Chapter 7 - The Interdisciplinary Nature of Literature and Theology

Summary

This chapter explores theology as an answer to the question of how to preserve a Chinese way of thinking while entering into conversation with other world systems of thought. It looks at how theology necessitates an interdisciplinary approach in engagement with literature, especially the study of the classics/scriptures. It interrogates the translation of Western poetry into Chinese as a process accelerating the loss of distinction between “shi” (poetry) and “jing” (scripture). This loss will alter our late modern understanding of the sacred as something that is both poetic and scriptural. The chapter explores the implications this notion of the sacred has for the distinctions made within “religion” itself. If those in the West often feel confused at the notion of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism as three religions in one, and fail to recognize that the Chinese do not perceive these three religions as alternatives, so too poetry and scripture, or art and theology, could be seen as “interpenetrating fields of force” (Hick). The chapter ends by reflecting on the significance such interpenetrating fields might have for a “non-religious Christianity” and even an “atheist theology”.