In his blog on the piece by Mbuwayesango, Joel, brings up a point that I feel needs further discussion, that of the confusion surrounding the adoption of native terminology (some of which is rooted in native religion) by christians in attempts to articulate their faith within a culture. I agree with Joel that the problem is not inherent in the word itself, nor in the adoption of the word by Christians in hopes to relevant articulate the gospel. The problem is instead attempting to wade through the trappings of the culture that have been applied to particular terminology. This fear should not keep us as Christians from using language and terminology that is already familiar to particular peoples to articulate our faith, which I might, we believe is already rooted dormantly in their culture. The goals of reclamation, whether it be of language or otherwise, should always be the “kingdom work” of churches and christians, no matter the culture we find ourselves in. The difficulties arise in our attempts to abandon the deeply rooted ideas that we must “take God” particular places, and instead we merely have to affirm God’s presence already existing within a particular community. It is this goal and drive that should motivate us as Christians to reclaim not only language, but other cultural practices that were once lost in the secular/spiritual split, and to again reaffirm them in light of God’s already existent presence. This belief forces us to abandon our insecurities and apologetic abilities, and instead frees us to go within cultures ignorant of the concept of God and reclaim peoples and activities that are already extremely familiar with God’s kingdom practices without being fully aware that they are. This is not only liberating for others, it also becomes liberating for us who are trying to remember every step of the “Roman road”.

In his blog on a resistance reading of John 5 by Huie-Jolly, Barry, comments that if Jesus is “the way” and if the Bible is true, how do these things create outsiders, and if outsiders are created then isn’t that just God’s perrogative? I would agree that postcolonial biblical criticism many times asks the text to do much more than it probably should. Taking a field of study that began in the 1970s and using it to analyze a text from an Ancient Near Eastern gospel author, and critiquing that author for his/her inability to write with a 20th century framework is not only irresponsible from a scholarly perspective, its simply incorrect. Barry I think you have your heart in the right place when you are arguing for divine inspiration and the inerrancy of scripture, I also believe in those tenets, but when making a scholarly argument, or merely responding to biblical criticism, what we must keep in mind is the perspective of the one critiquing. To flippantly respond with “of course the Bible is divinely inspired” of course “God can create outsiders, do whatever he wants” of course “John is presenting an unquestioned argument about the divinity of Jesus”.
If we as Christians are hoping to be able to meet and debate Biblical criticism what we must first do is remove our emotions from the secular critique of scripture. I realize this is difficult, but when we use clear argument and dialogue, without compromising our faith, and when we respond in love to bitter questioning (instead of anger and defensivity) what we discover is that even if our answers are ultimately the same, the one who is criticizing hears them much differently. In reality, when we respond to biblical criticism defensively, and we appear to guard the secrets of our faith by marking certain areas as non-negotiable, what we are really saying to those who do not share our beliefs is, “If you question this, you may find out that what I believe isn’t true, so don’t question the bible to that degree…” but if we are strong enough in our faith to simply stand by our beliefs, in the face of evolution, biblical criticism, what have you, etc. We discover that our faith was never based upon a certain reading of scripture, but rather an authentic encounter with the resurrected Christ attested to in scripture…

In his blog on Liew’s argument and discussion of pro-imperialist rhetoric in the Gospel of Mark, Terry, brings up a very important point about the desires of Liew. Stating that Liew misunderstands the message and intention of both the gospel authors as well as Jesus, simply because it is the goal of both to usher in a new kingdom where God’s reign is both sovereign and un-ending. For Liew this appears unacceptable, but for almost all individuals living in the Ancient Near East, especially those within the Jewish diaspora, a sovereign and unending reign by God is what they had hoped and dreamed for throughout their exilic situation and oppression. The inability of Liew to grasp this desire for kingdom comes out of his own understanding of this language. Instead of rooting himself within a narrative of kingdom language both within ancient and 1st century Judaism, but also within the early christian church, he has chosen to bring to the text a 21st century understanding of kingdom and egalitarianism. Thus is the great difficulty in communicating a “kingdom” of equality, justice, peace, and love to those who carry with this term a great degree of baggage, but this is the way of Jesus, to reclaim that which has been lost, misunderstood, and hijacked by hegemonic power, and to restore it to its original intention. While Liew may believe that the author of Mark is quite backwards and regressive in his interpretation of kingdom language, what he misunderstands is that within his first century context Mark’s kingdom ideas, vis-a-vis Jesus, were the most progressive ideas the world, at that time, had seen. Jesus always calls us to a higher plane of consciousness/living, no matter the context we find ourselves within.

