April 24, 2016, 1:01p.m. – ASIAN THEOLOGY is an ongoing pilgrimage, the former executive secretary of interreligious dialogue for the Asian bishops’ conferences said in a lecture at the Buenaventura G. Paredes O.P. Building last April 22.
Malaysian theologian Edmund Kee-Fook Chia spoke in this year’s Schillebeeckx Lecture, discussing Asian highlights and innovations in the faith.
“Asian Theology is a new enterprise. It is not yet a finished product, given the dynamic nature of the theological enterprise,” Chia told attendees in his lecture, which had the theme “Schillebeeckx’s Hermeneutical Method in the Triple Dialogue and Asian Theologies of Creation, Grace and Mercy.”
Chia also compared Asian theology with the teachings of Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx. The late Belgian theologian, a member of the Dominican Order, influenced the Second Vatican Council.
“Like Fr. Schillebeeckx who entailed doing of the Faith, Asian bishops, priests and religious focus on the actual praxis of the dialogue with the poor,” Chia said.
Chia, a student and friend of Schillebeeckx, called the late theologian one of the best theological minds of the 20th Century and of Vatican 2. “What we are seeing and doing today in terms of theological methods mostly comes from Fr. Schillebeeckx himself,” Chia said.
The Schillebeeckx Lecture Series is an annual forum organized by the UST Theological Society in honor of Schillebeeckx. This year’s lecture was also part of celebrations marking the 800th anniversary of the Dominican Order. Gabriel M. Agcaoili
