Chapter I: Introduction
1. Motivation for the Study
In Acts 1:8, the Lord Jesus has made a clear statement to the disciples: “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” I believe that this statement has made us ‘Christian’, which we have been called to be the witness of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Every Christian is a ‘missionary’ to the world, especially to the unbeliever. Through the Bible, we know that Paul the Apostle became the very first missionary to the Gentiles. At that point, I have an interesting question. Why does Paul preach the gospel so differently to Jews and God-fearing Gentiles, then to blue-collar, polytheistic pagans, and to white-collar, pagan philosophers in the Book of Acts? I think the answer is because Paul is seeing his audience and adapting with it, the ‘contextualization’.
What is the ‘mission’? and what is the ‘mission of Christianity’? For this question, David J. Bosch, who has a profound experience in cross-cultural ministry asserted in his book, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, as below:
Since the 1950s there has been a remarkable escalation in the use of the word “mission” among Christians. This went hand in hand with a significant broadening of the concept, at least in
1
certain circles. Until the 1950s, the word “mission” referred to (a) the sending of missionaries to a designated territory, (b) the activities undertaken by such missionaries, (c) the geographical area where the missionaries were active, (d) the agency which despatched the missionaries, (e) the non-Christian world or “mission field,” or (f) the center from which the missionaries operated on the “mission field”.1
The ‘mission’ of Christianity to the non-Christian world is widely known as the act of evangelism. In other words, we can say that evangelicalism is the primary purpose of the mission of Christianity. In Christ and Culture, H. Richard Niebuhr explains the issue between Christ and culture, and why it is still an enduring problem throughout the history of Christianity. He illustrates the problem between Christ and culture since the days of Jesus. The enduring problem evidently arose in the days of Jesus Christ’s humanity when he “was a Jew and remained a Jew till his last breath” and confronted Jewish culture with a hard challenge. Rabbi Klausner has described in modern terms how the problem of Jesus and culture must have appeared to the Pharisees and Sadducees and has defended their repudiation of the Nazarene on the ground that he imperiled Jewish civilization.2
1 David J. Bosch. Transforming Mission (New York: Orbis, 2011) 1.
2 H. Richard Niebuhr. Christ and Culture (New York: Harper & Row, 1951) 2-3.
2
The gospel and cultural issues are inseparable, especially when it encounters other religions-based cultures. In Cambodia, where the HinduBuddhist culture-based influent deeply centuries ago, it is pretty hard for Christianity to settle in. From my point of view, understanding more about the local and localizing the gospel is the appropriate way to make them be with Christ, not just a religious conversion but life transforming. What Niebuhr has talked about in his book, is an unsolved issue that we need to solve together. The mission fields which are full of non-Christian worldviews might be hard to adapt to the new Biblical worldview, time and patience will show us what we have been through if we try and not forgiving up on it.
Cultural issues are related to one society’s identity, which makes the member of society being sensitive to the new differences from outside. As Niebuhr had mentioned, it is not a new issue, it is what has happened since Jesus is still with us in his hometown, Jerusalem. The gospel is beyond what we worried about or looks impossible to make happen. So, we need to prove that ‘being different, not meant that it is wrong at all.’ This should be applied to the concept to reach out ‘Christianity’ to the world as well.
2. Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to investigate the appropriate mission model through an anthropological approach that focuses on the study of the blended culture-based country, Cambodia.
3
Firstly, I will define the meaning of ‘mission’ and ‘missiology’. From the point of view of the ‘mission’, I will examine the understanding of missiology and missional theology. By studying the trends of contemporary missiology such as the Evangelical and Ecumenical missiology of the World Council of Churches (WCC), the Lausanne Movement, and its theology, I will define the holistic mission model and the term ‘Missio Dei’.
Second, I will look into the understanding of the anthropology of religions in Cambodia, then overview the religious thoughts and beliefs of Hinduism and Theravada Buddhism and go on to the Buddhist cultural consequences and conceptions. In studying the mission model through the anthropological approach, I will explore more by focusing on Paul G. Hiebert’s critical contextualization. And on the other point of evangelization in social and cultural contexts, I will probe Paul F. Knitter’s theologies of religions. Going on Nevius’ methods of contextualization, I will define the applicable ‘Missio Dei’ and the appropriate mission model through the study of the contemporary churches in Cambodia as ‘Khmerization’ by Barnabas Mam, a contextual mission model.
An evangelical theologian like Hiebert and a liberal theologian like Knitter have a common point to adapt to the mission in Cambodia, a Buddhist culture based. Christianity in Cambodia is still not contextualized, it is still in the process of being contextualized. Hiebert worked in the cross-culture mission field and through his experience, he suggests how to contextualize the gospel,
4
and Knitter has an optimistical view of how Christianity and Buddhism are related.
Introduced and brought in by the foreign, Christianity is still counted as a foreign religion, such as Confuism which existed in China and did not influent the Kingdom at all. This study is not focusing on humanitarianism but uses the understanding of humans to make an appropriate way to reach more deeply inside. And inspecting the comparative study of religions in Cambodian Buddhism and Christianity also has the purpose to make a possible way to make the ‘Missio Dei’ applicable in Cambodian society. The main statement of the purpose of this study is: Does understanding more about Cambodians make the church contextualized and help the gospel deep-rooted in society?
I expect that with a rich understanding of the mission fields like Cambodia is possible to make a fondly self-sustainable church contextualized deeply with people. Through contextualized Church, Cambodian Christians will be able to have healthy growth, and gospel-centered nature as well.
5
Chapter II: Understanding the Missiology
In this chapter, I am going to define the meaning of ‘mission’ and ‘missiology’. And through the understanding of missiology and missional theology, I will take a look at the trends of contemporary missiology such as the Evangelical and Ecumenical missiology of the World Council of Churches (WCC), the Lausanne Movement, and its theology. Then I will define the holistic mission model and the term ‘Missio Dei’.
Christianity was introduced by the West, so it is one of the other reasons that it is misunderstood, commonly called the Western religion by the East and the rest of the world. What makes Christianity keep spreading all over the world? The answer is that Christianity, itself, keeps moving to reach all the people around the world – a mission.
1. Definition and Concepts of Mission
The term ‘mission’ is derived from the Latin word ‘mitto’, which corresponds to the word πεμπω[pempo] which has a close synonym of the verb αποστελλω[apostello] which means to send.3 The verb πεμπω[pempo] is used 81 times in the New Testament, such as the apostles are also meant to those who
3 Gerhard Kittel. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Vol. I (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977) 398.
6
are sent out; to the world as witnesses about the Lord (Acts 1:8). We know that the use of the term ‘mission’ came from the Franciscan monastery in the Middle Ages.
The ‘missiology’ which studies mission, first of all, it is essential to make sure of the terms of it. Once misunderstood, it has made a side effect and stereotyped it as a Western religion. Such as in Asia, Christianity was introduced by the conqueror in the time of Colonia as Colonial Evangelism. The gospel was not good news to the people.
If Western colonialism began with Vasco da Gama, it could be said that the Protestant mission was initiated by William Carey, according to J. Herbert Kane.4 Until then, the British religion was cold to missionary work, but William Carey is often referred to as a pioneer of Protestant missionary work because of his stimulation and activities. In 1792, Carry preached a sermon titled “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God!” based on Isaiah 44:2-3, his inspired Baptist ministers vowed to organize a Baptist mission to work on world missions.5 The Baptist Missionary Society dispatched Carey as an Indian missionary in 1973, the following year, which can be said to be the beginning of modern Protestant missions in an active sense.6 The mission of Christianity
4 J. Herbert Kane. Christian missions in Biblical perspective (Baker Book House, 1976) 12.
5 William Carey. Accessed Oct. 28, 2022.
https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/missionaries/william-carey.html.
6 William R. Hogg. Ecumenical Foundations (Wipf and Stock, 2002) 23.
7
should be all of it, not just a part of the church’s mission. It is what the mission truly exists for, and it is also the identity of Christianity itself.
2. Contemporary Missiology and Its Flow
Edward John Stetzer, an American Christian missiologist gives a technical definition of missiology as, it is “the reflective discipline that undergirds and guides the Church’s propagation endeavors as it advances the knowledge of the gospel in all its fullness to every people, everywhere.”7 For far too long, the modern picture of mission as uni-directional, Western-centered, and hierarchically structured has unhelpfully dominated the scene.8 Through this, I also think about how impossible to form Christianity without a ‘mission’. Many can see that ‘mission’ is just one part of Christianity, but actually, it is all about Christianity. Growing up in the West, and keep spreading in the world, Christianity is moving with an actual purpose – to reach out to everyone.
The greatest biblical inspiration of the movement was the so-called ‘Great Commission’ of the gospels of Matthew and Mark. As disciples of Christ, Christians are commissioned to ‘go’ into all the world, proclaiming the gospel
7 What is Missiology? Accessed Oct. 31, 2022. https://missionexus.org/what-ismissiology/
8 What Is Polycentric Mission Leadership? Accessed Oct. 31, 2022. https://lausanne.org/about/blog/what-is-polycentric-missionleadership?fbclid=IwAR1R2fkOyzMxdY9nZPgFmkDWGnjN0DZgcDqFz2Yx4vz6 6iTXVT l21HtQ4
8
and baptizing new disciples. Through this biblical worldview and the calling, missionaries started their works through centuries till now, we can see the starting point was the council of mission conference. The milestones in the history of the council were the Edinburgh Conference (1910), where it was decided in principle to found the International Missionary Council (IMC).9 There was a time that the Student Volunteer Missionary Movement adopted as its slogan ‘The Evangelization of the world in this generation.’ it also had a wide interpretation and was criticized, but it served the purpose of fixing the attention of the Church upon the great unfinished task.10 The IMC was held in Jerusalem (1928), Tambaram (1938), Whitby (1947), Willingen (1952), and finally Ghana (1958).11
Bosch mentioned in his Witness To The World that the IMC held its last plenary meeting in Achimota, Ghana, from 28th December 1957 to 8th January 1958. Three years later, in New Delhi, the IMC was to be integrated into the World Council of Churches (WCC) and thus lose its independent character. The Ghana meeting was therefore primarily intended as an opportunity for stocktaking and preparation for integration into the WCC. One of the speakers was
9 Brian Stanley. The World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh 1910 (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009) 3.