In her blog, Caroline discusses the ideas of Latvus in the discussion on the Decolonization of Yahweh. Her central point addresses Latvus’ characterization of Yahweh as a God formerly on the side of the marginalized and oppressed, but who is now on the side of the oppressors and the subjugators. This, I believe, is an unfair analyzation of how the OT should be read, as well as the Israelite understanding of their activities and the subsequent consequences of their actions. The nation of Israel was not confused as why to they were in exile, as to why they were separated, and as to why they were experiencing hardship. They knew that there were consequences for their actions, and as Caroline put, a God who is inconsistent in promises and consequences presents a much more startling picture of God, than one who has a clear perrogative and mission as well as consistent consequences. This brings up a much larger issue, and one that has been grappled with by Christians and non-Christians alike, which is how can a God, who is supposedly loving, be in control of world consumed with violence, death, and injustice? A scarier question, I believe, would be what do we do if there is nothing in control of life? What can we make of life if all decisions, actvities, and hardships are not under the control of a Divine Other, but are merely left up to chance? This is not an apologetic, but rather a belief in a God who fulfills and keeps promises, a God that is consistent in activity, blessing, as well as consequence.

In his discussion of Lamming’s piece on “Colonialism and the Caribbean Novel”, Joel, brings up the inherent effects of the plague-like spread of American capitalism, as manifested through the actions of Brazilian travel and buying patterns. In his statements, echoing those of Lamming, Joel attacks the American economic system, as well as crowning it the embodiment of all that is captilization and globalization. I think in this framework he is right on the unfortunate aspects of “the race to the bottom”, as well as the McDonaldizing effects of American capitalism, but to ascribe all blame on the American economic system is not only short-sighted, but it ignores several of the issues that continue to perpetuate the spread of capitalist globalization.
The issues that continue to be ignored are the lowering of standards, by countries such as Brazil, to try and generate not only American markets, but corporations and factories as well. The corporations realize the benefit to extending business where the restrictions are the lowest, ultimately resulting in a used up Brazilian economy and government forced to protect its people and landscape by eventually raising restrictions, only to discover there is another 2/3rds world ready to compete…for the bottom. Ultimately the problems are two-fold for these issues, America and the 1st world must examine debt allievation and regulations for multi-nationals, while the 2/3rds world must not sacrifice its people and its environment to attempt to generate multi-national business. Money is the plague…America is merely a warm body.

In his blog on Fuellenbach’s chapter on the Church and its role as or within the Kingdom of God, Terry states that the Kingdom of God should not be closely identified with the Church because of its “politics and corruption”. This is an unfortunate problem that the Church has been dealing with over the past few decades as we have seen increased attitudes of anger and skepticism regarding the Church and its role in society. To combat this epidemic, according to Terry, we must remove the idea of “Kingdom” from the idea of Church. I think this is an incorrect reading not only of Fuellenbach, but of Scripture as well. If we look back to the Old Testament we see that in God’s choosing of the Israelite nation as his “kingdom of priests” to reveal his invisible and innate qualities to the world, and we continue to see this promise acted out throughout the rest of scripture including the Jesus movement and the start of the Early Church. What we see is that God has always chosen to use broken and dirty people to reveal the message of who he is, and because of this people who are outside of God’s present reality can catch a glimpse of Him in the lives of those who look remarkably similar to them. Ultimately my main question goes back to this dissolving the link between Church and Kingdom because of the inabilities of people to be perfect. If we dissolve this link because we want people, who I might add have no idea or knowledge of this “eschatalogical Kingdom”, to look toward the true coming Kingdom of God what can we show them of this Kingdom now? What do we have to point to, aside from a book that they may, or may not ascribe authority to? The Church, even in its incomplete way, is God’s way of using people to reveal Himself to other people. If we dissolve this link, can we accomplish the will of Him who inaugurated it?

