God With Us

Kwok Pui-Lan is the William F. Cole Professor of Christian Theology and Spirituality at the Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just across the street from what used to be Radcliffe College. (The all-women's college was absorbed into Harvard University and is now a think tank.)  EDS still remains a bastion of progressive Episcopalianism, and used to include among its faculty members Katie Geneva Cannon, Gale Yee, and others.  Professor Kwok comes from this distinguished tradition. 

I've always secretly (but now that it's online, not so secret anymore) regarded Professor Kwok as an important figure in Asian/Asian-American Theology, even though she is more known for her theological interdisciplinarity that brings together biblical studies, systematic theology, postcolonial studies, and feminist theory.  To be fair, as I think she would say, this interdisciplinarity was not revealed in a divine address to her (note the Barthianism).  When she was just entering academia, luminaries such as Fernando Segovia, R. S. Sugirtharajah, and other biblical scholars were beginning to make interconnections between biblical studies and postcolonial studies.  This is, if you think about it, not outlandish; Israel was a (small) colonial power under Kings Saul to Solomon, and was sandwiched in between the ancient equivalents of the EU, China, and the United States.  (Think Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and maybe the Hittites as Russia.)  The Old and New Testaments were never free from imperial machinations.  Rather than fighting it to force through a literal, acontextual reading, I've found postcolonial biblical interpretations to be not only interesting, but - as if the Scriptures didn't demand enough of humanity - challenging modern humanity in its notions of "progress", "advancement", and notions of power and wealth as it is evinced through the flows of capital.  Professor Kwok was first known by her contributions to New Testament postcolonial studies.  She then made forays into Chinese church history, Chinese theology, and then in 2005, the book that put her "on the map," Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology.  Her research focuses largely on feminist theology in a third-world context, and for her contributions to feminist theology (that's my guess), she was awarded two honorary doctorates.  In 2011, she was president of the American Academy of Religion, the leading scholarly association for scholars in theology, biblical studies, ministry (to some extent), religious studies, etc.

Anyways, it was Spring Break, and I thought that it may be worthwhile to visit her and just chat about my interests.  I met her for lunch at EDS.  She came to the cafeteria alone.  No contingent of students.  No crowd in the distance pointing and going, "Whoa! That's Kwok Pui-Lan!"  Nobody running up to her for an autograph for their copy of Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology.  No school of thought is associated with her.  She is not Barthian, Tillichian, Bultmannian, and whatever other labels you may throw at her.  She seemed to me a quiet scholar, trusting that the only things that matter in her vocation is to love God and love her neighbors by writing theology as liberation.  When she saw me, she went, "You must be Henry!  I think we have the same family name."

(That's true, actually.  Kuo is the Wade-Giles rendering of the Mandarin pronunciation.  Kwok is the Cantonese pronunciation.  But Chinese is very contextual; there are many different characters for Kuo/Kwok/Guo.)

And so we sat down for a lunch of nice conversation, me sharing about my background, she sharing of her experiences in theological academia, confirming quite a bit of advice I've been given lately.  At the beginning, in my mind (and nobody else was thinking this, this I can guarantee), I was going, "Oh my goodness, I'm talking to freakin' Kwok Pui Lan!" But what was funny was that all around me, everyone was just biding their day away.  It seemed that only I was the one realizing what an important person she is... and maybe this other person who reminded her there was some faculty function at 1:55 pm.  And even halfway through, the "weight" of her theological stature seemed to ebb away as her importance took second place to the weight of the theological content we were discussing.  

That, I suppose, is what makes the theological worth reflecting on.  Much of this world has become so much a variation of self-aggrandizement.  But I think it is only in the theological spheres where theology becomes fun when names become buried in theological thought, when names become mere references to a network of connecting ideas instead of being a marketing label, legitimizing an idea by virtue of its connection to a name, much like how the quality of soda is measured by the name on the can.  In theology, we don't have units of measurement.  We don't quantify much, for God is unquantifiable.  All we have is fellowship.  Theology cannot be done alone.  It can only be done together, with names buried and with "selves unfurled" (as Michael Sepidoza Campos described in his dissertation), preferably over lunch.  

Not to say Professor Kwok is God, but I'd like to think that fellowship with God is similar.  Over lunch, just the two of us talking about stuff while the rest of the world flits by unknowingly.  Us being carried away by the love and grace of the Divine Being, with maybe one other person interrupting with a brief greeting before heading off to join his/her friends at another table.  A quiet God, not the celebrity God.  A God who mows the lawn, goes and does God's own work quiescently.  A God who shows up at church, sits at the back.  Indeed, Emmanuel.  God with us.