Abrahamic Traditions on the Silk Road

By Kwok Pui Lan

The Silk Road refers to the network of roads connecting Ch’ang-an (modern-day Xian), the ancient capital of China, to the Mediterranean, with spurs into the Indian subcontinent, the northern Eurasian steppe, and southern Iran. When caravans went East and West on the ancient Silk Road, trade and commerce brought people of different cultures and religious traditions into contact with each other.

The Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) organized a one-day conference on March 3 to explore the interactions and cultural exchanges of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam along the ancient Silk Road. Speakers of the conference included scholars in Hebrew Bible, New Testament, early Christianity and theology, Syriac-speaking Christianity, Armenian Christianity, Islam, and Judaism and Christianity in Asia. The big lecture room at Sherrill Hall was filled to capacity with some 100 scholars from other schools within the Boston Theological Institute, EDS faculty, students, staff, and alumni/alumnae, and other guests.

The theme of the conference “What Would It Take to Move the Map?” was provocative. As Professor Lawrence Wills, who organized the conference with Professor Patrick S. Cheng, said, “There is increasing evidence of a rich history of Christians, Jews, and Muslims who moved eastward all the way to China, at a time much earlier than was previously believed.” The conference aimed to broaden our understanding of this long history of interactions of Abrahamic traditions.

A map is a tool to look at the world and to organize and constitute reality. It takes vision, courage, humility, curiosity, and restless inquiry to move the map to include the religious exchanges along the Silk Road.

I was asked to comment on the proceedings from the day in a final session. Here are a few of my observations:

First, we have to expand our imagination of the Christian tradition to include the many branches of Christianities and their interactions of other religious traditions. In the United States, the teaching of church history tends to focus primarily on Western Christianity, with little mention on Greek and Oriental Christianity.

For example, in his survey of textbooks on church history, Professor Cheng pointed out that many leave out or mention in passing Nestorian Christianity in China. This narrow and selective way of understanding church history fails to do justice to the complex and multilayered Christian traditions and impoverishes our knowledge of the many expressions and experiences of the divine.

Second, in order to expand our imagination, we need to learn to decolonize our minds, such that we will not read history and create cartography based on Eurocentric lenses. In his concluding remarks, Professor Christopher Duraisingh spoke of cultivating multiple consciousness and developing the capacity to see maps as synchronic and not diachronic. This reminds me of what the late Edward Said, the pioneer of postcolonial discourse, has said of contrapuntal reading of history—reading history as intertwined and territories as overlapped.

Decolonization of the mind means that we have to be aware of the impacts of the Latinization of the world in the first “globalization,” in which the people in the Americas were brought into the orbit of Europe in the early modern period. The Roman Catholic Church played important roles in this remapping of the world. Those of us who are Episcopalians would do well to remember the consequences of the Anglicization of the world. The British Empire has shaped and remapped the cultures and histories of peoples under its colonial control and the Anglican Church has played a vital part in it.

Third, we have to learn to live in a multipolar or Post-American world, cognizant of the shifting geopolitics and the rise of Brazil, Russia, India, and China as key players in shaping global economy and world affairs. China’s phenomenal economic growth will change our ways of looking at East Asia and its long interactions with Central Asia, West Asia, and Europe.

China has developed a new Silk Road strategy in order to secure oil and gas from the Middle East to fuel its economic growth. Vast pipeline networks have been built in the region and the Iron Silk Road project, an ambitious Eurasian railway network is being built to connect China to Turkey, Iran, and the European countries.

The ancient Silk Road is being remapped by many powers to serve present economic and political purposes. Our awareness of cultural and historical interactions in the past will help us to live in this brand new world of the twenty-first century.

Kwok Pui Lan is the William F. Cole Professor of Christian Theology and Spirituality at the Episcopal Divinity School and her most recent book is Globalization,Gender, and Peacebuilding: The Future of Interfaith Dialogue. 

East Meets West: Chi and the Holy Spirit

By Grace Ji-Sun Kim

What would an Asian theology of the Holy Spirit look like?

If you have ever attended a Tae-Kwon-Do, Tai-Chi or Akido class, you will recognize the word “Chi” or “Ki.” These three art forms of movement try to harness the intangible form of energy called Chi. Practicing them creates not only more energy, but greater health and life within one’s self.

Chi is part of the everyday lives of Asian people just as it is part of their everyday vernacular. People will greet one another and try to gauge each other’s Chi level or compliment each other’s good Chi. They will even express their sickness or low energy as having “low levels of Chi.” Chi is a powerful energy which brings wholeness, health, and vitality. Chi gives life and without it, there is no life.

In many ways, Chi sounds like “ruach” in the Hebrew Scriptures or “pneuma” in the New Testament. Is it possible that the western notion of the Spirit as found in Christianity is the same energy as Chi? This question leads me to explore the possibility of an Asian understanding of Chi which can nurture a stronger theological perspective on the Holy Spirit.

In an increasingly multireligious, multilingual, and multicultural world, recognizing the differences and similarities among people, cultures, and religions is essential. The religions in different parts of the world do not display many spirits; rather in them we find various names for the Spirit.

Spirit is a universal concept which can discover new methods of addressing, thinking about, and conceptualizing God. But the first step will be to reexamine Spirit-Chi. Spirit-Chi is found within everyone. It is a source of empowerment and healing for the wounded.