10 W. Wilson Cash. The Jerusalem Meeting of the International Missionary Council, 269.
11 Guide to the International Missionary Council Archives (H-10,000: Early History and Committees) Accessed Oct. 28, 2022. https://web.library.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/fa-imc-part1.pdf
9
the German missiologist, Walter Freytag, who discussed the changes in the pattern of Western missions. He was one of the very few who had attended all meetings of the WCC since Jerusalem (1928). He summed up the difference between 1928 and 1958 by saying that, in 1928, missions had problems; by 1958, however, missions had themselves become a problem.12
Figure 2.1: Contemporary Mission Flow
Another two decades have passed since Freytag uttered those words. It has become increasingly clear that his evaluation of the modern missionary situation was correct. The mission is today a greater problem and more disputed than ever. In his doctoral thesis, The Theology of Mission: 1928-1958, Gerald H. Anderson summarizes the situation as follows: In Edinburgh, the dominant question was: How mission? In Jerusalem, it was: Wherefore mission? In
12 David J. Bosch, Witness To The World (Wipf and Stock, 2006) 2.
10
Tambaram, the key question was: Whence mission? At the first post-war conference, in Whitby, delegates grappled with the question: Whither mission? Finally, in Ghana, the main question was: What is the mission?13
On 22 August 1948, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, many participants, including 351 representatives from 147 churches in 44 countries, gathered to hold the opening service of the WCC.14 On the morning of 23 August, the WCC was formally organized as a resolution to ‘declare the formation of the WCC’ submitted by Dr. Marc Boegner, vice-chairman of the Interim Committee, was unanimously adopted. The Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church of Russia, of course, did not send their representatives. However, representatives from 147 churches, including the Anglican Church, the Baptist Church, the Calvinist Church, the Lutheran Church, the Methodist Church, the Quaker Church, and the Salvation Army, including old churches such as the Ethiopian Church and the Syrian Orthodox Church in Malabar, vowed to establish a new relationship and fulfill the mission of the world.15
The WCC has vowed not to be a legislative body that unites the world church based on certain confessions of faith or doctrinal writings and argued that it should serve as a tool to help the world's churches maintain close
13 Gerald H. Anderson. “The theology of missions, 1928-1958,” (Boston University, 1960) 339.
14 From the Ashes of War. Accessed Oct. 28, 2022. https://www.oikoumene.org/news/from-the-ashes-of-war-the-first-wcc-assembly-ineurope-amsterdam-1948
15 Jacques Matthey. You Are the Light of the World (WCC Publications, 2005) 5.
11
relationships. Therefore, The WCC’s 1948 inaugural assembly declared: “The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches which accept our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior”.16
From Jerusalem (1928) to Tambaram (1938), IMC started a new topic in the conversation with other religions. The statements of the two assemblies are so important for the missionaries to be more open to the non-Christians in the mission fields. Later, after becoming a WCC, IMC became the ‘Commission for World Mission and Evangelism (CWME)’. Controversy by the CWME
Bangkok (1972/3) pushed an evangelizing movement organized by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (LCWE) in 1974, showing their different opinion of the ‘salvation’ in Christianity. The ecumenical and evangelical conflict in Christianity become more important challenges inside.17
In the LCWE Cape Town commitment, they published a confession of faith and a call to action, on the ‘truth and the challenge of pluralism’ as below:
“Cultural and religious plurality is a fact and Christians in Asia, for example, have lived with it for centuries. Different religions each affirm that theirs is the way of truth. Most will seek to respect competing truth claims of other faiths and live alongside them. However postmodern, relativist pluralism is different. Its ideology allows for no absolute or universal truth. While tolerating truth claims, it views them as no more than cultural
16 Scott W. Sunquist. Understanding Christian Mission (Baker Academic, 2013) 7.
17 Dipankar Haldar. “Towards Convergence of Ecumenism and Evangelicalism in Post-Edinburgh-1910 Era,” (Serampore College).
12
constructs. (This position is logically self-destroying for it affirms as a single absolute truth that there is no single absolute truth.) Such pluralism asserts ‘tolerance’ as an ultimate value, but it can take oppressive forms in countries where secularism or aggressive atheism govern the public arena. We long to see a greater commitment to the hard work of robust apologetics. This must be at two levels. 1. We need to identify, equip, and pray for those who can engage at the highest intellectual and public level in arguing for and defending biblical truth in the public arena. 2. We urge Church leaders and pastors to equip all believers with the courage and the tools to relate the truth with prophetic relevance to the everyday public conversation, and so to engage every aspect of the culture we live in.”18
The understanding from the church of the gospel and differences of culture is a must action, not a part of the sanction. The old religions in Asia have their uncuttable deep roots, which need more time to make the whole transformation, especially in a mission field like Cambodia where the church is still young. Centralizing the gospel and valuing the culture of the mission fields is a long-term project of respectful evangelization.
Through this chapter, we can understand that missiology and its structure are developed every time confront the struggles or issues in our human society. From the Edinburgh conference, until now there are still misunderstood
18 Doug Birdsall and Lindsay Brown. The Cape Town Commitment, 57.
13
terms of mission, and what is the main role of the Church. Mission fields like the country in Southeast Asia like Cambodia, were a field to reach out to many years ago; they now need to grow up as their own sustainable Church, not dependent on the other anymore. However, being a partnership with the wellgrown is also a way to support each other.
14
Chapter III: Holistic Mission Model and Missio Dei
In this chapter, I will explore more by focusing on Paul G. Hiebert’s critical contextualization, Paul F. Knitter’s theologies of religions, and Nevius’ methods of contextualization. Through this, I will define the applicable ‘Missio Dei’ and the appropriate mission model through the study of the contemporary churches in Cambodia as ‘Khmerization’ by Barnabas Mam as a contextual mission model. The Mission of Christianity is far away from its basement, in Europe, to Asia. So, it cannot prevent us from thinking of its boundary. Mission to all, and for all; it is widely and openly as it is integral. The holistic mission describes an understanding of the Christian mission to the non-Christian world that embraces both evangelism and social responsibility. The definition of holistic mission is including what the church is, what the church does, and what the church says can hardly be improved19; however, it is what we still need in action to improve its facts.
19 Bryant L. Myers. Holistic Mission and AIDS. Accessed Nov. 8, 2022. https://lausanne.org/content/holistic-mission-lop-33
15
1. Contextual Approach
Contextualization has been an ongoing theme in missiological discourse. When the term first emerged in the 1960s from its ancestry in the conciliar movement.20 It was suggested as better suited to correct the limitations created by the inability of Western theology to understand the cultures and contexts of non-Western churches and thus leverage the drawback of earlier models such as inculturation, enculturation, translation, and indigenization, amongst others.21 More than this was the admission that contextualization took provenance over other models because of its inability to respond to the social and cultural changes that have occurred in the African or Latin American mission fields.22
Contextualization refers to an ongoing process where the gospel is assimilated into the total life of the people in their cultural context so that the message makes sense to those who profess it.23 Paul G. Hiebert, an evangelical theologian in the cross-cultural mission fields who introduced the model of ‘critical contextualization’ to missiology, affirms that as the gospel advances to foreign geographic territories, new methods are bound to arise that help the church to effectively contextualize the gospel.
20 David J. Hesselgrave, and Edward Rommen. Contextualization (William Carey Library, 2013) 27–35.
21 Laurenti Magesa. Anatomy of Inculturation (Orbis Books, 2004) 24.
22 Stephen B. Bevans. Models of Contextual Theology (Orbis Books, 2002) 26–27.
23 David J. Bosch. Transforming Mission (New York: Orbis, 2011) 495.
16
A Buddhist cultural-based country like Cambodia needs a contextualization model as Hiebert suggested. In this model, Hiebert notes that the growth of the church in new cultural contexts always raises challenges for the gospel. This model, Hiebert submits, guards against the ethnocentrism and cultural foreignness that non-contextualization creates, and it prevents newly founded churches from relapsing into relativism and syncretism when extreme forms of contextualization are uncritically adopted.24 As Hiebert reminds us, “… the gospel is not simply information to be communicated. It is a message to which people must respond”.25 Those who come to faith in Christ are expected to live in the light of their newly found faith. This may require that converts sever old ties, adapt old ways to new contexts or make a permanent and complete break with traditions altogether.26
The Christian missionary, therefore, has to exercise great caution whilst communicating this message and inviting people to faith in Jesus Christ. By guarding against these two extremes, ethnocentrism, and cultural foreignness, that often challenge contextualization, Hiebert’s model offers four steps that the church can take to incarnate the gospel in its new cultural context. These are (1) exegesis of the culture; (2) exegesis of the scripture and the hermeneutical
24 Paul G. Hiebert, and Frances F. Hiebert. Case Studies in Missions (Baker Pub Group, 1987) 109.
25 Ibid. 110.
26 Joseph B. Bangura. Pentecostalism in Sierra Leone (Hamburg: Missionshilfe Verlag, 2020) 57.
17
bridge; (3) critical response; and (4) the development of new contextualized practices.27
Figure 3.1: Paul Hiebert’s Model
What can we learn from the mission fields in Africa or Latin American nations through Hiebert’s mission case studies, in the situation of the Southeast Asian country – Cambodia? The old religions in Asia are quite different from Africa or Latin America, such as Indo-China is strongly influenced by Hinduism and Buddhism. Christianity came after, in the colonial area, which gave people
27 Paul G. Hiebert. Case Studies in Missions. 109–112.
18
a more pessimistic opinion of it. As has happened in Europe and North America, we also have to think about the ‘Gospel and Our Culture (GOC)’ in the Asian context, especially Hindu-Buddhist culture-based countries like Cambodia as well.
