Contributor: Delfo C. Canceran Institution: University of Santo Tomas (UST), Department of Sociology and Behavioral Sciences; De La Salle University (DLSU) Presentation Title: Decolonizing Theologians Abstract: Theologians are foremost human beings. They are located and positioned in society. However, they usually forget or disregard their location or position in society; they assume that they are nowhere and everywhere. In effect, they unconsciously take God’s universal knowledge not knowing that that claim is a ‘godstrick,’ to use Donna Haraway’s expression. Theologians should reclaim their location and position. That reclaiming demands their bodily visibility in time and place and their cognitive limitation positioned in tradition and with interest. Some theologians studied abroad and some in their own countries. Although they studied in the local universities, they generally read western authors and indiscriminately use them in their publications. They are socialized in a western tradition that assumes that they represent the universal. If you represent your locality and express your positionality, they accuse you of relativism and parochialism. They want you to represent others without representing themselves. They want to retain their privilege of invisibility. We need to differentiate postcoloniality and decoloniality in terms of reference. Postcoloniality includes both the colonized and the colonizers. Homi Bhabha talks about the third space and hybridity in their relationship. Postcolonial scholars need to recognize the interface between them. They are influenced by both location and they need to take their dual position. If you take the Cartesian model you can split your location (body) and position (mind) at the expense of the located and marked body. The decolonial scholar Migolio proposes the dictum: I am where I think, displacing the I think therefore I am. Location and position are necessary in decolonial production of knowledge. Our thinking is grounded on our place, not even space. Our reference is primarily the colonized as the main location and position and not the colonizers. Reference implies both soma (body) and geo (place). If ever the colonizers are mentioned, they are interrogated and deconstructed of their ventriloquism. Let the colonized represent themselves!
Contributor: Yenny Delgado Institution: University of Lausanne Presentation Title: Abya Yala Theology: Decolonized Theology and Implications on Motherland, Borders, and Citizenship Abstract: Abya Yala Theology is a prophetic public theology to help us reimagine the harmonious relationship between the motherland, their children, and all creation without divisions and claims of supremacy. The name Abya Yala comes from the Guna language and means “land in full maturity and land of vital blood.” This name focuses on reflections on the lands and their native people rather than colonization and conquest. In the 1970s, activists, historians, politicians, and theologians adopted Abya Yala as the unified name instead of North America (English speakers) and Latin America (Spanish and Portuguese speakers). Abya Yala Theology led us to reflect on who we are and where we are from our geographical location and ancestral ethnicity. In our land, we were victims of slavery, genocide, and a systematic colonialism process that violated and divided the land into pieces. The native populations were segregated by their colonial powers into strangers, creating limitations on who were considered inside or outside the imposed new borders. This paper introduces how Abya Yala theology understands the continent as a land of full maturity in harmony. In this text, we explore the privatization of land and its link with colonial practices that killed the natural environment of Abya Yala to build cities focused on extractive purposes and consuming natural resources without limitations, causing the ecocide of the motherland. Abya Theology responds to these realities and proposes a reframing and reaffirming of the Christian message to provide hope and a new vision to the continent.
Contributor: Maike Maria Domsel and Louigie Pontillo Institution: University of Duisburg-Essen, Institut für Katholische Theologie Presentation Title: Colonialism and Environmental Crisis: Stewardship of Creation in the Light of Decolonial Theology – A European and Filipino Perspective Abstract: Colonialism is indeed a global phenomenon and there is not a single corner in the world that colonization has not been enacted upon. In 1494, the agreement between Spain and Portugal to divide the world between them using an imaginary line down the center of the Atlantic Ocean was galvanized by the Treaty of Tordesillas. Violence and racial subjugation were part of colonial experience. Intergenerational trauma and psychological damage of indigenous people were the ramifications of colonial enterprise. Social and cultural traditions, property rights of the indigenous people and the natural resources were downplayed in the interest of the colonizers and at the expense of local culture. It was also during the age of colonization that religion and culture of colonizers are brought to newly discovered and conquered lands that cause dramatic shifts in religious and cultural attitudes of the conquered people. Religion has always played a significant role in building value system, moral judgment as well as social tenets and cultural practices. Debora Tonelli, a lecturer in religion and violence at Gregorian University, pointed out that during the age of colonialism, “…religion—whether consciously or not—often supported the colonizers. At the end of official colonialism, religion has often been the space in which colonized people have fought to build their new identity.”1 This paper focuses particularly on the environmental problems in the Philippines and Congo as one of the legacies of colonialism that is still evident today in the form of colonial globalization. The Philippines was colonized by Spain from 1565 to 1898 and Congo was colonized by Belgium from 1908 to 1960. Colonialism was often justified by the so-called “civilizing mission” of Europe that went hand-in-hand with the goal of economic gain. Long before the advent of Western colonizers, the indigenous people already have profound connection with the nature and considered themselves one with the planet. Then came the colonial intervention that caused environmental exploitation to these countries whose people often do not have enough power to protect themselves against the onward march of the colonial powers. History has shown time and again that colonialism and colonial globalization’s unbridled lust for profit in the guise of human progress distorted a balance, a sense of reciprocity and a sense of man’s spiritual connections to planet. It leads to climate crisis and environmental destruction on a global scale. The researchers investigate and search for answers to these questions: What can the Europeans learn from the indigenous people, from their relationship to nature, from their spirituality and from simplicity of their life? How can the colonized people gain this epistemic emancipation from colonial thoughts and create their economic growth without resorting to the destructive ways of using the natural resources? That said, decolonial theology brings light to this endeavor and ushers to a whole new perspective and radical re-thinking of religious tradition, socio-economic justice and environmental preservation.
