2016 Triebel Christian James 1141833 Ethesis
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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ A Third Culture Kid Theology Constructing Trinity, Christ, and Believers’ Identity in Liminality in dialogue with Nozomu Miyahira, Emil Brunner, and Thomas F. Torrance Triebel, Christian James Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. 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Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 30. Sep. 2021 A Third Culture Kid Theology: Constructing Trinity, Christ, and Believers’ Identity in Liminality in dialogue with Nozomu Miyahira, Emil Brunner, and Thomas F. Torrance by Christian J. Triebel King’s College London, University of London Department of Theology and Religious Studies This thesis is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theology June 2016 1 Abstract This dissertation seeks to present a constructive theology from the perspective of Third Culture Kids (TCKs). TCKs are persons who, due to their parents’ occupation, have spent a significant time of their developmental years outside of their parents’ home culture. While taking part in their parents’ home culture (first culture) and host culture (second culture), their sense of belonging tends to be with others of a similar background (third culture). TCKs, shaped by high mobility and cross-cultural experience, often have a sense of living betwixt and between different worlds and carry with them questions of identity and belonging. This research proposes a theological answer to TCKs’ questions of identity and belonging. First, the potential role of faith in the development of TCKs identity is examined. Faith provides TCKs with an internal locus of integrity and facilitates the consolidation of a fragmented identity on a higher level. Second, key concepts for understanding the experience of TCKs are identified to serve as themes with which to construct a meaningful theology for TCKs. Transculturality, liminality, non-place, liquid modernity, and constructive marginality and mediation are identified as relevant concepts capable of capturing the experience of feeling both at home everywhere and nowhere. Third, having identified key themes for a TCK theology, three areas of theology are addressed to propose a vision of Christianity capable of resonating with TCKs. The doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of the person of Christ, and the doctrine of salvation and human identity in God are contextualized utilizing Nozomu Miyahira’s theology of ‘betweenness’, Emil Brunner’s doctrine of the identity-bestowing ‘Gott-zum-Menschen-hin’, and ‘mediation’ in the theology of Thomas F. Torrance. Each doctrine is reformulated in terms of liminality, non-place, liquidity, and mediation in order to present a coherent theology TCKs can recognize themselves in and identify with. 2 Acknowledgements The completion of this dissertation was made possible through the support of many. This research was funded by King’s College London and Tokyo Christian University. I am grateful for their generous support. I have the honour of thanking the following people for their crucial help. I thank my Doktorvater the Revd Professor Alister McGrath, my supervisor for the majority of my time at King’s, whose spot on feedback and encouragement prevented this dissertation from reading like an undergraduate paper. I thank Professor Paul Joyce who oversaw the completion of my dissertation and showed immense determination and patience in finding examiners for me. I thank Professor Pete Ward and the Revd Canon Vernon White, my secondary supervisors, for their helpful comments during my research. Furthermore, I thank Professor Michael A. Barnes SJ, my internal examiner, and the Very Revd Professor Iain R. Torrance, my external examiner, for taking on the task of reading and evaluating my dissertation. To my surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed the two hour grilling I received from these two distinguished gentlemen. I am grateful for their encouraging feedback. I thank my parents Bernhard and Renate Triebel as well as my siblings Katharina Moos and Anika Ebersbach for their unwavering encouragement and prayers. I am especially indebted to my father who took an interest in my dissertation and meticulously and repeatedly checked it for errors. I thank my parents-in-law Reiko and Chikayoshi Tatsuzawa for their generous support. I thank my friend and mentor Professor Joseph Poulshock for strongly believing in me. I thank Yutaka Osakabe, Niroshan John, Adrian Kumarasingham, Tomomitsu Kanai, Yumi Murayama, Joy Chen, Miyako Sensei and Professor Takanori Kobayashi for their friendship over the years. I thank Professor Atsuhiro Asano for his advice during a particularly difficult and dark time and I thank Dr Simon Gibson for his help in restoring my sanity. 3 Last but most definitely not least, I thank my faithful wife Yuri Triebel who patiently and at times impatiently suffered the predicament of being married to a doctoral student. Her strongly worded reminders to ‘get it done’ kept me on track. And I thank my beautiful daughter Alice Triebel for the joy she has brought to our lives. ありがとうございます。心より感謝申し上げます。 Christian Triebel June 2016 King’s College London 4 Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................... 2 Acknowlegements ................................................................................................... 3 Table of Contents .................................................................................................... 5 1 Introduction ................................................................................................. 7 Part One: Third Culture Kids 2 Who are Third Culture Kids? ................................................................... 19 3 Themes in Third Culture Kid Literature ................................................... 26 4 Third Culture Kid Identity Development ................................................. 35 5 Religion and Identity: The Case of Missionary Kids ................................ 46 6 David Gibbons: Third Culture Church ..................................................... 58 Part Two: The Conceptual Framework 7 Transculture and Third Culture Kids ........................................................ 66 8 Liminality and Third Culture Kids ........................................................... 79 9 Non-Place and Third Culture Kids ........................................................... 87 10 Liquid Modernity and Third Culture Kids ............................................ 100 11 Constructive Marginality and Third Culture Kids ................................ 111 Part Three: Towards A TCK Theology 12 Nozomu Miyahira: A Theology of ‘Betweenness’ ............................... 128 13 Emil Brunner: ‘Mensch-von-Gott-her’ ................................................. 152 14 Thomas F. Torrance: A Theology of Mediation ................................... 169 15 Torrance’s Theorem .............................................................................. 188 5 16 Towards a Liminal Trinity .................................................................... 202 17 Towards a Liminal Christ ..................................................................... 224 18 Towards a Liminal Christian Identity ................................................... 246 A Few Final Words ............................................................................................. 261 Bibliography ........................................................................................................ 264 6 Chapter 1 Introduction What is this dissertation about? This dissertation seeks to present a constructive theology from the perspective of Third Culture Kids (TCKs)1. TCKs are persons who, due to their parents’ occupation, spent a significant time growing up outside of their parents’ home culture. While taking part in their parents’ home culture (first culture) and host culture (second culture), their sense of belonging tends to be with others of a similar background (third culture). TCKs, shaped by high mobility and cross-cultural experience, often have a sense of living betwixt and between different worlds. The idea for this dissertation grew out of a personal dissatisfaction with the lack of a serious theology for and by TCKs. While the 20th century has seen the emergence of context specific theologies, there