Education
She graduated from Ewha Women"s University in Seoul with the Bachelor of Arts (1979) and the Master of Arts (1981). She holds the Master of Divinity from the School of Theology at Claremont (1984), a diploma from the Women"s Theological Center in Boston (1984), and the Doctor of Philosophy from Union Theological Seminary (1989).
Career
In 1990, she introduced Asian women"s theology with her book Struggle to be the Sun Again. Her retort, however, was:
If they ask me, “Are you a syncretist?” I say, “You are right, I am a syncretist, but so are you.” My response is that I know I am a syncretist, but you don’t know you are a syncretist because you have hegemonic power.. non-Christian cultures, when they try to interpret the gospel out of their life experience, they are syncretists! But they are just being true to their identity, history and culture. (“(Chung) Hyun Kyung,” no author given, Zion’s Herald, v.
177 northern
5 (September/October, 2003):14, complete interview pp. 14–16.)
In the same interview, she challenged the Western values imposed on the Third World:
“I think in order to really heal the world we need the "wisdom of darkness." This can be the Third World, dark people, women, or our "shadows,".. all the things we do not want to confront within ourselves, so we project them onto others and call them terrorists. So, I think that we need "endarkenment" for a while, not enlightenment, to heal the world.” (interview, “(Chung) Hyun Kyung,” no author given, Zion’s Herald, v.
177 northern
5 (September/October, 2003):16, complete interview pp. 14–16.). She interprets the Gospel through her experience as an Asian woman: "Doing theology is a personal and a political activity. As a Korean woman, I do theology in search of what it means to be fully human in my struggle for wholeness and in my people"s concrete historical fight for freedom." (1990: 1).