Contributor: John S. Munayer and Samuel S. Munayer Institution: Exter University (Samuel M.) Presentation Title: Decolonising Palestinian Liberation Theology: New Sources, Methods and Voices Abstract: With the rise of decoloniality in scholarship, contextual theologians have attempted to critically evaluate theology and its Eurocentric epistemological assumptions. Such attempt has yet to be seriously embarked upon regarding Palestinian Liberation Theology (PLT). Since its academic inception, PLT has been predominantly articulated by two Protestant theologians, Naim Ateek and Mitri Raheb. Although these theologians are the pioneers of PLT, Ateek and Mitri rely heavily on white-Western theological methods, sources, and assumptions. Moreover, the two thinkers primarily target a Western audience, which makes their theology less applicable and relevant to Palestinians. As such, PLT has yet to fundamentally reflect on the many Palestinian sources and methods for constructing an indigenous Palestinian theology. Consequently, this article seeks to indigenise PLT. After examining the coloniality within the work of Ateek and Mitri, the article will argue for new sources and methods for developing PLT. This will include: (1) traditional and local Palestinian Christian practices from the Orthodox tradition, and (2) concepts within Palestinian popular resistance and consciousness against settler colonialism. These new sources and methods compensate for some of the limitations PLT currently holds and erode its existing Eurocentric epistemological assumptions. We hope this paper acts as a self-critical endeavor on our own Christian theology of liberation in Palestine and invites other Palestinian and Arab theologians to dialogically develop our theologies in a decolonial and intersectional manner. Moreover, by offering a decolonial PLT this paper contributes to decolonizing studies regarding the Middle East and empowers more native voices to engage with matters related to Middle Eastern Studies.
Contributor: Abigail Onowosemenmen Oaikhena Institution: Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria Presentation Title: Diasporic Discourse and Hybrid Identity in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Gravel Heart Abstract: Migrant discourse or diasporic literature is one of the major preoccupations of postcolonial literature. Many are caught between two different worlds after colonization and they navigate between two different cultures, the foreign posing itself as the superior while devaluing the inherent one. The conflicting ideas or opinions emanating from these transcultural dispositions affect migrants’ view of self, as they constantly strive to disassociate from their innate self as to embrace the supposed superior. So, identity crisis, dislocation, third space and double vision become predominant issues in diaspora literature. Thus, Abdulrazak Gurnah, in his novel, Gravel Heart, interrogates these impalpable areas of immigrants and border lives. Hence, hybridity, a major aspect in postcolonial literature that is concerned with the intersection of different cultures, becomes the most suitable literary theory for this paper, as it highlighted the chronicles associated with lives in the diaspora.
