Reading through new eyes: post-colonial theology

Catholic New Times, Jan 16, 2005 by Greene Anne Wenh-In Ng

Editor's note: An exciting new strand in theology is called "post-colonial." Its major thinkers are Musa Dube of Botswana, Laura Donaldson of the former U.S.S.R.'s Sugirtharajah of the U.K. and Greer Anne Wenh-in Ng of Toronto.

This excerpt is taken with permission from a longer article in "Making Waves," the magazine of the Women's Interchurch Council of Canada. www.wicc.org

We need feminist, postcolonial interpretation of the Bible first and foremost because of the Bible's centrality in the church's life--in worship, Christian formation, ethics, pastoral ministry and social ministry.

After a long history of colonialism throughout the world and in the Americas, as long as Christians continue to read the Bible through the eyes of the winners, that is, through the eyes of those who told the stories believing God was on their side, we run the danger of maintaining a "conquest" mentality and perpetuating imperialistic attitudes, attitudes that often result in racist behaviours.

What is required therefore is to recognize that the Bible itself, and the way it has been interpreted in the West, have often made it an "imperialist text," complicit in the history of Western expansion.

We require a "paradigm shift," even a Copernican revolution, in the way we read the sacred texts, so as to uncover their unconscious colonial biases and bring to light their ambivalent and contradictory nature.

Scripture can oppress as well as liberate. Feminist scholars have long pointed this out, with the aim of arriving at fresh understandings that "decolonize." An even newer theological perspective, called "post-colonial" reading, begins with that assumption and adds another.

Chronologically, "post-colonial" refers to the period in world history after the colonies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America recovered their independence from various European powers under which they had been ruled from the sixteenth century until the 1950s and 1960s (India in 1946).

"Post-colonial" theology recognizes that, although colonialism has come to a formal end, its practice is very much alive, through economic domination, for instance.

Hence a "post-colonial" reading advocates an oppositional stance, one that intentionally adopts a position of resistance in approaching familiar stories "from the other side," the losing side, the voices that were not heard, the incidents that were never recorded.

Taking such a position from the underside forces us to see things from the side of the conquered/colonized. It encourages us to think about what is needed for their emancipation. We must also recognize the patriarchal tendencies of the text and ask questions about the way women are treated (for example, daughters and wives as the property of men of authority in their families).

Such a reading invites feminist interpreters to recognize the patriarchal and imperialist tendencies in the text, and take seriously the way women, men, and children have been treated as inferior.

Post colonial feminist reading practice

We can take an alternative look at the well-known biblical stories: the entry into Canaan in Israel's early history. We can read it as the conquerors or as the or conquered. (Josh 1-6)

Experiencing the story as Israelites: Most of us probably have been taught this part of Israel's history as "entry into the promised land." Readers have unconsciously experienced it as "Israelites" (Christians as the new Israel). The land "overflowing with milk and honey" was there to be taken, because Yahweh promised it to Israel/us.

We have rejoiced at the miraculous fall of Jericho as a sign of God's siding with Israel/us. Such unconscious identification can lead to a mentality of conquest, with God on our side.

Such attitudes probably informed those who set foot on the Americas from 1492 onwards, concluding with the period of colonial expansion in the 19th century which, curiously--or perhaps not so curiously--coincided with the greatest period of missionary activity.

According to Botswanan Bible scholar Musa Dube. this story may also be seen as the original paradigm of violent entry and domestication of foreign lands and people. Dube characterizes this apparently God-sanctioned expansionist model from Europe as a conquest for "God, gold and glory."

Reading the story as Canaanites

But the land was already inhabited, by the Canaanites who produced the milk and honey. If we put ourselves in the place of the original inhabitants, we have a taste of what indigenous peoples the world over must feel when they read in Joshua 6:11, "Then they devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys."

Genocide condoned, no less.

Rahab's choice: prudence or betrayal?

The entry's success depended much on the collusion of the Canaanite, Rahab, with the two spies (Josh. 2, 6:22-25). Traditionally, Rahab has won approval because of her choice to side with Yahweh's people.

From the perspective of the Canaanites, however, she was a traitor who betrayed the city and her country. Rahab is a victim as well. A woman and a prostitute, not only was she used as an object, she also represented a point of vulnerability that allowed the enemy to enter.