Decolonizing Anarchism and Christianity

January 14, 2013Derek Minno-Bloom

Art by Justseeds Artist Cooperative

Anarchism

To be clear, I identify as a Judeo-Christian and a radical, but in the last few years my politics have transformed from anarchistic politics to a more de-colonial politics. In this essay I will explain how de-colonial thought first changed my politics and then my spirituality. When I use the word de-colonial I mean thoughts and ways of living/governing without colonial rule/Western thought. Learning about visions of decolonized futures from different Indigenous folks, I realized that there is not only one way in which decolonization is envisioned. These visions include a return of land and resources, healthy rivers, return of traditional life ways and languages, a return of the buffalo and grasslands and salmon runs, a return to matriarchal societies, abolition of the Prison Industrial Complex, an end to systematic prejudice, racism, and sexual violence, and for their settler neighbors to realize, understand and deconstruct their settler privileges/white supremacy culture (look here for an definition of white supremacy culture), and to recognize each nation or tribes’ right to self determination.

Thinking about competition and perfectionism, which are two major forms of white supremacy culture, I started to think of how competitive the activist world is today. It reminded me of the Christian idea of Manifest Destiny that says everything on this land is for settlers, and our ways (Science, Religion and Politics) of life are the only correct ways to live. Some activists today seem to think of their politics in a similar way. At times, it seems like the left and post-left spend more time arguing with each other about tactics and theories then they do attacking the systems of oppression we are trying to dismantle. This made me think of how a lot of Anarchist/Primitivist (I realize that these are two different schools of thought, but did not want to get into it during this essay) thought can lead to radical moralisms, to judgementalism, exclusive subcultures, and a European superiority that says my/our way is correct for everyone. I am not saying it is wrong to disagree with folks or that we all become one big happy family, I know that is not possible, but what if de-colonial Activists, Anarchist, Socialists, Primitivists, Queers, Feminists, Anti-Racists, Anti-violence activists and different movements for liberation collaborated in any ways that they could? A few examples might be Christian peacemakers who still think it is not right to be gay, they may not want to encourage queer sexuality, but I am sure they would want to stop any kind of violence occurring to LGBTQ2 communities. Another example maybe Primistivists working with Anti-Racist activists from the left. Primistivists might have a hard time working with folks who are not trying to take civilization down, but if Primitivists see that part of the Civilization/Colonization process of the US some 500 years ago is systematic racism and genocide of Indigenous peoples from Turtle Island(USA) and Africa, they could see that working to fight against racism is a de-colonial and anti-civ practice. There are many more examples but a good book to look at for more examples is Alliances: Re/Envisioning Indigenous-non-Indigenous Relationships.

Sometimes I picture colonized U.S. society as being a bigger form of the Prison Industrial Complex. The last thing correctional officers and wardens of prisons want are for the prisoners to get along and be able to organize; they encourage racism, religious hatred, and gang violence to exist.  Similarly, the last thing the U.S. government wants for the people it rules is for them to learn how to work together. We need to de-colonize our competitive ways of being and learn to cooperate as much as we possible if we are going to dismantle systems of oppression.  As a radical I will still try and encourage folks to look at and learn from the problems of colonization, centralized power, symbolic thought, ecocidal agriculture, homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, and oppressive religions, but if I learned anything from the Occupy moment it’s that one type of thought will not be had by everyone. Collective liberation will be guided by different people with different politics and from different backgrounds trying to work with each other.  Maia Ramnath mentions in her book Decolonizing Anarchism that decolonizing anarchism, “means that instead of always trying to construct a strongly anarcha-centric cosmology-conceptually approaching movements and voices from elsewhere in the world as part of ‘our’ tradition, and then measuring it against how much or little we think they resemble our notion of our own values.” She goes on to say something like, but what if we see our western anarchist ways as just one option for human liberation and learn to respect other global perspectives as other meaningful ways to gain liberation. “Something else is then the reference point for us, instead of us being the reference point for everything else. This is a deeply decolonizing move.”  Civilized life is very complicated. We must decolonize our ways of perfectionism as well, we cannot always be right or have the only answers, we must go beyond simple dualistic thought. Now don’t get me wrong, I still believe that there is right and wrong and know that we just won’t be able to work with some groups, but let’s not loose possible allies because of a long history of competition. It has been a long journey, but I am learning to believe that my way of life, spirituality, and politics are not the only right or liberating way to be.

My journey with de-colonial politics and futures could go on and on, but I just wanted to reference briefly how de-colonial politics made me re-think Western lines of thought and opened up new possibilities, including a de-colonial spirituality.

Christianity

At the moment I claim to be an anti-racist radical with a de-colonial queer politics somewhere in between Anarcho-Syndicalism and Anarcho-Primitivism.  While Anarchist thought still helps me critique power and pious religious thought, primitivism and then de-colonial thought has made me think of how violent and dangerous the monotheism of Juedo-Christian spirituality can be. When I mention de-colonial spiritual thought I am thinking mostly of Vine Deloria’s book God is Red, which after reading, decolonized my spirituality and made me seriously contemplate my faith and tradition.

Thanks to folks like Liza Minno, Andy Lewis, Jacques Ellul, Jeremy Stigist, Ched Myers, Neil Gynther, Andrea Smith, and Daniel Quinn and many other folks I started to believe in a more literary narrative of the Edenic fall. I believe his/herstory is very hard to understand and figure out, and that I can never be completely certain about the Old Testament’s Fall narrative and what happened so many thousands of years ago, but it seems to be pretty common thought that the Jews in the first few books of the Bible were tribal/Indigenous people who lived off of the land. The first few chapters of Genesis seem to be a tribal creation story that was part of the Jewish oral tradition. From the Exodus all the way to the book of Judges it seems clear that the Jews were not part of civilization and centralized governments, but foregoing a serious colonization process.

