It is my pleasure to present Madang vol. 44, a volume that gathers nine articles addressing urgent theological, hermeneutical, and ethical questions emerging from various contexts. This issue addresses three interrelated themes—theology and public life, contextual hermeneutics, and theological imagination for the more-than-human. Contributors both diagnose how religious identity and practice intersect with politics, memory, and social power, and recover vernacular languages, narrative forms, and ancient spiritual resources as corrective and constructive responses.

The first two articles share a common aim to recover practical and theoretical resources for restoring humane judgment, solidarity, and nonviolent public life. Hyun Kee Na, who has just begun his term as president of the Korean Patristics Society, offers a historical and sociological diagnosis of far-right Protestantism in Korea and proposes a spiritual-theological alternative rooted in early monastic traditions, such as those of Origen, Evagrius, and John Cassian. Professor Na argues, with careful scholarly rigor, that spiritual resources emphasizing formative reflection, communal discernment, and voluntary poverty can provide paths to recovery and healing. Jung Mo Sung, a prominent liberation theologian in Brazil, presents a rigorous analysis that conceptually distinguishes the logic of the “sacred” from that of the “holy,” exposes sacrificial structures that legitimize injustice, and finally examines how ritual and sacrificial structures can invert moral judgments, outlining how theology can contribute to public ethics.

The following three articles employ different methods—mother tongue hermeneutics, comparative theological dialogue, and narrative criticism—yet share an interpretive framework that centers the triadic relation of text, context, and community. Rm Mashungam examines Bible translation and interpretation among Northeast India’s tribal communities, showing how mother tongue hermeneutics fosters theological autonomy and reshapes communal identity. Shinjae Lee proposes a methodological framework for Minjung theology’s transnational turn, advocating disciplined, bilingual, practice-oriented comparative work that pairs Minjung and Dalit theologies to transform memory into public claims for justice. Imsu Longchar provides a narrative critical reading of Jacob and Esau that reframes reconciliation beyond territorial compromise and proposes a radical ethic of communal transformation relevant to contemporary interethnic conflict. Each author demonstrates, through their case and method, that contextual hermeneutics is a crucial means of translating textual meaning into communal practice.

The final four papers originate in different disciplines but are united by a close affinity. Each author reinterprets traditional categories—biblical rhetoric, Thomism, and Minjung theology— by integrating contemporary thought such as feminism, posthumanism, and Deleuzian theory to expand the moral subject to include women, nonhuman beings, and ecological agents. They resonate in pursuing the extension of interpretation and theory into direct practices of resistance to violence and the imaginative enactment of broader solidarities. Ji Eun Park rereads Hosea 1–3, reading Gomer’s feminized imagery as a critique of elite males and warning against interpretations that legitimize violence or misogyny. Chubatemsu Kichu bridges Thomistic transcendence and Deleuzian immanence to propose an Eco Cosmic Christology that balances human dignity and ecological agency. Soonyang Choi offers a posthuman feminist reworking of Minjung, incorporating women and nonhuman beings, and utilizing nomadic subjectivity and embodied vulnerability to envision broader solidarities. Sungho Lee argues for recognizing animals as subjects of religious experience and calls for a methodological and ethical reorientation in the study of religion.

I am grateful to the contributors for their careful scholarship and to the reviewers and editorial team for their thoughtful engagement. I invite readers—scholars, pastors, students, and activists—to engage these essays as resources for both study and practice. May this volume inspire further dialogue across disciplines.

December 2025
Hiheon Kim, Ph.D.
Editor-in-chief