Cross-Cultural Paul: Journeys to Others, Journeys to Ourselves

by Charles H. Cosgrove, Herold D. Weiss, K. K. Yeo

Overview

The apostle Paul was a cross-cultural missionary, a Hellenistic Jew who sought to be "all things to all people" in order to win them to the gospel. In this provocative book Charles Cosgrove, Herold Weiss, and K. K. Yeo bring Paul into conversation with six diverse cultures of today: Argentine/Uruguayan, Anglo-American, Chinese, African American, Native American, and Russian. No other book on the apostle Paul looks at his thought from multiple cultural perspectives in the way that this one does. From the introduction outlining the authors' cultural backgrounds to the conclusion drawing together what they learn from each other, Cross-Cultural Paul orients readers to the hermeneutical struggles and rewards of approaching texts cross-culturally.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802828439
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	08/16/2005
Pages:	302
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.79(d)

About the Author

K. K. Yeo is Harry R. Kendall Professor of New Testament at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.

Read an Excerpt

Cross-Cultural Paul

Journeys to Others, Journeys to Ourselves

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By Charles H. Cosgrove Herold Weiss K. K. (Khiok-khng) Yeo

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Copyright © 2005 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-8028-2843-4

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Chapter One

Paul's Journey to the River Plate

Herold Weiss

In his study of Paul in El hombre de hoy ante Jesus de Nazaret, the Uruguayan Juan Luis Segundo gives an acute and illuminating study of Paul's letter to the Romans. He develops an argument for the centrality of piety in the divine-human relation and the centrality of justice in the relations among humans. Using a hermeneutic of suspicion that advances from a rather simple first reading to a more mature second reading, Segundo argues that the gospel of Paul represents a continuation of the message of Jesus in the Synoptics. His presentation of the hombre de hoy, contemporary humanity, however, never quite touches ground in the living social reality and culture of his native Uruguay and the wider River Plate region. His discussion remains at the level of an abstract anthropology, very much in the tradition of European theology. In these pages I would like to bridge the gap between anthropology and the human reality in the socio-cultural concreteness of the River Plate basin.

The River Plate (el rio de la Plata) is one of the shortest and the widest rivers in the world. It is formed by the confluence of two great rivers that originate in Brazil: the Parana and the Uruguay. Thus the River Plate region is in the first instance the fluvial basin of the Parana and the Uruguay rivers. These two rivers form the Argentine mesopotamia, which in some ways is culturally closer to Uruguay. The full name of this republic is The Eastern bank of the Uruguay (river). When its waters get confused with those of the Atlantic Ocean, the river is 125 miles wide. By then it influences the climate of the Argentine pampas. On this account it also gives its name to a vast region that includes the whole of Uruguay and the central and eastern part of Argentina. On both sides of the border dividing these two nations the people identify themselves as rioplatenses. The most important rioplatense figure is the gaucho (comparable in some ways to the North American "cowboy"), the inhabitant of the open land with distinct clothing and diet. In his wardrobe most characteristic is the facon, the knife he carries behind his back under the belt. His diet distinguishes itself by the frequent drinking of mate, a tea made from the leaves of a rather large tree indigenous to the northern mesopotamia and drunk by sucking a small amount of hot water that has been poured on a gourd containing the chopped, dried leaves and a small tube with a filter.

Fate and Destiny

The first cultural marker of the River Plate region I will consider is the sadness of the gaucho and its causes. A good starting point is the folk songs of the region. Besides the vidalas (to life) and the cielitos (little heaven) are found the tristes (sad). These are the typical dances of the pampas. In his analysis of the social psychology of Latin America, Carlos O. Bunge ventures the opinion that the tristeza criolla is due to the fact that "as much in the Indian as in the Spaniard the moorish joy of life has been suffocated by the Inquisition." Of course, the tango, the creation of the urban arrabales (lower class suburban barrios), is the classic expression of the misfortunes that confront the living. In every tango story someone ends up dead, disgraced, or alienated. In the faces of tango dancers there cannot be a hint of joy. Rather, the poses and the faces express the need to face one's destiny with determination and seriousness. Love is a matter of mastery and surrender.

