a contextual missiology of the spirit - eTheses Repository ...

argued as a major rationale for Yong to urge the need for developing a Pentecostal
pneumatology of religions. 88 At the same time, he urges that a Pentecostal
theology of religions should not displace other approaches, but rather complement
them. 89 Yong proposes a ‘pneumatological theology of hospitality,’ in the
particular context of interfaith engagement. This model ‘empowers a much wider
range of interreligious practices more conducive to meeting the demands of our
time,’ and it allows Christians to find ‘themselves as guest or as hosts, sometimes
simultaneously.’ 90
It seems that Yong’s ‘hospitality model’ is very significant in the contemporary
religiously tensed Indian context. His model can also take into account the
suggestion of S. Kim more seriously in the particular Christian-Hindu encounter.
Kim suggests the need for ‘respect involving restraint’ in the intolerant Hindu-
Christian religious context in India, and so he urges that ‘the Christian desire to
share their religious experience needs to be respected and appreciated as well as
the Hindu sense of faithfulness to dharma.’ 91 Elsewhere, he urges that it is
important for Christians to realize that the ‘Hindu understanding of conversion is
incompatible with the Christian one, but nevertheless to respect the Hindu view,
not as a capitulation to Hindu objections nor as a gesture of concession but as an
act of genuine respect for Hindu beliefs and practices.’ 92
88
For further discussion, see Yong, Discerning the Spirit, 206-19.
89
Yong, Discerning the Spirit, 311.
90
Amos Yong, ‘The Spirit of Encounter: Theology of Religions- Pentecostal and Pneumatological
Perspectives’ (paper presented at the Glopent Conference, Amsterdam, 27-28 April 2008).
91
For more discussion on ‘respect involving restraint,’ see S. Kim, In Search of Identity, 199; S.
Kim, ‘Hindutva, Secular India,’ 40-42.
92
Kim, ‘Hindutva, Secular India,’ 141.
286