David Moe

David Thang Moe, a Chin born and raised in a rural village of Myanmar, is a Postdoctoral Associate of Southeast Asian Studies at Yale University. He studied in three different countries (Myanmar, Malaysia, and the US)—he holds six degrees from Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky (Ph.D), Union Theological Seminary in Virginia (M.Th), Luther Seminary in Minnesota (M.Th), Sabah Theological Seminary in Malaysia (M.Div), Pakokku University (B.A), and Tahan Theological College in Myanmar (B.Th). His doctoral dissertation is on “Grassroots Asian Public Theology of Religions and Reconciliation,” which explores how Buddhism plays a role in the Burmese politics of nationalism and how religions should dialogically play role in the public life of resistance and reconciliation for building a more embracive Myanmar beyond the exclusive politics of majority nationalism and minority tribalism. He has published over 70 scholarly articles. His research areas of interest include—Asian public theology of religions, Majority-minority ethnic conflict, Buddhist nationalism, Subaltern politics of resistance, Ethnic reconciliation, Theory of federal democracy, Asian Christianity, and Christian-Buddhist engagement in Southeast Asia (Myanmar). The goal of his scholarship is for the benefits of three different communities—academy, grassroots churches, and public/pluralistic society. He is a popular speaker. After the Myanmar coup, he has been invited to speak at grassroots movements and at some universities, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Brown, Boston, University of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, Toronto, Oxford, Cambridge, Australian National University, University of Sydney, Hamburg, Yonsei, Ewha Womans University, and others. In addition to his academic speaking, teaching, writing, and church preaching, he is also involved in an advocacy work by meeting with some US Senators for restoring Myanmar’s democracy. Moe is on the editorial team of five academic journals—International Journal of Public Theology, Journal of Southeast Asian Movement at Yale, Interreligious Studies and Intercultural Theology, Missiology: An International Review, and Asian American Theological Forum.