Doing Theology in the Postcolonial Context: Issues and Problems

Abstract

In much contemporary postcolonial theory, “religion” is considered to be a separate matter from political theory. The issues of most concern to postcolonial theorists—identity, ethics, and peaceable coexistence or nonviolence—however, are questions that have deeply religious and theological dimensions. The three postcolonial theorists that we will examine in this study: Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Ashis Nandy treat religion in the predictable manner of their post-Enlightenment heritage. Of the three, Ashis Nandy is far more acknowledging of the intertwining of religion and politics but avoids articulating any committed theology to accompany his quasi-spiritual retrieval of nonviolence. The issues of identity, ethics, and peaceable coexistence are particularly important questions for the twenty-first century: who we are and how we live with each other encapsulate the intertwined nature of the problem. I believe that postcolonial theorists in addressing these questions fail to look at the whole picture since the questions have religious and theological overtones.KeywordsReligious IdentityHuman FreedomPeaceable CoexistenceLiberation TheologyPostcolonial TheoryThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.