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ASIAN FORUM of THEOLOGICAL MOVEMENTS

 Asian Forum of Theological Movements is an initiative to facilitate the development of a wider theological fraternity involving various theological institutions that pertain to formal theological training and the research centers, and social movements that function as informal theological communities. The informal sector is primarily committed to bringing justice to the marginalzed victims in society. The new fraternity, AFTM, aims to assist both formal and informal theological education, and strives to encourage faith communities in Asia and abroad to meaningfully respond to the present challenges of their respective communities, and especially the marginalized.

The current Asian reality presents a complex milieu. Asia is hailed as the new economic powerhouse accelerating growth around the world, while simultaneously, it houses the largest number of global poor. With respect to life quality index, some of the Asian counties occupy the lowest ranks. The recently published report of IPCC warned that the majority of Asian cities are vulnerable to climate change, yet economic growth remains as the avowed goal of governance. The indigenous communities and the poor experience the brunt of the ecological disasters. Patriarchal traditions augmented by the profit-oriented market objectify women and children. Lost in the competition with multinational giants for economic subjectivity, a majority of the Asian poor convert themselves as migrant labourers and exchange their bodies in the international labour market. Amid these problems, democratic rights of the people are denied, and fascist tendencies reinforce their grip in politics. Human rights along with the right to governance is denied blatantly in several Asian nations. Asia was often hailed as the land of pluralities, where various religious communities interacted in harmony creating a mural of peace. That is a story of the past. Religions are now weaponized as political subjects and several Asian nations are going through the process of "religionization of politics". It appears that the responsibility of the political state is to protect the majority god from the encroachment of other gods.

Theological thinking is at a crossroad. Perhaps, there are two diverse enterprises at the present time. The dominant one is represented by the traditional theological seminaries and colleges. They function as an arm of the church to train pastors for its liturgical ministries. These schools reproduce the colonial model where the primary focus is to transmit philosophical and theoretical discourse pertaining to church traditions, albeit having limited interaction with the social world. The second niche for theological discourse is the social movements and research centers. For them, the social reality is the prime focus with limited respect to challenges that the churches in Asia are facing. Further, social movements often have a sole focus and constituency in the social world, for example, gender justice.

Asian Forum of Theological Movements is an attempt to provide a wholistic approach by creating a critical space for dialogue and solidarity among the two streams of theological enterprises, with the hope that churches in its pastoral ministry will be informed by the social realities. As social movements convey, AFTM affirms that the primary subjects for doing theology are the marginalized communities. The task of a new theological initiative is to promote contextual articulations of faith and assist the church based theological institutions to be in dialogue with the theologies of the marginalized communities.

The proposed consultation in Serampore from January 12 to 16 is the first attempt to bring together various theological movements and identify the pertinent ways of new theological construction that can enable the faith communities to be a prophetic witness and an agent of liberation.

 Asian Forum of Theological Movements is an attempt to provide a wholistic approach by creating a critical space for dialogue and solidarity among the two streams of theological enterprises, with the hope that churches in its pastoral ministry will be informed by the social realities. As social movements convey, AFTM affirms that the primary subjects for doing theology are the marginalized communities. The task of a new theological initiative is to promote contextual articulations of faith and assist the church based theological institutions to be in dialogue with the theologies of the marginalized communities.

The proposed consultation in Serampore from January 12 to 16 is the first attempt to bring together various theological movements and identify the pertinent ways of new theological construction that can enable the faith communities to be a prophetic witness and an agent of liberation.

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