ISSN 0119-8432 AA ASia AdvCntiSt SS $QminaryStudieS VOLUME 3 2000 Preface 1-2 Popular Filipino Spirit-World Beliefs, with a Proposed Theological Response 3-23 REUEL ALMOCERA Paroimiai in the Fourth Gospel 25-34 HYUNSOK DOH The Theological Character of Gen 1-11 (The Primeval History) 35-49 KENNETH MULZAC Aesthetics in Christian Education 51-67 JOHN WESLEY TAYLOR V Adventist Encounter with Folk Religions 69-77 BRUCE BAUER Meeting the Challenge of Buddhism in a Changing World 79-87 JON L. DYBDAHL Urban Mission—The Forgotten Frontier 89-104 G.T. NG Serious about Secular Society? The Challenge of Secularism for Seventh-day Adventist Mission 105-19 BARRY OLIVER The Sun of Righteousness is Rising 121-36 ROBERT WONG Mission Strategy: Retrospect and Prospect 137-45 NKOSIYABO Z. ZVANDASARA Dissertation and Thesis Abstracts 147—Book Reviews 153 ASIA ADVENTIST SEMINARY STUDIES PUBLISHED ANNUALLY BY THE ADVENTIST INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES Asia Adventist Seminary Studies (AASS) is published once a year by AIIAS Publications under the auspices of the Adventist International Institute of Advanced Studies (ALIAS), Silang, Cavite, Republic of the Philippines. It is the official scholarly journal of the AIIAS Theological Seminary. ALIAS is a graduate- level institution of Christian education operated by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, serving the world, but especially the Asia-Pacific region. EDITOR Edwin Reynolds ASSISTANT EDITOR Francisco Gayoba EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Anne Bissell EDITORIAL SECRETARY CIRCULATION MANAGER Glenice Joy Ondap EDITORIAL CONSULTANTS Ronald Bissell Hyunsok Doh THE MISSION OF AASS is to publish research findings and practical contributions from AIIAS Theological Seminary by which pastors, teachers, administrators, and other church members may be benefitted in carrying out more knowledgeably and effectively the mission of the church in the Asia-Pacific region and in the world. SUBSCRIPTION to AASS may be obtained by writing to: Asia Adventist Seminary Studies P.O. Box 038 4118 Silang, Cavite Republic of the Philippines Annual subscription cost is US$5.00 within Asia and US$6.00 elsewhere. This includes postage. Payment within the Philippines may be made in PHP at current exchange rates. Payment may be made by cash, check, or money order. Additional fees may be assessed if checks are not negotiable. Copyright (2000 by AIIAS Publications PREFACE Our apologies first for being very late in getting this issue to press. Extended absence of some of our personnel is the primary reason. We hope to do better in the future. We value your interest in our publication, and we aim to please. We trust that the quality of the contents of this issue will make up for the delay in getting it out to you. We would like to introduce the authors of our main articles to you once again. These are all AIIAS faculty this year, mostly from the Theological Seminary, with one representative from the School of Graduate Studies. Reuel U. Almocera, D.P.S., is currently the chair of the Applied Theology department and Associate Professor of Church Ministries. He also serves as director of the Doctor of Ministry program. He hails from Mindanao in the southern Philippines and has served at AIIAS since 1987. Hyunsok Doh, Ph.D., has been Assistant Professor of New Testament and Biblical Languages since 1998, but has just accepted a call to serve as a church pastor in New Jersey. We are very sorry to be losing him so soon. He comes from Korea. Kenneth Mulzac, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Languages. He is one of our newer faculty members, having come to AIIAS only within the last year. He is from Bequia, part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the West Indies. John Wesley Taylor V, Ph.D., Ed.D., is Associate Dean and Professor of Education and Research in the School of Graduate Studies. He also serves as director of the Division of Online Learning, which is just getting underway at AIIAS. He is from the United States and has been serving at AIIAS since 1995. Besides the major articles, we again are proud to present a variety of papers selected from the ALIAS Theological Forum 2000, held at ALIAS on 9-12 August 2000. Some of these are from ALIAS professors, while others are from specialists in their respective areas from around the world. The theme of the Forum 2000 was Adventist Mission in Non-Christian Contexts. No matter what your denominational affiliation, we believe you will find valuable principles for the practice of mission in the papers presented. We continue to publish abstracts of the theses and dissertations accepted for degree programs at the AIIAS Theological Seminary. We hope these may serve notice of the academic work being done by our students here. Critical book reviews submitted by our faculty are also included. We continue to solicit books 1 2 Asia Adventist Seminary Studies for review from publishers who would like their books to be highlighted in those parts of the world reached by our