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Benita Lim

Benita
Lim

PhD, Theology and Culture

About Benita

I grew up in the Presbyterian Church of Singapore, serving and pastoring in English- and Mandarin-speaking congregations. I was struck by multitude of ways the Judeo-Christian God was worshiped across generations and cultures—yet tensions remain regarding what “worship” looked like. After my MDiv (Biblical Studies) in Singapore Bible College, I grew increasingly sensitized to the multifaceted nature of Christianity, religious and cultural plurality, and impact of postcoloniality and globalization in Asia. These experiences and observations converge in my dissertation topic, “Towards Glocal Reformed Eucharistic Theologies: A Comparative Study of John Calvin and the Presbyterian Church of Singapore’s Eucharistic Theology in light of World Christianity.” This interdisciplinary work engages Liturgical and Historical Theology, Social Sciences, and Intercultural Studies to produce a methodology which contributes to the ecumenical and glocal nature of Reformed Theology in a globalizing world.

Education

Fuller Theological Seminary

2019

MA in Theology

Singapore Bible College

2015

MDiv

Research Interests

Liturgical and Eucharistic theology, Reformed theology, World Christianity, Theology and Culture, Asia

Publications

Stream of Praise Music Ministries: Transcending barriers to reach Chinese Christians across the world through Taiwanese-American Contemporary Christian Worship.

2026, Forthcoming. Chapter in "Indigenous Songs from the Ground: Towards a Decolonizing Missiology in an Age of Epistemic Crisis," Baylor University Press.

Stream of Praise Music Ministries (讚美之泉音樂事工, SOP) is an organization set up in 1993 by Sandy Yu, a first-generation Han-Taiwanese immigrant to the United States, which has its headquarters in Tustin, California. Through methods such as music production, local praise and worship sessions, creative arts and worship workshops for children and adults, and embarking on world tours, SOP embraces its Taiwanese heritage while employing various strategies by Western Christian Contemporary Worship (CCW) groups. Such a method enables them to extend their message to Chinese Christians across the world while transcending ideological and political barriers. This chapter first takes a brief look at Taiwan’s colonial history, Christianity, and music development. It then examines thirty of SOP’s most well-loved songs using the four groups of CCW qualities by Swee Hong Lim and Lester Ruth. Finally, it reflects on how SOP is a unique product of migration and globalization in polycentric Christianity with their move from the Global South to the Global North. Through their colonial heritage and migration experience, SOP has created a “hybridizing culture” as Han-Taiwanese immigrants in the United States, which enables them to become an influential producer of Mandarin CCW for diasporic Chinese Christians around the world.

Finding Balance and Harmony: Modernity, Food, and the Partaking of the Holy Communion by Converts from Chinese Religious Traditions in Singapore.

2021, Indonesian Journal of Theology

As Christianity arrived on the shores of Singapore closely following British colonization, Western missionaries introduced their interpretation of the Holy Communion into a foreign land and space that was experiencing its first brushes with Western modernity. Contemporaneously, the movement of modernity continues to make an impact upon an important element of life closely intertwined with religious folk practices and culture of locals: food. In the face of modernizing foodscapes and primordial religious backgrounds, converts from Chinese religious traditions to Christianity find themselves navigating the dissonance of Western Holy Communion theologies with the Chinese philosophies of food. How might churches in Singapore begin to respond to the tensions arising when these two philosophical systems meet, and when Christians and churches seem to appropriate “syncretistic” theologies into their liturgical behavior? This article undertakes an interdisciplinary effort by employing social science to explore the modernizing of food in Singapore, as well as engaging Chinese philosophies of food and the body to explain tensions among converts from Chinese religious traditions, and the resistance of local churches towards Chinese understandings of food rituals in the partaking of the Holy Communion. It will also briefly propose that interdisciplinary studies, including liturgical studies, will be essential in developing a more robust theology of the Holy Communion among churches, thereby enhancing its witness within and without.

The Conditions of Biblical Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Sexual Abuse Cases.

2023, chapter in Assault on the Body: Sexual Violence and the Gospel Community, Graceworks. Co-written with Melissa Tee-Low.

Assault on the Body presents a Christ-centred response to sexual violence, through testimonies by sexual assault survivors and articles by theologians, pastors, academics, social workers, counsellors, lawyers and advocates. Taken together, these chapters reveal God’s heart for victims of sexual violence, demonstrate how to be a supportive church community, explain how to avoid common mistakes when responding to and journeying with victims, and propose how to safeguard our churches responsibly.

Developing An Inclusive Liturgy.

2021, chapter in book: Enabling Hearts: A Primer for Disability-inclusive Churches

Liturgy is too commonly misunderstood as an archaic and rigid form of worship, and its principles are avoided in settings that seek to be “contemporary”. Instead, it needs to be recognized as the dynamic form of a church’s public service (leitourgia) in which God’s people assemble (ekklesia), the gospel is proclaimed, God is worshipped, and those present are ministered to (leitourgia) by the divine work of the Triune God. It is the very embodied practice of ministering and being ministered to, by both God and God’s people, with the aim to produce a faith that is built up for the glory of God and the public good. Liturgy is thus never about worshipping God ritualistically to “feel God’s presence”, or passively sitting back to “see how good today’s sermon will be”. It is what everyone brings to the Body to worship God as One. The physical presence and activity of each individual contributes to the whole “Body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:14–27). This means that it is not only those with the best voice or theology who stand in front to serve God, or a good “worship service” is one that had excellent music or preaching. Liturgy is the worship of God that happens when every one assembling at this public worship service has a participating role in this visible Body, people with disabilities included!

Fuller Seminary hosts these profiles as a courtesy to our doctoral students. Their views are their own and do not necessary reflect the views of the seminary.