ENDORSEMENTS

Prepare to be surprised, perhaps unsettled, to have familiar categories upended. Drawing from Scripture as well as multiple disciplines, the authors of this volume argue convincingly that the world in which we serve is far more complex than our classifications. An appreciation for hybridity opens new windows for insight, creativity, teamwork, pastoral care, and effective missional outreach.

DAVID W. BENNETT, DMin, PhD

Global Associate Director for Collaboration and Content

I like the fact that the contributors are all leading missiologists for whom the topic is a lived experience. Finally, I love this book because it helps me understand my own family better. I am an American raised in the Midwest who served in Japan for twenty years. We now have three adult children in New York City, Cambridge (UK) and London, who are married to a first generation Korean-American, a first generation Latina, and a first generation Englishman who was born in New Zealand to parents of medical missionaries to Africa. I need this book, and I am grateful for it! I commend it to my Lausanne friends around the world!

The contributors in A Hybrid World are world-class leaders and scholars who have helped to prioritize opportunities, propose solutions with respect to the great sociological reality of our time, and live out what they discuss. Many will not recognize its timeliness and its global significance. However, for those who are ready to respectfully listen to voices from the non-Western world who will lead us into the new realities of a twenty-first century world, this book will prove to be illuminating and indispensable, i.e., a must read!

S. DOUGLAS BIRDSALL

Honorary Chair, The Lausanne Movement

This book is the fruit of an international diaspora consultation, not dominated by Western voices. The insights are enriched by the wide backgrounds and ministries of the contributors, ranging from the challenges facing bicultural families to the all-too-common experience of minority peoples estranged and marginalized in their own countries. The subject matter is as diverse as the contributors themselves. This book has my hearty endorsement and deep hope that it will remind us Christians wherever we find ourselves in the world that only together can we constitute the healthy and whole body of Christ (Eph 4). As the Ethiopian proverb puts it, Without you there is no me.

JONATHAN J. BONK, PhD

Director, Dictionary of African Christian Biography

Research Professor of Mission, Center for Global Christianity & Mission,

Boston University School of Theology

A Hybrid World explores biblical, theological, and missional perspectives resulting from the complexities of culture in the context of global migration. Each of the contributors provide insights into issues inherent in the mixing of cultures and the living of life in today’s globalized world. This book is a major contribution to diaspora missiology as it calls us to be attentive to what is happening around us in real time. May the insights of this volume move us to further explore the role intentional intercultural congregations have in an increasingly hybridized world.

CHARLES A. COOK, PhD

Professor of Global Studies and Mission (Ambrose)

Executive Director, Jaffray Centre for Global Initiatives, Ambrose University,

Canada

In a world defined by people on the move, this exploration of diaspora and migration, identity, the mission of God, and hybrid cultural identity is a vital contribution to the task of Christian churches in navigating new and frequently perilous waters. If the authors of this excellent and ultimately hopeful volume are correct, the journey may be challenging, but it will be its own reward. I heartily recommend it.

DARRELL JACKSON, ThD

Associate Professor of Missiology, Morling College, Sydney, Australia

Diaspora and people movements are featured prominently in the biblical narrative and Christian history. However, the role of diasporic identity in the process of gospel transmission and appropriation remains understudied. This book fills the gap by highlighting the role of diasporic hybridity in uniquely shaping the identities of individuals, communities, and theologies for missional effectiveness.

STANLEY JOHN, PhD

Associate Professor of Intercultural Studies,

Alliance Theological Seminary, Nyack, NY

This book takes a serious conceptual leap by adopting hybridity as a creative conceptual framework, which allows a wide variety of diaspora experiences and reflections in one table. The dynamic process of hybridization would open an unprecedented space to take live stories into the formulation of contextual theologies. The editors are to be highly commended for this creative work.

WONSUK MA, PhD

Dean and Distinguished Professor of Global Christianity,

College of Theology and Ministry, Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, OK

Hybridity is not only a matter of cultural mixtures, but has to do also with the consequences of multi-ethnic relationships. The word does not appear in the Scriptures, but the Scriptures are filled with examples. And most of the time, it seems, they highlight the intensity of such intermarriages and their theological consequences. But the Lord never opposed such mixtures per se. The problem was never hybridization, but theological beliefs. Such nuances, however, have been rarely taken into consideration in our missional diasporic studies. Therefore, I am glad for the initiative of Dr. Sadiri Joy Tira, a scholar on diaspora missiology, and Dr. Julie Lee Uytanlet for the publication of this relevant volume: A Hybrid World: Exploring Diaspora Living and Missio Dei.

