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Documenting and Describing  
the Transcultural
Qualitative Research in  
Theological Communication
Evan F. Kuehn, North Park University
Matthew Ryan Robinson, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
Hadje C. Sadje, Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven

ABSTR AC T Qualitative methodological approaches have become 
increasingly important for theological research as lived theology 
and ecclesiological practices are recognized as being a relevant part 
of the theological information ecosystem. These new approaches 
require attention to how field research in theology is documented 
and described. Evan Kuehn (North Park) will discuss the trans-
culturality of theological research and the relevance of qualita-
tive approaches to theological librarianship. Hadje Sadje (Leuven) 
will share about his research on the political theology latent in 
the practices of Oneness Pentecostal congregations in the Philip-
pines and the role that documentation and description play in this 
research. Matthew Ryan Robinson (Bonn) will discuss the nature of 
non-textual theological artifacts by focusing on two case studies—a 
painting from Ethiopia and a devotional cross from the Philippines—
as objects that present challenges and opportunities for extracting, 
coding, and analysis.

TRANSCULTURAL QUALITATIVE RESEARCH  
AND THEOLOGICAL LIBRARIANSHIP
Evan F. Kuehn

In this panel, we would like to introduce new theological research 
being done by ourselves and some of our colleagues in order to 
achieve three goals:

1) to introduce the concept of transculturality for theology,
2) to introduce the role of qualitative methods in theology, and



Listen and Learn Sessions  163

3) to discuss the challenges and opportunities that transcul-
tural, qualitative research poses for theological librarianship, 
specifically with regard to documenting and describing theo-
logical objects.

Transculturality
So, first: what do we mean by transculturality?

The concept of “culture” is bounded: one talks about American 
culture as something that excludes those who do not live here (and, 
in fact, often excludes many who do live here as well). The idea of 
German culture or Filipino culture likewise operates largely within 
nation-state boundaries and assumes some level of homogeneity 
and impenetrability.

In order to avoid these connotations as well as for other reasons, 
missiology faculties began in the 1970s to rename themselves as 
intercultural studies, in order to signal a shift in our understanding 
of human cultures to one that recognized globalizing forces and the 
important role of interaction between cultures.

Interculturality still often operates on an assumption of inter-
action between bounded wholes, though. We propose, therefore, 
that transculturality better describes the interpenetrations and 
shared reality of human social life in the midst of multiple belong-
ings, migration, friendships, and the waxing and waning of political 
legitimacies.

If we understand theological communication as transcultural, 
then, how will this affect research methods?

Qualitative and Empirical Methods
A focus on the social and historical conditions of human faith is 
unavoidable for theologians today. Social scientific disciplines have 
long since changed our understanding of religious studies, but the 
hermeneutical and ecclesiastical functions of theology have tended 
to preserve a pre-critical methodological stance among theologians. 
This is true especially where more conservative religiosity dominates 
local culture and where whiteness and/or its colonial influences 
obscure the fact that all theology is contextual theology.

Qualitative and empirical methods signal a sea change in how 
theological research understands itself, and with these changes come 
new needs. Matthew Robinson (2020) points out the basic challenge 
of such approaches in his introduction to the symposium “What Does 



164  AT L A 2020 PROCEEDINGS

Theology Do, Actually?” He writes: “there is just so much theological 
data in the world to be collected, documented, and represented, and 
very little of that total ‘amount’ . . . can be found or even accessed in 
one research context or format.”

Some of these changes will be more significant for the theologians 
themselves to grapple with rather than for the theological librar-
ian. Many of us, or at least our colleagues in the archives, already 
collect and describe oral histories, non-monographic literature like 
pamphlets, and non-text objects. In these cases, it can be helpful for 
subject liaisons to introduce these objects as relevant not only for 
the church historian but also for the systematic theologian.

But theological objects are less traditional still than some of these 
examples. Consider the following project: a systematic theologian 
wants to scrape tweets from October–November 2019 related to civil 
unrest in Addis Ababa, preferably from multiple languages, in order 
to disambiguate ethnic from religious violence and to analyze how 
the concept of “neighbor” is deployed in these contexts. How are a 
seminary library’s infrastructure and tools equipped to assist in this 
research? There is very little in the way of description that maps 
these new digital objects onto an existing research literature, and 
most likely the ephemeral nature of digital communication means 
that the objects studied in such a project will not be incorporated 
into the research literature in any substantial way.

