Embracing Change : Postmodern Interpretations on the I Ching from a Christian Perspective

Written primarily with Christians in mind, this book attempts to provide a comprehensive interpretation of the classic I Ching (Book of Change) in the postmodern world and a creative reflection on the Christian faith based on various ideas evoked by "change." Embracing change as the essence of existence is difficult for us because we have held the view that change is an attribute of being. According to the I Ching, being is conditioned by process, which is again conditioned by change. Thus, change as the ultimate reality has been the most fundamental assumption that nurtures the patterns of thought and values in East Asian civilization. Today's postmodern phenomena such as plurality, absurdity, and relativity are due to change. Jung Young Lee thus holds that the text of the I Ching must be interpreted by postmodern categories.
Because this book primarily addresses those in the Christian tradition, it has special purposes: a comprehensive interpretation of change in postmodernity and an enrichment of the Christian faith. Here, Lee says that the I Ching - unlike an ordinary text - helps us not only to learn about the reality of change in ourselves and in the world but to reflect on something that will concern us ultimately. For Christians, our ultimate concern is the Christian faith. Thus, a spontaneous and unmediated reflection on the Christian faith comes from the evocation of "change." For this reason, Embracing Change is more than a comparative study between the I Ching and Christianity or more than dialogue between them because it is intended for mutual enrichments.
For a comprehensive interpretation of change, this book begins with questions people usually ask about the I Ching. Instead of entering into a critique of "what the text is," however, Lee concentrates on what the text and its tradition try to tell us about change.
An important chapter in this book deals with the philosophy of change - because the I Ching is simply the book or classic about I or "change," which is the ultimate reality. Change operates through a complementary dualism of yin and yang, a binary movement of growth and decay or expansion and contraction. Lee discusses the symbolizations of change, providing illustrations of broken-unbroken lines, duograms, trigrams, and hexagrams.
Divination - because it needs proper background knowledge of change to produce any reliable result - and the postmodern characteristics of change as they relate to contemporary developments in the West (such as quantum physics) are treated toward the end. But perhaps the most valuable reference for the study of the I Ching is the fresh translation of the main text, which appears at the end of this volume. The translation attempts to clarify many ambiguous passages found in other translations.

Jung Young Lee is Professor of Systematic Theology at Drew University.