ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

Realizing that religion cannot be confined to specific areas of doctrine, but is expressed through all facets of a society, and that a culture s dominant theology has a pervasive influence on what that culture is able to envision,and thus upon all areas of life, including economics, this paper employs the methodology proposed by Bernard E. Meland to examine data from ∞the witness of culture±in later 20^(th) and early 21^(th) century America, with the understanding that this examination is also relevant for East Asia in terms of America s reach and influence. The paper identifies two antithetical theological streams: a theology of social responsibility and interdependence in the 1950s and 1960s, and, supplanting the former, a theology of economic individualism and exploitation in the 1980s through the 2000s. This paper examines the economic and social conditions prevalent during each period, and proposes that these conditions influence and are influenced by each period s dominant theological vision. Going on to survey key ideas of contemporary relational theologians and then relate their thinking to current and historical Asian theologies, the paper concludes by proposing that relational theology, Asian and Western, is alone capable of offering an authoritative vision to counterbalance economic individualism, thus leading to possible solutions to the grave and pressing problems facing the globe.

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