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Saturdays at Seven Conversation Series

“The Lord Draws in Crooked Lines” ft. Case Western Reserve University’s Jonathan Y. Tan I Saturdays at Seven – Season Three, Episode Forty-Four

By July 18, 2026No Comments

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In the forty-fourth episode of the third season of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Jonathan Y. Tan, the Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan Professor of Catholic Studies at Case Western Reserve University. Tan begins by offering an overview of the impact Vatican II had on what is now referenced as world Catholicism or global Christianity. Prior to Vatican II, the leadership exercised by the Catholic Church was rooted in Europe. With Vatican II, the Church sought to welcome voices into that leadership from around the world. Over time, the voice the Church exercised evolved from being a Eurocentric one speaking out to the world into a global one in which diverse voices comprising Christ’s body were speaking with one another. Tan shifts to discuss his own journey from being raised as a member of a Christian minority in Malaysia to studying law in Singapore and then coming to the United States to study theology. Each transition fostered within Tan the conviction that the service a theologian is called to exercise often follows what seems to finite humans to be crooked lines the Lord draws. Those lines eventually led Tan to Case Western Reserve University where he was appointed to the oldest chair in Catholic studies in North America. That appointment then allowed Tan to explore the contributions that Asian Christians as well as Asian American Christians are making to the Church. Tan concludes by discussing how theologians and the Church can work together in greater ways in the years to come to nurture a communion represented in Acts 2.

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Todd Ream: Welcome to Saturdays at Seven, Christian Scholar’s Review’s conversation series with thought leaders about the academic vocation and the relationship that vocation shares with the Church. My name is Todd Ream. I have the privilege of serving as the publisher for Christian Scholar’s Review and as the host for Saturdays at Seven. I also have the privilege of serving on the faculty and the administration at Indiana Wesleyan University.

Our guest is Jonathan Y. Tan, the Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan Professor of Catholic Studies at Case Western University. Thank you for joining us.

Jonathan Y. Tan: Thank you for having me.

Todd Ream: When you think about the ways theologians presently discuss and appreciate what is now often referenced as global Christianity, in what ways, in your estimation, were those commitments made possible by Vatican II?

Jonathan Y. Tan: Well, I think Vatican II as Karl Rahner, the Jesuit theologian said, transformed the Catholic Church from a Eurocentric church to a global world church, because for the very first time, from at least within the Catholic world, we had Catholic bishops, archbishops from all across the world, from Africa, from Asia, ethnic Africans, ethnic Asians attending. Before that, in the history of Christendom, Christianity, whether East or West, all the ecumenical councils have always been around the Mediterranean basin, even excluded the Syrians, the so-called Nestorians, and forth. So it was always Eurocentric, which means all across the Mediterranean Basin, so, and North Africa, we counted Egypt, Alexandria, we, essentially around the Mediterranean.

Vatican I was the first time we had representatives from North America, so American bishops attended, but it was still European anyway, immigrants to North America. So Vatican II was the very first time we had, we see the kind of diversity that Acts chapter 2 and we say, right, the Holy Spirit comes, all nations, all cultures, all ethnicities, all languages, all shades of color.

And that marked at least for in the Catholic world, a profound shift that, that Catholicism is not just simply Europe exporting a certain way of being Catholic Acts 2 and we say that all these are drawn. We hear them in our own languages, in our own cultures. And so that’s what global Catholicism and basically even generally speaking, world Christianity, what I teach, is all about.

Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. In what ways then has this appreciation for world Catholicism, global Christianity been expressed then by scholars and clergy persons and been advanced over, say, the last 60 years since Vatican II?

Jonathan Y. Tan: I think that’s always a big, a struggle because it’s hard to change things after two millennia, right? And, you know, we are so used to a European way of doing things, so it’s always the challenge how do we accommodate them?

Historically it was pretty easy, right. Uh, for those folks who are familiar who do mission studies, missiology, mission and evangelism, the other was always out there somewhere in Africa, somewhere in Asia. We go to them, we bring the Gospel, we plant the church, plantatio ecclesiae, but they stay there. So the world could be neatly re-divided. So this is our world, that is their world.