Contributor: Rica delos Reyes-Ancheta Institution: Ateneo de Manila University Presentation Title: Beyond Borders: Towards a Theology of ‘Synodality’ Abstract: Pope Francis’ call to pave the way for a synodal Church is revolutionary. While ‘synodality’ has long been a promising Church trajectory, it disrupts and challenges the current status quo in local churches. The process of ‘synodality’ is both transformative and enriching as it fosters greater engagement of the people at the peripheries in the Church’s life and mission. People in the margins are often perceived, as passive participants in the life of the Church, and, as it were, on the receiving end. The Church’s plans, thrusts, and decisions, whether on a personal level or socio-political and economic affairs, have always involved active and influential parish members and/or organizations. The ‘influential’ largely constitutes the voice of the majority in church ministries, activities, and projects. On the other hand, the voices of the underprivileged, carry, if any, little weight in the discussion. This paper critically examines avenues for dialogue initiated by the local churches for the upcoming synod which allow the marginalized to have a seat at the discussion table. It seeks to scrutinize a ‘synodal’ Church as it unveils the mental structures that create categories of marginalization. It hopes to appropriate ‘synodality’ into authentic forms of encounter, solidarity, and dialogue. Employing Koselleck’s ‘space of experience’ and ‘horizon of expectation’, this paper will also bring into light female narratives in the ‘synodal’ discourse, enabling the process of becoming a ‘synodal’ Church, a desired horizon of the future. This article shall explore the 1.) Synodality’s guiding principle/s as gleaned from Lumen Gentium and Vademecum.2.) Koselleck’s concept of ‘space of experience and horizon of expectation’. 3.) Categories of Marginalization, and 4. A theological reflection on the Emmaus Walk: Theology of Synodality.
Contributor: Axel Takacs Institution: Seton Hall University Presentation Title: Race-Making from the Old World to the New World: Toward a Catholic-Muslim Decolonial Theology Abstract: Catholic scholars of Islam and Muslim societies and comparative theologians who engage the Islamic traditions have often ignored the Catholic imaginaries, institutions, and practices of the past that have shaped the global anti-Muslim, racist present. This theological past begins with Catholic anti-Islamic and anti-Jewish theology. However, these Old World imaginaries, such as Muslim and Jewish monster-making in the medieval period, or the limpieza de sangre system of blood purity laws in the Iberian peninsula, shaped New World colonial practices. While a coincidence, it is certainly ominous that 1492 marks both the beginning of the enslavement, sex trafficking, genocide, gendercide, and land dispossession of the indigenous in the Americas and the expulsion of Jews from Spain, to be followed later by the expulsion of Muslims—conversos and Moriscos. Indeed, the colonization of the Americas by Europeans coincided with the development and implementation of the limpieza de sangre system, or blood purity laws, in the Iberian peninsula and the racialization of Muslims and Jews, which carried over into the racialized practices against the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Africa. Junaid Rana summarizes it best: The racialization of Islam emerged from the Old World, was placed on New World indigenous peoples, and subsequently took on a continued significance in relation to Black America and the world of Muslim immigrants. Thus, the category of Muslim in the U.S. is simultaneously a religious category and one that encompasses a broad race concept that connects a history of Native America to Black America to immigrant America in the consolidation of anti-Muslim racism. Furthermore, Alan Mikhail has demonstrated how the threat of Islam and Muslims in Europe fueled the colonization of the Americas: “Islam was the mold that cast the history of European racial and ethnic thinking in the Americas, as well as the history of warfare in the Western Hemisphere.” Catholic scholars and comparative theologians who engage the Islamic traditions must reckon with the ways in which Catholic-Muslim conflict shaped colonial practices. The Spanish who arrived in the New World imagined the indigenous peoples as Muslims and their temples as mosques. More dangerously, the racialization of Muslims (and Jews) was extended onto the indigenous and non-Christian from Asia to Africa and the Americas. The conflict—real or imagined—between Christians and Muslims accelerated and augmented the European colonization of the New World. A decolonial Catholic theology must reckon with this history. Additionally, current political and economic systems remain structured by global, anti-Muslim racism, disproportionately and negatively impacting Asian Muslims: from Palestine to Yemen and Xinjiang Province (China), to the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and Muslim women in Bangladeshi garment factories, to the ways in which the deaths of Syrian, Iraqi, and Afghan Muslims are simply ignored by the global community—and so much more—we echo Daulatzai and Rana, drawing on Frantz Fanon and Sylvia Winter, in rhetorically asking, “Can the Muslim be human?”3 Catholic theologians need to be challenged by this sharp inquiry precisely because Catholic theologies of the past remain the politics of the present. Drawing on indigenous axiologies and lifeways from Turtle Island, such as the writings of tink tinker, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and Qwo-Li Driskill, this paper seeks a pathway toward a decolonial Catholic-Muslim theology. If the history of Catholic-Muslim conflict in part produced our current unjust and inequitable global racial and neocolonial capitalist order, then Catholic-Muslim solidarity, co-resistance, and co-creation—learning from and with indigenous peoples—will be necessary to repair the harm and to create a more just and equitable society.