In the beginning of this essay I mention that I am a Jeudeo-Christian. I think it is extremely important to believe and uphold Jewish thought in Christianity since it is such a large part of the Bible and of Jesus’ life. You cannot separate the two, even though a large amount of Christians have done just that. With that in mind I started to think of how I came to know Christianity. The shorter story is that I had an existential experience at a Christian music festival in Pennsylvania, but what is the larger story? How did Christianity come to North America? The answer everyone knows is that it came from European conquest and colonization of the Americas. When I started to think of this narrative I wanted to immediately distance myself from this story, the idea that I became a believer of the Jeudeo-Christain faith at the coast of the death of over 100 million Indigenous people of the Americas, the murder of millions of African tribal people, slavery, the death of old growth forests, ocean, rivers, stream and lots of different species. The mostly right wing, homophobic and militaristic Christian music festival I was at when I first believed was a product of colonization and on occupied Indigenous land. I started to question my faith and everything I ever believed. After a while I started to think of the Egyptian colonization and subversion of the tribal Jewish people my faith is based on. I started to think and understand that my faith tradition had a land based origin from a place that I am not from. Vine Deloria in his book constantly critiqued western thought and asked how one G-d could communicate with the whole world and all its land bases? He talked about how most indigenous people have a very specific spirituality given to them by their different and diverse land bases and creators. I started to think that just as the Dineh, Hopi, Lenni Lenape and Apache people have land based creation stories, the tribal Jewish people probably also had and have these stories (maybe the creation story found in Genesis). This got me to thinking about how much I hate white culture’s ability to appropriate Indigenous cultures and their spirituality for its own benefit (mostly found in New Age Circles and sometimes primitivist circles that hold up the Idea of the noble savage while not locating themselves in current Indigenous struggles for self determination), which is a continued form of colonization and cultural genocide. I am part of a collective called Black Mesa Indigenous Support. We are a solidarity collective that supports Dineh (Navajo) Elders and families who have been resisting relocation from the US government and been a direct blockade to the expansion of Peabody Energy Corporation’s coal mine for forty years now. One of the many things we do is put people in contact with the Elders to go and heard sheep and help support their traditional ways of life, while doing human rights observing. We also work to educate non-Native folks about cultural appropriation. Sometimes we turn away settler folks who not only want to come and live/support the Elders, but who also want to become Dineh or use their spiritual practices for their own benefit. I nicely try to tell these people that of course you can learn and find wisdom from elders who live on Black Mesa/ Big Mountain Arizona, but that Dineh spirituality is not their spirituality to take and use. It is not their land base that they belong to. The first time I said this to a person who wanted to come out to Black Mesa I started to ask myself and G-d, have I stolen the spirituality of a specific people that belong to a specific land base that is not my own (The Tribal Jewish Peoples)? I started to think about Jesus who was a Jewish person himself who claimed to be the messiah/G-d and spread His word of love to mostly other Jewish folks, but also to Gentiles. He made His word or spirituality available to others that were not part of the Tribal Jewish story.

The truth of the matter is that I have not found all the answers to my questions. I live in this beautiful tension of the unknown. I still have my faith in the Judeo-Christian message and no matter how hard I try, I can’t deny my ability to communicate to the creator and the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is true that I heard of this message because it was forced upon this land 500 years ago, but it is also true that this message led me to have a spirituality that desires collective liberation for all. It has helped me to understand love and how in sin or separated I am from others and from the natural world, it has humbled me to work and de-colonize my mind and inner forms of patriarchy. I am sure Vine Deloria did not picture me using his book in this way, but one of his main critiques of Christianity is the western thought and science of its philosophy. He mentions that spirit and creators can never be fully known or understood, that there is always mystery. I have come to believe that in my own faith. I don’t have all the answers or the perfect theology. I don’t even understand if I have stolen my spirituality and am continuing the colonization of the Jewish people by stealing their faith, but I do know that civilization or colonized society is confusing. Deloria constantly looks down on Christianity for needing a savior, but maybe the G-d of Judaism and Christianity saw the horrors of cities and colonization. Maybe G-d saw how powerful the colonization of the Jews was so many thousands of years ago. Maybe G-d gave Jews and Christians a savior because the sin/separation of colonization was so strong and violent that human animals needed a way to forgive themselves for the deep and horrible effects of colonization, in order to be able to reconnect to everything they have been separated from. When I read about Jesus looking over the city and weeping, this is one of the many things I imagine he may have been thinking.

Tagged as: Anarchism, Christianity, decolonization, politics, Spirituality

  • rdhudgens

    What a great read on a Monday morning! I appreciate the complexity of your insights and your willingness to recognize those ambiguities and yet maintain your determination to form alliances and not to be paralyzed by the struggle, the confusion, or the activist competition. Your poke at the left/postleft and anarchism/primitivism is especially needed. I long for more of this type of honest multi-layered reflecting and committed discipleship. Thank you Derek.

    • Derek

      Thanks so much you two!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Peter-Haresnape/803215013 Peter Haresnape

    Great reflection.
    On the specific point of modern Christianity appropriating Jewish culture; I certainly think that this can be at work – Christians can feel that they have a right to ‘go back’ into Jewish thought and religion and take whatever ideas, symbols, etc they desire. But when done well, this reconnects with the founders, early thinkers, and their context.
    As to the Hebrew faith as the religion of that land; I have wondered what was going on when the exiles returned to the land and imposed their exile-shaped faith on the remaining inhabitants.
    Thanks for sharing!

  • http://abideinme.net/index.html Wes Howard-Brook

    Derek,

    You are raising some important questions. I’m not much interested personally in the category of labels, but I am very interested in decolonizing the Bible. You might find my own “Come Out, My People!”: God’s Call Out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond, helpful, as well as my colleague Mark Brett’s “Decolonizing God.” His work as well as mine on Genesis might help you hear the stories in their anti-imperial context.

    • Derek

      I will check them out from the library. Thanks!

      • http://abideinme.net/index.html Wes Howard-Brook

        FYI: here’s a link to the PDF of the Intro of my book (at the bottom of the page):
        http://abideinme.net/comp.htm.

  • Francisco Orozco

    Derek,

    You made some great points. I really like your ability to use language eloquently to bring to the surface some things that I feel people and churches don’t talk about. thank you. thank’s for talking about how white culture is appropriating indigenous culture. Thanks for talking about the divides in “radical” circles. I did not think that christanity could not be a liberating philosophy, I guess until i went to Chiapas, Mexico in 2010. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation is able to find a mix between their own personal liberation and spirituality some where between their traditional beliefs and “christian” belifefs. Anyways, keep fighting for the struggle in the USA,

    Much Love.

  • Nekeisha

    ” At times, it seems like the left and post-left spend more time arguing with each other about tactics and theories then they do attacking the systems of oppression we are trying to dismantle.”

    Derek, thank you for my first “Hallelujah-Preach!” moment of the morning. This has been my line of thinking for a while now. I don’t think we should act like differences between movements don’t exist. But at the same time, we’re not going to be able to get anywhere if we lack the capacity to build bridges across those differences wherever possible. We need to think intersectionally about oppression, resistance and constructing alternatives, and that involves being willing to tear down our silos and engaging seriously people whose perspectives are not the same.