The greatest expressions of gaucho poetry, Martin Fierro (1872) and La vuelta de Martin Fierro (the return of Martin Fierro) (1879) by Jose Hernandez, contain many proverbial lines. These works have been described as sententious on account of their memorable apophthegms. One stanza reads

Let's go, Fate, let's go together since we were born together: and since we live together in an indivisible bond, I will open with my knife our way up to the front.

Here one's fate is depicted as a Siamese twin with whom one must travel through life. It would appear that since Martin Fierro will open the road ahead by his skill with a knife, his fate is just a fellow traveler. Such, however, is not at all the case. The road he travels with his fate is the road of ausencia. His life is distinguishable by what is absent in it. As the poem points out, he misses father and mother (ll. 1333, 1339), children and wife (l. 1349), a home of his own (ll. 1316, 1355-56), friends and patrons (l. 1351), and the understanding of others (ll. 1361-66). In the eyes of others, he is a vago (a bum, l. 1315), maldito (accursed, l. 1322), mamao (drunk, l. 1343), and ladron (a thief, l. 1360). Worst of all, there is no use trying to change things. That is his lot. If he tries to point out the injustice of his circumstances, his cause never receives a hearing:

In his mouth there are no arguments even though he has reasons to spare; wooden bells are the reasons of the poor.

Asi lo quiso el destino (Destiny wanted it this way), or Yo naci pa pobre (I was born to be poor) are explanations monotonously repeated by Latin American lips.

That Destiny determines the affairs of humans is freely expressed in the novels of the region. Ernesto Sabato in Sobre heroes y tumbas, describes Alejandra as one who does not believe in God or hell, but does believe in "Destiny." She says,

Destiny chooses its instruments; immediately incarnates itself and then the screwing begins.... Destiny, though incarnated in Benito, did not see things exactly like him, had small disagreements. This happens quite frequently, obviously, because Destiny cannot go around choosing discretely the people who will serve as its instrument. That is why Destiny is a confusing thing and it equivocates: It knows well what it wants, actually, but the people who carry it out, not as well.

In his acclaimed presentation of the inner life of the best-known Argentine dictator, The Peron Novel, Tomas Eloy Martinez constructs a conversation between Peron and Descalzo, an army buddy of his, at the time when Yrigoyen had become president in the 1920s.When Peron was a cadet at the army college, the Argentine army was being trained under the supervision of Prussian officers. Reflecting on the new government taking power, Peron comments that a great shift is taking place in Argentina and that from now on the army will be taking a more prominent role in national politics. Descalzo asks: "Do you want the power, Peron?" To which Peron replies, "It's not a matter of wanting or not wanting. It's a matter of fate." This motif permeates the whole novel. As Peron reviews his life at the end of his career, it cannot be said that he forged ahead and achieved what he had achieved on account of his superior talents, the power of his will, or his political skills. He has just run the course his destiny had traced for him. In the same vein, in his presentation of Facundo Quiroga, a second-rate caudillo of the 1830s, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento wrote that he is describing him because he is a mirror of the nation "due to unstoppable forces not related to his will."

Another famous poem in the gaucho repertoire is Fausto (1866) by Estanislao del Campo. It tells the story of a gaucho who has gone to Buenos Aires and ends up at the Colon theater, the most prestigious opera house in Latin America, attending a staging of Faust, the famous opera by Gounod based on Goethe's tragedy. Having returned to the countryside, he tells a friend what he had seen on the stage. The gaucho version of Faust does not identify any of the characters by name. In it, "the doctor" gets the devil to become his accomplice in gaining favor with "the blond." This allows "the doctor" to leave "the blond" pregnant. The story ends with "the blond" in jail for having killed the baby born on account of the successful seduction accomplished by "the doctor." In this telling "Don Juan" pays the devil nothing for his help and suffers no consequences. According to del Campo, events are governed by Fate, which in the case of women is "more cruel." A lyric poetic interlude between the first and the second act of the theatrical performance is used by del Campo to establish the importance of this theme. Ostensibly the passage is an ode to the sea. Its place in the structure of the poem is clear, however, in the lines:

On the rocks it is divine to see the waves break apart just like at the end collide men with their destiny.