The challenge, I think, for world Christianity, global Catholicism, is that the so-called other is not out over there because of immigration, whether it’s voluntarily or forced, like refugees, asylum seekers. The Global South is not just in the south. As I always tell my students, labels like Global South and North doesn’t make any sense because the Global South are in the north now. And I think that’s causing a lot of challenge because what do we do when the diversity is not out there, but now in our congregations? How do we welcome them? How do we accommodate them? You know, how does our way of doing theology and pastoral ministry have to change? And I think that is what I hope to advance in my own research, scholarship, and teaching.

So the challenges is less academic because world Christianity or global Catholicism is not just a phenomenon we study as academia. For the pastors and pastoral ministers like myself, it is a reality that if you go to church on a Sunday, we have Haitians, we have Nigerians, we have Guatemalans who come and worship. So just a practical example, can we just sing in a European hymns? What about Spanish hymns? What about, you know, Zulu African? So I think one of the things we realize, you know, how do we welcome them? How do we incorporate them? How do we make them feel that they are part of Church, not just as targets of evangelism, but as participants who can contribute?

When I teach my own classes at Case, I say there’s not much difference from, say, in the early church, the Jewish versus the Hellenist followers of Jesus Christ, you know. Uh, how do we reconcile, you know can you be a Gentile and follow Jesus? Can you be an African or Asian and follow Jesus and not sing European hymns? So, so that part, helping parishes and congregations, not in the academia, academic theoretical arguments, but in practical things.

What songs shall we sing? What languages shall we use? Uh, do we celebrate things like Dia de Muertos, for example, or Simbang Gabi, or at least for, and this is the Catholic examples, or Our Lady of Guadalupe and, and so on and so forth.

Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. This realization and awareness that you’re talking about that has come since Vatican II then and the ways that the Church has grown, in what ways then is it most apt for scholars and perhaps also clergy persons to speak of the whole, the global universal Church? And then in what points in time and in what ways is it most apt to speak of the particular groups that also comprise the Church? So how do we, you know, acknowledge the particular groups that are part of it, but also understand too that all those groups together recognize the body of Christ? 

Jonathan Y. Tan: That’s right. I think that is where I think the genius of Vatican II, for, for its critics, I think Vatican II challenges the hegemony of a kind of Eurocentric church, where this is the way of doing things. Vatican II, especially in Gaudium et Spes, the Pastoral Constitution in the Modern World, part of modern, and it talks about the role of culture and the different contributions of the world. And that’s also a way of saying that there are other ways to follow Jesus, to be a Christian, to be a Catholic and what we can learn from the world, what we can incorporate from the world.

So Vatican II, when it says, for example, you know, we can worship in the vernacular it is not so much vernacular as in German or French or the, it’s not, it’s not the Reformation argument like Latin versus German. When, when, when the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium talks about, you know, worship in the vernacular and participation of the faithful, what the Council Fathers were thinking of are folks in Africa, folks in Asia, a Latin mass is meaningless. I mean, you, you know, you just insist that, oh you come to church on Sunday, you need to have Latin and, you know, what are you going to do?

So, so what we have, what the, the change that Vatican II did when he talks about participation, when its talks about vernacular, when its talks about the, the genius of the people in the Constitution on the Liturgy, on the Church in the Modern World and everything, what, what we see is, is a realization, I think, of the, of the vision that is very biblical. You know, Acts 2 onwards. Catholicity is not uniformity. Catholicity is unity in diversity without suppressing the differences, right. In Acts 2, they all heard the preaching of Peter in their own languages. They were not given the gift to hear Hebrew or Aramaic or whatever. They were, they could hear in their own tongues. So, and, and I think that, that, and that is what I think the ideal is.

Of course, there’s always a challenge because it means what about the old ways of doing things? We love our Latin Mass, you know. And so the Latin Mass becomes a kind of a, you know a, a line in the sand that you cannot cross that says, you know, we want, we want to go back to the church we know about.

But at the same time, you know, if you truly talk about evangelizing, bringing the Gospel, the Great Commission, Matthew 28, where you go out into the world, what do we mean when you bring all these people? Are they supposed to learn Latin and be mini Europeans, or are they supposed to be followers of Jesus Christ as Africans, as Asians?

