Remembering my promotion to full professor

Two years have passed since my promotion to full professor. I don't set ambitious goals for myself anymore. I ask, "Why do I teach? For whom do I write? Can my teaching affect real people?"

I cherish the promotion letter I received on June 15, 2021.

[PDF Promotion letter]

June 15, 2021

Dear Dr. Yung Suk Kim:

Congratulations! As Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs at Virginia Union University (VUU), it is my great honor to provide official notice that you have been promoted to the rank of Full Professor (hereafter, "Professor"), effective July 1, 2021.

In keeping with the University's policies through the Division of Academic Affairs, outlined in the Faculty Handbook, initial recommendations were made by the Faculty Advancement (i.e., "Tenure & Promotion") Committee after its Fall 2020 meeting to the Provost, who then conducted a thorough review and evaluation of all cases and recommendations. The Provost's recommendations were presented to the President in Spring 2021 and were subsequently approved by the Academic Affairs Committee of the VUU Board of Trustees at the May 2021 meeting.

Promotion reflects the strength of your accomplishments in teaching, research/scholarship, professional engagement, and service to VUU. As your Provost, I want to acknowledge the significance of your achievement and thank you for your dedicated commitment to academic excellence, student success, and our quest to become "Best in Class." 

Tenure and/or promotion are time-honored rewards in the academy that affirm the valuable contributions of individual faculty members to achieving VUU's vision, advancing its mission, and ensuring its graduates receive "the promise of a limitless future." I know you will continue to contribute to the University in years to come and I look forward to celebrating this achievement at our Fall Faculty/Staff Awards reception. More information about that special event is forthcoming.

Again, congratulations.

Dominus Providebit,

Terrell L. Strayhorn, PhD
Provost & Senior Vice President, Academic Affairs
Professor of Urban Education
Director, Center for the Study of HBCUs

Hard work

My hard work paid off when I received this email from my editor:

I’ve finally finished reading your manuscript. I love it! It’s well-written, engaging, inspiring, comprehensive, entertaining—and offers readers/students so many new ways to think about each Gospel, and the Gospels as a whole. I couldn’t be more pleased. And there’s nothing like it, that I know of.

Typically at this stage I ask authors if they’d like for me to facilitate another round of peer review. Of course I’m happy to do that. But given the fact that you’ve had lots of input from your peers, and that the manuscript hangs together, I honestly don’t think another round is necessary. But please let me know if you feel otherwise.

Ask questions of why or why not

Asking questions is all about interpretation. 

Human lives and realities in the world are so complex that we need to address an all-entangled web of life intersecting with personal identity, family, health, social life, economics, politics, and religion, to name a few.

Likewise, we can reread Matthew 15:21-28 ("A Canaanite woman's encounter with Jesus") and ask many varied, intersectional questions. We can explore the Canaanite woman's situation imaginatively and critically, considering her gender, ethnicity, occupation, marital status, social standing, other families, daughter's situation involving simple illness, mental illness, or any other sickness), religion, and community.

We also need to see Jesus's and the disciples' attitude toward a gentile woman either in the historical context of Jesus or in Matthean situations. What kind of ideology do they have? Why are they mean to her? Why does Matthew portray Jesus and the disciples in this way that excludes Gentiles from salvation? Why does Jesus later allow for the healing of her daughter? Did the woman impress him with her submissive faith or challenge him to extend his narrow faith?

Questions continue: Have we asked about the possible cause and situation of the woman's daughter tormented by a demon? What kind of a demon is this? Does it have to do with mental illness? What is the possible cause of it---trauma, malnutrition, or anxiety? How did the woman know about Jesus? What is her faith like? Did she give up on her Canaanite identity by meeting Jesus? Why did she seek only her daughter's healing even though she was supposed to be in ill health or extreme poverty? Her loyalty to the daughter?

Shalom

I finished reading The Bible and Mental Health: Towards a Biblical Theology of Mental Health (SCM, 2020). I have a lot to digest. It is an excellent sourcebook to further engage in the intersection of the Bible and mental health issues.

While there are many good ideas, one thing that captures my mind most is shalom (שָׁל֑וֹם), which is not the absence of illness or disorder. It denotes the right relationship with God. John Swinton observes:

Shalomic mental health care has to do with helping people to hold on to God's presence at all times, even in the midst of symptoms and difficult experiences that may be interminable. The ultimate goal of mental health care is not simply the eradication of symptoms, but the facilitation of God's presence (p. 163).

