This semester I am taking a class titled World Christian Perspectives, and the class is designed to survey the theological reflections of what we often refer to as the Third World (Latin America, Asia and Africa). What I have taken away from the class thus far is that the particular questions, needs and concerns of each culture tend to drive theological reflection upon the scriptures.
For example, when Western culture (marked by a quest for the rational and legal/formulaic understandings of all reality) seeks to understand and explain the work of Christ on the cross it tends to see the atonement in terms of a legal substitutionary model. In contrast, tribal cultures have a primordial worldview, and by that I mean they see the world of the spirits rather involved and cohabitating in the material world with us. Evil in the material world then is understood as the manifestation of the evil spirits. In their culture the need and question for them is who or what can subdue or defeat these evil powers. When this culture reflects upon the cross and resurrection they see this complex of events as the victory over the powers, principalities and authorities. (Eph. 1:21, Eph. 6:12, I Cor. 15:20-28) They see the atonement in terms of the Victory of Christ over the enemies of mankind or evil powers.
This cultural, hermeneutical and biblical study is deeply fascinating to me. It touches on the broader issues of interpretation, text, hermeneutics, philosophy and the role of the church and the scripture in these disciplines. This area of study seeks to address not only how we know (epistemology), but it seeks to address why we know the way we do.
As part of this class we are going to take a look at the post-colonial movement and its integration into the biblical studies and theology. As I am on spring break this week I purchased an additional text to deepen my exposure to this material. I will be taking one chapter per day of spring break and posting a summary and reflection upon this text. This exercise is more for my profit, but as long as I was writing to strengthen my retention and critique of the material I thought I would post it for the one person that might what to know something of post-colonial criticism in biblical studies without having to read a book or take a class.
The author is R.S. Sugirtharaja, Professor of Biblical Hermeneutics at the University of Birmingham. He is the author of numerous texts that are searchable and available at Amazon. The text is titled Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation, and it is published by Oxford Press. The book is intended as introduction to the subject matter, and it is rather accessible for most readers.
Chapter One “Charting the Aftermath: A Review of Postcolonial Criticism” serves as an introduction and history of postcolonial studies. In the 1960’s many of the nations, tribes and peoples that had been under colonial rule of various European powers were beginning to gain their independence, and postcolonialism began as a political, literary and cultural expression of the colonized to be free. It was never intended to be a grand, unified theory about colonialism and how to become free, but it was born as a multi-disciplinary critique of powers and their oppressive tendency. Because of this origin, postcolonialism is best understood as a criticism rather than a theory. A theory is an abstract model, deduced from certain axioms, that is applicable in any number of circumstances, but a criticism is “a style of enquiry, an insight or a perspective, a catalyst, a new way of life.”[1] Thus, post-colonialism (with the hyphen) is a reference to the criticism, and postcolonialism is a reference to the broader history of freedom and its literary expression.
As an academic tool post-colonialism became rather fashionable in various disciplines during the 1980’s. The cultural and literary perspectives of the colonized were adopted as the means to sensitize the Western academy to marginalized voices and perspectives and to question the dominant paradigms (colonial views). Key to understanding this project is their working assumption that knowledge is power, an idea popularized by French philosopher Michael Foucault. Foucault and post-colonial criticism sees colonial powers and dominate voices as establishing the rules by which knowledge is assessed, valued and defined. This process defines what counts as knowledge in such a way that marginalized, colonized claims to knowledge are discounted as myth, fancy or subversion. Creating such narrow (Western) definitions of what counts as knowledge is an act of power leading to the marginalization or persecution of alternative perspectives. As a criticism, post-colonialism allows for a leveling of the playing field in the realm of knowledge and understanding, in theory. The result was knowledge becames deeply political.
Now that the European and American powers are out of the colonizing business one would think that this post-colonial criticism would fade away, but two realities keep this perspective alive. First, there is now a concept of neo-colonialism. This idea holds that European, and mostly the United States, is creating a new form of colonialism that is economic in nature rather than primarily political. Instead of conquering new people groups and territory for direct political rule, the United States seeks, through use of policy and military muscle, economic relationships with other nations that benefit the economic structure of the US. The consequence for the Third World nation is a forming and orienting of their political and economic life around the needs and demands of the US, or neo-colonialism somewhat reminiscent of the mercantilism of the 18th century. Take for example Libya. Since Gadhafi surrendered his nuclear ambition in the last decade, the US has been supportive of his regime to keep Islamic radicalism at bay and oil flowing freely. The US economic interest in keeping Gadhafi in power has resulted in devastating reality for the people of his country, and after too much repression the Libyan people have finally had enough. Another example would be the policies of the US in support of extreme right wing governments in El Salvador in the 1980’s. On this subject see the film Romero.
Second, a question has been raised as to whether post-colonialism can include domestic “colonial” impulses and their effects. International post-colonial critics ask whether American Women’s studies, African-American studies and other minority studies in the university setting should be included in the post-colonial discussion. There are some international postcolonial professors that do not want to include the struggles of the American minorities in this discipline because their view on such struggles still involves a colonizing impulse as Americans, but it seems there is a broader consensus to include such voices in the postcolonial discipline.
Since post-colonialism began as a literary movement it was only a matter of time before it washed up upon the shores of the land of biblical studies. As a biblical discipline, post-colonialism seeks to grant voices of interpretation that have been hereto marginalized by the Western cultural domination of the biblical studies programs. It seeks to give attention to parts of the biblical text and narrative that have gone unnoticed or undeveloped as areas of study and reflection. This discipline of post-colonial biblical studies, in the history of ideas, is rather new and a developing phenomenon. Since Western culture is in the throws of a post-Christian era and the Third World is the new center of Christianity, post-colonialism criticism will not be going away any time soon. Therefore, any theological education must provide some interaction with these ideas, interpretations and hermeneutical understandings unless we as Western theologians are going to remain isolated in our Western Evangelical ghetto.
[1] R.S. Sugirtharajah, Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 13.