This is fine, to a certain extent. Libraries are not merely data 
repositories, and the challenges of interdisciplinary field work are 
not always the librarian’s job. At the very least, however, such proj-
ects will require metadata that avoids importing Eurocentric organi-
zational biases to multilingual and trans-ethnic conceptual contexts, 
compatibility with the most relevant social media platforms, and a 
scholarly communications infrastructure that isn’t just open access 
in the sense of lacking a paywall, but is also attentive to how theol-
ogy functions within Ethiopian seminaries, both accredited and 
unofficial, so that OA actually establishes access amidst political, 
technological, linguistic, and file format complexities. These are all 
problems that theologians will increasingly face in their research, 
and it is important that theologians and theological librarians have 
conversations about what infrastructure is required to make this 
research function smoothly.

In the next two short presentations, Matthew Robinson and Hadje 
Sadje will discuss their current work as it relates to transculturality 



Listen and Learn Sessions  165

and qualitative methods, in order to ask two questions: “What does 
theology do today?” and “How might this work be better integrated 
into the initiatives and workflows of Atla, its member institutions, or 
similar organizations committed to theological research?”

Dr. Matthew Robinson is research associate in practical theol-
ogy at the University of Bonn, as well as a fellow in their Institute 
for Hermeneutics. Matthew and I have recently co-authored a book 
that sets 19th–20th century Protestant theology in conversation with 
Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory, and we are currently edit-
ing a two-volume handbook with Brill on empirical and qualitative 
methods in theology. Matthew’s immense work on the transcultural 
functions of theology led to an international symposium in Bonn this 
past summer that Hadje, myself, and others took part in and which 
is the inspiration for today’s panel.

Hadje Sadje is volunteer faculty at the School of Global Studies 
and Human Rights Studies, Foundation Academy of Amsterdam, the 
Netherlands. He has published numerous articles on religion and 
politics, especially focused on decolonial and liberation theologies, 
peace-building, and Filipino Oneness Pentecostalism.

HOW A TRANSCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE MIGHT  
INFLUENCE THEOLOGICAL RESEARCH  
ON THEOLOGICAL INFORMATION AND ARTIFACTS
Matthew Ryan Robinson

After colonial hegemony, and given the incredible diversity and 
distinctiveness of forms of theological communication around the 
world today, is theology condemned to parochial particularity? Is 
meaningful transcontextual theological work still possible? If by 

“theological work” we mean something like “globally recognized” 
claims about Christian belief and practice, then the answer seems 
to be clearly “no.” However, description of general patterns in theo-
logical communication might be, for, as much particularity as there 
is, everyone is using Facebook or TikTok, and they are doing so to 
respond to shared concerns, such as the coronavirus pandemic or 
systemic racism and police brutality. At the same time, any theo-
logical analysis of global trends must still be able to recognize and 
take seriously local particularities. Thus, analysis of the functions 
of theological communications transculturally not only seems plau-
sible but needed.



166  AT L A 2020 PROCEEDINGS

1. The transcultural is something to be aware of in the ways we 
characterize research areas, information organization, and knowl-
edge production. Why?

With exploration and industrialization, societies worldwide had 
begun the irreversible process of differentiation into functional 
systems which operated (and operate) irrespective of ethnolinguis-
tic, religious, or national borders; trade, law, and natural scientific 
inquiry illustrate the point. And with functional differentiation, 
shared meaning among human beings increasingly forms and circu-
lates along those global sightlines: international education standards, 
global transportation needs, human rights, and now the collective 
effervescence of social media communities—all of these illustrate a 
certain kind of transcendence of cultural particularity.

On the other hand, this does not mean that human beings no 
longer develop what anthropologist Clifford Geertz called “patterns 
of meanings embodied in symbols,” which symbols, with time, 
become embodied in repeated performances and repeatedly engaged 
artifacts. Culture, evolve as it may, develops over very long periods 
of time and in complex, durable forms that do not change drastically 
from one day to the next.

The “transcultural” thus attempts to analyze two things: 
a) globe-spanning forces, with attention to the ways they 

create multiple, and overlapping intersections at the site of 
individual and communal lives; and 

b) how local “patterns of meanings” persist and evolve inter-
rupting these intersections and even exerting counter-
influences.

The study of theology at the site of intersecting transcultural pres-
sures and cultural obduracy requires not only intercultural contex-
tualizations but attention to transcultural complexity.