Conversion may include a change in beliefs and behavior, but if the worldview is not transformed, in the long run, the gospel is subverted and the result is a syncretistic Christo-paganism.28
We can see that Hiebert’s four steps to take a critical contextualization in the community of the mission fields are related to what we called the ‘anthropological approach’ to change their worldviews. We cannot just force people to have faith but to see how they are available to adapt to the new environments in the new religion. Syncretism is what we have to worry about, but before that, giving chances to the community to accept new things they found in Christianity by themselves respectfully is much more important. So, Hiebert’s four steps should be practiced again and again, until the community can have their true faith based on the right teaching. Contextualization is giving people the answers the gospel gives to the questions a particular person has. Everyone contextualizes.
28 Paul Hiebert. Transforming Worldviews (Baker Academic, 2008) 11.
19
2. Evangelize by Contextualizing
Paul F. Knitter, a liberal theologian has a different point of view from Hiebert on how the gospel is proclaimed in the non-Christian world. Knitter sees four models of how Christians relate to other religions. There is replacement, fulfillment, mutuality, and acceptance. For each model, Knitter also distinguishes between different kinds of approaches that share the basic outlook of the model. There are four logically possible sets of religious questions and religious answers. It can be seen as same/same, same/different, different/same, and different/different, where ‘same’ means that the question or answer is in substantial agreement with Christianity, and ‘different’ means that the question or answer is substantially different from Christianity.29
Those four models are: (1) The Replacement Model is held by most Fundamentalists. It sees no value in other religions and posits Jesus as the One and Only Son of God and Savior. (2) The Fulfillment Model is the one that appeals to most mainline Protestants and Catholics. Here grace and truth are also to be found in other religions, and dialogue is viewed as essential to the Christian way. (3) The Mutuality Model is summed up in the statement that there are many true religions called to dialogue. Here three bridges have been used by Christians to relate to those on different paths: the philosophical29 Derek Michaud. “Toward an adequate model for the theology of religions,” (Boston University, 2008) 4.
20
historical bridge, the religious-mystical bridge, and the ethical-practical bridge.
(4) The Acceptance Model embraces inclusivism. It recognizes that real differences make for real dialogue and one of the best ways to understand one’s religion is by comparing it to others. The last two are appealing since they give free rein to the Spirit who is always blowing in the wind. Or, as Knitter puts it, “We’re never going to be able to wrap our mind around what the Spirit is up to.”30
Knitter provides an interesting and thought-provoking analysis of different perspectives of how Christianity should or could be seen concerning other religious traditions. He examines several different perspectives, raising questions and criticism of each, although his perspectives skew his analysis. The central problem that this book explores is religious pluralism.
The book Introducing Theologies of Religions presents an overview of models for how Christians should relate to and interact with people of other religious and spiritual traditions. So how should Christianity react to other religions, such as Buddhism? – Evangelize by contextualizing, respectfully.
Dialogues with other religions have always been a hot issue for Christianity since the IMC Jerusalem conference because both sides are still thinking that the conversation still has so many limitations. Different religious
30 David Pitman. Twentieth Century Christian Responses to Religious Pluralism (Routledge, 2014) 125.
21
culture-based mission fields need approval that each culture has its own codes used to communicate with their artistic languages, what we called ‘ethnodoxology’. Ethnodoxology is the study of how Christians in every culture engage with God and the world through their own artistic expressions.31
The concept of ‘Schalomatisieren’ by Johannes Christiaan Hoekendijk is a key point to the ethnic conflict. Christianity is a missional religion, not for a specific nation, but for all. The mission of Christianity is also to make peace in the community where it exists. So, co-existence is the key point to adapting to the new community, and for the community to bid themselves inside, Christianity. In the LCWE Cape Town commitment, to building the peace of Christ in our divided and broken world as Christ’s peace in ethnic conflict has described how Christianity shall make in action. It was published as below:
“Ethnic diversity is the gift and plan of God in creation. It has been spoiled by human sin and pride, resulting in confusion, strife, violence, and war among nations. However, ethnic diversity will be preserved in the new creation, when people from every nation, tribe, people, and language will gather as the redeemed people of God.”32
31 Global Ethnodoxolovy Network. Accessed Sep. 27, 2022. https://www.worldofworship.org/what-is-ethnodoxology/
32 LCWE Cape Town commitment. 66.
22
Evangelizing by forcing in the past was an unforgettable lesson for the blended culture-based non-Christian world. Violent reaching out to those in the mission fields, all the benefits are related to the side effects.
3. Nevius Methods on Contextualization
John Livingstone Nevius served as a missionary to China in the late nineteenth century. From his field experience, Nevius argued for radical changes in missionary methodology. Two of the major contributions of Nevius’ ‘New Method’ are his insistence that Christians be encouraged to remain in their pre-conversion vocation and that there be instituted a comprehensive discipleship and training program that leads to a missional engagement by the church. Charles Allen Clark summarizes the Nevius Method in nine principles that have become the standard summary of the method: (1) widespread itinerant personal evangelism by the missionary; (2) self-propagation, that is, every believer as an evangelist and teacher of someone, as well as a learner, a model called layering; (3) self-government, where unpaid believers lead their own individual churches; circuit helpers (paid by locals) aid these local believers by traveling from church to church, functioning as an elder but unable to administer sacraments; later, paid pastors replace circuit helpers once the church is able to support its own pastor; (4) self-support believers build their own chapels, each group contributes to paid helpers salary, schools receive only
23
partial subsidy, and no pastors of single churches paid by foreign funds; (5) systematic Bible study through a system of classes for biblical education of all believers; (6) strict church discipline; (7) co-operation and union with other bodies; (8) non-interference in lawsuits; and (9) general helpfulness in economic life problems of the people.33
What was the main role of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement in the mission field of China? – the contextualization and local church growth. The Three-Self Patriotic Movement is a Protestant church in the People’s Republic of China, as well as one of the largest Protestant bodies in the world.34 The Three-Self are (1) self-propagation, (2) self-government, and (3) self-support.
For the situation in Cambodia, these important Three-Self methods can teach one more important method – self-theologizing.
Cambodian churches are in the growing process. While growing up as
33 Charles Allen Clark, “The National Presbyterian Church of Korea as a Test of the Validity of the Nevius Principles of Missionary Method” (The University of Chicago, 1929), 29–30. Samuel Chao follows the second “edition” of Clark’s published dissertation in adding a tenth principle (becoming the new second principle) “The Bible should be the [sic] central to every part of the work.” Chao, “Nevius”, 216. cf. Charles Allen Clark, The Nevius Plan of Mission Work in Korea: Illustrated in Korea (Minneapolis: E. C. Heinz, 1937), 42.
34 WCC Executive Committee meets with China Christian Council, Three-Self Patriotic Movement. Accessed Oct. 28, 2022. https://www.oikoumene.org/news/wcc-executive-committee-meets-with-chinachristian-council-three-self-patriotic-movement
24
an independent church, it is the best time to make Cambodian churches, contextualized churches. We can see that the Small Church Movement was a factor of success in the history of Korean churches. As well as Nevius’ methods were also a key factor. From foreign support-based mission fields, Korea has improved to be a well-represent own-standing church in the world. It is also a hope to the young church as Cambodian churches. The Missio Dei is not too far from claiming in, the Church is fully possible to improve again God’s will through it as an abiding community.
Through this chapter, we can see how contextualization has an important role in the mission field. Evangelicalism is not put in the old frame of belief but localizes to the environment of the place where the gospel seed needs to grow. Cambodian churches also need to grow, but more than that we must secure their growth with healthy roots. The applicable Missio Dei in Cambodia also has an uncuttable relationship with God, not just a religious transformation, but must include their worldviews as well.
25
Chapter IV: Understanding the Anthropology of Religions in Cambodia
In this chapter, I will take a look into the understanding of the anthropology of religions in Cambodia, then overview the religious thoughts and beliefs of Hinduism and Theravada Buddhism and go on to the Buddhist cultural consequences and conceptions.
Anthropology is the study of what makes us human. Anthropologists take a broad approach to understand the many different aspects of the human experience, which we call holism.35 An anthropological view of how society changed is important to understand the basic flow of its process. Religions in every society have deep roots in the people as well, so comprehending how religions change or develop in one society can help us more clearly understand what we have missed.
1. Overview of the Religious Thoughts and Beliefs
In a country like Cambodia, the people and religions are related; so, understanding this part can change the point of view on the characteristics of Cambodians as well. Beliefs are always an important role in Cambodian society since its pre-history.36
35 What is Anthropology? Accessed Oct. 28, 2022. https://www.americananthro.org/AdvanceYourCareer/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=2 150
36 Daguan Zhou. A Record of Cambodia (Silkworm Books, 2007) 78.
26
Figure 4.1: The flag of Cambodia
Cambodia was strongly influenced by Theravada Buddhism centuries ago, since the reign of King Jayavarman VII, the one who changed the whole Khmer Empire from Hinduism and himself to a Buddhist. So, it is hard to describe Cambodia without talking about the thoughts and beliefs, and so-called religions. After the completion of Angkor Wat, which was originally and purposely constructed as a Hindu temple – dedicated to Vishnu. But the temple was transformed into a Buddhist temple towards the end of the 12th century. As such, it is also described as a Hindu-Buddhist temple. So, the Angkor Wat temple is such a large circle for the blended cultures of the country. And Cambodia is the only country to have a flag that features a building. It also represents how Cambodians value the temple and the Khmer Empire era as well. An American historian, David Chandler has a profound knowledge of the history of Cambodia, he described the paradigm shift from Hinduism to Buddhism in his A History of Cambodia as below:
27
The largest change affecting Cambodia in the thirteenth century was the conversion of most of its people to the Theravada variant of Buddhism. What role Jayavarman VII played in this conversion or what his response to it may have been is impossible to judge. The history of his reign, from a personal perspective, seems to be the story of the imposition of one man's will on a population, a landscape, and a part of Asia ostensibly in the service of an ideal, Mahayana Buddhism. …
Some scholars argue that the Theravada variant, unlike Brahmanism or Mahayana Buddhism, was oriented toward ordinary people.