This observation rings true as long as we live in this world, experiencing dark moments of life without resolutions. Job's final realization must be like this too. With his life's burdens and pains ongoing, his peace/shalom can come through the presence of God, not because anything was resolved but because there were no other options but to depend on God's presence.

[Courtesy of FreeBibleImages.org]

The Bible and God

[Courtesy of FreeBibleImages.org]

Can the Bible contain all things about God? The answer might be easily "no" because human language is imperfect. God cannot be put in a box. Moreover, some representations of God in the Bible are tendentious. Therefore, we must interpret it carefully and discern what is good. We must avoid biblicism in all our efforts. The Bible is neither a weapon that attacks innocent people nor a knowledge book that subsumes all other books.

Currents in Theology and Mission (October issue, 2023)

I am glad to be part of the current issue of the journal Currents in Theology and Mission: Vol. 50 No. 4 (2023): "Jesus, Materialism, and the Women Who Teach and Preach Mark's Gospel"

My contribution:
Yung Suk Kim, Currents Focus: “The Gospel as the Power of God for Salvation (Rom 1:16)”

Do the ends justify the means?

 

[Courtesy of FreeBibleImages.org]

Do the ends justify the means? What do you think about Naomi's plan to seduce Boaz through Ruth? Is it her faith that God provides security and the future through Ruth and Boaz? Ruth was obedient to her mother-in-law. The other day, I read a sad, weird episode about a teenage girl in the Philippines. She lived with prostitution and supported her family. She said she was a Christian. A Western journalist interviewed her: "Why do you live with prostitution while you are a Christian?" She said that Ruth also supported her family through sex. So, I support my family just like Ruth.

Why do I teach?

As a professor, I am not merely interested in knowledge of the past but in today's world. I must tackle issues and help people today. That is why I study and teach history, literature, and religion. 

Realistically speaking, biblical interpretation is about or for today's world because while we engage with the text and the past, we don't live for the past but live in the present. Likewise, it is not about the future that is yet to come because there is no future separated from the present.

Critical questions are essential to interpretation. You can ask anything. But don't forget to ask about yourself as much as you ask about others. Talk to yourself as much as you talk to others.

The more you know, the more you know you don't know.

More often than not, I hear people saying, "As the Bible says." Strictly speaking, it does not say. Even if you believe that way, it speaks of multiple things with multiple meanings. Rather than saying, "The Bible says," it would be better to say: "I have read this part, and my interpretation is this." Otherwise, sometimes, people may kill or destroy others in the name of the Bible or God. We should avoid all forms of biblicism (idolatry of the Bible) and naive interpretations supporting one's ego or ideology. We should not worship the Bible but honor it by interpreting it carefully, critically, contextually, and faithfully.

Time

What is time? Are there past, present, and future, each separated from the other? But strictly speaking, time is not separated. There are no three distinct realities of time. Stephen Crites writes: "Only the present exists, but it exists only in these tensed modalities." [See Stephen Crites, "The Narrative Quality of Experience," The Journal of the American Academy of Religion 39 (1971): 291-311 (301)]. He goes on to say: "They are inseparably joined in the present itself. Only from the standpoint of the present experience could one speak of the past and future. The three modalities are correlative to one another in every moment of experience." [Ibid.] 

Jerome Bruner writes: "Narrative imitates life and life imitates narratives." [J. Bruner, "Life as Narrative," Social Research 54.1 (1987): 11-32]. Jocelyn Bryan similarly observes: "We are living narratives." [J. Bryan, Human Being: Insights from Psychology and the Christian Faith (London: SCM, 2016), 44; 51-74]. 

I agree that there is no past or future separated from the present. We only live in the moment, while reflecting on the past and the future. Namely, "our narrative of the past and our imagined future narrative impact on our every moment." [Jocelyn Bryan, "Narrative, Meaning Making, and Mental Health," in The Bible and Mental Health: Towards a Biblical Theology of Mental Health, edited by Christopher C.H. Cook and Isabelle Hamley (London, SCM: 2020), 4]. 

I cannot change the past. But it affects me today. I can change the future because I can reimagine myself today. We live in the present as always.  

Language of "world"

We often talk about the "world" in an educational setting. 

Do you work for what kind of world? 

Is it for today's world or tomorrow's world? For instance, when we educate people or develop leaders, are we preparing them for today's ever-changing world or for tomorrow's world? 

I argue that it must be today's world because tomorrow is naught without today. While we may say we prepare next-generation leaders, it is odd to say we develop them for tomorrow's world because their workplace for transformation is in the here and now, which is none other than today's world.