Kosuke Koyama

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Kosuke Koyama小山 晃 佑Koyama Kōsuke (born December 10, 1929 in Tokyo , † March 25, 2009 in Springfield , Massachusetts ) was a Japanese Protestant theologian and university professor. He was a member of the United Church of Christ in Japan .

Life

In 1942, as a teenager, Koyama was baptized into the "religion of the enemy". In retrospect, he described how the devastation of Tokyo caused by the continuous American bombing acquired religious significance for him over time. He had been critical of his own nature-oriented religiosity and the cult of the emperor and the sun, and the Bible had become a challenge for him. He studied at Tokyo Union Theological Seminary , Drew University and Princeton Theological Seminary , where he received his PhD in 1959. He was then sent to Thailand as a missionary by his church . The years as a missionary (1960 to 1968) were a formative experience for him, which he described as his "rediscovery of Asia". In 1968 he became dean of the South East Asia Graduate School of Theology in Singapore and editor of The South East Asia Journal of Theology . From 1974 to 1978 he taught at the University of Otago , (New Zealand) and from 1980 until his retirement in 1996 at the Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan.

Teaching

Koyama's work was inspiring for ecumenical and interreligious dialogue. Christianity and Buddhism have nothing to say to one another, but Christians and Buddhists do. His best known publication is Water Buffalo Theology (1974). The book is considered to be the beginning of an independent Asian Christian theology. In a more poetic than academic way, the author reflects on his experience as a missionary among Thai rice farmers. “On the way to the village church, I always see a herd of water buffalo grazing in a muddy rice field. The water buffalo tell me that I have to address these farmers with very simple sentences. They remind me to give up all these abstract ideas and only name objects that can be sensually experienced. Sticky rice, banana, pepper, dog, cat, bicycle, rainy season, leaky house, fishing, cockfight , lottery, stomach ache - these are meaningful words for her. This morning - I tell myself - I am trying to convey the Gospel through the medium of cockfighting. ”( Water Buffalo Theology , p. Vii f.) By combining the imagery of Theravada Buddhism and Christianity, he was looking for a Thai“ theology from below ”.

Another book by Koyama, Three Mile an Hour God (1980), develops the idea that God travels at the pace of a pedestrian in the country.

Publications

  • Water Buffalo Theology . Orbis Books, Maryknoll (1974) 1999.
  • Mount Fuji and Mount Sinai: A Critique of Idols. Orbis Books, Maryknoll 1985.
  • Three Mile an Hour God. Orbis Books, Maryknoll 1980.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Deane W. Ferm: Profiles in Liberation: 36 Portraits of Third World Theologians . Wipf & Stock, Eugene 1981, p. 88. See Kosuke Koyama: Mount Fuji and Mount Sinai , p.
  2. ^ A b Deane W. Ferm: Profiles in Liberation: 36 Portraits of Third World Theologians . Wipf & Stock, Eugene 1981, p. 89.
  3. ↑ Quoted from: Deane W. Ferm: Profiles in Liberation: 36 Portraits of Third World Theologians . Wipf & Stock, Eugene 1981, p. 87.
personal data
SURNAME Koyama, Kosuke
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kosuke, Koyama
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese Protestant theologian and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH December 10, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Tokyo
DATE OF DEATH March 25, 2009
Place of death Springfield , Massachusetts