This chapter is rather brief, and it is only tangentially related to post-colonial interpretation. The author provides a summary look at alternative readings of the biblical text utilized by the marginalized prior to the arrival of post-colonialism. There is not much to react to in this chapter as it is merely descriptive of some ways to use and read the biblical text in a culturally subversive manner.
Dissident readings were practiced by some of the colonialists themselves. Most known of this class is Bartolome de Las Casas, a Dominican friar, who took part of the Spanish colonization of South America. His writings are available online for free. They are very shocking in their explicit description of the Spanish treatment of the native Indians. Upon arriving in the new world and seeing how his fellow countrymen treated the native population. The biblical text then became the text by which to challenge the dominant reading of scripture available in his cultural context that were used to justify subjugation of the Indians. However, the native population was not involved in this theological discussion due to their illiteracy and lack of training, and, therefore, the dissident readings were strictly a product of the colonizers. The dissident readers held that Western cultural norms could blend easily with egalitarian impulses, never questioning the dominant rule of the West over non-western worlds.
Resistant readings were the production of the colonized, yet these readings did not repudiate colonial rule. Instead, these readings took the scriptures into their context, made them their own and used them against the West to critique their interaction with and treatment of the non-western cultures.
Heritagist readings were the attempt of the colonized to recovery their cultural memory by finding analogies with the biblical text and their past cultural texts (written or otherwise). They sought to interpret the Bible and their culture together in an inter-textual dance. Often these readings will look to prior cultural religious metaphors and mine them for pre-gospel nuggets, and then use their cultural metaphors to express the gospel rather then utilizing Hellenistic or Semitic metaphors. The goal of this type of reading is to recover from the cultural destruction that accompanies colonization.
Nationalistic readings were attempts by the formerly colonized to rebuild their culture in the early period after independence. The church operates in a mode of establishing egalitarian norms and leveling the playing field of those in power.
Liberationist readings were grounded in leftist politics. Gutierrez’s A Theology of Liberation made this type of reading popular. Given the context of a newly politically independent yet economically “enslaved” nation, this reading seeks to theologize from the point of praxis, desiring radical, systemic change to bring about real economic justice and opportunity. To see this reading in action rent Romero, a film about the archbishop of El Salvador that was assassinated by the right wing government at the time due to his increasingly critical remarks about government policies and their unjust impact upon the people of El Salvador.
Dissentient readings were from the marginalized in societies that were formerly colonies. These marginalized people criticized their governments for excluding or inappropriately limiting their involvement in the early periods of postcolonial rule. Typically, these marginalized people would find biblical apocalyptic literature to be of significant value. The book of Daniel especially with its focus on the vindication of the oppressed people of God as over the monstrous rulers of this earth was a favorite.
These various readings are not mutually exclusive and there is often over lapping between these methods of reading the biblical text. These readings are still found in a mission context and a Western context (even it is a reaction to), but post-colonial hermeneutics seeks to move beyond Christendom, placing biblical scholarship outside it usual Western, Enlightenment or Post-Enlightenment context.
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