37
We need to focus more on the revolution of the paradigm shift from Hinduism to Buddhism and its controversy. As historians have described, Hinduism has made all the kings of the Khmer Empire, to be a human god. So, it is hard to believe that King Jayavarman VII, could ever make this shift; after being influenced by his wife – a devoted Buddhist.
Before Buddhism spread out in Cambodia, Hinduism was one of the Khmer Empire’s official religions, and Angkor Wat is the largest Hindu temple in the world. It is possible to find Hindu iconography in dozens of temples in Angkor Archaeological Park offering historical evidence of the Kingdom’s religious history. Following back to the Funan Kingdom which ruled between 100 BC and 500 AD, kings mainly worshiped Vishnu and Shiva.
37 David Chandler. A History of Cambodia (Routledge, 2007) 127-128.
28
In the early 5th century AD, due to the influence of Hindu trading merchants and the Mon kingdoms, Buddhism was brought to Cambodia. For that reason, Hinduism and Buddhism co-existed peacefully in Cambodia for many years. During the period of the Khmer Empire, Hinduism still maintained to be a prevalent religion, until King Jayavarman VII formed Buddhism as the national religion. After a big paradigm of this shift in religions the optimism about pluralism in the country begins. And it has made contemporary Buddhism in the country different from the others when we talk about Buddhism. The gradual shift to Buddhism began when King Jayavarman VII sent his son to study Theravada Buddhism and be ordained as a Buddhist monk. As a result, the position of the god-king was replaced by respect for monks. The resources focused on building temples to respect those kings who supported constructing libraries, hospitals, and educational facilities, which paid much more attention to the improvement of the human than the reverence of a deity. In some way, this also told the reason for the belief exchanging of Khmer people in such a short time.
29
Figure 4.2: The flag of Democratic Kampuchea
There was the darkest time in the Kingdom, the Democratic Kampuchea, or the Khmer Rouge38 from 1975-1979, one-third of the population had been killed, cruelly. It is such an unforgettable catastrophe for the Kingdom. At this point, given that Buddhism teaches non-violence, and the spirits uphold morality, how can we explain the Khmer Rouge years, the years of the crocodile? 39 Cambodian Buddhism is not quite as described as the normal Buddhism in Southeast Asian countries. They strongly believe in the terms ‘bon’ and ‘kamm’. The words បុណ្យ[bon] and កម្ម[kamm] are Khmer, and although the concepts behind them derive from Buddhism; they take on a subtly different meaning in everyday life, bound up with ideas of reincarnation, social status, and power and its sources.
38 Khmer Rouge, (French: “Red Khmer”) also called Khmers Rouge, a radical communist movement that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 after winning power through a guerrilla war. It was purportedly set up in 1967 as the armed wing of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. Accessed Sep. 13, 2022. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Khmer-Rouge
39 Philip Coggan. Spirit Worlds, (John Beaufoy Publishing, 2016) 117.
30
This kind of Buddhism mainly focuses on teaching humans about metempsychosis as well as karma. Whatever a man sows, that also shall he reap, every action will get the same consequences. For instance, if you help someone who is on the rock, you will be rewarded with good consequences, and you will have a better life next incarnation. At the same time, bad deeds can lead to bad effects and lower status in the subsequent life cycle. This can be clearly expressed through daily life, with the poor or disabled person, it is believed that it may be the result of actions and deeds in a past incarnation. To enable dwellers to live a happy life, Buddhism has 5 key elements people should follow: (1) Refraining from taking life, (2) Refraining from taking that which is not given, (3) Refraining from sensual (sexual included) misconduct, (4) Refraining from lying, and (5) Refraining from intoxicants leading to loss of mindfulness.40
Apart from that, Buddhism also encourages followers to push several common feelings away including suffering, anxiety, and dissatisfaction. This can explain some of the characteristics of Cambodians, why they always give you a friendly smile. Even if you do something wrong to them, they keep it in their hearts, but they express nothing on their face. They are satisfied with all they have and live most simply. Through this, I can explain that religious practice also helps Cambodians survive post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after the civil war, genocide period, and unstable government from the 1960s to
40 Paul Dahlke. The Five Precepts: Collected Essays (Buddhist Publication Society, 1963) 34.
31
1990s in the Kingdom. During the Khmer Rouge regime, there are 1.7 million Cambodians, which is approximately 20 percent of the population were slaughtered systematically – it was the darkest time in the modern-day Kingdom.41 According to a 2012 report, between 15 and 35 percent of those who survived the Khmer Rouge and experienced violence associated with armed conflict suffer from PTSD and even more people within the general Cambodian population suffer due to a wider transmission of Khmer Rougeassociated trauma.42 Buddhism is not just a religion, but a basis for the deep underground of Cambodian society; It healed the people and restored society.
2. Contemporary Buddhism, Its Cultural Consequence, and Conceptions
Currently, Cambodia is a kingdom led by the king and its constitutional law. It is normally called ‘the Kingdom’. The identity of Cambodia is a big part to understand the whole country such as its rich history and impacts on modernday Cambodia.
41 Cambodian Genocide Program. Accessed Sep. 29, 2022. http://www.yale.edu/cgp/
42 Daniel McLaughlin and Elisabeth Wickeri. Special Report: Mental Health and Human Rights in Cambodia (New York: Leitner Center for International Law and Justice, 2012) 12.
32
Religion Nation King
Figure 4.3: Motto of Cambodia
The motto of current Cambodia is ‘Nation, Religion, King’. And the people define the country’s name as ‘Kampuchea’(កម្ពុជា) and themselves as ‘Khmer’(ខ្មមរ) What made the people of Cambodia, a ‘Khmer’ as above, among the three mottoes, we can see that religion has its role and deep root in contemporary Cambodian society. If we look back to the Angkor era, the highest civilization period of the country, religion was practiced respectively by the people. Since people used Sanskrit and Pali as sacred languages on stone inscriptions to describe their society.
The Khmers of course did leave a written record, but it was carved in stone rather than written on paper. There are around 1200 stone inscriptions in the Angkor region, written in either Sanskrit, Khmer or, from the 13th century, in Pali, the sacred language of the Theravada Buddhists. Most of the Sanskrit inscriptions are prayers to the gods or to Buddha or tell us the genealogies of the kings, ruling families, and Brahman priests, together with praise of their putative good works and military and civic virtues.43
43 John Tully. A Short History of Cambodia (Allen & Unwin, 2006) 19.
33
Every language has its own peculiarities that endow it with color and flavor. Khmer is no different. The frequent use of alliterations, redundancies for emphasis, and other literary devices may seem long-winded and awkward, but it has retained to preserve the authenticity and essence of the original Khmer work to come through. 44 Under the Khmer Rouge, all religious practices were forbidden. The pro-Vietnamese communist regime that ruled Cambodia in the 1980s encouraged Buddhism in a limited way, and Theravada Buddhism was restored as Cambodia’s state religion in 1993. Minority populations are not Theravada Buddhists. Khmer Loeu45 groups generally follow local religions, while ethnic Vietnamese and Chinese are eclectic, following Mahayana Buddhism and Daoism.46
Buddhism is the official religion of Cambodia, and approximately 97% of the Cambodian population are Buddhist followers.47 Almost all Cambodian annual festivals are connected with Buddhist festivals. The Khmer New Year festival in April, for example, matches with venerations of Buddha statues and offerings at the pagodas. Pchum Ben, a festival of the ancestors in October is
44 Seiha Chea. Escape from Democratic Kampuchea (Balboa Press, 2016) 35.
45 Khmer Loeu (upper Khmers) is the collective name given to the various indigenous ethnic groups residing in the highlands of Cambodia. They are found mainly in the northeastern provinces of Ratanakiri, Stung Treng, and Mondulkiri.
46 Religion of Cambodia. Accessed Oct. 13, 2022. https://www.britannica.com/place/Cambodia/Religion
47 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom: Cambodia. Accessed Oct. 28, 2022. https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-report-on-international-religiousfreedom/cambodia/
34
celebrated at the end of the traditional 3 months retreat for Buddhist monks. Besides, weddings and funerals have been presided over by monks and nuns. There is one belief that it would be lucky if monks can bless the new houses for the couple. It is also common for water blessings in which people are doused head-to-toe to get fortune and protection. There is a quite strong belief relating to ghosts and spirits in this homeland, particularly in the countryside. Most localities have spirit houses, miniature wooden houses, in which the full smell of incense and some offerings are used to placate the souls disturbed by local people. These spirits’ beliefs also are shown in healing practices. Cambodians prefer finding help from monks or healers to going to see doctors when they or someone in the family suffer from illness. Especially, in some important decisions in life such as getting married, investing, long travels, etc people tend to visit fortune-tellers.48
Buddhism, and their consequences are related to the daily life of Cambodians. In 1961, the conference of the World Federation of Buddhists was held in Cambodia since Buddhism is the state religion.49 So, what happens when you are not Buddhist? – Becoming an outsider.
48 John Marston and Elizabeth Guthrie. History, Buddhism, and New Religious Movements in Cambodia (University of Hawaii Press, 2004) 54.
