Salvation in a Wounded World. Towards a Spectral Theology of Mission

Abstract

Abstract This article argues that there is a growing discrepancy between theological and critical approaches to mission: while critical mission studies have abandoned teleological frameworks for the narration of mission history, historico-theological teleologies still prove to be influential in theological conceptualizations of mission. As a result, there is a lack of theological language that can respond constructively to the interdisciplinary re-reading of mission history – mission theology is immunized from the interdisciplinary critique of mission history. Based on this diagnosis, this article asks what kind of theological approach can account for the complex entanglements of Christian knowledge production into the deadly politics of modern colonialism. Taking an interdisciplinary approach that intersects theology and postcolonial trauma studies, it investigates the narratives of decolonization that emerged around the recent renovation of the Afrika Museum in Brussels, Belgium, and develops from this analysis building blocks towards a ‘spectral theology.’