Todd Ream: Yeah, thank you. I want to ask you now about your own story then as a theologian and efforts that you’ve made. You earned a bachelor’s of law from the National University of Singapore Law School, and then a master’s from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, and a doctoral degree in theology from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.

Would you please begin by sharing the discernment process that led you from the study of law to the study of theology?

Jonathan Y. Tan: Well, I mean, I’ve been asked this story so often now, and law was a compromise between my parents and me because originally I wanted to study theology, and my parents said, “What can you do with a theology degree?” Like most Asian parents, you know, I mean, I’m ethnic Chinese in a Confucian household, you know, if you can, you know uh, the commandment to honor thy father and thy mother is not just simply honor what, you know, in the Confucian filial piety in the Chinese household means you literally, you know, if they say this is this. So the compromise that I worked out with my parents was very simple.

You know, law, they wanted a practical degree like, like most, if you have Asian kids on campus, you know, you know, Asian parents, doctors, lawyers, engineers, so one of those. So, okay, so I studied law, I practiced for four years, and if I still wanted to pursue what I wanted to do, I was free to do, but at least I have that safety net. They were always worried, “What can you do with a PhD in theology?” You know, you know, there are all these unemployed PhDs.

But I, but I always tell folks I have no regret and sometimes I, I think the Lord draws in crooked lines, and I’ve come to see my law studies as actually laying the foundation for being a better theologian. It was in law school that I learned how to do research, how to write, how to reason, how to argue, you know, the kind of logical stuff that, because I think law is the best. There’s a reason why law was, in the medieval universities, is a humanities degree. And I came to appreciate that the wisdom of the Lord, through my parents making me to study law first to allow me to have that foundation.

Todd Ream: Thank you. At what point did you discern then that the study and the calling you were to follow was to lead you from Singapore and from Malaysia to the United States then?

Jonathan Y. Tan: Well, there was no graduate programs in Singapore. So if I want to do a, it was between going to UK or going to the US. And I think ultimately, the scholarship decided. So you know, you, you go where there’s money.

Todd Ream: Yeah.

Jonathan Y. Tan: Yeah, there’s no, there’s no reason to go into debt for grad school. So it was a little practical, but I have no regrets.

So going to Berkeley and Washington, DC just gave me two very contrasting perspectives of doing theology, being exposed to the best professors on either coast, and I think that molded my way of thinking.

Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. You grew up in Malaysia. And in what ways, if any, did that experience impact how then you approach the study of theology, understand the commitments of the Church?

Jonathan Y. Tan: That’s a great question. My original reason for studying theology and was not systematics or what, but because I grew up, you know, in church music, first as a chorister in children’s choir and then moving to become the organist in church and all through, I went to boarding school in Singapore. I played the organ at chapel. I also had a music scholarship for boarding school. So in return for playing the organ for chapel services, you know, I had eventually a free ride, a full-ride scholarship. And of course, I put my way through college by playing the organ in Singapore and also in the US.

Uh, it was a much easier way to kill two birds with one stone. Uh, instead of you know, you go to church, and also you’re doing something that you have to go to church anyway, and you get paid for it, for doing something you like, as opposed to, say waiting on tables.

Uh, the one thing about me was going to church, being exposed to worship got me very interested in why do we worship in this way or why these prayers or these rituals or these liturgies. So my original interest for going to grad school was to study liturgy, liturgics, or liturgical studies. So my master’s is strictly speaking in liturgical studies, because with church history and everything thrown into it, Greek and Latin.

But so my master’s was in liturgical studies and while doing that, originally I entered by just thinking of historical liturgy, the, the usual stuff. But then uh, through professors like Mary McGann at the Franciscan School and Graduate Theological Union, I became very interested in areas of liturgy and culture enculturation, the different ways of and, and this is not just a modern issue because liturgy and culture also happened centuries when it moved from Greek to Latin and the different hymns, hymnody and stuff that emerged even through medieval Europe because we, you know, it wasn’t static. So that got me very interested in liturgy and culture. Uh, my doctoral work was I continued that liturgy and culture. But then I became, again, exposed to more professors. That’s why I say I have no regret going either way, folks like Peter Phan.