49 Holmes Welch. Buddhism since the Cultural Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 1969) Retrieved from JSTOR. Accessed Nov. 8, 2022. http://www.jstor.org/stable/651982
35
Through this chapter, we can be recognized how religion has a very deep root in the society of Cambodia, till now. Non-religious are not allowed to show publicly their atheist thoughts, it is disrespectful to be a Khmer and blasphemy as well. It is related to the forbidden religious practice during the genocide period, as well. That is why people think that non-religious concepts are such wrong behavior. There is no difference between the other religions. People in the Kingdom are so open to all religions, not recently, but since centuries ago. We can see that the national religion shifted in the Angkor Kingdom and the forbiddance of religious practice in the Khmer Rouge era, is always giving effects to the belief of the Cambodian people. Since the people keep remembering that the Angkor era was the highest civilization period in the history of Cambodia and the Democratic Kampuchea was the dark age of Cambodian history. So, the religious practice will never pull out of the society of Cambodia. Christianity is also possible to grow firmly in the Kingdom as well.
36
Chapter V: Toward An Appropriate Mission Model in Cambodia
In this chapter, I will illustrate Christianity in Cambodia. In a Buddhist culture-based society like Cambodia, Christianity also has its own colors; so, we must take time to understand how people adapt to new teaching from the gospel first. In the anthropology of religions, we can see there is much more controversy between and in each religion.50 The concepts of good deeds and bad deeds, such as បុណ្យ[bon] and បាប[bab] have very deep roots in the society of Buddhist cultures-based country like Cambodia. The bad deeds or បាប[bab] can be translated as ‘sin’ in the concepts of Christianity. However, it is quite different. One more concept of the circle of life, especially ‘karma’ also has a very important role in Cambodian beliefs. The term karma is a very hard struggle, and a big challenge to persuade Cambodian people to understand ‘salvation’, which is always the main topic of Christianity.
We need to understand more about the relationship between bad deeds and karma in Cambodian thought and beliefs and the term sin in the Bible teaching. Christianity talks about sin and God’s love, such as God is love, creating love, and loved us first (1 John 4:19) But people sin against God. However, God demonstrates his own love for us in this: “While we were still
50 Talal Asad. Anthropological Conceptions of Religion. Accessed Nov. 8, 2022. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2801433
37
sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8, NIV) The Bible tells us over and over that sin leads to death and destruction because there are consequences to going against the grain regarding how God designed us to live and obey him – the purpose of the Christian life.
The Bible says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13, NIV) So what is salvation in Christianity? And is it possible that Christianity able to justify the bad deeds of humans? “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished.” (Romans 3:25, NIV) It is really important to proclaim again and again that accepting Jesus Christ requires humility because you are admitting that you cannot save yourself by your means – it is a Christian belief. In Buddhism, Karma is the individual responsibility of each body, there is no one to take instead. But Christianity keeps telling us that Jesus Christ is one for all. This is the unsolved controversy between the two religions.
Humanitarian support has made the poor community in the Kingdom have one prejudice against Christianity – materialism. The argument that spiritual and material realms, the Sabbath and normal days, devout and worldly lives, prophesy and science, private and public areas, facts and values, churches and nations, God’s love and love for neighbors, evangelism and social activities,
38
Christian witnesses and developments need to be integrated within the relationship of creative tension is gaining support.51
1. Contemporary Christianity in Cambodia
The Roman Catholic Portuguese missionaries had introduced the first formal expression of what is Christianity to the Kingdom, around some four hundred years previously. In 1923, two American married couples under the auspices of the Christian Missionary Alliance (CMA) arrived in Cambodia, being the first evangelical missionaries who had crossed the border from Vietnam to settle in Phnom Penh.52 Arthur L. Hammond53 and his wife, Esther Hammond moved to the capital city of Phnom Penh and began working on a Bible translation that would eventually become known as the Khmer Old Version of the Bible (KHOV), in collaboration with Cambodian consultants,
51 Bryant L. Myers. Walking with the Poor (Orbis, 2011) 65.
52 J. Paul Ellison. “A Short History of the Cambodian Evangelical Church,” Retrieved from OMF International. Accessed Oct. 28, 2022. https://omf.org/post/-/news-andstories/2019/3/26/suffering-and-mission-narrative-research-from-cambodia-withspecial-reference-to-cambodian-church-history
53 Arthur L. Hammond (1896-1979), an American citizen, was the first evangelical missionary in Cambodia. He trained at Nyack College and first arrived in Southeast Asia as a Christian & Missionary Alliance (CMA) missionary in 1921 and served for two years in Saigon, Vietnam.
39
both Buddhist and Christian.54
The Protestant church also established its presence in a few outlying provinces; it opened a Bible school and initiated translation work on portions of the New Testament. They translated the New Testament in 1933 and published the whole Bible in 1953. The church presented King Norodom Sihanouk with a special edition of the entire Khmer Bible when he was installed as king in 1953. 55 In 1965 the government’s anti-American crusade forced foreign missionaries to withdraw. After 40 years of work, they left the Khmer Evangelical Church (CMA affiliated) with less than one thousand members.56
Don Cormack57 wrote his book Killing Fields, Living Fields, which are such precious records about life in the darkest time in the Kingdom. He mentioned that in 1970, with the rise of a pro-American regime, and the return of missionaries, there was freedom and growth for the church. Many turned to God. There were large evangelistic crusades and Christians labored with a sense
54 Kenton J. Clymer. Troubled Relations: The United States and Cambodia since 1870 (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2007), 10.
55 Michael Nai-Chiu Poon. Church Partnerships in Asia (Trinity Theological College and Armour Publishing, 2010) 146.
56 The Growth of Christianity in Cambodia. Accessed Sep. 27, 2022. https://omf.org/post/-/news-and-stories/2021/8/27/the-growth-of-christianity-incambodia
57 Don Cormack spent over 20 years among the Cambodian people and therefore is well able to give the background of Cambodian Life and culture. Accessed Oct. 28, 2022. https://www.christianfocus.com/contributors/605/don-cormack
40
of urgency as the Khmer Rouge advanced. When war broke out there were three congregations in Phnom Penh. By 1975, when the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh, this number had increased to 30. In response to urgent requests, Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF) sent five members to Phnom Penh in 1974 to work alongside the Cambodian church. But a year later, all missionaries were forced to make a ‘reluctant exodus’ leaving a Church of around 10,000 members. The persecution was savage; 90% of Christians and all Christian leaders were martyred or fled the country. In 1975, hundreds of thousands of Cambodians fled to Thailand, where they were housed in refugee camps. OMF workers previously expelled from the country went to the camps with the message of hope, and over the following years, several thousand more Cambodians were baptized.58
58 Don Cormack. Killing Fields, Living Fields (Monarch Books, 2001) 32.
41
59
Figure 5.1: Churches in Cambodia
Cambodians had an optimistic opinion of religions centuries ago, so it is not an easy process for them to accept a differentiated religion like Christianity. However, syncretized Christianity is simply overrated as a pseudo-religion as well. So, what is real Christianity? A stereotype of how Christianity should look is the reality of how many people think. The basic challenges on this are all about the GOC. Niebuhr explains how the problem was about Christ and our culture. So, it is still a big struggle to make sure of what is genuine Christianity. Following the new trend from the outside is not wrong but focusing on localization is much more important to the young church like the Cambodian church. Christianity is still new; its cultural practice needs to adapt to 59 Accessed and screenshot on Sep. 18, 2022.
https://cambodiachurches.org/harvest/mapping/CL/map.html?displaylang=EN&lang =sec&showcluster=false
42
Cambodian society.
Cambodian churches are still young, and in the process to be contextualized as true Cambodian-church. In 1923, Cambodian churches had 2,697 churches. But in 2012, it had 168,887 believers equal to 1.19% of Cambodia’s population. 60 But despite 90 years of history, Cambodia’s Protestant Church is not a self-standing church yet, according to the standard of self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating, and self-theologizing principles.
As what has happened in the past, from an experience of Hinduism transforming to Buddhism in the Kingdom, it made a blended Buddhism –Hinduist-Buddhism. We can learn that pluralism in religions is needed times to adapt the appropriate way of the firm basement. A study by the Roman Catholic theologian rightly points out the problems of the Western pluralists’ view of the Scripture as below:
“The problems with the pluralist interpretation of scripture include not only conclusions reached about the normativity of Christ but also presuppositions about the interpretation of texts in general. The pluralist approach, as seen in Hick, Young, Knitter, and the contributors to The Myth of Christian Uniqueness, assumes the priority of the world’s experiences
60
The Growth of Christianity in Cambodia. Accessed Sep. 27, 2022. https://omf.org/post/-/news-and-stories/2021/8/27/the-growth-of-christianity-incambodia
43
and phenomena over the realm of language and texts, like the Bible. Priority of experience means that the texts which give linguistic form, shape, and intelligibility to experience are secondary to a primal experience of life and the world. … The result of this prioritizing of experience is that pluralists tend to deemphasize the place of sacred texts in the encounter among religions and treat religious language more as divisive rather than as solidifying of human community.”61
According to a Finnish theologian, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, there are three important schools within Christian theology of religions, such as pluralism, inclusivism, and exclusivism, which describe the relation of other religious traditions to Christianity and attempt to answer questions about the nature of God and salvation.62 The exclusivism of Christianity in Asia or in mission fields like Cambodia does not mean arrogance or narrow-mindedness; because of Cambodian Christians, as a minority, cannot maintain an arrogant or proud attitude in the midst of increasing suffering and persecution because of their beliefs.
61 Edward G. Scheid. “Scripture and Theology of the Religions,” (Duquesne University, 1992), 195.
62 Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen. Christian Theology in the Pluralistic World (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2019) 103.