2. To study theological engagements with the transcultural will 
require research methods and knowledge production and orga-
nization orientations capable of recognizing, documenting, and 
interpreting non-traditional theological knowledge forms.

There are more than two billion Christians in the world and, as 
Gustavo Gutierrez (1988, 3) famously wrote, “there is present . . . in 
every Christian community a rough outline of a theology . . . mani-



Listen and Learn Sessions  167

fested in life, action and concrete attitude.” Only a small number of 
the world’s Christians do their theology in seminar rooms, at confer-
ences, and in monographs. This means there is a lot of theology out 
there that is not even on the radar of academic theological research. 
How, then, are we to identify the forms theologies are taking and 
what they are doing in the encounter with transcultural pressures? 
One option is for theology to follow the material turn.

Figure 1 is a pictorial narration of the Kebre Negast—the found-
ing myth of Solomonic divine-right kingship that supported Ethio-
pian kings and emperors from at least the fall of the Zagwe dynasty 
in 1270 until the overthrow of Haile Selassie in 1974. It tells the story 
of the Queen of Sheba and her visit to Jerusalem to meet King Solo-
mon. She bore a son to Solomon, and Solomon recognized this son, 
Menelik I, as his rightful heir. The Israelite Ark of the Covenant was 
spirited with Menelik back to Ethiopia, thereby theologically confer-
ring divine election onto Ethiopian rulers, the Ethiopian Orthodox 
Church, and, by extension, all of Ethiopia. Copies of this picture can 
be found displayed prominently in the halls of Addis Ababa Univer-
sity as well as being available for purchase in any little shop selling 
gifts or religious items. In both its material presentations and imag-
ined but embodied daily re-performances of Ethiopianness (Ityopia-
winnet), it is doing theology all of the time.

FIGURE 1: Depiction of the Kebra Negast (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saba_
ephiop.jpg).

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saba_ephiop.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saba_ephiop.jpg


168  AT L A 2020 PROCEEDINGS

Figure 2 is a picture of the 
Hesus Nazareno, the Black 
Nazarene, which is trans-
lated every year on Janu-
ary 9 from the old walled 
city to the Minor Basilica 
in Manila in a procession 
that attracts >200,000 and 
can last up to 20 hours. 
The legends surrounding 
the Black Nazarene are as 
composite as the material 
object itself. Parts of the 
physical object originate in 
17th-century Mexico, while 
replica replacement pieces 
were fashioned in the Phil-
ippines in the 1990s, but 
the questionability of the 
object’s provenance and 
integrity leave no room for 
doubt among the faithful as 
to the excessive efficacy of 
its healing powers. Like the Kebre Negast, the Black Nazarene might 
be regarded as a theological artifact—an object doing theology on 
a massive scale. They exemplify the ways that the work of calibrat-
ing the world as it should be with the world as it is forms in lived 
encounters and re-presentations that do not, for reason of their being 
embodied and materially interactive, fail to possess highly nuanced 
theo-logics.

While more sensory and material forms of religious cult are 
common in Catholic and Eastern and Oriental Orthodox piety, the 
same may be said of much of contemporary Protestant, especially 
Pentecostal, piety. For many Pentecostals around the world, objects 
such as prayer cloths and anointing oil perform vital mediations 
conferring divine blessing on the everyday. The definition of mate-
riality can be fruitfully extended to include the vast collection of 
CDs and DVDs, films, popular music, and social media presences 
such as YouTube channels or Twitter accounts, public statements, 
and advertising or educational materials. As Alfred Gell (1992) has 

FIGURE 2: Hesus Nazareno (en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Black_Nazarene#/media/
File:Black_Nazarene.jpg).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Nazarene#/media/File:Black_Nazarene.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Nazarene#/media/File:Black_Nazarene.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Nazarene#/media/File:Black_Nazarene.jpg


Listen and Learn Sessions  169

argued concerning the agency of artworks, symbolic forms and 
spaces exhibit a remarkable capacity “for securing the acquiescence 
of individuals in the network of intentionalities in which they are 
enmeshed.”  

3. But how would we identify data as “theology-relevant,” organize 
theological information, and produce theological knowledge?

