An Emerging Mystic Theology of Sustainability Amidst Rapid Changes for an Indigenous Church of Asia

This article is based on a research among Karen and Lahu spiritual leaders which was conducted on March–June 2014 and December 2015, as well as on personal interviews with priests and lay pastoral workers in the diocese of Chiangmai, Thailand

The Mystique of Dialogue: Pathway to Spirit Power for Liberative Struggle

The experience of journeying for more than two decades with the indigenous peoples—such as the Lakota and the Apache of North America, the Murut of Sabah and the Semai of Perak in Malaysia, the Bontoc and Ifugao of the Philippines, the Karen and Lahu of northern Thailand, and the Kayah and Kayan of Myanmar—has been most enriching. They have taught a most invaluable lesson that interaction and participation in their rituals entail recognizing the mystique of intercultural-religious dialogue.In the first section of this article, I will explain a more contextual version of interreligious experience which involves a period of “discipling” under the immediate tutorship of a reputable shaman or spirit-guide of primordial or deceased shamans. In the second section, I will offer a more contextual reflection on the fourfold dialogue as enjoined by the Asian Bishops in the light of my interreligious experience. I will then explain in the third section why this reflection calls for greater recognition of the mystique in our dialogue with the indigenous peoples. Indeed, reflecting on my interreligious experience convinces me that dialogue must be about empowering the indigenous peoples to access and actualize the spirit power for the liberative struggle against the neocolonial imperialism that in turn spawns the globalization of neo-liberal capitalism

Indigenous Liberation Theology and Spirituality: Looking to the Past for Answers in the Present

Pope Francis’s Laudato si’: On the Care of Our Common Home offers a framework for dealing with poverty, ecological degradation, and climate change in the Philippines. His interconnected and holistic ecological spirituality shares some commonalities with indigenous spirituality where the earth is a gift from God to be taken care of—not taken advantage of or taken for granted. In this paper, we explore how this integrated approach of indigenous spirituality and liberation theology offers some long-term solutions to the problems of poverty and climate change. Taking the position of being politically engaged in the world accords well with indigenous spirituality, this political engagement is thereby defined by loving and taking care of all of God’s creation. Diametrically opposing this political engagement to political opportunism—attempts to maintain power and influence without regard for ethical or political principles—views human and non-human sentient animals and all living life forms as interconnected and sacred. A brief explanation of climate change in the Philippine context suggests the idea of rekindling a love for “earth houses”—a term earlier coined by the Egyptian architect, Hassan Fathy (1900–1989). Fathy envisioned earth homes as an affordable way to house the poor, heal, and give new life to the natural environment

A Shamanic Pneumatology in a Mystical Age of Sacred Sustainability: The Spirit of the Sacred Earth

This book represents a germinal effort that urges all religious and world leaders to savor the mystical spirituality, especially the cosmology and spirituality of sacred sustainability of the indigenous peoples. The power of indigenous spirit world is harnessed for the common good of the indigenous communities and the regenerative power of mother earth. This everyday mysticism of the world as spirited and sacred serves to re-enchant a world disillusioned by the unsustainability of destructive economic systems that have spawned the current ecological crises. Author Jojo Fung offers insight from his lived-experience and this book represents his effort to correlate the indigenous spirit world with Catholic Pneumatology and articulate the activity of God’s Spirit as the Spirit of Sacred Sustainability

Multiple Faultlines and Identity of Indigenous Christians/Catholics in Malaysia

This paper explores the complexities of the contested political terrain in Malaysia thatabounds in multiple faultlines within Peninsular Malaysia and between East and PeninsularMalaysia. The resultant rupture occasioned by the Allah controversy shored up the intricateinterplay and asymmetrical relations between the dominant ‘fictitious self’ and subjugated‘fragmented self’ of the minority ethnic and religious communities. Such rupturecalls for a reconciliatory praxis by which the ‘subjugated and dominant self’ concertedlywork towards restorative and structure justice instead of the pretentious simulationof afictitious unity under 1Malaysia. Amidst the political upheavals, the Christians of the fragmentedindigenous communities constantly negotiate their hybridized or multiple identitiesembedded in their crossed religiocultural traditions. By “traditioning,” the indigenoustraditions embrace the diverse religious and local traditions through ‘multiple participation’while their multiple identitiesremainstaunchly grounded in the Christian faith