    • Derek

      Lets do it. Ha lol, Unfortunately it is a lot harder said then done and brings on a lot of traumatic experiences, But i believe it can be done in love with lots of perseverance. Miss you to Nekeisha!

      • Seth Martin!

        “Something else is then the reference point for us, instead of us being the reference point for everything else. This is a deeply decolonizing move.”

        Again, amen. Thanks for this part of your life you’ve shared with us, Derek!

    • Guest

      Amen!

  • http://www.jesusradicals.com/ Andy A-B

    Thanks for this post Derek. We’ve really tried to expand the site’s breadth and have included lots of different perspectives. Sometimes we have gotten flack because we post or interview via the iconocast people who are not anarchists, but your reasoning is encouraging.

    George Tinker was at the Society of Christian Ethics a couple weeks ago and said similar things about Native culture and white people as you have here. What I like about what you have said is that it applies to more than your context. For instance, let’s say a white person attends a black church (which I do occasionally), how does one become involved in that context without engaging in the kind of things you warn about here? Definitely good to keep the questions you raise in mind in intercultural, interracial interaction.

    • Derek

      I wish you and i got to go through this process more in person. It has been to long since we last saw each other in Memphis. Love and miss ya

  • John T.

    The elephant in the room is Caesar Constantine who claimed and transformed the tribal indigenous Hebrew stories as a universal imperial religion to authorize and justify global colonization. At this point any “Judeo-Christian” spirituality ended. Constantine and Nicea’s theology had nothing to do with the Jesus of the bible, the law of Moses or the land covenant of Abraham. Constantine hated Jews so much he abolished the passover that Jesus commanded his disciples to continue, because it was a ceremony of Hebrew identity.

    Post-Constantine religion is not Judeo-Christian, it is Greko-Roman, it is Hellenist. Even the basic concept of God is different to what is in the bible. The Hellenic “theos” is an old man in the sky with a name and a personality, the Zeus archetype. On the other hand the biblical notion of “eloihiym”, the collective of creator spirits whose breath animates the world, has much more in common with the indigenous spiritualities around the globe that have been colonized or exterminated by agents of the Roman religion.

    The central pillar of Greko-Roman philosophy is dualism, in particular the knowledge of good and evil. In the bible, God’s first commandment is do not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, yet the imperial church has made its mission the preaching of the knowledge of good and evil. It is not the snake who has told indigenous people that they were naked but the missionaries.

    We cannot decolonize our christianity while still embracing Constantine’s religious paradigms.

    “Truth and Tradition. Why does the church act as an agent of colonisation” (an Australian perspective)

    http://newaustralianwineskins.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/truth-and-tradition-why-does-the-church-act-as-an-agent-of-colonisation/

    • Derek

      I am in agreement with ur reply, thanks for the great response. I am also interested in thinking about what it means for non- tribal Jewish people to take their story and faith away from their landbase and make it our own. I have done this, but am interested in hearing how people deal with this idea. And just to make sure, i am talking about adapting the pre- Constantine thought process or spirituality of the Jewish tribal people.

      • John T.

        Hello Derek,

        You raise the issue of – “what it means for non- tribal Jewish people to take their story and faith away from their landbase and make it our own.”

        I guess my response would be such an approach is wrong, if you take the story away from the landbase you extinguish the story, this is what Rome did.

        Whether we are talking about the tribal Hebrew scriptures (which includes the New Testament) or contemporary indigenous culture and knowledge anywhere, if we are not able to respect it on its own terms then we are clearly colonizing it and expropriating it.

        Many christians re-invent the scriptures in their own image. Some say Jesus was a civilizer, some say Jesus will make us rich, some say Jesus was a vegetarian, etc. etc. In these cases the story has been misconstrued to uphold the reader’s cultural biases and preconceptions and the story is not allowed to speak on its own terms.

        We do not have to own or possess something in order to learn from it. Non-indigenous people can learn from indigenous culture without possessing it, in fact it is the only way to learn – if a non-indigenous person does try to own indigenous knowledge then they cannot learn. (If you pick the flower you kill it)

        What we can and need to own is our own story. In my case, I am Irish and English by descent. My English ancestors were being colonized by Rome at the same time and in the same way as they colonized Israel. The bible, in particular the new testament is an indigenous reference point by which I can understand and re-interpret my own story, where I came from and why. The same with contemporary indigenous culture and knowledge – I cannot own the stories but they can help me to perceive my own life now and where I am in an indigenous context rather than a colonial context.

        As I see it, there is a unity and commonality amongst all indigenous cultures. They are all of course very varied but in essence they all represent a relationship between people, God and the land. This relationship is absent in colonial paradigms including christendom. By looking at contemporary indigenous culture of the land on which I live as well as ancient indigenous cultures such as the bible, I am able to join a few dots that put my own life and place in perspective.

        • John T.

          p.s.

          When reading the bible, I do not identify with the prophets or Jesus’ disciples. I identify with the foreigners and gentiles – this seems to fit my particular historical and geographical circumstance (Irish/English in Australia).

          In the case of the New Testament, we hear of the Roman centurion who had greater faith than anyone in Israel, but the most powerful issue for non-indigenous people is the question of circumcision that has been totally misinterpreted by Christendom. The circumcision controversy is resolved with instruction that gentiles are not to be circumcised but must otherwise follow the law of Moses. Circumcision is Abraham’s land covenant, it belongs only to traditional owners, descendants of Abraham, but this does not in any way exclude the communion of gentiles.

          It should also be noted that Abraham was a foreigner to Canaan. His covenant was by way of sharing bread and wine and receiving tithes from Melchezidec, the original tribal owner, after Abraham supported Melchizidec in his war of independence from foreign invaders. Similarly Ruth the Moabite refugee – her great grandson was King David. This is a model of hope for the future, by supporting indigenous struggles for self-determination we have the hope and possibility of our own descendants joining the eternal land covenants.

  • Nate L.

    This essay promotes some interesting thoughts, and perhaps will begin to bring people to some new ideas. If everyone were willing to devote themselves to the study of the spiritual the way that you have, it would be possible to right many of the wrongs of our or any society. It is the unfortunate truth though that it is far easier to live a life devoted only to satisfying the needs of the body, and many people never care to rise above that.