Then I became more interested in the question of theology and culture, ecclesiology and culture, mission and culture, because you know how you plant a seed and the seed grows and it becomes a tree. And then you realize from just one thing, going to church on Sunday, and asking a simple question, “Why do we worship this way?” And that generated all this interest.

And so my scholarship has spanned all that. And the last several years, I’ve gone back to working on issues of liturgy and culture and worship again, because back to where I first started out, just the simple act of going to church on Sunday and either singing or playing the organ.

Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. You mentioned mentors, you know, that came along the way, you know, in Berkeley and in Washington, DC. Authors, then, who have also come to prove formative to your sense of calling as a theologian that you’ve read and perhaps returned to on numerous occasions over the years?

Jonathan Y. Tan: I think I’ve been very inspired you know, I’ve worked in the areas of liturgy and kind of people, folks like uh, Mary McGann has, you know, challenged me to look beyond just Eurocentric liturgies, to study elements of culture, ethnomusicology, ritual, and in folks like liturgical ritual that we see how cultures contribute. Uh, because very often when we think of liturgy, we just think of the study of text. Yeah, and it’s like Bible is not just exegeting the text of the Bible or the text of the prayers, but to see the entire context as the sociological, cultural, ethnic. So Mary McGann for liturgy. Uh, David Power at Catholic University, systematics sacramental theology.

Uh, in terms of church to broaden myself beyond just a Eurocentric church, Vatican II and global Catholicism, world Christianity of Joe Komonchak, the ecclesiologist. He’s at Catholic University, I think. His work on ecclesiology influenced a lot of my own work in ecclesiology, my own dissertation director, PhD supervisor and, and, and mentor Peter Phan, in terms of mission evangelization, evangelism, and culture. So, you know, in all this, I think it shapes the way I am what I am today.

Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. I want to ask you now about Case Western University. Case Western is of course a prominent research university, one of the two universities that merged to become what is today Case Western University was Presbyterian. But most, you know, sociologists and educational scholars might reference Case Western as non-sectarian or perhaps even as a secular research university.

Would you describe the discernment process that led you then to serve on the faculty at Case Western and do the work that you do there?

Jonathan Y. Tan: Well, very interesting because I applied to Case because there was an endowed chair in Catholic studies. Uh, it is actually the oldest Catholic studies chair. It was endowed in the ’70s, late ’60s. Fundraising was done immediately after Vatican II.

And the Hallinan was at that time he was, he was an alum. He did his PhD at Case Western, at, at Western Reserve then, the old Western Reserve which was a Christian, as you say, Christian Presbyterian University with chapel services, with a fabulous theology library and all that kind of stuff before the merger. He became Archbishop of Atlanta. He was at he was at Vatican II. He was one of the key bishops involved in the drafting of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium. He was one of those who was pushing for things like vernacular and participation. So I feel that it was a good plan, and my interests matched the named chair interest.

So a group of Catholics in greater Cleveland decided to endow a chair in Catholic studies in the late ’60s. It was fully funded by the early ’70s. It’s the oldest Catholic studies chair in North America, US and Canada.

Todd Ream: Wow, yeah.

Jonathan Y. Tan: All the other Catholic studies chairs in the various universities, Harvard, Chicago or those were much later in the last 20, 30 years. So at the time I was in Australia, I wanted to come back to the United States, so I applied to many different positions, and I think there was this Catholic studies chair, and I applied saying, you know, without giving much thought to it. But for some reason, I think sometimes, like, you know, because I always see my own calling as a theologian, not as a career. One of the things that I hope your audience realizes for me, it’s a vocation. It’s as much as a vocation to be a pastor, to be a priest, to be a clergy. 

So it’s a vocational calling. You go where you are sent forth to. You know, I take that mandate very seriously in Scripture. So if the Lord wants me to go to Australia, again, no regrets. I go to law school, you know. In Australia, you know, it developed a lot of close ties there. So I knew it was time to come back to the US, and I had no idea where. I just sent a bunch of applicants, and I interviewed, and I got it. I think, and at the time, I have no idea what Cleveland was like. I’ve never been to Cleveland, you know, I, only for the interview. So that was all I knew the first time, and no regrets. I think I was meant to come here. I think, you know, I, I see myself, the Lord sent me here. Things fell into place.

