On October 1 8, at the NCC Center for the Study of Japanese Religions in Kyoto, Dr. David Kwang-sun Suh, the executive director of Asian Christian Higher Education Institute of the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia, Iocated in Hong Kong, was welcomed by eight theologians in Japan: Prof. em. Jan van Bragt, Prof. Naozumi Eto, Prof. Yasuo Hatakeyama, Dr. Hisako Kinukawa, Dr. Martin Repp, Dr.Leroy Seat, Ms. Megumi Yoshida, and Prof, em. Hideo Yuki. This was the second meeting following the first one held on June 14, which Dr. Suh could not attend because of SARS.

The object of the meeting was to discuss how to bring various contextual theologies and their movements into theo-logical school classrooms. Dr. Suh gave a talk on the common concerns for the development of contextualized theological education in Asian countries and how he himself became engaged in contextual theology by telling his own life story. He expressed his strong hope that the Japanese theologians also get involved with the contextualizing of Christian theol-ogy in their locations and with other theologians in Asia, referring to political and social contexts that are particular to the history of Japan. The speech implied to us Japanese that we need to go beyond simply seeking for reconciliation of the guilt in the past, and step forward to work together for creating peace on the global level.

We were all stirred and excited by his idea to link theolo-gians of different regions of Asia through (1) networking, (2) having dialogues through national and regional conferences, and (3) participating in the programs sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Study in Asian Cultures and Theolo-gies (IASACT). IASACT will be held every year beginning 2004 for a period of six weeks in a Christian university or seminary in Asia. The first program will be held at Chung Chi College, Hong Kong from June 6 to July 17.

Our discussion focused on how to network among theologians in Japan, each of whom may be active in different theological associations and schools, and how to have all the schools collaborate for one common mission to give contextu-al theological education to their students. After a long discus-sion and sharing, Dr. Kwang-sun Suh gave a proposal that his office will send news and information to the NCC Center in 14 Kyoto, JATE (Japan Association of Christian Theology), Kirisuto-kyo Gakko Kyoiku Domei, Tomisaka Christian Center, and ACUCA. Members of each group then may get the news and information through the offices of these groups. NCC Center in Kyoto will distribute the news to the individuals that came to the last two meetings and others who showed interest in such meetings.

We also talked about our dreams to have joint projects among Japanese theologians and to expand them to those in collaboration with Korea aliti China. As an example, research on the history of Japanese/Asian theologies was proposed. If we study collaboratively how Asians influenced each other in terms of theologies, the result will become an excellent book project. Dr. Suh promised to keep in touch with schools and groups. We left the venue with a big hope of getting more theologians engaged with this significant and timely project.