    You know that I cannot speak to your de-colonization/Anarchist philosophies; I have never subscribed to them; but your understanding of Christianity I can speak to. I am enlightened by your struggle with believing in the God of Jesus Christ, because I have seen in you the light which darkness does not overcome. Your life and your witness have been a constant reproach to my own inaction, complacency, and apathy.

    You speak in your essay about the difficulty of following a religion that appropriates and colonizes that way that Christians have done with Judeo-Christianity. The fact is, our faith has spread throughout the world, and especially in the west, frequently on the point of the spear or the barrel of a gun. Our country has been shaped by the selfishness of white people, and as long as we can vote to ignore inconvenient truths, we shall. Ah, the weakness of Democracy. But Christianity is successful in its own way, not because it is the a faith that was appropriated by westerners, nor even primarily because it was spread through violence, but because as a faith it has the power to speak to any culture, and time, any place. It is the nature of Jesus’ teaching that it is as infinitely adaptable as God is unknowable. It is the weakness of humanity that decided to adapt it to our violent, competitive culture.

    In its adapability though is its strength. The essential belief is that if God is truly God, then there exists everywhere and in every culture the elements of humanity which point to him [I use masculine pronouns of God intentionally, not out of callousness for women or because I believe that God is masculine, but out of respect for my own tradition], and every human person has to ability, without any knowledge of western Christianity at all, to seek the Spirit of God and to find her [I use feminine pronouns for the Spirit, also out of respect for my tradition] in the nature which has been created. And so, Christianity spreads to occupied Lenni-Lanape land in what we call Pennsylvania, to a certain concert, and to a certain young man, not because it was brought to him by 500 years of colonization, but because it is the power of God to be heard above and below and despite the noise of history. That still, small, voice is heard not in the earthquake of colonization, nor in the fire of the violence which consumed this continent, nor in the wind which is western philosophy. It is heard in the quiet places in our hearts, where we commune with God and discover the meaning of “human.” It is at once both a testament to the fact that God is greater than the foolish and heinous things we perpetrate as human beings, and as well to the fact that God can bring good out of even the evil that we do.

    You mentioned that you have thought about the history of the Jewish people from the fall all the way to the time of the Judges. I too have thought much about these stories. What you must understand about especially the creation stories of Eden, is that they do not, nor were not intended to, tell history. The story of creation is not the history of what happened a few thousand years ago in Mesopotamia–it is the story of who we are as human beings. The creation account is meant to tell you who _you_ are, to hold up a mirror in which you see yourself, you actions, and your belief. Adam isn’t someone else; Adam is you, and me. There is much that we can say about the theology of who we are by reading that story carefully.

    Believe in a God who casts away those who saw Christ sick, imprisoned, colonized, and did nothing. Believe in a God who seeks out the lost, the poor, the widow the orphan instead of the rich and powerful. Believe in a Christ who spent his life preaching against the those who would steal, kill, hate, or do violence in his name. Believe in a Spirit that seeks out truth in every land and in every people and who makes every human person a child of God. Believe in a Christ who was once offered dominion over land, over people, over governments, and choose the cross instead of the colony or the crown. Believe in a God who shepherds sheep on Black Mesa. Believe in such a God, and you are not far from the Kingdom of Heaven.

    God bless.

  • Jessica

    “The truth of the matter is that I have not found all the answers to my questions. I live in this beautiful tension of the unknown. I still have my faith in the Judeo-Christian message and no matter how hard I try, I can’t deny my ability to communicate to the creator and the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is true that I heard of this message because it was forced upon this land 500 years ago, but it is also true that this message led me to have a spirituality that desires collective liberation for all.”

    I found that I could really relate to this portion of your essay. I can understand the problems with Christianity, especially in the way it has spread and continues to spread and the politics that it can be used for, but I cannot stop communicating with the Creator, who I met in a context full of all of the things I have come (through the Bible and Christian spirituality) to stand against. I think this tension will always haunt me.

    The rest of you essay has really got me thinking. Decolonization is so important, yet I often just tag it on as an extra in my thinking, rather than really getting into the thick of it.

    I also really appreciated your thoughts on working together across theory lines. It can be so damaging to take on labels in such a way that makes us constantly ask “are they one of us?” instead of “do they speak truth and can we work together?”

    Thanks for writing this essay.

    • Derek

      Thanks for reading it! It seems like we have had or have a real similar experience with our Creator. Working with Indigenous folks I have come to understand that all liberation struggles start with understanding colonization both past and present, Be well…

  • Frank

    As someone who does not share many of your assumptions I would have to really break such a big post down to comment on it. At any rate, on a quick pass I can just mention that the never-ending concern with “colonization” can go both ways and become very unproductive. For example, you mention that in a way modern Christians are “colonizing” the religion of the tribal Jews. You may know that many 19th and 20th century European racists took the opposite view – that is, they viewed Christianity as an alien religion foisted upon the Latins, Celts and Germans.

    I have the blood of all three of those groups running in my viens. Maybe my real fight should be to head back to Italy and fight to revive worship of Jupiter, or perhaps I should move to Ireland and work to revive Druidism?

    Or – maybe Jesus was sent, by God, to bring light to the Western peoples who had fallen into darkness, worshipping anthropomorphised and often amoral gods while completely forgetting the One.

    • John T.

      Frank,

      I do not think there is much value in equating Jupiter worship and Druidism. Jupiter worship came from a long evolution of Helenist religion going back through Latin to Greek to Assyrian to Egyptian empires and their imperial religions. Druidism on the other hand was a decentralized tribal priestly spirituality, largely smashed by the Jupiter worshipping Roman armies.

      Are you familiar with English Holy Grail mythology? This begins with Joseph of Aramathea who went to England after the Roman smashing of Jerusalem and began a Jesus church amongst the Druids and joined them in their fight against Roman domination.

      Druidism and Druid knowledge was totally exterminated by Rome. Today’s Druids are just making stuff up. We cannot re-embrace Druidism.

      Jupiter worship was embraced by Christendom, the notion of the divine as “theos” is the Hellenic Zeus archetype. The Enlightenment racists that you mentioned did re-embrace Jupiter worship and this was a major factor in notions of European cultural superiority from the secular English Hellfire Club and Masons through to 20th century fascism. A re-embrace of Jupiter worship lead to the same racist, authoritarian and centralized regimes as the classical empires.

      So for Celts, Latins and Germanics alike, it is impossible to re-embrace our ancient tribalism. What we can do however is learn from surviving tribal knowledge in texts such as the bible and contemporary indigenous knowledge.

