Abstract
This chapter argues that in ecclesiology, deimperialization is a necessary condition to decolonization. It makes the argument by resourcing the wisdom of Augustine of Hippo, Johann Baptist Metz, and Kuan-Hsing Chen. The chapter demonstrates first that deimperialization allows for the recognition of non-dominant ecclesiological spaces and practices, recognizing that the operative categories of oppressor/oppressed, colonized/colonizer, ignore how most people occupy liminal spaces between those categories. Second, it argues that deimperialization’s facilitation of pluriformity—or, what Chen calls, “critical syncretism”—encourages a humble disposition by recovering the church’s liminality, which positions Christians to remember dangerous memories within our home traditions and memories shared by all Christians. This facilitates the continuing decolonization of churches marginalizing and dehumanizing ways of thinking and being in the world. The presentation concludes with an analysis from a decolonial perspective on the Presbyterian Church’s (U.S.A.) proposal in its 2022 General Assembly to write a new confession.
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Notes
- 1.
See Ben Blanchard and Ralph Jennings, “Costa Rica switches allegiance to China from Taiwan,” Reuters, June 6, 2007, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-costarica/costa-rica-switches-allegiance-to-china-from-taiwan-idUSPEK14344320070607.
- 2.
See “$10 million donation from China to fund National Stadium improvements,” The Tico Times, February 17, 2020, https://ticotimes.net/2020/02/17/10-million-donation-from-china-to-fund-national-stadium-improvements. For a political-architectural analysis, see Valeria Guzmán Verri, “Gifting Architecture: China and the National Stadium in Costa Rica, 2007–11,” Architectural History 63 (2020): 287–311. https://doi.org/10.1017/arh.2020.7.
- 3.
See “Pakistan owes USD 10 billion debt to China for Gwadar port, other projects: Top US General,” The Economic Times, Mar. 15, 2019, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/business/pakistan-owes-usd-10-billion-debt-to-china-for-gwadar-port-other-projects-top-us-general/articleshow/68432415.cms.
- 4.
Abel Kinyondo, “Is China Recolonizing Africa? Some Views from Tanzania,” World Affairs 182, no. 2 (2019): 151–152.
- 5.
See footnote 4 for details on Tanzania. For the case of Sri Lanka, see Ashok K. Behuria, “How Sri Lanka Walked into a Debt Trap, and the Way Out,” Strategic Analysis 42, no. 2 (2018): 168–178. https://doi.org/10.1080/09700161.2018.1439327.
- 6.
See Aloysius Pieris, SJ, An Asian Theology of Liberation (London: Bloomsbury, 1988). For further reading on Kim Yong-Bok, see Minjung Theology: People as Subjects of History (Singapore: Christian Conference of Asia, 1981) and Messiah and Minjung: Christ’s Solidarity with the People for New Life (Singapore: Christian Conference of Asia, 1992). For one of the last articles he published before his passing away in April 2022 that reflects the latest in his thinking, see Kim Yong-Bock, “Global Study on New Models of Ministry (Diakonia) for SangSaeng (相生 = Convivencia-Ubuntu) and Grand Peace (太平) in the Twenty-First Century,” Reformed World 69, no. 2 (2021): 60–71.
- 7.
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000). See an updated reflection by the authors in “Empire, Twenty Years On,” New Left Review 120 (Nov/Dec 2019): 67–92.
- 8.
Walter Mignolo and Catherine Walsh, On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis (Durham: Duke University Press, 2018), 17.
- 9.
Kwok Pui-lan, Postcolonial Politics and Theology: Unraveling Empire for a Global World (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2021), 23.
- 10.
Kuan-Hsing Chen, Asia as Method: Toward Deimperialization (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010).
- 11.
Ibidem, 2. Chen’s work is inspired by Takeuchi Yoshimi, whose work is compiled in What Is Modernity? Writings of Takeuchi Yoshimi, ed. Richard Calichman (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). For more on Chen’s work and the wider Inter-Asia cultural studies field, see Kuan-Hsing Chen and Chua Beng Huat, eds., The Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Reader (London: Taylor & Francis, 2015).
- 12.
See Robin Wright, “Russia and China Unveil a Pact against America and the West,” The New Yorker, February 7, 2022, https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/russia-and-china-unveil-a-pact-against-america-and-the-west.
- 13.
Chen, Asia as Method, 120.
- 14.
It is critical to recognize that Chen’s definition of decolonization does not merely mean disentanglement from Empire. In many respects, it echoes Quijano and Mignolo’s discussion of decoloniality/coloniality/modernity interrelationships. In Asia as Method, Chen is particularly concerned with decolonization as decoupling from “colonial identifications” with certain colonial structures and forms of knowledge production. Indeed, he acknowledges that his approach parallels those from India (Indian subaltern studies) and Latin America, referring to Mignolo’s work, which he describes as “the decolonial project of the Latin American ‘modernity/coloniality’ program.” Hence, one can argue Chen’s terminology of “decolonization” points to Quijano/Mignolo’s terminology of “decoloniality.” See Chen, Asia as Method, 68–69.
