State Sovereignty, God's Sovereignty, and Native Sovereignty : The Political Theology of Making New Borders

Abstract

This critical review essay provides a substantive comparison for the struggles of indigenous peoples without their sovereignty by analyzing and critically comparing the political theology of George Tinker and Naim Ateek. By evaluating the theological reflection from Tinker and Ateek, in dealing with suffering from dislocation and occupation of the native peoples by Westerners and Zionists, this paper stresses the importance of the socio-political values of liberation theology for the expelled people from their own land, offering a new, politically sensitive approach to the notion of sovereignty. The ideas presented by Ateek and Tinker offer important resources for conceptualizing the sovereignty of indigenous communities. This comparative study considers two questions: First, what alternative notion of state sovereignty might engage, in context, religious values as an alternative to the modern system of nation-state (the Westphalian system) built on political realism and global power politics? Second, which political theology provides the notion of indigenous sovereignty critically evaluating today's nation-state system built on the notion of utipossedetis and ethnic inequalities. These questions are considered by a study of the theological meanings of modern state sovereignty systems, as compared to God's sovereignty for all people and an entire creation as the realm of God. The answers to both questions offer an alternative to current, modern nationalism.