Contributor: Binu Varghese Institution: Princeton Theological Seminary Presentation Title: Decolonizing Indian American Christianity : Liminality and Epistemic Disobedience Abstract: This paper examines the identity, faith, and narrative of Nasrani Christians (St. Thomas Christians) who have immigrated and flourished in the U.S. It argues that drawing from the historical memory of anticolonialism of St. Thomas Christians we can effectively address the discordance created between American colonial Christianity and ethnic faith. To begin with, we analyze how the anticolonial and counterhegemonic history of faith life, liturgy, and tradition of St. Thomas Christians posits a cultural modelof decoloniality for Indian Christian diaspora in the U.S. Secondly; the paper locates resistant agency in the liminal space for Nasrani Christians in the U.S. Walter Mignolo and Catherine Walsh, exploring the opportunities of the agency making in decolonial praxis, calls for a need or responsibility to think within and from the insurgent constructions, creations, practices, and subject-actors that, from the outside, the borders, edges, and cracks challenge and defy modernity/coloniality. The paper proposes a resistant agency for the colonized by embodying alternative sensibilities, affective, and counter-modernity practices. Agency does not have to be legible to the 'logics of dominations' of colonial Christianity, but it can express itself as 'potent intentionality' to reject them. Mignolo and Walsh quote Lugones' model of insurgent agency in the context of decolonial feminism as a "process of active engagement and "subjective resistance." So in that aspect, we can say Nasrani agency is a form of resistant agency. Through a collective and relational process of liminality, the agency can be enacted. The colonial reiteration of linearity in Nasrani Christian's historical timeline has to be delinked. With the help of expositing Latin American nonmodern temporality, the paper suggests an anachronic timeline that shows fluidity and transformation in the lived-in experience of those in the diaspora.
Contributor: Yuangga Kurnia Yahya Institution: University of Darussalam Gontor Presentation Title: Paying Off Debt or Forgiving Debt?: Semantic and Intertextual Analysis on Lord’s Prayer in Smith-Van Dyck Arabic Bible Translation Abstract: The Smith and Van Dyck Arabic Bible Translation, which first appeared in 1865, is the most widely used translation inthe Christian Arab community. The expressions that appear in the translation have some quite striking differences with other Arabic translations of the Bible. This research will focus on one of the messages in Lord's Prayer, specifically Matthew 6:12 about prayer for forgiveness and forgiveness to others. In the Smith-Van Dyck version, asking God for forgiveness becomes their basis for giving forgiveness to sinners by using the present and future form of the verb expression, namely كما نغفر(as we will forgive). This is in contrast to the two translations in the 1865 Maronite and 1881 Jesuit editions which use the past tense verb expressions كما غفرناand فقد أعفينا(as we have forgiven) as written in the Greek Bible asὀφειλήματα`debts' and refer to the tradition of forgiveness in Jewish tradition and use the metaphor of debt, as written in the book of Sirach 28:2. This study will look at how Western culture and ways of thinking in viewing the world affect the translation of the Bible that occurred in the colonial era, especially in the context of Middle Eastern Christianity which has cultural closeness to the context of the Bible by using semantic studies and intertextual analysis with the Arabic translation of the Bible from Maronite and Beirut's Jesuits as a translation by Arabic speakers.
