Throughout the Stott-Bediako Forum, we’ve had opportunities to hear from indigenous brothers and sisters about the challenges and possibilities for peace building and conflict transformation in their contexts. One recommendation they offered was that of seeking and promoting indigenous Christian theology.
We interviewed Ruth Padilla DeBorst about her ideas on “North-South Partnership in God’s Mission: Joining Hands in the Construction of a Reconciliation Politics.” In this episode, we chat with Ruth about her work, who she has learned from, how colonialism impacts the way we read the Bible, and how differing narratives or interpretations of Scripture can help us on the path to peacebuilding and conflict transformation.
We interviewed Al Tizon about his journey in peacebuilding. Al weaves together his story of rediscovering his own culture during his work in the Philippines with his thoughts on the integration of justice and peacebuilding. He also shares his thoughts on healing through memories and the importance of lament in our church communities.
We interviewed Jocabed Solano (Guna) about her journey as an indigenous Guna theologian and the concepts and practices of reconciliation that exist among her people.
We interviewed Benita Simón Mendoza (Maya Kaqchikel) and Ismael Conchacala Gil (Wiwa) about the concepts and experiences, and steps toward reconciliation in their communities.
Abdiel Espinoza offers a selection of poems, with the goal of bringing to light the individual and collective experience of those who, based on their experience of the Gospel and the Mission of God, build peace and are agents of transformation in their communities on the margins of society.
Historians have held that colonialism and Western missionary enterprise were two distinct and unrelated entries to pre-colonial Kenya. How then did Christianity for decades live side by side with colonialism? I content that Colonialism could not have been possible without Christianity. The impact of that unholy relationship is felt and sustained in contemporary forms of violence.
Universities are, at their core, projects of capitalist dominance and Euro-American thought. They, even those that seek to champion indigeneity, can be complicit in research models, knowledge production and curation, pedagogy, and education that can perpetuate colonialist tendencies.
Tony Deik summarizes and reflects on the points raised in the initial sessions of the Stott-Bediako Forum on Peace Building and Conflict Transformation from a lens of Postcolonialism and Indigenous Christianity.
In this interview for the Stott-Bediako Forum, Julián Guamán and Peter Wigginton share stories from the Kichwa-Andean worldview that demonstrate co-existence between cultures. The Kichwa-Andean creation care narrative provides an example of how to work towards peace.