Uh, in a sense, I was also a trailblazer because up to my appointment, Catholic studies was associated with conservative voices. It was European. It was white men or white women, to be blunt. I am the first non-white person to hold a Catholic studies chair. Now, of course, there are, there are others now since but I was the, I was the very first. I’m the very first, in fact. Up to that point in time, it’s, it’s, it’s always been a someone of European descent. Diversity was just women, but it was, you know, you know what I mean, you know.

So because at the interview, they wanted somebody with a commitment to global Catholicism because they wanted to make the chair, my predecessors were all white men. In fact, I’m the third holder of the chair. The, the, the one before me was a, was a, was a priest, a white man. Uh, my immediate predecessor, Alice Barth, biblical scholar, white woman. I mean, so they wanted now to diversify and bring somebody with an expressed commitment to global Catholicism, to differentiate the chair from all the Catholic studies chairs at the various research universities.

Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. I want to transition now to asking you about your books that you have produced over the course of your career to date. You’re the author of Introducing Asian American Theologies, published by Orbis Books in 2008, Christian Mission Among the Peoples of Asia, published by Orbis Books in 2014, and The Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences: Bearing Witness to the Gospel and the Reign of God in Asia, published by Orbis again in 2021.

As you look across the arc of those three authored books, in what ways do you believe your appreciation for the contributions that Asian Catholics and Asian American Catholics grew? In what ways did you learn more about the story maybe in which you’d even been living at some level for the course of your life, but sought and knew as a result of the writing that you did?

Jonathan Y. Tan: Yeah. So the first book is very new because that was my attempt to study something in the North American context, because up to this point, you know, my doctoral work, it was always Asians in Asia and studying mission and evangelism and mission studies. It was still Asia, but I think it opened the question of, you know, what about Asians who have come to North America, their histories, their goals, their objectives, their longings, their dreams, their hopes are very different from Asians in Asia, you know.

Uh, so we talk about the, the, the, the Church of Christ in Asia and the Church of Christ in North America. So Introducing Asian American Theologies was my attempt to study Asian Americans, both Catholic and Protestant. So I have chapters on evangelical, mainline Protestant, and Catholic. I look at different aspects. I look at the history, and I’m grateful to the Louisville Institute for, for their pre-tenure funding to write this book. So it was a recognition of the fact, I think, that this is something important in North America.

And Introducing Asian American Theologies, that book has been very well-received. Of all the books I’ve authored or edited, that’s the only book that actually generates positive royalties for me. All the other books I’m still paying off the, you know, you know, as an author, you know, you know, with theology books, not many people buy. They give you an advance. I’m still paying off the advance. This was a book that paid off the advance early, and then thereafter I had actually positive royalties. And it remains the only one volume text on Asian American theologies. And so it’s, it’s still the book that is often referred to that probably for better or for worse, you know, I’m stuck on that.

The other two books, the second book, the Christian Mission Among the Peoples of Asia and the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, they relate more to my earlier doctoral work on mission and evangelism in Asia. One of the things I was curious about is, you know, what directions does Christianity face and have to, you know in Asia, the how because the question is, we can no longer do things the old way. The old way was pretty simple. The colonizers came, the missionaries came, protected by the colonizing power and Christianity was for better or for worse, seen as a colonial religion.

So a lot of the tensions that we find, whether it’s in India or in, different parts like in China or somewhere, you know, they say they talk about religious freedom or whatever, you know, either, and, and when American conservative Christians argue, you know, these issues of freedom, it’s not an easy question because Christianity was tainted by its association and protection of European colonial powers. How do we stand on our own? It’s a minority religion. Can we evangelize in the same way, you know in the, as in men, white women coming in telling you, “You must do it this way. If not, then what?” It’s the same, I mean, I, I don’t cover Africa, but the same thing as African-initiated churches. The same thing, you know. We want to do things our own way, not the way you tell us to do.

So I’m interested both Christian Mission Among the Peoples of Asia is more general. I also work closely with Amos Yong that you mentioned. I think, and he was quoted in that book, and he uses it. And he also uses aspects of that book because, you know we were both saying that it’s a new way of doing mission, as in mission among the peoples or missio inter gentes in Latin, opposed to missio ad gentes or to the peoples, not speaking to you, but working with you. You know, you are included, you are part of it. You know, there’s no dividing line.

