Religious Language and Asian American Hybridity

In this book, Julius-Kei Kato lets the theories and experiences of Asian American hybridity converse with and bear upon some aspects of Christian biblical and theological language. Hybridity has become a key feature of today's globalized world and is, of course, a key concept in postcolonial thought. However, despite its crucial importance, hybridity is rarely used as a paradigm through which to analyze and evaluate the influential concepts and teachings that make up religious language. This book fills a lacuna by discussing what the concept of hybridity challenges and resists, what over-simplifications it has the power to complicate, and what forgotten or overlooked strands in religious tradition it endeavors to recover and reemphasize. Shifting seamlessly between biblical, theological, and modern, real-world case studies, Kato shows how hybridity permeates and can illuminate religious phenomena as lived and believed. The ultimate goal of the move toward an embrace of hybridity is afurther dissolution of the thick wall separating ideas of "us" and "them." In this book, Kato suggests the possibility of a world in which what one typically considers the "other" is increasingly recognized within oneself.

Introduction: What does Hybridity have to do with Religious Language? How Asian North American Hybridity Could Converse with Religion Today. - Part I: Foundations. - 1. Our Building Blocks: Hybridity, Diaspora, Hermeneutics and the Identity of the Interpreter. - 2. The What and What-Not of Asian North American Hermeneutics: What Mark 2:23-28 and l affaire Peter Phan Illustrate. - 3. A Thick Description of Hybrid Theological Interpreters. - 4. Should There Really Be an End of Faith ? Hybridity and Sam Harris Proposal for an End to Religion. - 5. Talking Back to Our Parents: What Asian North American Hybridity Can Suggest to Asia. - Part II: Hybridity Converses with Particular Themes. - 6. The New Testament Canon as Hybrid. - 7. The Changes in Jesus Plans: How Hybridity Reveals and Revels in a Developmental View of Jesus. - 8. John s Claims of Superiority as Seen through Hybrid Eyes. - 9. Revelation s Telos (Goal of History) as Seen through Hybrid Eyes. - 10. The Dark Side of Realized Hope: Hybridity Traces the Roots of Christian Intolerance. - 11. What is Conversion in a Hybridized Postmodern World? From Monoreligiosity to Interreligiosity. - Conclusion: Assessing Hybridity s Role in Religious Language: Toward an Interreligious/Interspiritual Future.