Colonial Women Theological Methodology. Guo Peilan Explore

In the late 1970s Asian feminist theology was emerging, since when debate among hundreds of schools has been existing. As the representative, according to the perspective of postcolonial critics and feminism, Kwok Pui-lan has established practical methodology that can be applied to Asian feminist theology. Basically, three levels of meaning are included in her postcolonial feminist methodology. Firstly, based on variant backgrounds of Asian women's religious experience, she redefines Asian Christian women as the subject who have privileges to do postcolonial feminist theology. Basic elements such as gender, sexuality are redefined as well, all of which give rise to new foundations for redoing Asian feminist theology. Secondly, redoing Asian feminist theology needs the guidance of three movements---historical, dialogical and diasporic imagination. Historical imagination helps Asian Christian women restore their status of a historical subject. Dialogical imagination provides the possibility for Asian Christian woman to enter into dialogue with the cultures and religious traditions of the biblical world. Diasporic imagination enables Christian women in diaspora to establish their identities. Finally, given the pluralistic background of Asia, Kwok Pui-lan stressed that postcolonial feminist method is able to enlighten Asian feminist theology from three aspects, such as interreligious dialogue, reconstructing theologian symbols, creating ecological feminist theology. As a feminist theologian who has hybridized identity, the methodology that she proposed has obvious pros and cons. On one hand, the emphasis on multi-culture communication as well as the dimensionality of studying national culture is important element of indigenous theology, however, on the other hand, whether it is also applicable to other field needs to be further determined.