Basically, I want to take the data lifecycle as a model for theologi-
cal research. I want to collect theological artifacts, code them so 
that they are cross-searchable, and curate them in ways that create 
information triples that then, eventually, organically start to reveal 
new relationships and thereby indicate recent and ongoing develop-
ments in theological self-understanding. A partnership of theology, 
information science, and sociology. But how would the coding work? 
How can objects, practices, scenes and settings, spaces be tagged 
and be categorized? On the one hand, there is the risk of import-
ing and reproducing—whether consciously or unconsciously—the 
epistemologies of the powerful (of those who are in the position of 
power and having the authority to decide what counts as a mean-
ingful tag). On the other hand, it seems like manual categorization is 
unavoidable. We are not talking about data sets that are big enough 
to apply machine-learning algorithms to them. Even those require 
manual organization of terms and training. Would it make sense to 
start with a basic lexicon of terms built from a generic systematic 
theology? Or perhaps, even more basic, the terminology of one or 
more creeds? And then, how would the lexical terms be applied to 
specific instances? Self-ascription? Or perhaps a multi-step process 
in which the researcher collects things s/he identifies as significant, 
codes them, and then seeks “verification” from participants with 
insider relationships to the field in question? And how could the 
lexicon be expanded, which, I take it, would be desirable in order to 
capture new relationships?

The research field is theology engaging transcultural pressures, 
the methods for this will be increasingly qualitative and informa-
tion-science oriented, and for that new partnerships with embedded 
librarians and with data scientists are needed.



170  AT L A 2020 PROCEEDINGS

THE CASE OF FILIPINO PENTECOSTALISM
Hadje C. Sadje

Pentecostalism in the Philippines
Terence Chong, senior fellow and regional editor of the Yusok Ishak 
Institute—Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, argues that South-
east Asian Pentecostalism, specifically in Malaysia, Indonesia, the 
Philippines, and Singapore, are simultaneously recognizable as 
part of a global phenomenon of Pentecostalism. In 2006, according 
to the Pew Review Center report, the Philippines is one of the top 
Asian countries that has growing Pentecostal and charismatic move-
ments. Likewise, a well-known British Pentecostal scholar—Allan 
Anderson—strongly believes that the Pentecostalism and charis-
matic movements are the most popular and fastest-growing social 
force in the Philippines.

Today, under the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, the excessive 
public mingling of religion and politics is perceptible. It seems that 
to know Duterte’s populism is to understand his religious views. 
According to Jayeel Cornelio and Erron Medina (2018), “To appeal 
to patriotism is a religious conviction because it invokes a vague but 
transcendent entity—the Filipino people.” They further argue, “We 
thus argue that reflecting on Duterte’s enduring popularity needs 
to recognize that supporting his leadership is not just a political 
choice. It is also religious.”

During his 2016 campaign for the presidency, religious move-
ments emerged as a major player in Duterte’s rise to power. For 
instance, one of the staunch supporters of President Duterte is 
Apollo C. Quiboloy, who is a popular Filipino Oneness Pentecos-
tal preacher and a self-proclaimed “Son of God.”  Quiboloy has 
openly supported Duterte’s presidency. In fact, Quiboloy publicly 
claimed that God wanted Duterte to be a president. Looking at 
the classical Pentecostal perspective, Quiboloy’s political endorse-
ment as a preacher is not common Filipino Oneness Pentecostal 
political behavior. Although political endorsement is common 
among the largest Trinitarian Christian communities, including 
the Roman Catholic Church, classical Filipino Oneness Pentecostals 
have avoided direct political engagements, with the exception of 
two Oneness Pentecostal movements: the Kingdom of Jesus Christ 
the Name Above Every Name and the Jesus Miracle Crusade Inter-



Listen and Learn Sessions  171

national Ministry. Yet, despite the presence of these two Oneness 
Pentecostal movements in Philippine politics and mainstream media, 
Filipino Oneness Pentecostal is not well-studied. In his intensive 
research on Filipino Oneness Pentecostal movements, Johnny Loye 
King (2016, 2) writes, “This is just one example of how Oneness 
Pentecostalism has been overlooked in the Philippines, and possi-
bly throughout the world.” Thus, many researchers, as King argues, 
if they are even aware of the movement’s existence, believe that 
Oneness Pentecostalism is worthy of little more than a footnote. 