The fatalism that informs the culture of Latin America is more pervasive among those who find themselves at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid. The intellectuals of the upper middle class, on the other hand, have been imbued with an idealistic determinism based on romantic and positivistic views of history. In this view the cycle that guides the rise and fall of civilizations has determined that Latin America is next in line to take its place as the center of human achievement and glory under the sun. Simon Bolivar, a leader of the wars of independence from Spain in the northern half of South America, had a vision of the whole continent as one united expression of the superiority of Hispanic culture. In Mexico this utopian vision of Latin America was given expression by Minister of Culture Jose Vasconcelos in his book La raza cosmica (1925).

This expectation of imminent cultural and political fulfillment was also expressed by Domingo F. Sarmiento in the 1840s. In Facundo he examines the condition of Argentina at the time and offers his vision for the future. According to him, Buenos Aires "is called to be one day the most developed city in both Americas." The way he expressed this prophecy is most telling. Even though the source of this "call" to grandeur is not identified, it is clear that it is none other than Fate. Latin America has also felt that it has a manifest destiny. The destiny of Catholic Latin America, however, is not to expand its land holdings and become a military, industrial, and mercantile power to be reckoned with around the world. Latin America's destiny is to triumph in the realm of the spirit, to triumph on account of its high ideals. This was given ultimate expression by Jose Enrique Rodo in his Ariel, published in 1900. Rodo uses the protagonists, Ariel and Caliban, from Shakespeare's The Tempest to contrast and compare the cultures and the futures of North and South America. While Caliban stands for the materialistic culture of the North, Ariel represents the idealism of a youthful South America. Rodo refers to his creation as

the sweet and serene image of my Ariel - the benevolent genie in whom Shakespeare skillfully blended ... such high symbolism.... Ariel is the superior reason and feeling. Ariel is this sublime instinct for perfectibility, by whose virtue the human clay is magnified and transformed into the center of things to which light is attached.

Rodo himself is one of the highest exponents of that Hegelian liberalism that expected the triumph of the spirit. Thus he became the apostle of a spiritual education that carried into the future a "pious veneration of the past." This creative spirit, however, had to be free from clerical dogmatisms if it was to be "the noble power that in the present communicates ... the sense for the ideal." It was because the youth of Latin America were developing "the sense for the ideal," were, in other words, becoming imitators of Ariel, that Latin America was to become the beacon for the rest of the world. Whether evident in the resignation, sadness, or hopelessness of the masses or in the confidence with which the elites assign superior spiritual values to the Latin soul, a pervasive determinism informs the culture of the River Plate. Of course, the intellectual elites who place their hope in history look down upon the more traditional, ahistorical masses.

The idealism of the beginning of the twentieth century was somewhat justified. Uruguay, for example, enjoyed for many years one of the highest standards of living in the world, certainly among the top ten nations. In the 1920s it reinvented itself with one of the most progressive constitutions and a host of social laws that placed its cultural experiment on the map. The course of the second half of the twentieth century, however, has radically diminished those historical hopes. A different political climate with hardly any reasons for hope has been neutralizing the fears of cultural homelessness, so that a large proportion of the population has migrated or is contemplating leaving. When, at the beginning of 2002, the Argentine economy imploded and the country had five presidents in a period of two weeks, there was some real anger among the masses. It was evident that the politicians had been taking care of themselves and not of the people. Still, to an amazing degree, the people have resigned themselves to the situation as one more tragedy that a cruel fate had determined for them.

