On September 29, 2026, I presented at the 2026 Public Theology Conference at the Graduate School of Theology, Hanshin University, Seoul. My paper takes up the biosocial challenge that E. O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins pose to public theology in East Asia.
The paper
“The Biosocial Challenge to Public Theology: Embodied Critical Realism for the Reconstruction of the Human in the Wake of Wilson and Dawkins in the East Asian Public Sphere.”
Abstract
This paper explores the biosocial influence of E. O. Wilson (Sociobiology: The New Synthesis and Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge) and Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene) on East Asia. I argue that public theology responds by implementing Embodied Critical Realism (ECR) and drawing on the rich resources of the prevailing East Asian concept of qi and Jingjiao’s qi-tological theology of creation. Drawing on the work of myrmecologist Deborah Gordon, I further argue that what East Asian actors have appropriated from sociobiology is not a neutral biological finding later misapplied, but a social imaginary built into biology before it was applied back to society. This constructive approach to public theology of human nature has the potential to challenge biological determinism and to address the hostile “manosphere” atmosphere in South Korea, as well as the ethos of resentment among young professionals in mainland China driven by atheistic ideology.
Event
- Event: 2026 Public Theology Conference, September 28–October 1, 2026
- Host: Graduate School of Theology, Hanshin University, Seoul
- Session: Day 2, Tuesday, September 29, 2026, 4:10 p.m.
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