- 15.
Chen, Asia as Method, 88.
- 16.
Ibidem, 72.
- 17.
Ibidem, 99, 101.
- 18.
Ibidem, 161–164.
- 19.
Ibidem, 208.
- 20.
Kwok, Postcolonial Politics and Theology, 142.
- 21.
Aníbal Quijano, “Colonialidad y Modernidad/Racionalidad,” Perú Indígena 13, no. 29 (1992): 11. See Walter Mignolo’s understanding of coloniality as being constitutive to modernity in The Darker Side of Western Modernity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), 2–3.
- 22.
One can raise a question about whether China’s imperialism also constitutes an example of coloniality in Mignolo’s sense of its participation in a “colonial matrix of power.” Of course, the argument about China’s coloniality would be too extensive and also be outside the scope of this chapter’s focus on ecclesiology. A simple argument can come from Kuan-Hsing Chen, who argues in favor of pluralizing frames of reference by reasoning that, like it or not, Western colonization means that the West has irretrievably contributed to “Asian” subjectivity, even if not in a totalizing manner (Chen, Asia as Method, 223). But if so, decolonial critiques also apply to Asia, albeit not identically to those from Latin America regarding the United States. For one perspective on China’s participation in coloniality, see Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “Global Coloniality and the Challenges of Creating African Futures,” Strategic Review for Southern Africa 36, no. 2 (2014): 181–202. There, Ndlovu-Gatsheni argues that China’s imperialism participates in a “global coloniality” that may have originated in Western coloniality but is certainly not restricted to it.
- 23.
Walter Mignolo, “Coloniality and globalization: a decolonial take,” Globalizations 18, no. 5 (2021): 732.
- 24.
Bradford E. Hinze, “Decolonizing Everyday Practices: Sites of Struggle in Church and Society,” CTSA Proceedings 71 (2016): 55–56.
- 25.
See Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Reformation: A History (New York: Penguin, 2005), 136. As Luther explains in his 1520 treatise, On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and as MacCulloch explains, in contrast to the Roman Catholic polity, he pushed for local communities to have the right to choose their own ministers.
- 26.
John Calvin, “Articles concerning the Organization of the Church and of Worship at Geneva proposed by the Ministers at the Council,” in Calvin: Theological Treatises, trans. J.K.S. Reid (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954), 48.
- 27.
Johann Baptist Metz, Faith and History in Society, trans. J. Matthew Ashley (New York: Herder, 2007), 88–92.
- 28.
Ibidem, 105–106. The themes on dangerous memory and its applications can be found in other essays that are collected in A Passion for God, ed. J. Matthew Ashley (New York: Paulist Press, 1998) and Love’s Strategy, ed. John K. Downey (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1999). Important secondary engagements of Metz’s work include J. Matthew Ashley, Interruptions: Mysticism, Politics, and Theology in the Work of Johann Baptist Metz (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998) and Bruce T. Morrill, Anamnesis as Dangerous Memory: Political and Liturgical Theology in Dialogue (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2000).
- 29.
Walter Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), 330–331.
- 30.
Confessions II.4(9).
- 31.
Confessions II.1(1). For a more extended treatment of Augustine’s approach to memory, see Kevin Grove, Augustine on Memory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).
- 32.
Paula Fredriksen, “Augustine on God and Memory,” in Obliged by Memory: Literature, Religion, Ethics, edited by Steven Katz and Alan Rosen (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2006), 133.
- 33.
Carlos Eire, Reformations: The Early Modern World, 1450–1650 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 152–154.
- 34.
For an extended discussion of Calvin’s strategic dedication in the Institute’s preface, see Diarmaid MacCulloch, All Things Made New: The Reformation and Its Legacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 55–69. Another excellent resource on the matter is Bruce Gordon, Calvin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 121–143.
- 35.
Metz, Faith in History and Society, 105.
- 36.
Kuan-Hsing Chen, Asia as Method, 223.
- 37.
Ibidem, 96–101.
- 38.
Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (New Brunswick: AldineTransaction, 2008), 95–97, 102–104. See also Arnold van Gennep, Rites of Passage (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019). For more applications of liminality to different ecclesial contexts, see Sang Hyun Lee, From a Liminal Place: An Asian American Theology (Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 2010) and Mary E. McGann, RSCJ, Exploring Music as Worship and Theology: An Interdisciplinary Method for Study Liturgical Practice (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2002).
- 39.