ELIAS MEDEIROS, PhD

Member of the Lausanne Global Diaspora Network Advisory Board

and of the Brazilian Evangelical Diaspora movement

This book deals with important issues that any serious theologian and missiologist cannot ignore. As the pastor of one of the largest intercultural churches in the world, I affirm the hybridity of the local congregations, and that Latin American, Asian, and African Christians have something to bring to enrich God’s mission globally.

SAM OWUSU, PhD

Senior Pastor, Calvary Worship Centre, Surrey, British Columbia

Disunity set in at Babel; the mission of Church is reconciliation with God and restoration of unity among all people. Hybridity is an opportunity and instrument in the age of diaspora mission. This timely collection edited by Dr. Sadiri Joy Tira and Dr. Julie Lee Uytanlet offers biblical, theological, and historical reflections on hybridity as well as expert analyses of the mission strategy. Anyone with serious interest in missions will find much wisdom and encouragement here.

EIKO TAKAMIZAWA

Mongol Kids’ Home: Support Manhole Children,

Representative of the Supporting Team SEANET, Steering Committee

Lausanne, Theological Working Core Group

A Hybrid World is another major contribution from scholars and practitioners to the growing body of diaspora missiology literature. Hybrid diasporas are agents of God and are bridges between cultures and societies. This is a valuable and insightful book.

TETSUNAO YAMAMORI, PhD

Sr. Vice President, Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, North Korea

Contributing Fellow, Center for Religion and Civic Culture,

University of Southern California

A Hybrid World: Diaspora, Hybridity, and Missio Dei

© 2020 by Sadiri Emmanuel Santiago Tira

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except brief quotations used in connection with reviews in magazines or newspapers. For permission, email permissions@wclbooks.com. For corrections, email editor@wclbooks.com.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scriptures marked NASB are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scriptures marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved."

Published by William Carey Publishing

10 W. Dry Creek Cir

Littleton, CO 80120 | www.missionbooks.org

William Carey Publishing is a ministry of Frontier Ventures

Pasadena, CA 91104 | www.frontierventures.org

Mike Riester, cover and interior design

Damples Dulcero-Baclagon, copyeditor

Melissa Hicks, managing editor

ISBNs: 978-1-64508-288-0 (paperback),

978-1-64508-290-3 (mobi),

978-1-64508-291-0 (epub)

Digital Ebook Release 2020

Library of Congress data on file with publisher.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to

Dr. Joseph Shao and Dr. Rosa Ching Shao,

a couple who is instrumental in shaping many lives, minds, and hands

to serve the Master and the Global Church, particularly in Asia.

For over thirty years, the Shaos have faithfully led the Biblical Seminary

of the Philippines (BSOP), leading it to become a premier seminary

and training ground for kingdom workers.

This volume is a testament to their servant leadership.

CONTENTS

Foreword

Michael A. Rynkiewich

Preface

Sadiri Joy Tira

Chapter 1: Hybridity in the Old Testament

Joseph Shao

Chapter 2: Jesus Christ and Hybridity

T. V. Thomas

Chapter 3: The Challenge of Multiplying Disciples by Hybrids in Fulfilling Missio Dei

David Lim

Chapter 4: Hybridity and the Gentile Mission in Matthew’s Genealogy of Christ

Steven S. H. Chang

Chapter 5: Diaspora, Hybridity, and Theology

Harvey C. Kwiyani

Chapter 6: Globalization, Hybrid Worlds, and Emerging Missional Frontiers

Calvin Chong

Chapter 7: Jewish-Gentile Intermarriage: A Hybridity Laboratory

Tuvya Zaretsky

Chapter 8: Mistizaje and Hibridez: A Latino Appreciation of Hybridity

Daniel Álvarez

Chapter 9: Hybridity and Chineseness: Finding Meaning in Theories

Juliet Lee Uytanlet

Chapter 10: Becoming Nikkei: A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study of Diasporic Japanese Dekasegi Christian Community in Japan, Brazil, and Peru

