The post-colonial church
Three speakers. I am summarizing their comments as best I can keep up.
Ray Aldridge is pastor of a native church, and a member of the Cree Nation. He is a PhD. candidate.
Canada, where Ray is from, had boarding schools for natives until 1984. They are about to apologize for this, but the damage goes way beyond those who attended the schools.
Colonialism destroys relationship, for ALL involved.
The church participated with the government in this movement that attempted to “Kill the savage, and save the child.” There was often sexual abuse in this process.
The first hurt relationship hurt by colonialism is people to people.
The second is the relationship between people and their land.
Finally, because people thought that Natives were morally bankrupt and considered their spirituality demonic and/or a curiosity to be studied, relationship with God has been hurt.
The good news? We are now post-colonial. We are a church that is leaving this reality.
Ruth Padilla is a missiologist with experience in holistic ministry in South America.
A pastor in San Salvador is saying that Jesus is the only one who will save them, and he will not endorse or support the government. The President is upset that he will neither endorse him not shake his hand. Mario Vega is the first of many pastors like this. His life is at risk.
The powers that be are challenged, not with weapons, but with Spirit. They stand outside the framework, critique it, and work for its re-creation.
This stance, of humble, public confession, is NECESSARY for ALL post-colonial followers of Jesus.
In the rear or on the edge of every catholic church in every Catholic church there is a confessional. There’s nothing wrong with confession–we have to do it. However, the danger is that in this tradition, confession is private and personal. It does not engage the community.
It’s not just Catholics that do confession badly. Evangelicals and Protestants tend to “sacramentalize” it into a ritual that isolates it from community. The ritual can be performed, and life goes on as usual.
It is gutless, and it does not bring healing.
But what does Isaiah say? “Whoa is me! I am ruined. I am a man of unclean lips, and live among a people of unclean lips.”
Only after Isaiah has made this confession, can he call on his people, to live according to God’s rule.
What would this look like today?
Perhaps Christians need to confess that we have made God to small, and ourselves far too big.
We’ve made God in our image.
We’ve reduced God’s holiness to “chummy budiness.”
Perhaps white Christians need to confess that our privelidge and success is built on the backs of people that we have taken hostage for our advancement, all while saying “in God we trust.”
Others need to confess that anger and revenge are never far from our hearts.
Perhaps we need to confess that we think we have it all figured out, and just leave it up to the rest of the world to change it.
God, forgive us, for we know not what we do. Or we know all too well, but find it too costly to change.
Only God’s love can crack these barriers.
Our work for justice, sharing of God’s steadfast love, runs the risk of being co-opted, unless we learn to walk in humble, and public confession before our Lord.
Brian McLaren is an author, speaker, and pastor. Check out brianmclaren.com to read more about him. (I am a fan of his books)
Post-modernism is one side of the coin. Post-colonial is the other side. If we talk about post-modernism only, we will perpetuate colonialism. (And that’s when things get interesting)
McLaren’s grandfather was a missionary to Angola. He was trained in emergency medical procedures.
The worst memory of Brian’s uncle was when they used his father’s lawn to round up the debtors of the town, tie them to the post of the house’s porch, and whip them.
Brian’s uncle watched this happen. His playmates fathers were weeping.
He asked his father, the missionary, “Why are you letting this happen?”
But if he spoke up, he would be ejected, and wouldn’t be able to save souls for heaven.
There are no easy answers. But like Brian’s uncle. We have to cry out.
All of this history is tied up in the word, “Christian.” This is what it means to be post-colonial.
It would be convenient to say that they had the right orthodoxy, but they practiced it wrong. But that would continue colonialism.
We may not be post-colonial. We may still be in an era of American colonialism. Or of corpotocracy. Just as nations created colonialism, now corporations act.
This is a story about Africa, about North America. About the slave trade, and about manifest destiny.
What if what we call “orthodox Christianity” is really a version of Western, imperial Christianity that has been largely co-opted by Greco-Roman philosophy and power structures?
What if we backed away from gnosticism and into another kind of syncritism? What if orthodoxy isn’t something in the past, to be preserved or re-claimed, but is something in the future that we are reaching for?