37 BIOGRAPHIES OF MYANMAR PROTESTANT CHRISTIANS

A Introduction

 Dear Reader, You will find here a rare treasure: a collection of 37 – amazingly as well as coincidentally the same number as the canonised Great Nats1 - short biographies about the lives of Burmese Christians. They were written by Burmese Christians from various Protestant denominations. They have a background story to it. This story is a joint venture that spans the continents from Myanmar to Germany.

A group of friends in Germany had connections to Burma and a concern for the land. They closely followed the troubled political developments in the country, with a particular eye for the minority Christian communities. Some of the group had contact with Burma stretching back years, while the interest of others had grown from being concerned tourists. In 2007, meeting in Hamburg, the group decided to call itself ‘Christian Friends of Myanmar in Germany’. On the Burmese side, there were also women and men at theological institutes in Yangon who were interested in meeting these little known Germans.

In 2009, there was an encounter in Yangon. For a period of a week, the ‘Myanmar Institute of 1 About all of the Great Nats were human beings who met violent deaths . Besides whose spirits can be called upon in times of need. Besides, there exist many „small“ nats of treesm waters and mountains etc. Group photo of the 2009 seminar iv Theology’ (MIT) hosted a series of seminars with the German group. A great number of themes were explored: women’s work in the German churches, German fascism, the role of the military in Asia, the New Testament as the foundation of faith, inter-religious dialogue, religion and evolution, etc. An undercurrent throughout our meetings was questions related to the nature of democracy and the role of religion in public life.

Since 2009, there have been numerous visits to and fro. Our relationship has been sustained through bridge-people, those who have learned to live in more than one culture. There is, for example, the theology professor, Saw Hlaing Bwa, who studied in Regensburg, Germany. On the German side, there are a few who have spent several years working in Southeast Asia, mostly in matters related to religion and church.

An idea came to the Germans. We felt the need for stories that would help us gain a greater understanding of the Burmese churches and could be a useful resource for others too. We proposed collecting biographies of Christians in Myanmar. Prof Bwa, with his students, colleagues and friends in Myanmar responded with their willingness to research and write up the life histories. It was agreed that the stories had to be short and introduce Christians who had made a contribution to country and church in the last two hundred years. We told our Burmese partners that we were eager to get some information about church leaders and people recognized for their achievements but also about ordinary Christians.

 A group at MIT chose the 50 men and women whose brief biographies would be told. Some members of the group of biographers travelled far and wide, including in the mountainous border regions, to undertake interviews with the chosen or with those who had known them. The collection of stories was then translated into English in Myanmar and the first translated texts arrived 2013 in Germany. Some of these stories have also been translated into German, and have been augmented with brief commentaries and a general introduction to the land and its history for publication. A translation of the historical overview can be found at the end of the collection of biographies.

 The aim here is to present all the English translated stories as they stand. The collection reflects the rich variety of religious adherence, ethnic background, and social setting that characterise the Protestant churches of Myanmar. In these, it is clear that circumstances of birth and the names of family members play an important role in telling the story of individuals.

The stories are without commentary in the English. They are of varied length and written in various styles. A few appear hagiographic in nature. It is also possible to see some inaccuracies of expression and, here and there, the meaning of a sentence is unclear. The stories require patience, v Title page of the German edition especially since they are translated materials. We have decided to leave them as they are, however, because a further editing process would have been too much for us to take on. Ideally, the English texts should be read in conjunction with a good, critical introduction to Burma and its religious makeup.

It is exciting to see these stories being published online and in book form. Often the impression is given that Christians in Myanmar are living in great isolation and under threat from the dominant Buddhist culture and unsympathetic military. The stories show us women and men, young and old, from different denominations and parts of the land, who have played an important role in their local communities and churches, often undergoing great hardship and sacrifice. We hope that this collection will be a valuable historical archive for scholars, academics, and others concerned about the peoples and religions of Myanmar. And we hope that it will provide a platform for a greater understanding of the rich heritage of Myanmar Christianity.

This collection contains 37 biographies. Some more are still in the pipeline at the end of 2015 and will be added in a second edition. The order of the texts follows the dates of birth of the people portrayed. Accidentally, the birthdates span exacly one century - from 1888 to 1988. The biographies can therefore be regarded as a special commentary to the troubled history of Burma/Myanmar from the end of the 19th century until today, and as a church history in the making.

What is presented here, are the texts submitted by the Judson Research Centre to the German editors. Some but most likely not all typos were corrected. Through this ”raw material”, the reader thus gets insights not just into the lives of the persons portrayed but into the assessment of these life stories of the biographers as well. In the booklet containing 15 selected biographies published in German, some editing was done to bridge the gap between the liveworlds of the two countries. In this edition, the commentaries of the respective editors are added. For the biographies not included in the German version the editors of this collection chose captions to highlight a characteristic feature of the respective person portrayed. These subtitles are vi located under the name of the author of the respective biography.

It is hoped that this way of presentation will help to view Myanmar`s Protestant Christianity in a multi-perspective way.

Some people involved in the project

In Myanmar, Prof Saw Hlaing Bwa is director of the ‘Judson Research Centre’, which is linked to MIT in Yangon. He has overseen the implementation of the project at the research centre, with the support of his assistant Mr Nathanayla, who has also contributed some biographies. In the dialogue office of ‘Bread for the World’, Ms Lai Ya has worked with the project and kept in contact with the many authors involved. The German group who started the dialogue consisted of four theologians: from Hamburg, Gerhard Köberlin, Peter Tachau, and Hans-Bernd Zöllner, and from Freiburg, now Edinburgh, Kenneth Fleming; the ethnologist Ulrike Bey, former director of the Burma Initiative of the Asia Foundation (now called the Stiftung Asienhaus in Cologne); Kathrin Jaschinsky, designer, Berlin; Sylvia Jaschinsky, teacher, Hamburg; Gertrud Wellmann-Hofmeier, librarian and synod member in Hamburg. For the financing of the project and publication costs, thanks go to ‘The Association of Protestant Churches and Missions in Germany’ (EMW) and to a donation by the German group. The translation work of some texts from German into English was done by Kenneth Flemming (this introduction) and Beverly Olson-Dopffel (the German introductions and commentaries, the historical context and the timeline). February 2016 Commentaries and questions on this volume are appreciated. Please contact Hans-Bernd Zöllner (habezett@t-online.de) or/and Gerhard Köberlin (gerhard.kob@gmx.de).
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