Religion and Theology

Yung Suk Kim was born in South Korea, but now living in Richmond, Virginia, and is teaching at Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology of  Union University in Richmond, VA. He holds a PhD degree in the area of New Testament studies from Vanderbilt University.

Before his well-developed theological career, Kim has a long period of transformative experience as he moved away from his first career in international business as a marketing manager to a new business of the gospel  a vocation he considers most serious due to its profound impact on our contemporary lives today.

He teaches to engage in the knowledge of who we are in this world in which we see each other so different. In his teaching, diversity is not a given but a source of critical engagement with each other. He values both a critical and self-critical position toward any claim of knowledge, truth and reality. He makes it clear that the following as his  pedagogical goals learning from others, challenging each other, affirming who we are, and working for common humanity in differences. In my teaching, all in all, I communicate critical diversity and transformative identity in a variety of life contexts.

His approach to ecclesiology is different from a usual systematic theological approach but it is a historical-metaphorical, contextual approach that is focus on historical Jesus and New Testament communities. With this approach, modern readers will explore what it means to live as Christians for today. Kim protests a common understanding about the body of Christ in Pauls letters.

Christs Body
Yung Suk Kim takes up the language of body that analyses Pauls most complicated letter, and the letter that provides us the most information, and poses the sharpest questions, about social realities in the early church. He protests against the view that in speaking of the church as Christs body Paul seeks to emphasize unity and the social boundary. Against the traditional rhetoric of the politics in Greco-Roman philosophy, Kim argues that Paul seeks rather to nourish the vitality of a diverse community and to criticize the ideology of a powerful in-group in Corinth, a message of particular importance for contemporary global Christianity.

In his books introduction Yung Suk Kim lays out his dilemma clearly stating, to claim Christ as a marker is an egoistic claim. This stand is self-admittedly based on the authors own experience as a border person who wants a community that is all encompassing rather than excluding. He rejects both non-Corinthian and as presently destructive the understanding of body of Christ as a unifier of identity, saying that this kind of control over belongingness may lead to Holocaust, homophobia, and racism.

Beginning with this rhetorically angering language, in the following chapters he research whether Pauls body of Christ language in 1 Corinthians may be analyzed as a metaphor for a holistic religious and inter-religious, intercultural community.

Kims clear intention does not necessarily result in a powerful position, however, on several occasions a personal desire for diversity is implied as the only grounds for a theological choice. For example, Kim doubts that Paul will support love patriarchal, but gives no reason for this doubt he makes clear that his concern is with the potential for any conception of community to exclude others. With admirable sharpness, Kim states Inevitably, when in Christ is read as a boundary marker, it contributes to a narrow or an exclusive vision of the community that separates Christians from non-Christians.

About the line the destruction of the flesh passage (1 Cor. 5), Conzelmanns wrathful excommunication interpretation is judged as totally unacceptable unity achieved through the expulsion of members according to Kim, is a forced unity, as practiced by the Roman world, and therefore cannot have been Pauls meaning. Kims presentation throughout is so highly ideological in nature that, despite his clear goal, his argumentation fails to convince.

Kim does examine a number of scholars arguments within his presentation Derrida is frequently referenced, and appears to carry far more weight with Kim than do any of the sociologists, historians, or theologians. His bredth of reference is not so much the problem, as is his depth of examination and argumentation. The examinations are all too brief, so that his sometimes quite complex interlocutors appear more as simple foils. Perhaps this depth would be more evident if only Kim sufficiently presented arguments and own positions..

Throughout the book, Kim repeatedly claims that we should not view body of Christ as with boundaries, yet he also repeatedly refers to community, leaving us reader uncertain as to what community it might be that has no boundaries around it. For example, he argues that the issues and conflicts dealt with in 1 Corinthians are instances of people failing to live out the Christic body however, he immediately goes on to say that these are issues of conflict within the community. If this community is not defined by adherence to doctrine or practice, in what sense may it be called a community If in Christ does not define an existence within some boundaried community, on what basis does Paul choose the term in Christ And if in Christ is somehow a function of life engaged in by those who might reject any claim to the Christian communitys exclusivity, on what basis does Paul term this condition as being in Christ

For Kim, it depends upon how you read Pauls first letter to the Corinthians. If you see the world from the perspective of the church, as hegemonic hierarchy, then you will understand ecumenism to be about unity. The Body of Christ is defined by belief, and boundaries are drawn between believers and non-believers.

For Paul though, according to the author, the problem is not disunity but conflict between factions. His solution to power conflicts is reconciliationbetween different groups. This is achieved by living the life of Christ crucified rather than through belonging to a church.And he says

Being united in the same mind and the same purpose is not a matter of belonging to an ecclesiological body, but rather is a matter of having a mind and purpose framed by the same gospel that does not empty the cross of Christ of its power. (74)

Let me finish it with some observations on his book. Kim has included a number of photographs, but their connection to his argument is often not clear. Had this book been a great deal longer or more broadly-focused, the inclusion of the photographs would not be problematic as it is, they are a bit distracting. The first end-note comments directly on the phrase soma christo its meaning involves complexities due to its genitive construction.

It may be subjective or objective. Given the fact that soma is not a verbal noun, His statement at the very beginning of the argument weakens his position in appearance, if not in reality. Kims aim is to be applauded, in that he desires a community that is struggling toward liberation and justice for all. His presentation is substantially weakened by a presupposition that this goal is a sufficient control for interpretation of the text alone.