On the other hand, in the case of Japan, military defeat by the Allies and occupation led to the disestablishment of Shinto as a state organ. On the one hand, in the case of China, ‘Liberation’ and the imposition of Communist rule necessitated suppression of religion (despite constitutional neutrality, excepting proselytisation). Overall, religious development in both China and Japan post-1500 was found to have altered sharply after WWII, with the state becoming unwilling to allow religious organisations to wield political authority.

This included further unpacking of the notions of Confucianism, Shinto and Taoism.

Further development work concerned exploring post-1500 religious development (and associated religious experience) in modern China and modern Japan. Regarding the third assignment, the four main religions indigenous to China and Japan, namely Buddhism, Confucianism, Shinto and Taoism, were initially outlined. Thirdly, I address the need for an ecumenical prophetic ecclesiology that foregrounds the responsibility of the church to discern and understand those God-given kairos moments in history that demand a prophetic response. Secondly, I examine the use of the term kairos to describe historical turning points which demand such a prophetic theological response. In reflecting on the significance of this global kairos movement, I firstly examine the meaning of ‘prophecy’ and ‘prophetic theology’, arguing that ‘prophetic theology’ is in continuity with the message of the Hebrew prophets and the ministry and mission of Jesus. Since then the Kairos Document has inspired a global movement in which its social analysis and understanding of prophetic theology has been adopted in a variety of contexts, most notably in the Kairos-Palestine Document (2009). Against these, it presented a ‘prophetic theology’ as a challenge to the churches in response to what was perceived as a kairos moment. Arguing that theology itself had become a site of that struggle, it rejected ‘state theology’, which gave legitimacy to apartheid, and ‘church theology’ which promoted reconciliation without justice as its pre-requisite. This was the most radical of several theological declarations issued by Christians during the struggle against apartheid. The thirtieth anniversary of the publication of the Kairos Document was celebrated in August 2015.

Kairos moment