, emphasis on suffering over sin, and failure to discuss divine deliverance. Chapter six turns to the globetrotting missiologist Koyama (1929–2009), widely hailed for his Waterbuffalo Theology (1974). More than Kitamori and Endo, Koyama considered the death of Christ in concrete relation to history, culture, politics, and ethics. Koyama, Chua suggests, communicated the cross primarily with the missiological concern of cultivating the "crucified mind" of Christ in diverse individuals and communities. Although Chua worries that [End Page 104] Koyama, out of concern for violence, distances himself too far from the satisfaction theory of atonement, he generally affirms Koyama's legacy, especially his attention to context and neighbor, the centrality of sin, and the eschatological movement of history. A summary chapter and epilogue on missiological matters conclude the book. These provide thoughtful synthesis and deeper attention to issues previously addressed more briefly, such as divine impassibility, the cross and violence, theological language, and modes of theological work. There is much to commend in this book. First, better than many, Chua strikes a healthy balance between the centrality of Scripture, the need for contextualization, and the critical appreciation of the Western tradition. Second, Chua's methodology is effective in its use of different kinds of writings and in its blending of texts and biography. Third, shining through his scholarly work are Chua's pastoral and missiological commitments. While appreciative of the book, I also note two questions. First, might Chua have tightened his project by focusing more consistently on issues of the cross? Sometimes he addresses more topics than necessary, blurring the focus on the death of Christ. Second, does Chua exaggerate the difference between sin and suffering? Some distinction is appropriate, but I wish Chua had probed more thoroughly their relation. This book deserves a wide readership, especially among those interested in the global church and Christology. Because of its density, it is best suited for upper-level college and seminary courses. Andrew Ronnevik Baylor University Waco, Texas Copyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran...