Thinking "Religion": The Christian Past and Interreligious Future of Religious Studies and Theology

The category “religion” is a tripartite, emergent from Christian theology during modernity, as Christianity increased, transcended, and diminished, and persistent in contemporary religious studies and Christian theology. With the postmodern and postcolonial “return of religion”: the tripartite category is located as a product of Eurocentric modern Christianity; Christianity is positioned as one religion among others; and religious studies engages religious traditions, including Christianity, in their particularities, rather than in terms of overarching (modernist) categories. Within Christian theology, while Christianity transcended persists in (pluralist) liberal theologies, religion is repudiated and (particularist) Christianity re-centered in its neo-orthodox strands. While the Eurocentic entwining of Christianity with western modernity unravels, Christianity re-centered looks to a Trinitarian core, differently appropriated in the diverse locations constituting World Christianity. The recent particularist focus of both religious studies and Christian theology opens a path toward greater cooperation between the two disciplines, beyond tensions arising from the Christian-infused tripartite

Review of Brent Nongbri 'Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept' (New Haven: Yale, 2013).

The review appreciates historian Nongbri's careful exposition of the emergence of the modern category 'religion and the religions', and his critique of its anachronistic application to premodern ethnic and civic customs, and Judaism, Hellenism, Christianity and then Islam. While the review acknowledges the significance of pluralist theologies that make use of the 'religion and the religions' paradigm for theological purposes, it puts into question the theological adequacy of placing Christianity as one religion among others. Rather religion in modernity can be analysed via a tripartite of Christianity diminished (secularism), Christianity transcended (religion cut loose from Christianity as 'religion and the religions') and Christianity increased (Christianity as ultimate destiny of all religions, and motor of the modern missionary movement). Postcolonial and postmodern conditions invite a fourth term of Christianity re-centred, which facilitates constant re-appropriation of Christian traditions and in consequence forms of traditioned interreligious encounter

Surveying the Landscape of Doctrinal Imagining

"“Christian doctrines” and “global gender justice” rarely appear together in the same sentence. For feminist theologians who imagine with doctrine, the heart-beat of feminist theology is a double outward and inward impetus in relation to received doctrinal traditions: on the one hand, an outward constructive impetus away from the core of regulatory orthodox doctrine in favour of its own unimpeded creative constructions; on the other, an inward trajectory in response to the “pull” exerted by doctrine, through insisting on the orthodoxy of creative imagining with doctrine. Global issues press on our creative imaginings as we grapple with our own received doctrines. Shaped by our past traditions as we in turn imagine their current and future form, we glimpse a Christian gospel of love and justice that has always been among “us”—the current gatherings of Christians throughout the history of our faith—even while western Christendom and other iterations of Christian faith have as often exacerbated the violence and injustice of the world. This band of constructive theologians keeps company with those who have caught a love of justice throughout Christian history then use it as the key for understanding their faith. White feminist theology is both enriched and diminished by dialogue with theologies of women of colour. Constructive theologies including the imaginings of Latina/mujerista, evangélica, womanist, and Asian American women deserve attention from all theologians, men as well as women.

Postcolonial theology of religions : particularity and pluralism in world Christianity

This original and ambitious book considers the terms of engagement between Christian theology and other religious traditions, beginning with criticism of Christian theology of religions as entangled with European colonial modernity. Jenny Daggers covers recent efforts to disentangle Eurocentrism from the meeting of the religions, and investigates new constructive possibilities arising in the postcolonial context. In dialogue with Asian and feminist theologies, she reflects on ways forward for relations between the religions and offers a particularist model for theology of religions, standing within a classical Trinitarian framework

Whose Salvation? A Very Particular Christian Question

This essay contends that a generic category of alternative salvations reflects a modern Euro-American colonizing and universalizing tendency. In contrast, 'salvation' may usefully be shrunk back to its context within the Western tradition of Christian theology. Within this local tradition understandings of salvation have been strongly contested. Renewed theologies of universal salvation have emerged in evangelical, Catholic and feminist theologies. Shrinking these theologies back to their local context facilitates dialogue between these traditioned voices and partners within world Christianity, interreligious encounter, and detraditioned secular Western groups. Such traditioned openness provides an alternative to the aggressive mission that arises from over-exuberant conviction of a dual destiny in the eschaton

Postcolonializing 'Mission-Shaped Church': the Church of England and Postcolonial Diversity

The chapter places in postcolonial perspective the current focus within the Church of England on 'mission-shaped Church' . The 2004 report which lends impetus to this priority within the Church takes no account of the transformation of British society through postcolonial communities of immigration. The implicit concern with re-evangelizing white Britain thus needs to be revisited within this broader perspective. Black British critique by David Isiorho and Mukti Barton is engaged to point up problematic white British racism within the Church of England. Isiorho and Barton highlight the need to decolonize the minds of white members of the Church of England and to embrace postcolonial diversity. These transformations need to inform an appropriate understanding of renewed mission in twenty-first century England