44
2. The Methodist Church in Cambodia and Its Process
After the dark times in the Kingdom, in 1993, the Korean Methodist Church (KMC) missionaries first entered the country. And in 1997, Methodist missionaries from Switzerland, France, Singapore, the United States, and Malaysia worked with the KMC to establish the Methodist Mission in Cambodia. 3 years later, in 2000, the Cambodian Methodist Bible School (CMBS) was officially opened by the Minister of Cult and Religion of Cambodia.63
In January 2003, the Methodist Mission in Cambodia was officially constituted by the five participating agencies (KMC, MMS: Methodist Missions Society in Singapore, WFCMC: World Federation of Chinese Methodist Churches, Connexio: The Mission Board of the United Methodist Church in Switzerland and France, and GBGM (General Board of Global Ministries) of the UMC (United Methodist Church) at the 1st Annual Meeting of the Mission. The declaration, “The Methodist Mission of the People Called Methodists in Cambodia,” was signed by the bishops of the participating agencies.64
At the Phnom Penh Symposium in 2010, Jinsup Song65, a mission
63
History of the Methodist Church in Cambodia. Accessed Oct. 30, 2022. https://methodistmcc.org/history/.
64 History. Accessed Sep. 29, 2022. https://umccambodia.org/history/.
65 Jinsup Song received his Doctor of Ministry degree from Fuller Theological Seminary, USA, in June 2008: ‘Strategy of Self-sustaining Methodist Church-
45
superintendent of Korean Methodist Churches of Cambodia, pointed out the problematical dynamics in church-planting efforts as he was sharing financial data from his denomination’s annual report. He stated that by 2011, after more than fifteen years of mission work, the financial support of 150 Cambodian church plants by Korean Methodist missionaries had reached $16,000 per month, including salaries and facility-renting fees. However, none of these 150 churches is financially self-sustaining, and he reported that the monthly budget is increasing at a rate higher than the next Methodist seminary graduates can plant. As a result, their church-planting project is on hold, and they are reorganizing their future mission strategy to include the development of selfsustainable components such as capacity building and leadership training.66
The Methodist Church in Cambodia (MCC) will be a role model for being a sustainable body led by the local minister. Even though it is still in need of support from the outside, but not depend on that support alone. The MCC established a Bible school, the CMBS which trains the locals to serve the local church. Several years after Song stated the process of the MCC, in 2018, Rev. Lun Sophy, a pastor from the city near the ancient temples at Angkor Wat, Siem planting in Cambodia’. He shared part of his thesis at our Phnom Penh Symposium in 2010. Retrieved from Sukhwan Oh. “Patron-Client Relationship in Cross-cultural Church Planting,” (Middlesex University, 2018) 3. 66 Sukhwan Oh. “Patron-Client Relationship in Cross-cultural Church Planting: A Case Study of Cambodia Bible College, 1998 - 2015,” (Middlesex University, 2018) 3-4.
46
Reap province, was elected president of the MCC, officially and originally in Methodist parlance called a ‘provisional annual conference’ but expected to be autonomous or self-governing in the upcoming future. The MCC officially came into being in early September 2018 at a conference in Phnom Penh. It has 140 congregations, 10 districts, 132 clergy persons, 3,171 full members, and average Sunday worship attendance of 6,828.67 Even though it is just a provisional annual conference, it is such a great starting point, to be a contextualized church with Three-Self methods.
68
Figure 5.2: Methodist Churches in Cambodia
67 New Methodist Church Formally Launched in Cambodia. Accessed Oct. 28, 2022. https://www.resourceumc.org/en/content/new-methodist-church-formally-launchedin-cambodia
68 Accessed and screenshot on Sep. 19, 2022. https://umccambodia.org/mcc/.
47
The 10 districts are (1) Phnom Penh district, (2) Banteay Meanchey district, (3) Siem Reap-Odor Meanchey district, (4) Svay Rieng-Prey Veng district, (5) Kampong Cham-Kratie-Mondulkiri district, (6) Kampong SpeuPreah Sihanouk-Koh Kong district, (7) Battambang-Pailin district, (8) Kampong Thom-Preah Vihear district, (9) Kandal-Takeo-Kampot district, and (10) Kampong Chhnang-Pursat district.69
In the case of the MCC, adopting two missions in action from the LCWE Cape Town commitment is such a great basement for the future.
Make disciples: “Biblical mission demands that those who claim Christ’s name should be like him, by taking up their cross, denying themselves, and following him in the paths of humility, love, integrity, generosity, and servanthood. To fail in discipleship and disciple-making is to fail at the most basic level of our mission. The call of Christ to his Church comes to us afresh from the pages of the gospels: ‘Come and follow me’; ‘Go and make disciples’.”70
Love one another: “Three times Jesus repeated, ‘A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.’ Three times Jesus prayed ‘that all of them may be one, Father.’ Both the command and the prayer are missional. ‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’ ‘May they be brought to
69 District. Accessed Oct. 30, 2022. https://methodistmcc.org/district/
70 LCWE Cape Town commitment. 110.
48
complete unity so that the world may know that you sent me.’
Jesus could not have made his point more emphatically. The evangelization of the world and the recognition of Christ’s deity are helped or hindered by whether or not we obey him in practice. The call of Christ and his apostles comes to us afresh: ‘Love one another’; ‘Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.’ It is for the sake of God’s mission that we renew our commitment to obey this ‘message we heard from the beginning.’ When Christians live in the reconciled unity of love by the power of the Holy Spirit, the world will come to know Jesus, whose disciples we are, and come to know the Father who sent him.”71
I was born and raised in Cambodia, where Buddhism is the state religion, but the law provides for freedom of belief and religious worship, provided such freedom neither interferes with others’ beliefs and religions nor violates public order and security.72 Despite the repression in society, I became a churchgoer when I was in middle school. And then I was baptized and raised as a Methodist while experiencing the worship service in the Korean Methodist tradition. So, in my case, I am the first generation in the family and the society where I grew up, to be a Christian. But the law does not allow non-Buddhist
71 Ibid. 72 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom: Cambodia. Accessed Oct. 30, 2022. https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-report-on-international-religiousfreedom/cambodia/
49
denominations to proselytize publicly, so I still remain a Buddhist on the legal documents to be a Cambodian citizen. This is a big challenge to be a Christian in Cambodia, where you can become a stranger in your hometown. In my point of view, Cambodian people are really kind and warmhearted, we are open to all religions, and we believe that religion has the same purpose to educate and guide people to practice good things. So, Cambodia is a land full of hopes and possibilities to be changed, and various kinds of ministry are needed.
3. Most Effective Ways of Contextualization: Barnabas Mam’s Teaching
Barnabas Mam has been the Alliance for Continuous Improvement (AFCI)’s Regional Director for Asia since 2007 and is one of only 200 Christians to survive the Killing Fields of Pol Pot73. He joined the Communist party as a teenager and was converted to Christ while spying on a Christian evangelistic meeting in the early 1970s. He was later arrested and sent to the Killing Fields where he spent four years in captivity. After his release, Barnabas was forced to flee the country where he spent another eight years in a refugee camp in Thailand where he began the ministry of church planting. After 73 Pol Pot, original name Saloth Sar, Khmer political leader who led the Khmer Rouge totalitarian regime (1975–79) in Cambodia that imposed severe hardships on the Cambodian people. Retrieved from Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pol-Pot?utm_campaign=bextension&utm_medium=chrome&utm_source=ebinsights&utm_content=Pol%20P ot
50
returning to Cambodia, Barnabas helped rebuild the church in his native land, and over 400 churches have been planted since 1998.74
Mam suggests the most effective ways of contextualization for promoting (1) the national motto, (2) the Khmer people, (3) Khmer culture, tradition, and custom, (4) Khmer customs, (5) Khmer savoir-vivre (etiquette), (6) Khmer music, (7) Khmer dances, (8) Khmer performing arts, (9) Khmer worldview, (10) Khmer Bible, and (11) Khmer indigenous praise songs.75
74
Figures 5.3: Khmer Greeting Styles76
Moody Publishers. Accessed Sep. 29, 2022. https://www.moodypublishers.com/authors/m/barnabas-mam/
75 Barnabas Mam. Accessed Sep. 29, 2022. https://youtu.be/sJiEAiLH-S0
76 Accessed and screenshot on Sep. 29, 2022. https://youtu.be/sJiEAiLH-S0.
51
Promoting the national motto: ‘nation, religion, king’, Mam mentioned how meaningful the flag is to the people of Cambodia. Its red color represents the nation, white color represents religion, and blue color represents the king. The temple represents the structure of the world. The flag was first used from October 20, 1948, to October 1970. Then, after the war ended on June 30, 1993, the flag was used again until now. And according to his own experiences of meeting high government officials and getting praise for how Khmer Christians give respect to the Khmer clothes. He strongly mentions how Khmer Christians value the Khmer seven colors of traditional clothes. He also mentioned that as Paul uses the Greek worldview to describe what God is talking to that generation, the Khmer worldview should be used for those who have never known about the gospel before. It is a very appropriate way to reach out to them. For himself, he finds out that using Khmer proverbs first, then using the teaching of the Bible, makes people more related to the Word of God.
52
Proverbs 18:21
Figure 5.4: Bible Teaching and Khmer Proverbs77
As an example, from Proverbs 18:21, “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” (NIV), Mam mentioned that it is the best suitable approach to introduce the Khmer proverbs, to those who cannot be related to what the Bible is talking about. The language barriers and the distance of nuance are also a big struggle in the Khmer Bible. Mam showed only the recently popular in using Khmer Bible, but actually, most of the Cambodian Church is still using KHOV 1954 which was translated decades ago – the first and oldest translated version of the Khmer Bible. The Khmer Old Version of the Bible to which many of my interlocutors have an undying loyalty, despite the more recent publication of the significantly simplified Khmer 77
Barnabas Mam’s Teaching from his “Most Effective Ways of Contextualization” lecture on YouTube channel, https://youtu.be/sJiEAiLH-S0
53
RKOV16 ទ ាោះ ាាំងទេចកដីស្លាប់ និងជីវិត ក៏ទ ាកនុងអាំណាចនន អណដាតខ្ែរ អនកណាខ្ែលចូលចិតតទ្បើ ទ ាោះនឹងេុី ផលននអណដាតទ ាោះឯង។ KSV ស្លាប់ ឬរេ់ ទ្្ាោះខ្តេម្ដី អនកណាចូលចិតតនិយាយ អនកទ ាោះ្តូវទទួលផលពី្ាកយេម្ដីរបេ់មលួន។ Khmer
អណដាតជាអាទិកនលង បានេុមទុកខផងទ ាយស្ារអណដាត។
Proverbs
Standard Version (KSV) in 1997 and 2005; Although both translations necessarily depend on a fair amount of words and concepts rooted in a Cambodian religious cosmology combining elements of Theravada Buddhism, indigenous Cambodian religion, and Hinduism, many of my evangelical interlocutors regarded the KHOV with severe suspicion due to the degree of religious hybridity they attributed to the text.