      I think you are right – “Jesus was sent, by God, to bring light to the Western peoples who had fallen into darkness, worshipping anthropomorphised and often amoral gods while completely forgetting the One”. This mission is as relevant today as it was 2000 years ago, especially regarding post-Hellenist notions of theos and the Trinity that have underpinned the empires of Christendom.

      • Frank

        John T., I will reply to each of your paragraphs, numbering the replies.

        1. Yes, therewere differences between Druidism and the religion of the Romans. I am simply using them both as examples of defunct European belief systems. Though I should note I do not believe that the religion of an “empire” is necessarily better or worse than that of a tribe, just different.

        2. I am aware of the idea of the “Celtic Church” if that is what you mean – though only vaguely
        aware.

        3. I do not believe it is impossible to recover knowledge about Druidism, though I am not actually looking to replace Christianity with Celtic paganism.

        4. I am confused as to what the problem is with the notion of “theos”. You will have to explain.

        5. We can learn from other religions/spiritual beliefs (not just those of tribal peoples), I agree. Though this can also be a very dangerous path. The best work on comparative religion has been done by Frithjof Schuon, you might want to check out his “Transcendent Unity of Religions.” However, Schuon makes clear that the various religions, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, etc. have been sent for a reason, for certain peoples, in certain times and places and each of these revelations is SUFFICIENT UNTO ITSELF – the same applies for the spiritual beliefs of tribal peoples. In other words, one must be very careful and very well versed in basic metaphysics before engaging in comparative religion, something which few people, including most modern religious scholars, are. I have been confused at times, and now try mostly to stay within the Western tradition – for most people you must stay on your path up the mountain, for a Christian this is Christianity, trying to cross over to other paths, or trying to move back and forth can get you lost in the fog, or you could stumble into a ravine. One can see this with how Westerners have slaughtered Buddhism and Hinduism in trying to bring them to a Western audience. Someone engaged in “pure esoterism” can fly over the paths, so to speak, transcending them, but few are capable of this – Schuon actually wrote a book on this topic “Esoterism as Principle and as Way,” but again, the esoteric path is not for the many.

        6. Here I am again confused. You are opposed to the Trinity, I take it?

        Thanks for the reply,
        Frank

        • John T.

          Frank,

          Sorry this is so long but some things don’t fit in a nutshell.

          The words Zeus, Deus and Theos are all etymologically linked. They describe the Greek astrological gods. Jupiter = Zeus = Theos = the old man in the sky archetype. In your own words, it is an anthropomorphised god. This is a product of Helenist cosmology, culture and language and very different from the Hebrew notions of Eloihim (the collective of creator spirits whose breath animates the world) and YHWY (the nameless existential “I AM”).

          The trinity is not found anywhere in the bible. The Trinity is a notion based on theos – the father godhead and his sub-personalities.

          Please consider –

          If what I suggest has a grain of truth to it, it opens up all sorts of questions about “Our father who art in Heaven” and other references to a heavenly father, upon which western notions of an authoritarian sky-god are based. The Greek word “pater” is the word used in the lords prayer, (a different word from Abba). Pater is also used to describe Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc. It means male progenitor. The two genealogies of jesus identify clearly who the male progenitors were and Matthew’s describes Jesus as the son of Abraham and David. We are told in various stories that Abraham, Elijah and other Hebrew male progenitors are in heaven. Perhaps it is father Abraham who is in heaven and whose name is hallowed, as it is through all the bible? Or Father David’s kingdom that is to come – Hosannah? When Moses asked the The Lord (Eloihim) what his (their) name was, the answer was that there was no name. How then can a deity with no name have their name hallowed as per the Lord’s prayer?

          (* In many passages “pater” is used where it clearly refers to the Elohim but I say in the Lords prayer it is not)

          Such a notion of ancestors in heaven is very similar to tribal indigenous ancestor veneration, just as the land covenant of Abraham is very similar to tribal indigenous claims to ancestral land. Abraham’s land covenant was circumcision. Australian Aboriginal and many other tribal groups practice circumcision as part of their eternal land covenants and remembrance of ancestors – the similarities are profound.

          But this ancestor veneration is not ancestor worship, as the church has often caricatured it. Just as the Eloihim created the biblical ancestors, in my part of the world the great spirit Biame created the Aboriginal ancestors and all the spirit beings that formed the landscape.

          The Lord’s prayer’s “daily bread” and the full economic reality of Jesus’ good news to the poor is of course based on the will and logos of the Elohim but the conduit of this is the legacy of the ancestors – the restoration of Abraham’s land covenant and the proclamation of the Jubilee – when the tribes get back their land and all debt’s dropped. Prosperity comes from the ancestors.

          So, I say all this to suggest that Western Christianity has nothing to do with the bible but is a continuation of the Hellenic tradition and religions – the religions of empire that extinguished land covenants and replaced indigenous spiritualities with universal (catholic) religions, it has evolved from Egypt to Persia to Greece to Rome to the Holy Roman empire to the christian states of Europe and their colonies such as the USA and Australia. This is the trajectory and momentum that you speak of – “you must stay on your path up the mountain, for a Christian this is Christianity”.

          I agree with your sentiment in as much as we should be honest to ourselves about who we are and who we are not and we should not try and bastardize anybody else’s spirituality in assimilating it into our own world view, and I made some comments about this above. However it is important to recognize that who we think we are is an illusion constructed by the world view of state, church and empire and imposed onto us. We Westerners were tribal Celts, Latins, Germanics, (I use those words for convenience though I would dispute the integrity of the categorizations but that is another story), we were tribal indigenous people, or at least our ancestors were, before Greece or Rome invaded our land in exactly the same way they did Jesus and Abraham’s land. Even Latin people were internally colonized by their own national economic and political elites, just as citizens of the US and other imperial powers are today. The Greek so-called democracies were only for land owning men.

          So the question to be asked in our heart of hearts is where is our own spirituality based? With our own ancestors or with the traditions of the empires that dispossessed our own ancestors of their land and culture.

          These questions cannot be answered by simplistic ideological formulas, they are very hard and complex issues to deal with. Amongst the contradictions is the fact that our own traditions, such as Druids, are gone the knowledge, the language, the ceremony, the sociology are gone forever. But this is exactly the same predicament for tribal indigenous people face today, they are losing their land, spirituality, languages and being consumed into the empire or exterminated – just like what happened to us a few hundred to a few thousand years ago.