Still, Spirit-Chi is beyond mystery and conceptualization. It requires us to admit to the limitations of the human understanding. We will never be able fully to comprehend the Divine. But Spirit-Chi provides us with new language and tools to address the mysterious encounters with the Holy we have experienced in the past and continue to experience. Within this hybrid space, our understanding of Spirit-Chi can draw us closer to God. It helps us develop a deeper understanding of the Creator of all that is, was, or ever will be.

Spirit-Chi is also beyond culture, religion, and society, as it undergirds the ethos of people around the globe. When people recognize this, instead of being a barrier, Spirit-Chi will open doors for further dialogue, understanding, and acceptance. The more language we can use to talk about the Divine, the more we open our discourse and work toward accepting, welcoming, and embracing those who are different, subjugated, and Othered. So it is important to understand God as Spirit-Chi and thereby break down barriers that colonialism has established. This Spirit-Chi is within us, empowering us toward emancipation and liberation.

As we recognize the commonality among people, it will be easier to embrace and accept the Other. The Spirit that is in all things will help us step closer to welcoming and embracing one another. Spirit-Chi embraces life and makes it whole. So it is essential that humanity recognizes, welcomes, and affirms the Spirit in all faiths.

A compelling aspect of Spirit-Chi is the way it is emancipatory: it frees us from the bonds of evil that prevent us from celebrating life. It makes us stronger and builds bridges between us and our neighbors. Spirit-Chi is salvific within us and between us and Others. It is a Spirit that bonds and pulls humanity closer to all other living creatures. It will sustain us and keep us aware of our interconnectedness and interreliance.

In this broken postcolonial world, this means western Christianity can no longer monopolize the Spirit. God’s Spirit-Chi fills us up, makes us whole, and helps build harmony and peace. It transcends problems endemic to the postcolonial world and liberates those caught in the middle. The Spirit is free to roam and be what it will be.

My new book, The Holy Spirit, Chi, and the Other: A Model of Global and Intercultural Pneumatology, works toward a global and intercultural pneumatology that will encourage people to live harmoniously and peacefully with one another in a postcolonial world. The next time you are in a Tae-Kwon-Do class or watching the graceful movements of Tai-Chi, be mindful of the one Spirit, which is within us all and gives us life, fully.

*Dr. Grace Ji-Sun Kim is Associate Professor of Doctrinal Theology and the Director of the MATS program at Moravian Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She is the author of The Grace of Sophia (Pilgrim Press).

Churches that commune

By Brett Donham

Winston Churchill once said, “Initially we shape our buildings and then, thereafter, they shape us.” This is never truer than with our places of worship. By and large, these buildings, as beautiful as they can be, frustrate the purpose for which they were built, or the purpose for which they should have been built. They can stifle the formation of fully engaged Christians.

Today, in many places, church buildings are being built and existing ones remodeled to serve a new model of “church” (the people gathered), that harks back to the early days of Christianity. In these places people gather in community to offer praise and thanksgiving, to reflect on scripture, to share stories about Jesus Christ and his impact on their lives, to share a commemorative meal, and through this to come into communion with Christ, and with one another. These are communal activities, with many players, several centers of action and movement, and require the ability to see one another and feel as a gathered body.

The traditional forms of church buildings, with everyone facing in the same direction and with the “expert”; the intermediary or interpreter, on a raised stage addressing an audience is the antithesis of gathering in community. The ministry of all the baptized, the gift of the Holy Spirit that says we all have something to contribute, has no acknowledged place in this style of church building. Church as a spectator activity doesn’t engage people in the ongoing work of formation. Only buildings that encourage a sense of community and participation can create the apostles necessary to invigorate the Church.

One such church building is St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Brookline, Massachusetts. Originally designed by Richard Upjohn at the high point of the Oxford Movement, that sees the Holy as dark, mysterious and unapproachable; the building was reconstructed after a disastrous fire that left only the four walls and the tower standing. [See the 1849 plan].
1849 Plan
After two years of mourning, reflection, planning and discernment, the building was reconstructed in a centralized form. The former chancel was closed off to make a chapel. The altar which had been set against the east wall was moved a third of the way into the space. Dormers were added to the roof to flood the altar area with natural light, and the seating was wrapped around the altar on three sides with the choir seated on the fourth. [See the new plan].

New Plan

All the congregants are in close relationship to the altar area and members easily come forward to read scripture, assist with Communion and healing prayer, and offer announcements of mission opportunities and parish activities. Intercessory prayer is offered from the seated congregation, but because of the close seating arrangement, all can hear them. The altar, which is movable, sits on a platform around which the congregation gathers for Communion. As worshippers leave the circle to return to their chairs, others take their place. The priest and chalice bearer move around the platform, serving the bread and the wine, until all have received.


My last eight years as a trustee of Episcopal Divinity School, interacting with students and faculty, participating in worship and the classroom, have taught me the centrality of community in forming apostles and faithful people. I believe we need to rediscover our first century roots. Our theology demands it; the future of the Church demands it; creating the Kingdom here on earth demands it. Our designs of spaces for worship need to support it.


*Brett Donham is an architect whose practice includes churches. He is a trustee of Episcopal Divinity School.
(The photo shows St. Paul's Church Brookline, MA)