78
Since it is quite different from the contemporary Khmer language, that is one reason that Mam also promotes using the Holy Bible in Revised Khmer
Old Version 2016 (RKOV16) which is easier to understand for all Khmer (Acts 6:7) Then he strongly mentioned promoting the Khmer indigenous praise songs (Colossians 3:16) and tells his experiences that on 1988 at Melbourne, Australia, he and his companion, Sarin Sam79 published the Khmer Praise Books, which the first hymnal was composed of Western hymns translated into Khmer and is now often seen conjoined with the newer hymnal comprising songs written in Khmer and set to indigenous tunes by former refugee camp ministers Mam and
78 Briana Wong, “We Believe the Bible,” (Indonesian Journal of Theology, 2021) 25.
79 Sarin Sam, a Cambodian Christian songwriter in the Khao-I-Dang refugee camp in Thailand starts to compile a Khmer indigenous hymnal. Barnabas sends him many Cambodian folks and traditional hymns for the project that are very well received. Alice Compain of OMF Thailand coordinates this new Khmer hymnal project. Retrieved from Michael Nai-Chiu Poon, Church Partnerships in Asia (Trinity Theological College and Armour Publishing, 2010) 150.
54
Sam.80 2009-2013 Khmer Contemporary Bible quoted Songs, and in 2012, Traditional Wedding Songs for Khmer Christian in Kingdom and diaspora Khmer oversea.
4. An Appropriate Mission Model in Cambodia
Western or Korean missionaries influent the Cambodian Church as much as the time they arrived in the Kingdom for their mission works. And the controversy of being ‘Khmer’ and adapting to the new teaching from missionaries is still a challenge for the Cambodian Church. As the first generation of Khmer theologists, what Mam has suggested on the most effective ways to contextualize the gospel in the Church should be positively accepted.
Hiebert already shows how to adapt the teaching from the Bible to the community in the mission fields, the Bible is the basic, and all the possibilities are having a try to adapt it in an appropriate way that both the Church and
80 Karen B. Westerfield Tucker, “Methodism’s ‘World Parish’: Liturgical and Hymnological Migrations in Three Ecclesiastical Generations,” in Liturgy in Migration: From the Upper Room to Cyberspace, ed., Teresa Berger (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 145-46; cf. Barnabas Mam, “Cambodia,” in Christianity in East and Southeast Asia, eds., Kenneth Ross, Francis D. Alvarez, and Todd M. Johnson (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020), 179. Retrieved from Briana Wong, “We Believe the Bible,” (Indonesian Journal of Theology, 2021) 26.
55
community can accept. A contextual approach is suitable and possible to activate Bible teaching in the Cambodian community as well. And here are two points that I suggest for an appropriate way to do the mission in Cambodia.
1) Respect Khmer Culture
Khmer culture is mostly Buddhist-based, however, we need to pay respect, since it represents the people in the community as well. One of many reasons that Christian culture is still weird to Khmer people is because that culture is not yet Khmerization, but still, keeps Khmer people changing themselves to be suitable for it. That is such a big struggle for the Khmer people and Christianity in the Kingdom. For example, the Choir in the Church is really hard to suitable to the Khmer language, since, in Khmer, singing in the Choir style makes people cannot understand the meaning of the whole song as well. That is why Mam has recommended using Khmer-style songs in the Church instead. And it becomes a controversy between Khmer ministers and missionaries. It is the truth that Cambodian traditional music is related to Buddhism but better than cutting its relations, using it for Christianity deeply join with the people is a much better choice.
56
Figure 5.5: ទាំនុកតទម្កើង និងទាំនុកខ្មមរបរិេុទធ (Hymn and Khmer Holy Hymn Song)81
In most churches in Cambodia are using this praise book for their worship service. Most Khmer-style hymns from the book are written by Mam and Sam by lyricism Bible verses or teachings with Khmer traditional instrument-used music. Those hymns are familiar to all Cambodians as well 81 C&MA, Cambodia. Hymn and Khmer Holy Hymn Song (Good News Printing House, 1993)
57
which makes us catch the meanings of the hymn more easily.
Luther translated the Bible from Latin, which was praised as a holy language for the Mass at that time, to a normal German that every people can easily understand, for a reason, to make people understand God’s word. For the same reason, we praise our God, the Creator, not without an understanding, but with our full understanding of what we are praising for as well. Not a hard to understand Choir style hymn, but a full understanding of the lyrics’ praises is more valuable for Cambodian Christian church music.
2) Value Khmer People’s Perspective
Some misunderstandings can totally destroy the relationship between Cambodians and outsiders easily. “Thanks for the peace” (អរគុណ្េនដិភាព) is currently a slogan that represents Cambodian society. The term ‘peace’ here can be different from the non-Khmer worldview descriptions. Experiences in the civil war, the Pol Pot regime, and the unstable government era for years keep the Khmer people thirsting to seek peace. For Khmer people, ‘in peace’, means you can spare time to do something, ‘not in rush’. It becomes a Khmer lifestyle as well. From a negative point of view, Khmer people look so lazy. Even in that case, it is better not to blame their lookalike laziness, but to find the relationship between their lifestyle and perspective of living with respect is much more
58
important. Some foreign missionaries from different lifestyle societies like Korea as well, mostly confront Cambodian ministers with the term ‘laziness’.
Working in the mission fields with foreign missionaries is still a big challenge for Cambodian ministers, since the gap in their cultural perspectives is quite different, and the respect for the differences is limited. Accepting ‘something different does not mean it is wrong.’ is such a key point for this situation. In Christianity, Jesus gives us peace which the world cannot give (John 14:27), honestly, it is hard to explain exactly the kind of peace that Jesus mentioned to all people in different environments. In the same way, the Khmer people are currently praising and appreciating the peace in their community. We may not able to understand this concept, so for the outsiders, we need to learn to understand this for the good sake. Christianity in the mission fields needs to work with the native by respecting them, first. For example, the main issue for the Korean missionaries is the Gab/Eur (갑을, 甲乙)82 culture which give a much more effect on their mission work in the mission field. The relationship between missionaries and the local ministers is really important, and this needs a fair partnership relationship, not the Gab/Eur. It is still a challenge for Korean
82 Gab/Eur are words used to express the power dynamic between two people or groups. Gab represents the person with more power, and eur is the subjugated. It originally comes from the legal terminology, but is now used to talk about any relationships such as boss/subordinate, women/men, adult/child etc. Accessed Dec. 12, 2022. NAVER Dictionary. https://en.dict.naver.com/#/userEntry/koen/88b78fa7c723074ecbb9c53c8d30d345
59
missionaries since it is their culture. Respect for each culture is the main value and the basis of our perspective as well.
Through this chapter, we can understand how religion has profound roots in the society of Cambodia, so most of the people remain to rely on religious rituals, despite the development of the modern cultures of atheism, which are usually brought in by the West. Cambodians are not stubborn nonbelievers, but they are the people who need to know who God is, and what is Christianity. The contextualizing-based mission model will help the Young Cambodian Church grow more firmly, to be a self-standing church.
Transforming the community need times, as well as contextualizing Christianity in society. The work for the community is more than the result of preaching the gospel; it is itself a declaration and expression of the gospel as well. That is what the Cambodian churches are in need of.
60
Chapter VI: Conclusion
Christianity in Cambodia has its limitation to growing more bigger, however, it is possible to keep growing as itself – a contextualized Khmer Christianity.
Mission in other cultural-based communities, the appropriate way to reach out to them, is to contextualize Christianity and localize it, not by the missionaries but by the native. Especially, Buddhism as a partner in dialogue with Christianity is such an appropriate way to reach out to Buddhist traditional culture-based Cambodians in the Kingdom. As Barnabas Mam has mentioned above, the real Khmer Christians are in the process of being themselves through Khmerization.
The mission of God is holistic, without the norm belonging to the world.
In the past, white supremacy was a struggle for the gospel to reach the whole world, through colonialism. Missio Dei is not a part of religious belief, but the relationship between God, the Creator, and His universe. Cambodia is a part of a pluralistic world, but God’s work and His omnipresence have no barriers.
Through this paper, we can see God is beyond all things and is kind to reach out to everyone in His created universe. God’s beloved creature, humans, need His love and grace that is a hundred percent a gift, not by earning.
61
Evangelization in a pluralistic and non-Christian worldview as Cambodia needs more patience to seed the truth and calmly wait for its prosperous fruits.
Christianization is absolutely collapsed without contextualizing it. Especially, in a mission field like Cambodia, localizing or Khmerization is a must, not a choice. Pluralism is always a big concern, but without co-existence, no growth will occur. The real Khmer Christian needed the work of God and the locals, not from urging from an outside power. The very appropriate way to form a mission model in the Kingdom also starts with a partnership with respect.
Understanding more about ‘Khmer’ is also a key to enlarging the Kingdom of God.
Localizing the gospel in an appropriate way can be a risk in the form and meaning of issues that always happen in the mission fields. Still, without localizing or contextualizing, the gospel in the 21 century is not different from what happened in the Colonial Evangelization era.
Mission in Cambodia should be a sustainable mission model and should not focus on the revival of the church since Cambodian churches are mostly still the first generation. Focusing on localization, and deep growth through three self-model of contextualization. The authentic contextualized Christianity in the Kingdom of Cambodia must include a self-sustainable system.