Gary Fujino

Chapter 11: Coconut Generation, Hybridity, and Hybrid Missions

Sam George

Chapter 12: Hybridity and Identity Development of Second-Generation Diaspora

Kamal Weerakoon

Chapter 13: Bi-National Mixed Marriages: Contributions and Challenges Affecting Ministry Among The Diaspora Academic Community

Leiton Chinn and Lisa Espineli-Chinn

Chapter 14: Helping Hybrid Children Shine: What the Global Church Can Do

Miriam Adeney

Chapter 15: Hybridity: A Witness in South Africa

Godfrey Harold

Chapter 16: Hybridity, Arts, and Mission

Uday Mark Balasundaram

Chapter 17: Toward a Third Space of Cultures: Hybridity and Multiethnic Leadership in Christian Mission

Peter Taehoon Lee

Appendix 1: Manila Declaration

Appendix 2: Cape Town Commitment

Index

FOREWORD

Hybridity, Diaspora, and Missio Dei: Exploring New Horizons

The twelve apostles received a call to mission for their time: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Little could they imagine the dimensions of this call, nor the changes in tactics required to keep up with a changing world and an out-of-control Spirit.

They were immediately tasked with witnessing to hybrid diasporic Jews from every nation with multiple languages and cultures. In their favor, this time the Spirit overcame some of the differences, but new challenges lay ahead: witnessing to half-Jews, then proselytes, and then Gentiles. The transitions were not easy and not without controversy. In the Acts story, as we have it, the Apostles fell behind (all except the apostles were scattered, Acts 8:1). First the Greek-speaking deacons took up the task; then Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Apollos, Priscilla and Aquila, Phoebe, Timothy, and many others. All had different identities and came from different communities—some related to two or three dissimilar communities.

Somewhere along the way, the church lost the story and the dimensions of mission: from center to periphery, and the reverse; the constant de-centering and re-centering of the Gospel; the contextualization not only of the message, but the messenger. The young among us, missionaries and missiologists, are rediscovering the dimensions of migration, diaspora, and hybridity in mission. And, once the cat is out of the bag, like the out-of-control Spirit, there is no stopping the movement and the discoveries.

These shifting scapes have a quantum-like quality where realities pop into existence and then disappear before we can make their acquaintance. Who has heard of "Peruvian dekasegi diaspora, the third space (is three enough?), or kamishibai"? Resist the temptation to find the right category for these people and events. Rather, it is past time to move beyond futile attempts to categorize the world and thus pretend to understand it.

What this volume demonstrates is the fleeting particularity of the cultural and social contexts that people pass through. No one can be a generalist, a gadfly in mission to all. But God is able to call someone for each of these multiple dimensions that keep on shifting over time.

How did our hubris come about? When did we come to believe that we could categorize people and thereby quickly understand them? When were we seduced into this false sense of control?

It is due in large part to mission’s captivity to colonialism and missiology’s failure to break completely out of the box. Missiology fell sway to the never-ending quest of the colonial, neocolonial, and now global order to define and identify race, ethnicity, general publics, resistant populations, Twitter audiences, Facebook followers, niche markets, E2s, windows, UPGs, and other certainties.

This volume is another step in establishing hybridity as being deeply rooted in history and Scripture; not the new normal, but simply normal. Normal in the sense of: That’s just the way things are, and the way things have always have been.

Does that fact not force us to reconsider our mission theology, history, and anthropology? We might ask whether or not we have understood the missio Dei to be whether God has called for purity and clarity, or whether we have called unclean what God has called clean. We must continue the critique of our own history since mission has been sidetracked by the colonial enterprise of categorize and control. Perhaps we can look at the world in which we live and ask whether we depend too much on the idea that established groups and standard relations form the structure and context of people’s lives as much as we thought they did. Are we tied to concepts such as animism, tribalism, and people group, or would we be better off without them?

The second accomplishment of this volume is to make the case for teaching process over method. That is, missiology as a discipline is still tied to preparing missionaries and mission scholars by filling them with content about the place where they are headed and the model of mission that they plan on using. This volume is one more piece of evidence exposing our hubris, because the world is too complex and too rapidly changing for our set of fun facts and amusing anecdotes to adequately prepare people for the day that they arrive in mission. For example, one of our favorite concepts is heart language, and the claim that people want to hear the gospel in the language that they grew up speaking. I have questioned this elsewhere, and contributors here question the claim again. Newer ideas in linguistics, such as language ideology and language registers, should force us to inquire of the people themselves about translations rather than deciding for others how they will hear the gospel. Reading the chapters here pushes me even more toward teaching method: theological method, historical method, and ethnographic method. I fool myself if I think that I can teach one student what she needs to know to go to a section of Jakarta where migrants live, as well as the student beside her what he needs to know to go to Bangalore to work with university students. However, I can teach them both how to conduct their own inquiry into cultures, languages, and sociality in their place.

