Caribbean Contextual Theology


Book Description

Caribbean Contextual Theology introduces readers to the robust theological conversations taking place in the Caribbean region since the early 1970s, and the region’s key theologians and texts. Attempting to bring a contextual theological gaze to what is a fascinating and often understated context, it offers readers an introduction to the unique and important contribution that a Caribbean theological lens can bring to the broader theological landscape.




Theologising Brexit


Book Description

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the theological challenge presented by the new post-Brexit epoch. The referendum vote for Britain to leave the European Union has led to a seismic shift in the ways in which parts of the British population view and judge their compatriots. The subsequent rise in the reported number of racially motivated incidents and the climate of vilification and negativity directed at anyone not viewed as ‘authentically’ British should be a matter of concern for all people. The book is comprised of a series of essays that address varying aspects of what it means to be British and the ways in which churches in Britain and the Christian faith could and should respond to a rising tide of White English nationalism. It is a provocative challenge to the all too often tolerated xenophobia, as well as the paucity of response from many church leaders in the UK. This critique is offered via the means of a prophetic, postcolonial model of Black theology that challenges the incipient sense of White entitlement and parochial ‘nativism’ that pervaded much of the referendum debate. The essays in this book challenge the church and wider society to ensure justice and equity for all, not just a privileged sense of entitlement for some. It will be of keen interest to any scholar of Black, political and liberation theology as well as those involved in cultural studies from a postcolonial perspective.




Righting Her-story


Book Description




Feminist Biblical Studies in the Twentieth Century


Book Description

Chart the development of feminist approaches and theories of interpretation during the period when women first joined the ranks of biblical scholars This collection of essays on feminist biblical studies in the twentieth century seeks to explore four areas of inquiry demanding further investigation. In the first section, articles chart the beginnings and developments of feminist biblical studies as a conversation among feminists around the world. The second section introduces, reviews, and discusses the hermeneutic religious spaces created by feminist biblical studies. The third segment discusses academic methods of reading and interpretation that dismantle androcentric language and kyriarchal authority. The fourth section returns to the first with work that transgresses academic boundaries in order to exemplify the transforming, inspiring, and institutionalizing feminist work that has been and is being done to change religious mindsets of domination and to enable wo/men to engage in critical readings of the Bible. Features: Essays examine the rupture or break in the malestream reception history of the Bible Exploration of the term feminism in different social-cultural and theoretical-religious locations Authors from around the world present research and future directions for research challenging the next generation of feminist interpreters




Caribbean Theology


Book Description

Five full years before the momentous meeting of EATWOT in Dar-es-Salaam in 1976, Caribbean thinkers had met in Trinidad to register the region's need of a contextual theology. Caribbean Theology scrutinizes the gradual but crucial development of theology within the context of the Caribbean since 1971. It examines the charge that the gradualness of the process is due to the insidiousness of missionary theology from which Caribbean theology seeks disengagement. The book further assesses the viability of this indigenization by drawing its many seminal and abridged offerings for interpretation and serious reflection into a systematic whole.




Biblical Resistance Hermeneutics within a Caribbean Context


Book Description

The Bible is of central importance within Caribbean life but is rarely used as an agent for social change. Caribbean biblical hermeneutics focus more on the meaning of biblical texts for today and less on the context in which the texts themselves were written. 'Biblical Resistance Hermeneutics within a Caribbean Context' offers a biblical hermeneutic that acknowledges the importance of the socio-ideological interests, theological agendas, and social practices that produced the biblical texts, as well as the socio-cultural context of the contemporary reader. The book examines the social context of post-independence Caribbean and outlines the difficulties of biblical interpretation within Christian communities that descend from a history of slavery. Current hermeneutical practices in the Caribbean are critiqued and a biblical resistant reading offered that enables the Bible to be used as a cultural weapon of resistance.




Latina/o/x Studies and Biblical Studies


Book Description

In Latina/o/x Studies and Biblical Studies Jacqueline M. Hidalgo introduces Latina/o/x studies for a biblical studies audience. She examines crucial themes that bridge the two fields, themes such as identity and difference with special attention to ethnicity and race; migration with attention to homing, diaspora, transnationalism, and citizenship. She discusses the place of Latina/o/x studies in relevant Hebrew Bible and New Testament scholarship on these topics. Ultimately this essay argues that Latina/o/x studies’ epistemological commitments to complexity, relationality, particularity, and collaborative knowledge-making can help ground critical interpretive approaches in biblical studies. She also imagines a way in which biblical studies—capaciously encompassing the study of Jewish and Christian literature in the ancient world as well as Jewish and Christian biblical reception and rejection histories, and the very category of scriptures more broadly—could deepen Latina/o/x studies' own thinking about canon formation and history.




Black Theology, Slavery and Contemporary Christianity


Book Description

Black Theology, Slavery and Contemporary Christianity explores the legacy of slavery in Black theological terms. Challenging the dominant approaches to the history and legacy of slavery in the British Empire, the contributors show that although the 1807 act abolished the slave trade, it did not end racism, notions of White supremacy, or the demonization of Blackness, Black people and Africa. This interdisciplinary study draws on biblical studies, history, missiology and Black theological reflection, exploring the strengths and limitations of faith as the framework for abolitionist rhetoric and action. This Black theological approach to the phenomenon of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the institution of slavery draws on contributions from Africa, the Caribbean, North America and Europe.




Overcoming Self-Negation


Book Description

Bearing in mind the complex and multiple legacies of slavery and colonialism, particularly as they present themselves in the African Caribbean, Turner addresses what he sees as a fundamental but underexplored phenomenon: Self-Negation. He defines this as the tendency for persons living in the aftermath of slavery and colonialism to "not" like themselves, or to live with a dissonance in their identity. This problem is particularly seen in the relationship between the Church and African indigenous religious heritages within the region. Using the Bahamas as the site for qualitative research and theological reflection, he explores the complex relationship between the Church and Junkanoo, an African Caribbean street festival. Whilst Bahamians eagerly participate in both spheres, it is the common belief that Church is sacred and Junkanoo is secular, and the two should never mix. Turner theorizes that the theological root of the issue is the kinds of colonial hermeneutics that still inform church and cultural practices. Whilst Self-Negation is perpetuated by a hermeneutic of dichotomy, Turner proposes a counter, a hermeneutic of embrace, that takes African indigenous cultural heritages seriously and brings wholeness to the kinds of religious and cultural identities within postcolonial and post-slavery societies.




Questioning Empowerment


Book Description

Focusing on the term empowerment this book examines the various meanings given to the concept of empowerment and the many ways power can be expressed - in personal relationships and in wider social interactions.