Kuan-Hsing Chen, Asia as Method, 101.
- 40.
Ibidem, 3.
- 41.
For additional resources concerning Augustine’s ecclesiology, a broad survey is available in Michael Root, “Augustine on the Church,” in T&T Clark Companion to Augustine and Modern Theology, eds. C.C. Pecknold and Tarmo Toom (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 54–74. For more in-depth discussions on Augustine’s ecclesiology, see: Joseph Ratzinger, Volk und Haus Gottes in Augustins Lehre von der Kirche (München: EOS Verlag St. Ottilien, 1992); James Lee, Augustine and the Mystery of the Church (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017), and; David Alexander, Augustine’s Early Theology of the Church: Emergence and Implications, 386–391 (New York: Peter Lang, 2008).
- 42.
Justo González, The Mestizo Augustine: A Theologian Between Two Cultures (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2016), 18–19.
- 43.
De Civitate Dei I.Praefatio.
- 44.
Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 152.
- 45.
Ralph Mathisen, “Peregrini, Barbari, and Cives Romani,” The American Historical Review 111, no. 4 (Oct. 2006): 1011–1040.
- 46.
Brown, Augustine of Hippo, 323–324.
- 47.
James K. Lee, Augustine and the Mystery of the Church (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017), 119.
- 48.
De civitate Dei V.12. Brian Harding traces this connection excellently in his Augustine and Roman Virtue (London: Continuum, 2008).
- 49.
See Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, I.9.10-16. Brian Harding summarizes the story of the rape of the Sabine women in Augustine and Roman Virtue (London: Continuum, 2008), 77–78. Augustine would reference the story in De civitate Dei III.13 to demonstrate the impiety at the root of Roman society.
- 50.
Brian Harding, Augustine and Roman Virtue (London: Continuum, 2008), 79.
- 51.
It may be puzzling for Augustine to be resourced for deimperialization since his preferred solution – that the Donatists humbly submit to the authority of the Church in Rome – sounds more like a reification of the imperial center rather than deimperializing from the universalizing of that center. However, before the Emperor Honorius’s edict that declared Donatism a heresy in 405 CE, the Donatists were the religious majority in North Africa; as far as Augustine was concerned, the Catholics were on the periphery. Furthermore, Augustine was caught in the battle to occupy the commanding heights of catholicity. His entreaty for the Donatists to remember their humility, then, constitutes a call to recognize the universal church that was greater than them.
- 52.
This vocabulary of enjoyment (frui), as opposed to use (uti), comes from Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana.
- 53.
225th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), “TWE-08: On Forming a Commission to Write a New PC(USA) Confession to Be Considered for Inclusion in the Book of Confessions,” https://www.pc-biz.org/#/search/3000884. Accessed 10.10.2022.
- 54.
“The Confessional Nature of the Church Report,” in Book of Confessions: Revised Study Edition (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 434.
- 55.
Both confessions can be found in Book of Confessions; Revised Study Edition (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017).
- 56.
“Introduction,” in Book of Confessions, 345–353.
- 57.
Ibidem, 383–393. See also Mary-Anne Plaatjies-Van Huffel and Leepo Johannes Modise, eds., Belhar Confession: The Embracing Confession of Faith for Church and Society (Stellenbosch, SA: SUN PReSS, 2017).
- 58.
“Covenanting for Justice: the Accra Confession,” Reformed World 55, no. 3 (Sept. 2005): 185–190. For additional resources, see Averell Rust, “The Historical Context of the Accra Confession,” HTS Theological Studies 65, no. 1 (January 2009): 1–6; Henry Kuo, “The Accra Confession as Dangerous Memory: Reformed Ecclesiology, the Ecological Crisis, and the Problem of Catholicity,” Religions 11, no. 7 (2020), 320. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11070320.
- 59.
See Book of Confessions, pp. 211–266 (Westminster Confession of Faith), pp. 69–112 (Heidelberg Catechism).
- 60.
Eduardus Van der Borght, “Reformed Ecclesiology,” in The Routledge Companion to the Christian Church, edited by Gerard Mannion and Lewis Mudge (London: Routledge, 2008), 188.
- 61.
Confession of Belhar, 10.8. (Book of Confessions, 398.)
- 62.
“Why Belhar, Why Now: Belhar and the U.S. Context,” in Book of Confessions, 402–405 and 407–409.
- 63.
Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World (New York: Random House, 2001), 14.
- 64.
Harold Hongju Koh, “On American Exceptionalism,” Stanford Law Review 55, no. 5 (May 2003): 1485–1486.
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Kuo, H.S. (2023). Ecclesiology as Method: Deimperialization as Fundamental Decoloniality. In: Barreto, R.C., Latinovic, V. (eds) Decolonial Horizons. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44843-0_2
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