62
However, there is a limitation to this study, Cambodian rich history of religions is much more heavy tasks that need more time to go deeper with it. This study only brings a part of it to overview how Cambodians and its society think of religions. I am expecting that there will be more studies in this field.
63
Bibliography
Books
Bangura, Joseph B. Pentecostalism in Sierra Leone: Contextual Theologies, Theological Education and Public Engagements (Hamburg: Missionshilfe Verlag, 2020)
Bevans, Stephen B. Models of Contextual Theology (Faith and Cultures Series) (Orbis Books, 2002)
Bosch, David J. Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (American Society of Missiology Series) (New York: Orbis, 2011) ____________.
Witness To The World: The Christian Mission in Theological Perspective (Wipf and Stock, 2006)
Chandler, David. A History of Cambodia (Routledge, 2007)
Chea, Seiha. Escape from Democratic Kampuchea (Balboa Press, 2016)
Coggan, Philip. Spirit Worlds: Cambodia, The Buddha And The Naga (John Beaufoy Publishing, 2016)
Cormack, Don. Killing Fields, Living Fields (Monarch Books, 2001)
Clymer, Kenton J. Troubled Relations: The United States and Cambodia since 1870 (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2007)
Droogers, Andre, and Greenfield, Sidney M. Reinventing Religions: Syncretism and Transformation in Africa and the Americas (Rowman &
64
Littlefield Publishers, 2001)
Fahey, Michael A. Ecumenism: A Bibliographical Overview (Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies) (Greenwood; Annotated edition, 1992)
Flemming, Dean. Contextualization in the New Testament: Patterns for Theology and Mission (IVP Academic, 2005)
Hiebert, Paul G., and Eloise Hiebert Meneses, Incarnational Ministry: Planting Churches in Band, Tribal, Peasant, and Urban Societies (Baker Academic, 1995) _____________. and Hiebert, Frances F. Case Studies in Missions (Baker Pub Group, 1987)
__. and Shaw, R. Daniel, and Tienou, Tite. Understanding Folk Religion: A Christian Response to Popular Beliefs and Practices (Baker Academic, 2000)
Anthropological Insights for Missionaries (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1985)
Anthropological Reflections on Missiological Issues (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1994)
Cultural Anthropology, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1997)
The Gospel in Human Contexts: Anthropological Explorations for Contemporary Missions (Baker Academic, 2009)
65
_____________.
____________.
_____________.
_____________.
Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change (Baker Academic, 2008)
Hogg, William R. Ecumenical Foundations: A History of The International Missionary Council and its Nineteenth-Century Background (Wipf and Stock, 2002)
Hopler, Thom. World of Differences: Following Christ Beyond Your Culture Walls (Intervarsity Pr, 1981)
Kane, J. Herbert. Christian missions in Biblical perspective (Baker Book House, 1976)
Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti. Christian Theology in the Pluralistic World: A Global Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2019)
Kittel, Gerhard. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Vol. I (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977)
Knitter, Paul F., and Haight, Roger. Jesus & Buddha: Friends in Conversation (Orbis Books, 2015)
Introducing Theologies of Religions (Orbis Books, 2002)
Jesus and the Other Names: Christian Mission and Global Responsibility (Orbis Books, 1996)
One Earth Many Religions: Multifaith Dialogue and Global Responsibility (Orbis Books, 1995)
Without Buddha I could not be a Christian (Oxford: Oneworld, 2009)
66 _____________.
____________.
____________.
____________.
____________.
Kraft, Charles H. Issues in Contextualization (William Carey Library, 2016)
Lindhardt, Martin. Pentecostalism in Africa: Presence and Impact of Pneumatic Christianity in Postcolonial Societies (Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies, 15) (Brill, 2014)
Magesa, Laurenti. Anatomy of Inculturation: Transforming the Church in Africa (Orbis Books, 2004)
Marston, John and Guthrie, Elizabeth. History, Buddhism, and New Religious Movements in Cambodia (University of Hawaii Press, 2004)
Matthey, Jacques. You Are the Light of the World: Statements on Mission by the World Council of Churches, 1980-2005 (World Council of Churches (WCC Publications), 2005)
McLaughlin, Daniel and Wickeri, Elisabeth. Special Report: Mental Health and Human Rights in Cambodia (New York: Leitner Center for International Law and Justice, 2012)
Myers, Bryant L. Walking with the Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development (Orbis, 2011)
Newbigin, Lesslie. The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995)
Niebuhr, H. Richard. Christ and Culture (New York: Harper & Row, 1951)
Norwood, Donald. A Pilgrimage of Faith: A Short History of the World Council of Churches (World Council of Churches, 2018)
Poon, Michael Nai-Chiu. Church Partnerships in Asia (Trinity Theological
67
College and Armour Publishing, 2010)
Ross, Kenneth R., and Keum, Jooseop, and Avtzi, Kyriaki, and Hewitt, Roderick R. Ecumenical Missiology: Changing Landscapes and New Conceptions of Mission (Edinburgh Centenary Book 35) (Regnum Studies in Mission, 2017)
Stanley, Brian. The World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh 1910 (Studies in the History of Christian Missions) (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009)
Sunquist, Scott W. Understanding Christian Mission (Baker Academic, 2013)
Tully, John. A Short History of Cambodia (Allen & Unwin, 2006)
Vicedom, Georg F. Mission of God (Concordia Publishing House, 1965)
Zhou, Daguan. A Record of Cambodia: The Land and Its People (Silkworm Books, 2007)
Thesis
Anderson, Gerald H. “The theology of missions, 1928-1958,” (Boston University, 1960)
Clark, Charles Allen. “The National Presbyterian Church of Korea as a Test of the Validity of the Nevius Principles of Missionary Method” (The University of Chicago, 1929)
Haldar, Dipankar. “Towards Convergence of Ecumenism and Evangelicalism in Post-Edinburgh-1910 Era,” (Serampore College).
68
Michaud, Derek. “Toward an adequate model for the theology of religions,” (Boston University, 2008)
Oh, Sukhwan. “Patron-Client Relationship in Cross-cultural Church Planting: A Case Study of Cambodia Bible College, 1998 - 2015,” (Middlesex University, 2018)
Scheid, Edward G. “Scripture and Theology of the Religions,” (Duquesne University, 1992)
Welch, Holmes. Buddhism since the Cultural Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 1969)
Westerfield, Karen B. Tucker. “Methodism’s ‘World Parish’: Liturgical and Hymnological Migrations in Three Ecclesiastical Generations,” in Liturgy in Migration: From the Upper Room to Cyberspace, ed., Teresa Berger (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 145-46; cf. Barnabas Mam, “Cambodia,” in Christianity in East and Southeast Asia, eds., Kenneth Ross, Francis D. Alvarez, and Todd M. Johnson (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020)
Wong, Briana. “We Believe the Bible,” (Indonesian Journal of Theology, 2021)
Internet Sources
2021 Report on International Religious Freedom: Cambodia. https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-report-on-international-
69
religious-freedom/cambodia/.
Barnabas Mam. https://youtu.be/sJiEAiLH-S0
Barnabas Mam’s Teaching from his “Most Effective Ways of Contextualization”. https://youtu.be/sJiEAiLH-S0.
Bryant L. Myers. Holistic Mission and AIDS. https://lausanne.org/content/holistic-mission-lop-33
Cambodian Genocide Program. http://www.yale.edu/cgp/.
District. https://methodistmcc.org/district/
Don Cormack. https://www.christianfocus.com/contributors/605/don-cormack
From the Ashes of War. https://www.oikoumene.org/news/from-the-ashes-ofwar-the-first-wcc-assembly-in-europe-amsterdam-1948.
Global Ethnodoxolovy Network. https://www.worldofworship.org/what-isethnodoxology/.
Guide to the International Missionary Council Archives (H-10,000: Early History and Committees) https://web.library.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/fa-imcpart1.pdf.
History. https://umccambodia.org/history/
History of the Methodist Church in Cambodia. https://methodistmcc.org/history/.
J. Paul Ellison. “A Short History of the Cambodian Evangelical Church,”
Retrieved from OMF International. https://omf.org/post/-/newsand-stories/2019/3/26/suffering-and-mission-narrative-research-
70
from-cambodia-with-special-reference-to-cambodian-churchhistory
Khmer Rouge. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Khmer-Rouge.
Moody Publishers. https://www.moodypublishers.com/authors/m/barnabasmam/.
New Methodist Church Formally Launched in Cambodia. https://www.resourceumc.org/en/content/new-methodistchurch-formally-launched-in-cambodia
Pol Pot. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pol-Pot?utm_campaign=bextension&utm_medium=chrome&utm_source=ebinsights&ut m_content=Pol%20Pot.
Religion of Cambodia. https://www.britannica.com/place/Cambodia/Religion
Talal Asad. Anthropological Conceptions of Religion. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2801433.
The Growth of Christianity in Cambodia. https://omf.org/post/-/news-andstories/2021/8/27/the-growth-of-christianity-in-cambodia
The Growth of Christianity in Cambodia. https://omf.org/post/-/news-andstories/2021/8/27/the-growth-of-christianity-in-cambodia
WCC Executive Committee meets with China Christian Council, Three-Self Patriotic Movement. https://www.oikoumene.org/news/wccexecutive-committee-meets-with-china-christian-council-threeself-patriotic-movement
71
What is Anthropology?
https://www.americananthro.org/AdvanceYourCareer/Content.a spx?ItemNumber=2150.
What is Missiology? https://missionexus.org/what-is-missiology/.
What Is Polycentric Mission Leadership? https://lausanne.org/about/blog/whatis-polycentric-missionleadership?fbclid=IwAR1R2fkOyzMxdY9nZPgFmkDWGnjN0 DZgcDqFz2Yx4vz66iTXVT l21HtQ4 William Carey. https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/missionaries/ william-carey.html.
72