Contributor: Edith Wittenbrink Institution: Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Katholisch-Theologische Fakultät Presentation Title: Unlearning our privilege (as western theologians) as our loss? Decolonial challenges in the field of Christian social ethics Abstract: As in most theological disciplines, also in Christian social ethics in Germany many scholars are still sceptical about choosing decolonial and postcolonial approaches as references. Reasons for that are, among others, an assumed normative relativism in these theories, but also a lack of engagement with the own colonial heritages and persisting violent structures (Heimbach-Steins, Bachmann, & Becker, 2020). Nevertheless, it can be considered as crucial for theological ethics to include in different ways decolonial perspectives and to let traditional approaches be questioned by unfamiliar voices. In my paper, I show as one example from a German perspective how the notion of ‘white privilege’ with its postcolonial background can help to create critical knowledge on injustices in the society and the Church regarding marginalized persons and positions, but especially to foster a self-examination within theological ethics. Today’s German society is a migration society, and it continues to be shaped by colonial attitudes and discriminating patterns (Wittenbrink, 2020). Postcolonial approaches used in Christian social ethics can help to challenge such structures. However, this is only possible if ‘we’ as white (and often male and upper-class) theologians in Germany gain awareness on our current entanglement with this society, that is, our own privileges. I suggest an orientation on the expression from Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak “Unlearning our privilege as our loss”: It is necessary to become conscious of our own privileges and how they contribute to marginalization (McIntosh, 1989), but especially of what ‘we’ lose by having them, and therefore to look for paths how to un-learn them (Landry & MacLean, 1996). In the context of migration society and a Christian ethical approach, this can mean concretely to become aware of marginalized groups in society and in Christian communities. Of all Catholics in Germany, 15.8% have at least one foreign citizenship, but they are barely visible in many ecclesial contexts and in theology and are underrepresented in the Church structures – as well as the also large group of German Catholics with a ‘migration background’. In different contexts there can be witnessed explicit and implicit racist discrimination (DBK, 2021; Thillainathan, 2020; Vecera, 2022). White privilege can therefore be understood as a loss if we consider these imbalances as incongruous with our Christian self-image and realize the potentials a true exchange as equals with non-white Church members in Germany would have, considering especially the intersections with other forms of marginalization. Relationships often shaped by othering, instrumentalization and mistrust can change if a questioning of white privileges leads to an awareness of the provinciality and particularism of ‘western’ Christianity and to a reflection of violent aspects of own traditions, like the existence of ‘white Christian saviourism’ in global, but as well local contexts (Bandyopadhyay, 2019). Marginalized persons, ways of thinking and acting, and theological concepts represent much more than exoticized add-ons and can, for example, be crucial for developing urgently needed re- conceptualizations of gender and of ecology. Un-learning of privileges in Christian social ethics in this sense can mean to start new searches for shared normative convictions in the most inclusive discourse forums possible. That requires for ‘us’ who profit from white privilege to actively create access and make space in universities, church communities, and other contexts for marginalized persons and perspectives. In a short final outlook, the advantages and challenges of such a postcolonially informed normative approach to social inequalities.
Contributor: Hanna Ylikangas Institution: University of Helsinki Presentation Title: The questions of ecofeminist theology as a tool for decolonizing theology Abstract: The colonial structures have affected Christianity deeply, and their affect is still clearly visible. One of the many ways to unpack and to study these structures is the analysis of ecofeminist theology. Ecofeminist theology has a feminist and decolonial perspective to Christian theology, and in it the earth and the entire creation is seen as the body of God. The analysis of the interconnectedness of all oppressions is crucial to ecofeminist theology, and the oppression of non-men and the destruction of non-human nature is seen as connected. The importance of hearing and understanding indigenous voices is also central for ecofeminist theology. Liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez urges the more prosperous countries to act for the more vulnerable ones in the climate catastrophe, and he has called for “ancestral wisdom” from the indigenous populations in protecting the creation. In this paper I will attempt to describe the ways in which ecofeminist Christian theology has analyzed the interconnectedness of all oppressions, including oppression based on gender, race, economic class and the destruction of non-human nature, and how these premises could be utilized in a broader decolonial analysis.
Contributor: Yuangga Kurnia Yahya Institution: University of Darussalam Gontor Presentation Title: Paying Off Debt or Forgiving Debt?: Semantic and Intertextual Analysis on Lord’s Prayer in Smith-Van Dyck Arabic Bible Translation Abstract: The Smith and Van Dyck Arabic Bible Translation, which first appeared in 1865, is the most widely used translation inthe Christian Arab community. The expressions that appear in the translation have some quite striking differences with other Arabic translations of the Bible. This research will focus on one of the messages in Lord's Prayer, specifically Matthew 6:12 about prayer for forgiveness and forgiveness to others. In the Smith-Van Dyck version, asking God for forgiveness becomes their basis for giving forgiveness to sinners by using the present and future form of the verb expression, namely كما نغفر(as we will forgive). This is in contrast to the two translations in the 1865 Maronite and 1881 Jesuit editions which use the past tense verb expressions كما غفرناand فقد أعفينا(as we have forgiven) as written in the Greek Bible asὀφειλήματα`debts' and refer to the tradition of forgiveness in Jewish tradition and use the metaphor of debt, as written in the book of Sirach 28:2. This study will look at how Western culture and ways of thinking in viewing the world affect the translation of the Bible that occurred in the colonial era, especially in the context of Middle Eastern Christianity which has cultural closeness to the context of the Bible by using semantic studies and intertextual analysis with the Arabic translation of the Bible from Maronite and Beirut's Jesuits as a translation by Arabic speakers.