Finally, this volume reminds us that with hybridity comes heterosis or what we know as hybrid vigor. When mission students read only missiologists because mission teachers reference only internal missiology literature, then, in this second generation, we lose something. Hybrid vigor in biology refers to the improvement in characteristics and functions of the first generation in the initial cross of parents who, while in the same species, are dissimilar in genetic makeup. The vigor refers to the rapidity and extent of growth as well as the robustness of the hybrid.¹ The more different the parents are, the greater the effect, which is due to the unlikelihood that each parent will contribute the same deleterious allele and thus permit the expression of something harmful. This is what happens more frequently in the opposite case of inbreeding depression where the likelihood of recessive gene expression increases.

What is the application? When missiology as a profession does not keep up with the literature in its secular counterparts of literary criticism, historiography, and ethnography, then we miss the opportunity to expand and develop our understanding of the world. Our students end up living in a missiology bubble where they talk only to each other and cannot carry on a conversation outside the bubble. The authors of this volume show that they are in conversation with new research initiatives around new concepts from the secular side, concepts such as reshaped topography, the history of objects, and global householding studies. Missiology has already benefitted from the research agenda proposed by such concepts as imagined communities, orientalism, actor network theory, practice theory, performance theory, speech act theory, and différance. This does not imply a total sell-out to postmodernism, but rather, like the biological analogy, bringing together the two to see what growth and robustness might eventuate from the conversation.

MICHAEL A. RYNKIEWICH

Professor of Anthropology, retired

Asbury Theological Seminary

PREFACE

Hybridity, Diaspora, Missio Dei

Diaspora and hybridity are not new phenomena. History, specifically Biblical history, has records of both. Indeed, voluntarily and frequently involuntarily, humans are designed to move. Adam and Eve, the first couple who inhabited the earth, were the only truly homogenous individuals in race and culture. After they were driven out of the Garden of Eden, their homeland, their family composition was never the same. Succeeding generations would intermarry, forming new ethnicities, adopting and adapting their own languages and cultures, and building their own cities. In terms of population movements and intermixing of peoples, the globalised world of the twenty-first century is not much different from the ancient societies in its hybridity. While it may be a reality of human history and experience, in our time of documentation and observation, hybridity is taking centre stage as the world takes note of media celebrities and members of royalty feature interacial couples and families. Furthermore, hybrid families and individuals are increasingly visible in communities around the globe.

The Filipino people are a wonderful example of hybridity as evident in their multiracialism and multiculturalism, resulting from centuries of migration into and out of the geographical crossroads that are the Philippine islands. This hybridity is reflected in the common national language of the Philippines, Pilipino, a Malay base with a host of Spanish and American English loan words, and in modern Filipino cuisine featuring local Filipino vegetables cooked in Spanish estofados, seasoned with Chinese seasoning (e.g., Five Spice), and served with a side of American salads and canned meats.

In nearly five decades of traversing the globe, I have met Filipinos married to Chinese, to Japanese, to Arabs, to Germans, to Italians, to Koreans, to Scandinavians, to Jews, to Indigenous North Americans, and to European-descent North Americans, etc. The modern Filipino is a composition of internationals. A racially and ethnically heterogenous population, modern Filipinos may be, at first glance, difficult to distinguish from other racial and ethnic groups, particularly in diaspora.

My own family has this hybridity on display. My father is of Arab Indonesian descent and my mother is a Spanish Filipino mestiza. From my siblings, our family has Filipino Romanians and Filipino Nigerians. My own wife is of Chinese Filipino ethnicity, and our children married similar hybrid Filipinos. Our daughter is married to a Filipino with Indian and Chinese lineage, and our son is married to a Canadian-born Filipina with Spanish and Chinese ancestors. Our grandchildren identify as 100 percent Filipino Canadian, but look very different from each other.

