Edward Said points to the interconnected nature of culture and imperialism.[1] Imperial pursuits also seek to exercise dominion over intellectual and cultural production. Christian theologies and biblical studies are not exempt from complicity in the imperial hermeneutics and interpretations of Western thought. If theology comprises part of the cultural milieu, it also must be re-examined for its role in sustaining colonizing impulses. Behind every occupation, invasion, and genocide there was an implicit or explicit supporting ideology. In every imperial age lurks the temptation to synthesize the divine with the ruling power. The acquisition of unparalleled global power brings with it the twain threats of unchecked global domination with ideological and theological concomitants. This has been true of empires throughout history. These imperial ideologies were supported by philosophical or theological assumptions that provided a rationale for the actions of these colonizing regimes. Sadly, theology has sometimes served as a primary ally of imperial ambitions.
The promises and challenges of postcolonial discourse to biblical scholarship and theology are several. First, it is a hermeneutical lens and locus theologicus that puts the imperial-colonial relationships at the center of interpretation. The West and global North, as contemporary ideologic seats of power, claim lordship not just over knowledge and doctrine but over life itself. The decolonial project must critically examine the ways we are Church, read Scripture, and do theology in light of the new emerging seats of interpretations and the continuing liberative character and work of the Holy Spirit. The question that must immediately follow is; How do our biblical interpretations, theological reflections, and praxis contribute to or hinder the human flourishing and the stewardship of creation?
The increasing dominance of smaller groups of power throughout the world is a clear mandate for decolonial pneumatology and hermeneutics[2] that nurture alternative lenses to those which neglect a holistic and comprehensive pneumatology. Resisting and re-framing hostile imperial narratives is part of what theologians are called to do. Decolonial theologies and hermeneutics can chart a new way forward. Decolonial theologians can garner insights from prophetic theologians and hermeneuts that posit searing critiques for practices within their context that lead to colonization or neo-colonization. Liberative pneumatological reflection ought to, as Walter Brueggemann states, “nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.”[3]
[1] Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism, (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1994)
[2] Of course, I concur with the dictum “all theology is political.”
[3] Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), 13