Wednesday, January 10, 2018

On Postcolonial theories and (liberal) indigenous theologies

The quote below is specifically focused on Third World or Indigenous Theologies and hermeneutics, but I do think the principle here is generally applicable to many "Postcolonial" theories in any discipline.

Accordingly they are unafraid to criticize global South Christians for “making the same Bible an uncaring, mean-spirited and cruel book by using it uncritically,” while simultaneously asserting that “the imposition of one’s culture on others is plainly unacceptable.” Yet others can ask of the postcolonialists, Is not their Western form of religious pluralism as institutionalized in academic culture an imposition upon those who do not wish to see the Bible “as an entertaining narrative devoid of its ecclesiastical and dogmatic functions”? Postcolonial theory is therefore in a blind: useful in helping Christians to recognize human finitude and fallenness in our theological understanding, but tending to assume the normative absence of divine revelation—ironically a sort of intellectual colonialism. (Daniel J. Treier, “Scripture and Hermeneutics,” in Kelly M. Kapic and Bruce L. McCormack, eds., Mapping Modern Theology: A Thematic and Historical Introduction (Grand Rapid, MI: Baker, 2012), 90

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