From the perspective of political theology, the presence of Indigenous peoples and settlers shaped by historical and ongoing settler colonial relations raises important political and religious questions about the possibilities and conditions of sovereign Indigenous existence and the (im)possibities and conditions of restorative or reconciled settler futures.
“Your clay is the clay of some Litvak shtetl, your air is the air of the steppes.”
Perhaps the tension between honest reading and creative liberatory “misinterpretation” should not be solved at all but rather retained as an unsettling force in our work.
“Dreams come true, in fantasy novels and in prophecy”
The following post contains information that may be of interest for those attending AAR/SBL in San Antonio this year.
“In his struggle against European and American imperialism, and even the post-colonial Pahlavi regime, he believed that the way to liberate oneself and one’s society is to turn inward towards the collective experiences that build a moral heritage of a culture.”
The third slave, as truth-teller and whistle-blower, validates what Jesus’ listeners know about their reality. They know that the deck is stacked against them, if they choose to buck the system.
“How might my child and I leverage the love of our family and ourselves to promote decoloniality that resists anti-Indigeneity with the persistent, sometimes subtle, power of Indigenous aunties?”
“I was only imagining it. Being freed.”
Pope Francis proclaims: “There was a time, even in our churches, when people spoke of a holy war or a just war. Today we cannot speak in this manner.” Yet, we can and have been invited by Francis and others to speak in the manner of centering nonviolence.
Choosing God, choosing lands, and choosing the peoples one lives with, both then and now, is no easy task. Nevertheless, the good news, while not always easy or comforting, is that the borders of our identities and lands have always been permeable. Could that be our embodied witness?