I am on a quest to discover and learn indigenous Asian Christian theology. I’ve read several Asian theology books, which I’ve listed at the end of this post. Along the way, I ran into the three-fold schema of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism. Exclusivism told me that Christians don’t do Chinese ancestor worship. So I stopped. But I’ve come to question that hard line.

By the time my mother died, I practiced a middle way. The Chinese pastor that presided at her funeral wanted to put up a sign on mom’s open casket, “She is a Christian. Please do not bow.” I told the pastor, “no.” Even though my mother became Christian at the end of her life, the vast majority of people present, including my brothers and cousins, aunties and uncles, were not Christian. We were not going to enforce his exclusivist ways on others.

Several of the Asian theology books I read referred to the three-fold schema, but none of them defined the categories, so I did my own research. Exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism are ways in which Christian theologians view other religions. At its roots, the schema is weighted towards soteriology (salvation). Theologians are placed into one of the three categories. Exclusivists believed that salvation is through Jesus alone. Inclusivists believe that Christ is the way of salvation, but people can be saved by Christ without knowing that they were responding to Christ. Pluralists believed that salvation can be found through any religion.

In the field of Theology of Religions, there are good critiques of the schema, and I am happy to leave it behind. I am also happy to have discovered Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen. He has deep knowledge of Asian religions, and I find his interreligious work very insighful.

Here are some questions that I am pondering with the help of Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen:

• How does a salvation-based faith like Christianity dialog with Buddhism, which is not based on the need for “salvation”?
• Can Raimundo Panikkar’s reworked theology of Trinity make sense for Buddhists? Panikkar says that the Father is “Nothing.” After God emptied God’s self (kenosis) in the incarnation, the Father becomes “Nothing.” Of course, in Buddhism, Nothing is not really “nothing.”
• Should we do away with “pluralism” as it is just another way of being “exclusivist”? When you say that all religions have a common core, or all religions arrive at the same destination, but the Christian and the Buddhist doesn’t agree with you, aren’t you making an exclusive claim?

I am still on my quest for indigenous Asian theologies, with much to learn, but I now see how the problematic the three-fold schema is. While Kärkkäinen uses it because of its historical usage, he also points out flaws. When Peter C. Phan was asked what kind of theologian he was, he said, “I am not exclusivist. I am not inclusivist. I am not pluralists.” In other words, he rejects the scheme altogether. He then says, “I am interreligious.”

As promised, the book list:

Explorations in Asian Christianity: History, Theology, and Mission, Scott W. Sunquist (IVP Academic, 2017)

Mangoes or Bananas?: The Quest for an Authentic Asian Christian Theology, Hwa Yung (Regnum Press International, Second Edition, 2014)

Seeking the Common Ground: Protestant Christianity, the Three-Self Movement, and China’s United Front, Philip L. Wickeri (Orbis Books, 1988)

Waterbuffalo Theology, Kosuke Koyama (SCM Press Ltd, 1974)