Obed Manwatkar, a PhD research scholar at Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology, and Sciences in Allahbad, India prepared this presentation to explore reconciliation within the caste system in India, where much of the population remains oppressed and excluded.
Rev. Lalitha prepared a presentation for the Stott-Bediako Forum that explores Postcolonialism, Peace Building, and Conflict Transformation in the context of India, a context in which native women experience a triple colonization based on race, caste, and gender. She explores some of the history of the realities of conflict faced by the indigenous communities in India, examples of resistance to forms of colonialism and caste oppression, and how Jesus’s movement provides a way forward in peace building and conflict transformation.
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.