journal, which means every part. We continue to solicit also your regular subscription to the journal as a way of enabling us to continue producing it as more than just an academic exercise. If you are still receiving this on a complimentary basis, please consider subscribing. We only continue to send a number of complimentary subscriptions because we value your readership and hate to remove names from our mailing list. Every year, however, we have to remove more names from our mailing list because of failure to subscribe. Do not let this year be the last for you. We continue also to offer exchange agreements with other journals that specialize in biblical studies, theology, church history, church ministries, and world mission. We have entered into many such agreements already and are willing to consider other offers as well. We regret that we have to raise the subscription price. Last year we published a price hike in the journal, but in fact we continued the same rate as before. This year we have to implement the price increase due to the increased cost of publishing and mailing. The subscription price has been less than the actual cost per journal. If we can increase readership, we can help to keep per-copy costs down. With this issue we regret that we are losing not only Dr. Hyunsok Doh, one of our consulting editors, but also our editorial assistant and circulation manager, Joy Ondap, who has faithfully served as the backbone of the paperwork and computer work for getting out this journal since its inception. Joy has been reassigned as the assistant to Dr. John Wesley Taylor V in the Division of Online Learning. She is also now a full-time student in the Master of Arts program in Education, majoring in Curriculum and Instruction. We will miss her, but we wish her God's blessing as she improves her opportunities for service. We want to say special word of appreciation also to Dr. Kenneth Mulzac, who has volunteered to help when we were caught short-handed, in getting this issue ready, although he was not on the staff. He has lent his expertise to helping with peer review of articles as well as contributing material where we were short. Thanks, Ken, for going beyond the call of duty. The Editor AASS 3 (2000): 3-23 POPULAR FILIPINO SPIRIT-WORLD BELIEFS, WITH A PROPOSED THEOLOGICAL RESPONSE REUEL U. ALMOCERA Filipinos had a worldview and a religion of their own even before Spanish- Catholic Christianity came to the Philippines in the mid-sixteenth century.' They believed in the existence of a supreme creator being, whom they called Bathala.2 Aside from their own social structure, they also believed in an invisible society coexisting with their own. This society was believed to be inhabited by spirits which included dead ancestors, deities, and lesser gods. Pre-Hispanic Filipinos respected these spirits with rituals and feast days, because these supernatural beings were considered able to preside over the whole gamut of life, including birth, sickness, death, courtship, marriage, planting, harvesting, and death. Some of these spirits were considered friendly; others were viewed as tyrannical enemies.' The encounter with Spanish-Catholic Christianity did little to change the worldview held by pre-Hispanic Filipinos.' It resulted in the formation of a folk religion, namely Filipino "Folk Catholicism."' This syncretistic form of Christianity continues until the present. Catholic scholar, Father Vitaliano R. Gorospe, admits that "even today, especially in the rural areas, we find merely the 'For a larger treatment of the fundamental Filipino worldview, see T. Valentino Sitoy, Jr., A History of Christianity in the Philippines, vol. 1, The Initial Encounter (Quezon City: New Day, 1985), 1-22. 'Teodoro Agoncillo and Milagros C. Guerrero, History of the Filipino People (Quezon City: Garcia, 1977), 50. 'Jose Vicente Braganza, The Encounter (Manila: Catholic Trade School, 1965), 51-52. 4F. Landa Jocano, ed., The Philippines at the Spanish Contact (Manila: MCS Enterprises, 1975), 2. 5F. Landa Jocano, "Filipino Folk Catholicism," Philippine Educational Forum 15 (November 1966): 41-60. 3 4 Asia Adventist Seminary Studies external trappings of Catholic belief and practice superimposed on the original pattern of pre-Christian superstitions and rituals."6 The age of Enlightenment added another dimension to the Filipino's encounter with Christianity. This happened almost exclusively with the introduction of Protestant Christianity, which came to the Philippines in the context of a scientifically influenced worldview of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century rationalism. This type of Christianity, with its heavy dependence on scientific- explanations,' usually conflicts with or ignores the Filipino traditional beliefs about the spirit world. As a matter of fact, this type of Christianity essentially denies the spirit world as Filipinos know it.' The result of the confrontation between Filipino "anitism,"9 Philippine Folk Catholicism, and rationalistic Protestantism is confusing and even alarming.