The third book is basically, you know, I look at my doctoral dissertation with, we studied the Asian bishops and Pope John Paul II on how to uh, mission evangelism for the Catholic Church in Asia. So I took that part, updated it. Uh, that book was timed to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, the FABC. It’s always under the radar because nobody pay attention to Asia.

Uh, we know about CELAM in South America, Latin America. CELAM, the Latin American bishops that gave things like like Medellín, Puebla, and all liberation theology, Aparecida, you know indigenous. So they are very active because it’s the same continent and because there are lots of Latin Americans in the US. So one of the legacy, one of the legacy of Vatican II is we have all these federation of conferences. It’s a, it’s a form of synodality, an early experiment. So Africa has theirs, Europe has theirs, South America has theirs. North America, for some reason, we never, never did. It was their own way of doing things, very conservative.

Asia was FABC. The FABC was established in 1972. When Pope Paul VI visited Asia for the first time in 1970. So that was the first papal visit ever to Asia, so it set in motion the Asian bishops who met, 180 Asian bishops who met the Pope decided that we should do something like the Latin Americans have done in CELAM, because CELAM, that was Medellín a few years back, like ’68, Medellín, and came out with liberation. Uh, so we, they wanted to do something. So with the Vatican’s approval in 1972, the FABC was formed.

Because 50 years later was 2022. If you look at the publication date, book was timed to mark the 50th anniversary of the FABC. So it remains a one-volume, just like the first book was studying Asian Americans, this book is the one-volume study of the FABC, 50 years of its existence.

Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. I want to now ask you about edited volumes with which you’ve worked. You’re the lead editor for World Christianity: Perspectives and Insights, published by Orbis Books in 2016, a co-editor of Theological Reflections on the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2016, and one of the editors of From Malaysia to the Ends of the Earth: Southeast Asian and Diasporic Contributions to Biblical and Theological Studies, published by Claremont Press in 2021.

In what ways does working on an edited project, in contrast to maybe your single-authored works, add layers to your understanding when it comes to this appreciation, this Acts 2 appreciation of the Church? In what ways can, you know, edited volumes add an advantage maybe even on top of what single-authored works can add?

Jonathan Y. Tan: I think edited volumes are challenging. Most of us don’t want to do it, but I think it’s because allows, I think, important topics to be published that are beyond the expertise of one or two authors. And that’s one of the reasons those three edited volumes was done. Uh the first edited volume on, on world Christianity, I mean, it was, it started out as a fettschrift to Peter Phan. And uh, folks who contributed were either his former students, like myself, or collaborators and friends. Uh, because our original rationale was, until that book appeared, there was nothing, there was no one-volume study on world Christianity as such. Of course, now there are since then handbooks and companions from whatever, all the various presses. But that book, when it first came out, it was the first book that looked at world Christianity as world Christianity as, as something worth studying. So that book has also been has generated a lot of interest even beyond the Catholic world.

The Umbrella Movement, I think there was also there were lots of articles and stuff that was, that came out. Uh, Justin Tse and myself thought it was a great idea, at least for the Western audience, to put all these papers into one volume, you know, because there were papers given at AAR, the American Academy of Religion for your audience and elsewhere. But we wanted folks to realize that this was not just simply a secular protest movement.

It’s like you study African American Civil Rights Movement is not just secular, it was also driven by Black congregations. Uh, Martin Luther King Jr. himself was a Baptist pastor. It was Baptist congregation. Churches like Birmingham Church was bombed, you know. They organized in churches, and church ministers took the lead.

So we wanted to show that in Hong Kong too, it was not just some secular, because secular ideas don’t drive people. That’s what I always tell my progressive left-wing folks, theological convictions do.

Todd Ream: Yeah.

Jonathan Y. Tan: So the Umbrella Movement, the leaders, the movement, the churches, you know, all those things, there was an underlying Christian foundation that is often missed. And, and that also explained why it was so harshly cracked down because it was not, it was just not simply just a political movement. It was much deeper than that. That book was, all those essays were compiled to give an American audience a broader perspective.