As a missiologist tasked, in particular by the Lausanne Movement, to interpret current realities through the eyes of missions, I was drawn to the rise of mixed ethnicities in my own context, among Filipino Canadians. Dakshana Bascaramurty reports in the Globe and Mail (Canada) that

Among Filipinos as a whole, only 22% reported multiple ethnic origins in the 2016 census, meaning the majority had two Filipino parents—but a breakdown by generation tells a different story. For first-generation Filipinos… 14% listed multiple ethnicities. But [by]… the second generation, it was up to 42%. And by the third generation and beyond… it reached 83%.¹

I became convinced that hybridity is, among urbanization, multiculturalism, and religious pluralism, a major offshoot of migration, and for the Church, an area that needs to be appreciated and addressed.

In 2011, after a visiting lectureship at Asbury Theological Seminary, a Chinese Filipino couple studying at the seminary hosted me for a meal at their apartment in Kentucky. Samson and Juliet Uytanlet would go on to complete their studies. Samson finished his PhD in Biblical Studies at London School of Theology while Juliet completed her PhD in Intercultural Studies at Asbury. She wrote her dissertation on the Chinese Diaspora in the Philippines. Juliet would become a specialist on hybridity, publishing the volume, The Hybrid Tsinoys: Challenges of Hybridity and Homogeneity as Sociocultural Constructs among the Chinese in the Philippines. Acutely aware of the diaspora experience and intimately acquainted with the realities of gendered migration, Juliet needed a platform from which her voice would be widely heard. In 2016, with the endorsement of Joseph Shao, general secretary of Asia Theological Association, and president of Biblical Seminary of the Philippines, I asked Juliet to serve the Evangelical church with me, as a diasporas catalyst for The Lausanne Movement.² With Juliet in the role of convener, we immediately began planning towards the Hybridity, Diaspora, and Missio Dei: Exploring New Horizons Consultation, sponsored by The Lausanne Movement and the Global Diaspora Network, and hosted by the Biblical Seminary of the Philippines, in Manila from June 19 to 22, 2018.

This volume is a product of that hybridity consultation which brought together academics and practitioners engaged in research and ministry among diaspora people groups to discuss and discover the implications of hybridity in the mission of God. Though, at the time of this publication, she has moved on to other commitments, Juliet should be credited for her leadership in gathering these experts and doing the bulk of footwork in curating their words of wisdom and expertise for the benefit of global readers. In the last stages of production for this volume, I have the privilege of reading what Juliet has assembled.

The editing and publication of this book, sponsored by the Hallelujah Fellowship Baptist Church in Toronto, ON, Canada, is composed of seventeen chapters, primarily of papers presented at the Hybridity, Diaspora, and Missio Dei: Exploring New Horizons Consultation, and assembled by theme. Authors include Harvey Kwiyani, Calvin Chong, Tuvya Zaretsky, Daniel Alvarez, Juliet Uytanlet, Gary Fujino, Sam George, Kamal Weerakoon, Leiton Chinn and Lisa Espinelli-Chinn, Miriam Adeney, Godfrey Harold, Uday Balasundaram, and Peter Lee. Included are three chapters presented by Joseph Shao, T. V. Thomas, and David Lim, and a chapter contributed by Steven Chang, presented post-consultation, that give valuable context and meaning to the reader. The volume is multi-disciplinary and the authors, coming from distinct regions of the globe and representing diverse fields of expertise, have been given freedom to write in their preferred style and English spelling (i.e. British and American English). The reader may find this confusing, but it is by design that this book is read through the hybrids’ eyes.

Hybridity, like urbanization, multiculturalism, and religious pluralism, is a reality of the human experience and a feature of history. What this volume attempts is to wrestle with the challenges that it presents to global missions and to encourage the global church to celebrate the opportunities that God, in his sovereignty and love, provides, that the Scattered People would be gathered to himself.

It is with great gratitude to Juliet, the esteemed contributors of this volume, the Lausanne Movement, the Global Diaspora Network, the Biblical Seminary of the Philippines, the Hallelujah Fellowship Baptist Church, the husband and wife editorial team of Gerry and Damples Baclagon, and the inspirational hybrid men, women, children, and their congregations, that I present this volume. May this be a celebration of, and a challenge for, the Global Church that is, like a hybrid family, composed of all nations, but is one.

Soli Deo gloria,

Sadiri Joy Tira, DMin, DMiss

Edmonton, AB, Canada

CHAPTER 1 | Joseph Shao

Hybridity in the Old Testament

Hybridity is an important topic for missiology and specifically for