News

Research Report: Youth Attitudes Towards Pre-Marital Sex

During November and December 2002, the Home & Family Office of the Church of Christ in Thailand (CCT) conducted a modest survey of the attitudes of Christian youths, ages 12 to 24, regarding pre-marital sexual relations. The survey, based on 130 questionnaires taken largely from urban churches in northern Thailand found that:

Too much weight should not be put on these results. The sample is much too small, and it is not inclusive of rural churches or churches without pastors. Still, they do suggest that Christian young people believe that pre-marital sex is wrong, although a significant minority of them do not think it is all that wrong. They evidently understand the risks and problems involved in pre-marital sex, and they want to be informed by the church about pre-marital sex. At the same time, they think that adults emphasize this issue too much, and they see drugs and AIDS as being more pressing problems—although, of course, AIDS and pre-marital sex are related issues.

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A New Doctoral Thesis on Thai Protestantism

This past January (2003), the Payap University Archives received a copy of Patricia McLean's Ph.D. dissertation, entitled, "Thai Protestant Christianity: a Study of Cultural and Theological Interactions between Western Missionaries (the American Presbyterian Mission and the Overseas Missionary Fellowship) and Indigenous Thai Churches (the Church of Christ in Thailand and the Associated Churches of Thailand—Central)," completed at the University of Edinburgh and dated 2002. This study relies on qualitative data to describe the process of "enculturation" taking place in Thai Protestant churches within their Thai Buddhist contexts. It contains nine chapters divided into three parts, running 410 pages including 344 pages of text.

The abstract states, "Part One (Chapters 1 and 2) provides a historical and theological background to the study, introducing Thai Buddhism and the origins of Protestant Christianity in Thailand. Part Two (Chapters 3 to 6) analyses the post-1945 history of APM and OMF in Thailand, with specific reference to their approaches to evangelism, mission-church relations, and attitudes to Thai Buddhist culture. Part Three (Chapters 7 and 8) examines the engagement of CCT and ACTC Thai Christians with Thai Buddhist culture and concludes with a comparison and contrast between missionary and indigenous approaches. The final chapter (Chapter 9) summarises the research findings and discusses the present state of Thai Christianity's contextualisation in Thai Buddhist culture."

A Quick Look at the 2002 Thai New Testament

Since 1997, a set of committees established under the auspices of the Thailand Bible Society (TBS) has been working on the text of the current standard translation of the Thai-language New Testament, first published in 1971. TBS, as I understand it, did not intend to re-do or even to revise the 1971 translation, but rather to clean it up with as few changes as deemed necessary. It is generally recognized that there is a need for a new translation, but TBS presently does not have the wherewithal to undertake that task. The following brief comments are not intended as a review of the newly edited New Testament and are based only on the translation's introduction plus a comparison of the 1971 and 2002 versions of Mark 1.

That reading and the introduction indicate that the responsible committees have edited the 1971 translation with an eye to making a number of improvements. Most of the changes they have made are minor ones, involving only one or two words. The changes have been made for the sake of clarity, simplicity, correcting mistranslations, ridding the text of Anglicisms, and, in some cases, bringing the sense of the Thai translation closer to the literal sense of the Greek text. Some of the changes do not change the meaning of the translation at all and appear to have been made simply to update the Thai, making it sound more contemporary. In a few cases, it is not clear to a non-specialist why a change was made. The committees have also made changes in the footnotes and the headings in the text.

If the 2002 text of Mark 1 is any measure, the Bible Society is to be commended for the results of its work on the Thai standard version of the New Testament. While some changes do not make much difference, most are helpful. On the whole, the text is more readable and a more accurate translation. The 2002 Thai New Testament is an important contribution to the life of the churches. In a modest way, it brings the churches closer to the Greek text while making the contents of the Christian Scriptures more comprehensible to native language speakers of central Thai.

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The Wiang Pa Pao Consultation on Evangelism

As part of its participation in Don Swearer's project (See HeRB 1) on the study of northern Thai Christian in Buddhist context, the Office of History organized and led a two-day conference on Christian evangelism in northern Thailand. The consultation was held at the CCT's Dong Phra Phorn Camp, Wiang Pa Pao on 21-22 February 2003. The purposes of the consultation were to: 1. provide the participants with an opportunity to learn from each other's experiences; 2. provide a model for group sharing and reflection; and 3. collect data for the research project itself. A total of 33 people took part, most of them being experienced evangelists. Topics discussed included the reasons northern Thais convert, what evangelistic approaches best work with northern Thais, the role of churches in evangelism, and the impact of the Buddhist context on evangelism. The participants evaluated the consultation as being a useful, worthwhile experience, and I hope to present some of the material from the conference in a future HeRB.

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