          The other question in our heart of hearts, other than who we are, is where we are. I speak from a white Australian perspective and I think it is the same for migrant families in the US but the issue gets a bit different for people in their own ancestral homelands (including white folk in Europe). But for those of us from migrant families in someone elses homeland, do we base our spirituality on the eternal covenants of the land on which we walk and sleep or on the religious traditions of the empires that colonized the land on which we walk and sleep?

          Even if we are westerners, we live on Aboriginal land and must learn to at least accommodate if not embrace the nature of God’s eternal covenant where we live. To do either requires an abandonment of the psyche of Rome and its religious manifestations including its descriptions of God.

          And finally, the bible does not call us to stay on our path up the mountain, it calls us to perpetual renewal, returning to the original, ground zero in year one, not just returning to the Jubilee tribal land rights but back to the Garden of Eden itself – and a spirituality devoid of the knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge of good and evil is the centerpiece of western religion.

          • Frank

            John, no need to apologize for length, as I probably match yours! I have just crafted a general response rather than a paragraph by paragraph one. Here goes:

            I have to admit I really see no problem with the Greek words for God being used in Christian thought. The Christian intellectual tradition and more average but thoughtful Christians have certainly always realized God is beyond all description, certainly not like a Zeus or Jupiter. I am sure on the other hand some people picture God as literally a man in the sky, but I do not even see this as a problem if their faith is sincere.

            I must also admit I see no problem with the idea of the Trinity. God manifests Himself in the world in infinite ways. The device of the Trinity is ultimately an explanatory device for how this manifestation works, and I think it was one well-adapted for the polytheists who became Christians, and completely legitimate. Actually, if I am honest, discussing the Trinity like this makes me uncomfortable.

            I think the crux of the issue between us is the idea that what many here call “imperial Christianity” has led to all or many of the ills of our world. But, what is God if not a King, the King of Kings? Certainly God is not some big anarchist in the sky. Reality is not anarchic, it is hierarchically organized, with all things being linked in strict correspondence, horizontally and vertically. We can see this strict relation of all things very easily in the realm of ecology; our human arrogance in modern times led us to assume we could just mess around with the environment and remake it however we wanted – doesn’t work so easily.

            Now, if our world was just an anarchic unordered system, I doubt we would have so many problems as such a system would likely adapt easily to our messing around – we would just be another crazy variable in a system of crazy variables.

            As it is, we are in a system of Order. Of course, the top of all the order is God, the King of Kings, and reality descends from God in a series of hierarchical manifestations, from the
            paradisal and heavenly realms, down to earth, and then down further to the hells. On the level of beings, or consciousness if you will, manifestation is also strictly ordered and hierarchical, with beings of various levels of consciousness from archangels, down to angels, humans, dogs, then plants and even, at the bottom, stones, or inert matter.

            This is all to say, in the age in which we live, which we could call the Hindu ‘Kali Yuga,’ or if we want to stay within the Western tradition we could use classical terminology, which had humans descending from a Golden, through a Silver, then Bronze and finally Iron Age – we are in the Iron Age. For civilizational, sedentary peoples in the Iron Age, the best government is monarchical or imperial (think Imperial like China, which never approached the terrible decadence of Rome in all its years), with the Monarch, like God, at the top, supported by Nobles, Priests and Scholars with the mediocre mass of peasants at the bottom. This is not an oppressive system, but rather one that accounts for the way things are. On the human level we are not all equal, some people have greater intelligence, and/or greater sanctity. The hierarchical ordering of reality on the macro scale is replicated among humans who have varying levels of abilities. In a modern equalitarian society like ours, of course, everyone is crushed down to the level of the mob. If one is concerned about freedom – the peasant farmer had more and greater freedom, and freedom more in line with who he was, than the modern mass now does.

            As you can see, my viewpoint on authority/hierarchy is very far from yours.

            I completely respect indigenous peoples, though I do not believe there is any going back from where we are – the end of the Iron Age is the end of this cycle, the “End Times” if you will. I do
            not see the message of Christianity as being to try to perfect this world, which is a middling world, between heaven and hell. We cannot usurp the place of heaven. To attempt to cleanse the halls of power of all evil-doers (which is not possible), or to try to return to a tribal lifestyle, is not the Christian message.

            The message is to pray and contemplate God. When we act we can never know the consequences in any large sense, this is our human situation – this is why prayer and contemplation are superior to action with all its unintended consequences (this is why primitive peoples lived by tradition the way animals live by instinct, and why they avoided change as much as possible, because where does change lead? It leads to the world in 2013!) The person who has purified themselves through acts of prayer and contemplation can then be a positive influence on others – I should note, a large component of the prayerful life is asceticism, which cannot but help the environment to live a little longer.

            I thank you for the exchange of thoughts,

            Frank

          • John T.

            Frank,

            You ask “But, what is God if not a King, the King of Kings?”

            It depends if you look to the bible or the imperial church for descriptions of God.

            God is only described as “king” twice in the bible – 1 Timothy 1:17 and I suspect that this is a misinterpretation by joining a statement about Jesus the king with a statement glorifying god, but I don’t know enough about Greek syntax to explore that further. The other is and 1 Timothy 6:15 which some translations (e.g. N.I.V.) identify God as the King of Kings but the word in greek does not say this, it uses the word “dynastes” meaning high officer as king of kings, which seems to make more sense referring to Jesus, especially in the context of the previous verse about Jesus. The KJV identifies Jesus, not God, as the King of Kings in this passage. There are also debates about the authenticity of the Timothy epistles but I won’t go into that.

            Two ambiguous passages is not enough, I would suggest, to justify a theology of God as king.

            In every other passage “king” is a person be it David, Jesus, Herod, Saul or the many Persian and gentile kings, this includes the dream of John the revelator announcing the return of King Jesus. The assumption that god is a king is based solely on the non-biblical ideology of the trinity and its earlier Nicean form of “Homoousios” (before the Holy spirit was included into the God concept) whereby King Jesus is assumed to be the Zeus also.

            It should be noted that the Hebrew tribal king is very different to gentile kings Matthew 20:25 ““You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant”. The Hebrew tribal king is more like tribal chiefs or “big men” (and women). The archetype is David who, while being central to the Hebrew tribes, ruled in accord with the decentralized Jubilee and Sabbath tribal laws.

            However the Hebrew King is very important as it represents indigenous sovereignty and the covenant of Abraham over the holy land – against Rome’s colonial claims. This is most clearly described in the nativity story. This notion of indigenous sovereignty has been extinguished by Rome with their imperial concept of the authoritarian sky king.

