I
have a passion for human transformation rooted in
self-knowledge and self-criticism. Traveling many
Latin American countries during my business career,
I learned a great deal about cultural diversity and
the need of human solidarity. With a new vocation
of theological education, I now ask: What
does it mean to live in this world in relation to
each other (meaning of "Other"
-- which resonates, for example, Paul Ricoeur's narrative
identity or Jacques Derrida's relationless
relation), and How can we do theology
in our thoughts, deeds and action, while moving pointedly
away from individualism? How can
we read biblical stories with each other in a critical
context? What are some viable definitions
of cross-cultural hermeneutics, if any, by which we
can improve the sense of living together in difference?
TEACHING
PHILOSOPHY
I foster
and teach to engage in the knowledge of who we are
in this world in which we see each other so diverse
and different. In my teaching, diversity is not a
given but a source of critical engagement with each
other. I value both a critical and self-critical stance
toward any claim of knowledge, truth, and reality.
I emphasize the following as pedagogical goals: learning
from others, challenging each other, affirming who
we are, and working for common humanity in differences.
In my teaching, all in all, I communicate critical
diversity and transformative identity in a variety
of life contexts.
PERSONAL BLOGs
Critical
Dialogue
Soma
Christou
Hankyoreh
(Korean)
FAVORITE
TOPICS for talk and spiritual reflections
1. The Eighth Century BCE prophets and Today: justice
and righteousness
2. Paul’s body metaphor and Christian life
3. Diversity and hermeneutics: celebration and challenge
4. Jesus’ death in context (diversity of the
Gospels)
5. Paul’s theology and ethics: then and now
(two pillars)
6. Reading Hannah through the perspective of Han:
public transformation
7. Abraham’s faith and righteousness (Gen 15:6)
and Paul’s letters
8. Sarah and Hagar: sorrows and tears contrasted
9. Job: conflict between theology and wisdom
10. Reading John 14:6 in a context of pluralism
11. Biblical anthropology: history of “dust”
12. Theodicy and survival in apocalyptic literature
13. Multiple interpretations and education (ministry)
14. Historical Jesus and today: challenge of diversity
15. Kingdom and righteousness in Matthew (6:25-34)
16. Yuprakboonbon and Paul’s theology
of “die and live”
17. Uses of “death” in the Bible: context
and meaning
18. Questions of Identity in John’s Gospel:
Nicodemus, Pilate and Jesus
19. Psalm 13 and transformation: lament, search and
trust
20. Law and gospel in Romans and Galatians
21. Three figurative body discourses in 1 Corinthians:
embodiment (Christic body)
22. The lost gospels: Q and community
23. Women in Paul’s letters and Pastoral Epistles
24. John’s cosmos: life and light
25. John Bunyan and Abraham: different kind of piety
26. A new reading of Lot’s wife becoming a pillar
of salt: nurturing risk
27. Marxist reading of Monarchic Israel
28. Retaliation law (lex talionis) in context
29. Jesus and Paul: continuity and discontinuity
30. Shamanism and Jesus
31. Biblical hermeneutics today: limits and hopes
32. Paul and stoicism: Whose Paul?
33. The origin of “afterlife” in Rabbinic
Judaism
34. The “Gospel of God” in Romans
35. Christianity in South Korea: history and social
change
36. Theology of marginality and beyond
37. Common humanity in difference: solidarity and
diversity
38. Power (“I know”) and conversation:
Eli, Nicodemus
|