Moreover, religious life in the Philippines is experiencing a recru-
descence of Pentecostalism. Whereas many of the older historical 
denominations are suffering serious decline and membership losses, 
Filipino Oneness Pentecostals are enjoying an expansionist phase 
and buoyant growth. For example, according to the United Pentecos-
tal Church Philippines, UPC Philippines have 2,500 local churches 
nationwide. Quiboloy, as an executive pastor of the Kingdom of Jesus 
Christ the Name above Every Name, claims to have four million 
followers; Jesus Miracle Crusade International Ministry claims to 
have 1,500,000 members in the Philippines and 15 other countries.  
However, Filipino Oneness Pentecostal groups vis-à-vis their faith 
and churches have been remained understudied in the Philippines. 
More often than not, Filipino Oneness Pentecostals are regarded as 
one of the major cults. As more and more sources become available, 
and as its advancing study continues to raise the interest of scholars 
and historians in the unique phenomenon of global Pentecostalism 
in the 21st century, Filipino Oneness Pentecostalism deserves and 
needs to be explored further.

First, as a forgotten shadow of global Pentecostalism, Filipino 
Oneness Pentecostals are relatively understudied in the Philippines. 
Second, oneness theology is one of the most misunderstood theo-
logical concepts of our time—often mistaken for cultic and certainly 
considered by many as a non-Christian teaching. Third, like many 
other Christian denominations, the fact that Oneness Pentecostals 
perceived eschatology as one of the central “Apostolic” teachings, to 
some extent, shapes their social behavior and public engagement. 
Lastly, the ongoing problems (poverty, human rights violations, natu-
ral disasters, corruption, etc.) that have beset the Philippines for 
many years revealed, according to Joseph Rommel L. Suico, the ambi-
guity of the Pentecostal movement’s understanding of its role in soci-
ety. In the same vein, Filipino Oneness Pentecostals seem oblivious to 



172  AT L A 2020 PROCEEDINGS

social issues. This suggest that the public engagement of the Filipino 
Oneness Pentecostals has not been adequately researched. Conse-
quently, for outsiders, Filipino Oneness Pentecostals are suscep-
tible to a lack of firm leadership, fanaticism, and highly emotional 
behavior.

Research Gap
There has been some work done on similar research to a Philippine 
context, but nothing has been researched on Oneness Pentecostal 
public theology. Some studies concentrated on Trinitarian Pentecos-
tal and charismatic movements, and no study has been embarked on 
public theology of the Oneness Pentecostal movement in the Philip-
pines. Thus, this research seeks to investigate the political theology 
latent in the practices of Oneness Pentecostal congregations in the 
Philippines and the role that documentation and description play 
in this research.

Methodology
The study is a critical evaluation of the public engagement of Fili-
pino Pentecostalism. With the aid of grounded theory, ethnography, 
and decolonial methodology, material was gathered and analysed 
from a case study of Filipino Pentecostal movements—specifically, 
the Jesus Miracle Crusade International Ministry and the Kingdom 
of Jesus Christ the Name Above Every Name, utilizing qualitative 
methods (documenting and describing theological objects), partici-
pant observation, literature analysis, life-story interviews,  preach-
ing/sermons, testimonies, articles of faith, church programs, Sunday 
school materials, visions and missions, civic engagements, etc.

WORKS CITED

Cornelio, Jayeel and Erron Medina. 2018. “Duterte’s Enduring Popu-
larity Is Not Just a Political Choice—It Is Also Religious.” New 
Mandala, September 3, 2018. www.newmandala.org/dutertes-
enduring-popularity-not-just-political-choice-also-religious.

Gell, Alfred. 1992. “The Technology of Enchantment and the 
Enchantment of Technology.” In Anthropology, Art, and Aesthet-
ics, edited by Jeremy Coote and Anthony Shelton. Oxford: Claren-
don Press.

http://www.newmandala.org/dutertes-enduring-popularity-not-just-political-choice-also-religious
http://www.newmandala.org/dutertes-enduring-popularity-not-just-political-choice-also-religious


Listen and Learn Sessions  173

———. 1998. Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: 
Oxford University Press.

Gutierrez, Gustavo. 1988 [1971]. A Theology of Liberation. Maryknoll: 
Orbis Books.

King, Johnny Loye. 2016. “Spirit and Schism: A History of Oneness 
Pentecostalism in the Philippines.” PhD diss. University of 
Birmingham.

Robinson, Matthew. 2020. “‘What Does Theology Do?’ as a Transcul-
tural Research Perspective: A ‘Model of’ a ‘Model for’ Theological 
Research.” In What Does Theology Do, Actually? Observing Theol-
ogy and the Transcultural, 19–43. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlag-
sanstalt GmBH.