Paul's Concern for Justice

Paul would understand the determinism of Latin American culture. One of the main characteristics of apocalypticism is its determinism. The outcome of the struggle between the forces of evil and the power of God is never in doubt. In fact, everything taking place in history is already determined. Paul gives ample expression to this determinism. According to him, futility and corruption came about only because God himself subjected creation to them. It is to be noticed, however, that God subjected creation "upon hope," already envisioning "the glorious freedom of the children of God" (Rom. 8:20-21).

In the same way, the failure of Israel to believe in Christ as the manifestation of God's righteousness had come about because God hardened their hearts. The gentiles' affirmative response to the power of the gospel that is being preached among them is due to God's desire to make Israel jealous. However, since God had "known" Israel, it is impossible for them ever "to stumble so as to fall" (Rom. 11:11-12). As Paul sees it, "the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable" (Rom. 11:29). Thus, the Jews' rejection of the gospel, the gentiles' acceptance of it, the eventual jealousy of the Jews that will cause them to accept the gospel, and the ultimate salvation of Jews and gentiles have all been "prepared beforehand" (Rom. 9:22-24).

Paul opens the discussion of these issues with a rhetorical question: "Who can resist his will?" (Rom. 9:19). This question, posed by an imaginary interlocutor who does not understand Paul or does not agree with him, is paired to another, "Why does [God] blame?" The conversation partner considers it a contradiction to say that everything is determined by God but human beings are accountable, capable of being blamed. Paul's take on the rhetorical questions is not a philosophical tour de force on the relationship of God's sovereignty to human freedom. Tacitly, he admits that the answer to the first question is "nobody," and to the second "because he is God." His answer is an echo of the rhetorical questions the God of the whirlwind throws at Job (Job 38-40), or the lesson learned by Jeremiah on his visit to the potter's workshop (Jer. 18:1-10). "Oh man, who are you wishing to audit God? The clay does not say to the potter, 'Why are you shaping me this way?'" (Rom. 9:20). Humans may fail to understand God's ways, but they are not to question his sovereignty. Thus, Paul says three times in Rom. 1:18-32 that God "hands over" human sinners to all kinds of wickedness. This impression of a strict divine determinism is modified, however, by the fact that the fate of evildoers is what they have already chosen for themselves.

While recognizing the legitimacy of the intellectual tension between the two questions, Paul maintains that the obvious answers must be sustained. For him this is an aspect of "the mystery that has remained sealed from time eternal," the mystery at the core of his gospel and at the core of the kerygma of Jesus Christ. This mystery "has now been revealed ..., becoming known to all the nations in order to elicit obedience of faith according to the decree of the eternal God" (Rom. 16:25-26). The mystery has to do with the divine ways. How a crucifixion can bring about redemption and why humans may be held accountable within a world fully under God's decrees are not for human minds to understand. This is the wisdom of God that seems like idiocy to humans (1 Cor. 1:21), the hidden mystery of God's wisdom (1 Cor. 2:7). Confronting God's ways, Paul can do no more than throw up his arms and exclaim: "How unexplainable are his decisions; how incomprehensible his ways!" (Rom. 11:33).

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Cross-Cultural Paul by Charles H. Cosgrove Herold Weiss K. K. (Khiok-khng) Yeo Copyright © 2005 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co..
Excerpted by permission.
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Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	vii
	Introduction	1
1	Paul's Journey to the River Plate	33
2	Paul and American Individualism	68
3	Paul's Theological Ethic and the Chinese Morality of Ren Ren	104
4	Paul and Peoplehood in African American Perspective	141
5	Christ and the Earth in Pauline and Native American Understandings	179
6	Paul's Journey to Russia	219
	Conclusion: At the Crossroads	254
	Index of Modern Authors	277
	Index of Subjects	282
	Index of Ancient Texts	289