And the last work on Malaysia, I think it was something that it started out as a conversation between Amos and myself. What, what can we do? So then slowly we dragged other contributors in, you know, because the point, I think Amos was talking to me and the point that he made was all this while we, we both noticed that theology was always done with a European or North American axis. Now that’s where the gaze is from, is somewhere in Europe or North America gazing out at the rest of the world. So you notice a provocative title from Malaysia to the ends of the world.

Uh, it’s a play on Acts 2, on Jerusalem to the ends of the world, except that it’s not Jerusalem or Rome or the United States as the city on a hill to, to say, paraphrase Winthrop, the Puritan Winthrop. But now what if, you know, to paraphrase, say what Nathaniel asked, you know, in John 1, right. “What good can come out of Nazareth? Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Can anything good come out of Malaysia? We wanted to say just like, you know, like how, you know, the response to Nathaniel was come and see.

Same thing. Perhaps there’s something that folks in Malaysia as Christians, because it’s an ecumenical collaboration in a country of Muslim majority, where Christians are a minority. It’s a country where Islam is the, is like the official religion. What does it mean to live as followers, committed followers of Jesus as a minority community? What can we teach about living in diversity and plurality to folks who are so used to being the one in charge.

I think one of the biggest problem in the United States today is that we have no idea how to deal with diversity and plurality, which is why it’s so easy for Americans to turn to demagogues who say, you know, “We want to turn the clock back. We do not like all this diversity.” Perhaps Christians who live as minorities have something to share, and, and Christians in America can learn from that. So that was the rationale for that book and the provocative title.

Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. As our time begins to become short then now, I want to ask you a couple of broader questions then about your sense of vocation. And in particular, within the arenas in which you’ve worked, what intellectual or moral virtues do you believe that theologians need to cultivate? But then also, what theological virtues perhaps do you believe they need to pray to receive?

Jonathan Y. Tan: I’m one of those folks who believe that theology is not just an academic discipline or career. Uh, we do not choose theology because there’s nothing else to do or because to make money or what, or, you know, it’s or like any other secular academic disciplines in the university. In this sense, I stand committed, you know, as a Christian, as a Catholic, that the vocation of a theologian is just as important as the vocation of a, of a pastor or priest, right. In the, in the, in medieval Europe, you know the theologian, the teaching office of the theologian was just as important as the teaching office of the bishop.

And of course, in the Catholic Church, there always have been that tension, but the medieval ideal Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and all others, you know, that they were theologians, that they were called to it. It was a calling. It’s not something that you want to do but it was not something that you do for your own advancement, but for the greater glory of the Church, something that we are called to, that the, the vocation a theologian is to help the followers of Jesus, whatever the Church they may, they may belong to, make sense of the reality of the here and now.

In that sense, my idea of my hero is someone like St. Paul, because what Paul did, you know, he was called, Damascus. You know, he didn’t choose to be a theologian. That’s why I did not choose. God called me to be a theologian, just as God called Paul, St. Paul, on the road to Damascus, he changed. He went to Arabia. He had struggles. He had to fight with folks in Jerusalem. He had to figure out, you know, he tried preaching to Jews, but then he realized that God did not want him to preach to Jews, but to Gentiles.

So it’s the same thing. We, we are called, we are sent, we have to make sense, like in the letter to the Romans and all that kind of stuff, just as Paul as a theologian was called to unpack what does the Gospel mean? What, what new theological insights that we can develop beyond just a narrow Jewish-centric world.

So I’m inspired by Paul to ask the same question. How can, just as Paul was called to move beyond a Jewish, Hebrew, Jewish-centric way of being a follower of Jesus Christ, and because of Paul, you and I are here talking today, not as Jews, Jewish followers, but as Gentile followers.

But to bring the question further beyond, and Gentile is not just in the Mediterranean. Gentile, gentis, right. Uh, the goyim in Hebrew, of the world Africa, Asia. So how can I bring, how can I help the Church understand this at the heart of it? So that is my my own vocational calling, and that’s what I do.