          • John T.

            p.s.

            The most common metaphor for God in the bible is husband. As much as Helenist patriarchies have attributed god-given authority to the role of husband, the biblical concept of husband as a partner in a covenant has nothing to do with kingship.

          • Frank

            I think my thoughts on this could be addressed above, while also noting that I do not think we should reject something just because it is Helenist, or Roman. I see no reason to reject Homer, Plato, Plotinus, Aristotle or Virgil. Not everything that came out of Greece and Rome was irredeemably bad.

          • Frank

            John,

            To your first point. I am not basing my idea of God as a King on how many passages in the Bible may or may not refer to him as a King, but rather on a metaphysics which may be said to transcend Christianity, though at the same time it could be at home in Christianity.

            God is the sole cause of the Universe, nothing would exist without Him. This “sole causality” is monarchical in its essence – the monarch to a more or less degree, represents this sole causality in His Kingdom, where, at least in theory, all decisions ultimately end with him. (A monarch, like God, can operate in His Kingdom through chosen intermediaries, of course). Monarchs, in how they govern (through Nobles, Scholars and Priests) also necessarily represent the hierarchical nature of the Universe in both its material and spiritual realms.

            I think that it is a totally natural event that among smaller populations the King’s power and distance from the people is less – if the King’s, or “big men” of tribal groups perhaps are more representative of the personal nature of God as approachable, monarchs of larger civilizations simply represent this relation on another level. At the same time that God is near, he is also distant and completely different from anything we encounter in this world. In this way a monarch, like the Emperor of China, in his great distance from the life of the people, represents the distance of the Tao, (which, as Lao Tzu says, “Follows its own ways”) from earthly matters.

            So we have the nearness of the personal God and the distance of the Absolute, (Beyond-Being) of which the personal God is ultimately the “first determination”.

            Organized Christianity does not posit an “authoritarian” God in the modern sense, as a Tyrant without mercy. The Christian God has always been one of Justice AND Mercy.

            To blame every bad thing that has happened in “Christendom” on organized Christianity is, I think, a very irresponsible use of thought. Rather, humans are fallible, and human misunderstanding, and also intentional human malice has led to great wrongs being committed in the name of Christianity.

            Obviously, you propose to fix all this with a relabeling of what God is – I am not yet totally sure how you think God should be labeled, or what you think God ultimately is, though.

            Thanks for the talk,

            Frank.

          • Derek

            “So the question to be asked in our heart of hearts is where is our own
            spirituality based? With our own ancestors or with the traditions of
            the empires that dispossessed our own ancestors of their land and
            culture?” Once again thanks for a great post. I did not imagine someone would engage with this essay, in this way. Thank you for so much to think about and for some more answers/understanding of my ?’s

  • Eileen

    Derek,

    I love thinking through these difficult questions with you as I read your essay. Although I don’t identify with the Judeo-Christian God anymore, I wrestle with questions of how to decolonize my spirituality ALLTHE TIME. It seems like one of the things you are saying here is that the “political” issues of land, colonization, and oppression are not separate from your spirituality. I feel that “beautiful tension” too- it’s a weird and scary place to be, but it really does seem like there are no clear answers to these questions, so we are left in that perpetual place of tension.

    Not enough radical activists within and/or outside of academia are making the connection to spirituality and it’s messy work, but I’m so grateful to you for bringing these questions up. I seriously think about this all the time. I’m interested in hearing from other white activists who don’t identify with the Judeo-Christian tradition, but feel connected to a spirituality. How do you integrate decolonial work into your spirituality? What spiritual traditions (if any) have you found (without being appropriative or “new-agey”) and centered your decolonial perspective in- or is this even possible?

    Thanks again Derek- great work here- I miss these conversations in person!

    xo,

    Eileen

  • Seth Dazey

    first off, thanks Derek for your work. blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of G-d.

    i think we must be wary of cultural appropriation, whether it be Jewish, Dineh, or even American culture we speak of. The Christ brought a new culture of love that transcends the culture of law that predominated and continues to manifest in an increasingly materialistic, global society. while Jesus of Nazareth was certainly a practitioner and staunch defender of the Jewish faith against pharisaic law (read: laws of men which corrupt G-d’s message), the Christ (which Jesus received at his baptism, beginning his/her earthly sojourn) transcends culture (and law). The man Jesus and the Christ spirit are not exactly the same just as G-d and the Jewish faith (or Israel) are not the same. the one inhabits and transforms the other, thank G-d. G-d, and the Christ, inhabit the whole of creation available to all at anytime, surpassing culture. after all it is love we are called to, the rest is commentary.

    it is right to lack all the answers. we are supposed to struggle to understand G-d the incomprehensible. complacency and apathy are the true form of the Deciever. Just as Jacob wrestled with G-d and recieved his blessing, we too must strive to see G-d’s face.

    hope to see you soon,
    Seth Dazey

    • Derek

      Thanks Seth. I hope to see you soon as well!

  • Sam Buchanan

    “a lot of Anarchist/Primitivist…
    thought can lead to radical moralisms, to judgementalism, exclusive
    subcultures, and a European superiority that says my/our way is correct
    for everyone.”
    I’m continually suprised at how many people haven’t realised that working towards a non-authoritarian society inherently requires you to be (mostly) learning to put up with what other people want, rather than trying to put into place what you think is right.

    • Derek

      Nice!

  • http://www.facebook.com/santhosh.chandrashekar Santhosh Chandrashekar

    Derek,

    Thanks a lot for your wonderful article. As a non-Christian (raised a Hindu), I don’t think I have much to say doctrinally. But I can relate in other ways. For instance, your essay revived some issues I struggle with, particularly the Hindu-Muslim conflict in the Indian subcontinent and whether I can bank on what we may call “Hindu spirituality” as a resource of peace. This is an issue if one keeps in mind that Hinduism, or at least a selective interpretation of its social history, is used to mobilize violence against Muslims in India. Gandhi tried to undo it through a different interpretation of Hinduism that, paradoxically, ended up centralizing it. But we will save that discussion for another day.

    I am thankful to you for having shown me that being a good Christian is not always about being opposed to social justice practices. I have to confess that my first instinct is to avoid Christians who, unfortunately, are on the wrong side of decolonization most of the times. Your essay gives me hope; we need to figure out how to use our deepest connections and turn them into our best resources. I think you do that exceedingly well without comprising on decolonization in any way.

