This article was first published as a blog in Mission.de – a german website for mission information run by The Evangelical Mission Worldwide (EMW). German version here. You can find more information on EMW below.
[Photo above: Gabriella Clare Marino/unsplash]
Marina Behera is Research Tutor, MPhil Stage Leader and the Editor of Transformation
Introduction
Theological education must be decolonized and reformed so that theologians in the Global South and North are able to tackle the problems of a globalized world together. Why? Marina Behera explains this in her blog post.
The need to decolonize and reform theology arises from a multifaceted critique. This includes studying the historical entanglements of North and South, the ongoing impact of the injustices of colonialism, and ongoing intercultural encounters. And we need theologies that are contextually relevant and transformative. For theologians in the Global South, decolonizing means critiquing inherited Western content, methods, and center-oriented categories. For theologians in the Global North, it means recognizing and provincializing their theology by understanding how it responds to and is shaped by their specific contexts.
Theology as studied and taught in the region referred to as the Global South is, by and large, heavily influenced by the Global North. Western methods of studying the Bible, history, and key thinkers have permeated theological practice in the South. The history of theology, for example, can be written in the West as a constant dialogue with Greek, Latin, and then modern thought. Christianity, which came to my region, Northeast India, with the mindset of colonialism and modernity, brought about a complete break with tribal worldviews and community organization with such a view of history. The introduction of writing interrupted traditional transmission of knowledge and redefined what constitutes knowledge, leading to the marginalization of pre-modern ways of life and worldviews.
Decolonizing Theology
Decolonizing theology involves critically examining and dismantling colonial legacies embedded in historical, cultural and theological frameworks. Thinkers like Homi Bhabha have introduced the category of hybridity to examine identities that emerge in such colonial encounters. One of the questions that decolonizing thinkers in places like Mizoram in northeast India, where I come from, should be asking is: how can we recognize in the self-image of tribal Christians traces of the image that British colonial officials and also missionaries had of pre-Christian tribals? For example, the idea of what it means to be a “good Christian” and the sins and virtues associated with it often reflect the attitudes of the Welsh and English missionaries. In the case of the Mizo, for example, unlike the pre-Christian Mizo society, the present state is an alcohol-free state, reflecting the attitude that the Welsh and English missionaries brought to this part of the region, namely that alcohol consumption is a sin.
A decolonising approach is therefore a process of learning what was there before the arrival of Christianity and unlearning some of the lessons implemented in the early stages of becoming a Christian. Tribal theologians in Northeast India are developing and promoting a process of learning and unlearning, for example through the rediscovery of tlawmngaihna , the unwritten ethical code of the pre-Christian Mizo. This code, tlawmngaihna , does not start from the question of how I can be saved, but from one’s position in the social web and one’s obligation to the community to ensure its well-being and survival as a community rather than as an individual.
Learning and Unlearning
Such reconstruction must be critical and resist the temptation to construct a picture of a lost but golden past. This would obscure the reasons why the Mizo people chose Christianity. Instead, the focus should be on tracing the continued presence of traditional concepts and examining how they interact with the more evolved forms of Christianity that have opened up new avenues in the world. Even today, the individual in my tribal community lives in a dense and rich web of relationships in which many people are involved in raising and supporting the individual.
Bhabha noted that the identity of the colonizers is also hybrid because the image they have of themselves is shaped by the image they had of the others. Decolonizing and reforming theology in the North therefore involves a parallel process of learning and unlearning. This process must grapple with the inherent superiority complex of bringing civilization to the rest of the world. It should incorporate the richness of the encounters that Christianity has experienced by realizing itself in new ways of being in the world. Critically examining colonial expansion and its legitimation, as well as the encounters, relativizes theologies of the North as contextual theologies, not normative ones. The image of the global ordinary Christian today is not male and white , but young, female, and of diverse origins. In order to engage with other theologies in this way, the North can learn to reconstruct its central categories such as history, the (modern) individual or integration into the web of life.
About EMW:
The Evangelical Mission Worldwide (EMW) is a community of Protestant churches, organizations and associations in mission and ecumenism. Nine mission agencies, five free churches, five associations and the Evangelical Church in Germany form the umbrella organization of the Protestant mission agencies. At the same time, EMW acts as the professional association for ecumenical world mission and mission theology for members and associated organizations. The headquarters office is located in Hamburg. German website.