And of course, for me, the one last point that I make, and this I disagree with many of my colleagues who say we can be a theologian without having an expressed faith commitment. I say, no. You know? You know, you have to have a faith, a church commitment. So for me, theology, vocation, and faith are integral. You know, you cannot be a theologian and an agnostic, just like you cannot be a pastor and an agnostic. Notwithstanding what Christianity today say that there are some pastors who are agnostics and don’t believe. If you do not believe, you can never respond to the vocation.

And for me, what I do as a theologian comes about because I’m first rooted in a faith tradition, the Catholic Church. Uh, I may not always agree, I may have challenges, you know, like, like everybody you can ask, but, you know, there is a, a sense of loyalty and commitment and fidelity that inspires because, you know, we are not called to be a follower of Jesus outside of the Church, but we are called to be a follower of Jesus within the Church.

And the same thing with the theologian within the Church. Theologians are not just called to rubber stamp, but theologians also act as a conscience to push, to ask difficult questions, whether it was Augustine, whether it was Aquinas. The reason why we have what or even, even it was St. Paul himself, if he did not ask all those questions, we would still be following Jesus as Jews.

So my job, inspired by Paul, is to ask these questions and to lead to, to follow what God is leading us as theologians in our vocational calling to bring God’s kingdom here, to build a church here. You know, the message of Jesus Christ, you know, to transform the world, to be this, the light of the world, to be salt, to be leaven that leavens.

Todd Ream: This is for our last question then today, but as we lean toward and grow in our appreciation of this Acts 2 understanding of the Church, in what ways can theologians then be of greater service to the Church? But perhaps in what ways can the Church be of greater service to theologians?

Jonathan Y. Tan: Well, I think it works both ways, too. I think for the longest time, there’s always been a, a kind of and this is true both among evangelicals and Catholics and, that there’s always a suspicion of theologians because we ask difficult questions. Uh, and I think, I’m sure even in the St. Paul’s days, the folks Peter, James, and others in Jerusalem would probably say, well, who the hell is Paul asking all this? He’s bringing up all these issues. Wouldn’t it be easier they just become Jews? Why go through all this esoteric reasoning in like, in Romans to try to explain that?

But I hope the Church at large, whether it’s the Christians in the pews realize that we as theologians, we are not, the reason why we sometimes shake up things and in people in our complacency is we cannot take the faith for granted. It would’ve been very easy to just silo that, okay, this is Jewish, that is Gentiles. But if the Jews and Gentiles were to form one church as well, the, the Galatians fight would be if Africans and Asians and Europeans were to worship together in the same congregation, which the fight today is, the church also have to also listen to theologians to test our ideas as what Jesus said by, by your fruits, you will know that a good, a good tree does not bear bad fruit.

And the same thing in, in Acts 2 the, like, the wisdom of Gamaliel, the rabbi that says that, you know, “If this is from God, it will grow.” And I think the same thing, I think God wants the vision of Acts chapter 2 to be realized, not in silos, but together. You know, the Catholicity, the unity of the Church. When we pray in the Nicene Creed, one holy, Catholic, right. And Catholic doesn’t mean the denomination, but universal Catholicos and Apostolic. So how do we do that?

And that is where the, the ordinary folk in the pew, if they appreciate what we do, you know, that we ask the questions, and we hope they, they ponder and reflect critically so that we can truly build a Church like the original Acts 2, that it’s a Church where all languages, all cultures, all peoples, they can worship not in Latin or English or whatever, but in their own tongues, in their own voices, to hear the good news and to express the good news as they are.

Todd Ream: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Jonathan Y. Tan: You’re welcome. Thank you for having me on this program.

Todd Ream: Our guest has been Jonathan Y. Tan, the Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan Professor of Catholic Studies at Case Western University. Thank you for taking the time to share your insights with us today.

Jonathan Y. Tan: Thank you very much for having me.

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Todd Ream: Thank you for joining us for Saturdays at Seven, Christian Scholar’s Review’s conversation series with thought leaders about the academic vocation and the relationship that vocation shares with the Church. We invite you to join us again next week for Saturdays at Seven.

Todd C. Ream

Indiana Wesleyan University
Todd C. Ream serves as University Professor and Executive Director of Faculty Scholarship at Indiana Wesleyan. He also serves as a senior fellow with the Lumen Research Institute and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and as the publisher for Christian Scholar’s Review.

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