In his blog Terry comments that in Berquist’s piece on Postcolonialism and Imperial Motives for Canonization, the main reasoning behind Jewish support for imperial friendly canonized texts is their desire to make sense of and place their current situation within a larger framework of the movement of God. I would strongly agree with this idea, I think that Berquist’s ideas on the role of Canon as continued subjugation is probably reading far too much into the writers of Jewish canon. I think a stronger and more consistent reading of Ancient Near-Eastern texts within Jewish canon is to place them in the larger framework of their beliefs in God, his covenant with them, and their position in society. To assume that Jewish writers were influenced mostly by the current Empire they were under is ignoring the fact that as the chosen people of Yahweh there is going to be a necessity to make sense of their current position, outside the influence of Empire. It is of the utmost importance to place any rule with which the Jews find themselves as God-allowed (ordained is too strong of a word) because for them to believe that things can ocurr outside the sphere of God’s control is to contradict thousands of years of Jewish history.

In his blog on the effectiveness of Chaterjee’s piece on the continued subjugation of women within a post-colonial liberation movement Josh brings up a very valid and well put point, in stating that even within a movement of liberation there is a new institution of patriarchy. In my reading of Josh’s blog as well as the Chaterjee article my thoughts can’t help but be drawn to the fact that within a religion of freedom (Christianity) we still use our morals, theories, and scriptures to subjugate and oppress not only women, but so many other groups. A similar parallel continues as we think about the self-definition of Christians, and how it is based not upon what we are but rather what we are not (homosexual, abortionists, etc.).
As Josh points out this logic was also used by the Nationalists to subjugate women, through the use of both “western-women” and “lower class women” to keep the new “middle class women” of India trapped within the home and the correct identity of a traditional, nationalist women. These points by Josh raise other questions on how we are identifying ourselves as Christians, and how we are encouraging others to identify us.

In her blog, Brianna, appears to disagree with many of the viewpoints that surfaced in Fuellenbach’s chapter on Jesus and the Church. She correctly brings up that Jesus does in fact found his church on the rock of Peter, and that Paul believes that Jesus’ intentions were to in fact, “die for the Church”. I would agree with this point. I see in the Gospel of John where Jesus commands Peter to “feed his sheep”, in my opinion, a reference to Peter’s role as steward and facilitator of church after Jesus’ ascension. I would also go so far as to assert that Yahweh’s choosing the nation of Israel, bringing them out of Egypt, and establishing them as “a kingdom of priests”, which, if we analyze what exactly a priest is, is an obvious reference to their role as a signpost to the divine.

If we view Jesus’ role in the restoration and revitilization of the nation of Israel, and his subsequent destruction of their cultural barriers to include in all people (ie Gentiles), then what we really have to grapple with is the discussion of whether or not Jesus viewed this as establishing “a church” or a structure. I think this is probably a moot point (as I think Brianna would agree), and is representative of what many biblical scholars and seminary students spend their time arguing over, the nuance of language. If we put our microscopes away long enough to see the bigger picture of God in narrative scripture what I think we will find is not the institution of Church that we have created today (due to our fallen natures), but I think what we will find is a group of people, living, working, breathing, and worshipping together…and in doing this, pointing to something greater than themselves. Whether or not you want to call this church doesn’t really change what it is…a representation of God in the world.

I would like to take a moment and comment on some of the thoughts that John has brought to light regarding the Segovia piece. I resonate with John on the idea that it is indeed liberating that the Bible functions for both the colonized and the colonizer. I think this is something that would serve us well to keep in mind as we examine the Westernized and antiquated ways in which we have tried to missionally engage the 2/3rds World. Do I believe that a strong look needs to be taken at how we are presenting the gospel to the “other”, and if this presentation that we have been engaging in is at all affective. Yes, this is extremely important and necessary. But to propose that we should cease all missional engagement outside the West for the sake of examining our methods is probably a bit too drastic…this of course is assuming that no matter what extent we take in our study of missional methods they will always be flawed, always be culturally biased, and always imperfect. To simply wait and hope that we can eliminate the things that are deeply ingrained into our persons is something I think we can ill afford to do in the Christian community. It is my opinion (quite humbly!) that one of the things that makes the gospel so attractive is that God is interested not in using perfect vessels…but changing vessels. Is change needed…. yes, I think that’s obvious. Is cessation of missional activities needed…no, I think that’s contrary to the message of Jesus who equipped imperfect/culturally biased/somewhat dense fishermen with a perfect message. It’s a work in progress, but progress is key. I appreciate John’s thoughts on change, but I think this step is a bit too much.