    I am always proud to call you my brother, friend, and comrade. Mad love to you!

    Santhosh

    P.s.: Here is a wonderful essay that I cam across on the connections between Hinduism and Christianity as forged by the Hindu monk, Vivekananda: http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/20130208300204100.htm

    • Frank

      Santhosh,

      My post may seem somewhat aggressive, but when commenting on a figure such as Vivekananda one must be rigorously objective, even if this seems pitiless.

      I will start by noting that Vivekananda was extremely influenced by the Western modernism of his era, and this leads to countless absurdities in his writings, and in his interpretations of religions, including his own, Hinduism. Far better to read the works of his saintly master, Sri Ramakrishna (on whose work Western modernism had no impact and whom I understand feared some of the tendencies he saw in his discipline, Vivekananda ) than Vivekananda’s own writings – not to mention Frithjof Schuon and other traditionalists who offer rigorously objective critiques of Vivekananda based on metaphysical principals.

      The article you link to says Christianity needed “saved from Christians,” and that Vivekananda did this – but what Christianity needs saved from is all the detritus of Western modernism that has piled on top of it
      since the Renaissance; Vivekananda, being heavily influenced by modernism, is certainly not a figure suited to “save Christianity”. What to “save Christianity” would even mean in the context of Vivekananda’s
      ideas must of course be a Christianity that existed as nothing more than some divinely inspired program for social workers.

      I see the Swami did not like the “Golden Rule,” even calling it vulgar. How one claim to be a religious universalist and denounce the Golden Rule? Considering that the Golden Rule is expressed in one form or another in all the great religions one wonders on what basis Vivekananda decided it was “vulgar,” is Vivekananda greater than Jesus, Buddha, Confucius? Basically, Vivekananda’s whole position here is nonsensical, which is typical of modernism, which often rejects tradition just for the sake of rejecting tradition.

      “Vivekananda also questioned the Christian doctrine of original sin and compared this with the Advaita understanding of the inherent purity of the âtmâ. He felt, on the whole, that the Christian tradition, as he encountered it, emphasised, too much, human depravity and sinfulness.

      Be not deluded by your religion teaching original sin, for the same religion teaches original purity. When Adam fell, he fell from purity. Purity is our real nature and to regain that is the object of all religion (CW 7:
      418).”

      He seems to be contradicting himself here. He doesn’t like the doctrine of original sin, it says, but that quote implies that he believes Adam fell from purity, thereby acknowledging original sin, and then he says the object of ALL religion is to regain our original pure nature. In that last he is right – but to regain our original pure nature we must have lost it.

      Besides, from what I know of it, Hindu doctrine certainly does not expound the purity of the material world.

      “He expressed abhorrence at the idea of salvation gained through the shedding of blood, anticipating concerns among some Christians about the meaning of atonement. The Hindu, according to Vivekananda, understood sacrifice to mean the receiving of that which is offered to God.”

      That first sentence is typical of a modern sentimentalist pacifism which rises in horror at any suggestion of bloodshed while promoting a world (and Vivekananda was a modernist to a good extent) which is run on violence, namely the violence of machines, materialism, and humanism, against the earth, its inhabitants and all traditional values. Look how Vivekananda rejects two thousand years of the Christian tradition nonchalantly; is that not the epitomy of irresponsible thought, of thought lacking in objectivity or any sense of proportion? I am not even sure what that second sentence means here.

      “Vivekananda interpreted the meaning of Jesus through the Hindu affirmation of multiple divine manifestations. Vivekananda, however, like Hindu interpreters following him, disagreed with Christian claims for the uniqueness of Jesus. “He was a manifestation of God; so was the Buddha; so were some others”

      In the above Vivekananda is actually correct; but correctness in some points should not lead to acceptance of the entire worldview, as all are correct on something.

      I suppose this critique is not really that rigorous as there is much in the article I did not comment on, others have put Vivekananda, “through the ringer” so to speak, far better than I have here.

      Some critiques of Vivekananda can be found here:

      http://books.google.com/books?id=8ibuNTglxNwC&pg=PA270&lpg=PA270&dq=schuon+vivekananda&source=bl&ots=mbOwYFS_EJ&sig=iX6tfX2LopVtK3ATOIa-ywReOC8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-8kFUaStCcPVyQGzHA&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=schuon%20vivekananda&f=false

      and here:

      http://books.google.com/books?id=vC1qAj6RbRQC&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=schuon+vivekananda&source=bl&ots=lrA9RZfhAS&sig=TMo5BCtI8WpMk0GolM-Y4T1dHXQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-8kFUaStCcPVyQGzHA&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=schuon%20vivekananda&f=false

      Go to those sites and search use the ‘find’ option to search for ‘Vivekananda’ in the writing.

      • http://www.facebook.com/santhosh.chandrashekar Santhosh Chandrashekar

        Frank

        I agree with your critique. I also have my own problems with the ways in which Vivekananda refashioned Hinduism as a masculinist modern religion. That being said, I am also weary of dogmatic, scripture-based approach to religion. Religions, like all thought processes, respond to different interlocutors and forces of their times. In that sense, Vivekananda responded to (and was heavily–and perhaps unduly–influenced by) modernity, which was the reigning ideology of its times.

        Also keep in mind that Vivekananda’s writings were a response to what we may call the “colonial syndrome.” British scholarly production consistently marked Hindus (or Hindoos) as unworthy of self-rule as they were considered to be effeminate. As Fanon rightly points out, the colonized, who find themselves castrated, overcompensate by returning to masculinity (prefigured through violence). Hence, Vivekananda’s response itself is a movement towards situating Hinduism in a Calvinist image. As such, I am somewhat more sympathetic towards the dilemmas that guided his writings. I also maintain a healthy skepticism about excessively doctrinal interpretations “unmarked by outside influence.” This perhaps is because of the fact that Hinduism itself is not a theological religion based on a set of texts. Hence, I always draw from its social history more than its scriptures. It is also because of this reason that I believe that the Paramahamsa and Vivekananda both made valid contributions.

        I would have loved to talk more on doctrinal differences and my ideas of them. However, I believe that this thread would be better served if we stick with the original post and think through the politics of Judeo-Christian faith/spirituality-based decolonization work. I think that was the original purpose and I have to respect it. But I do appreciate your engagement.

        Best
        Santhosh

    • Derek

      Santhosh, thanks for the article. I will read it and get back to you. I also must say that love and spirituality can be missing a lot in activist communities, but meeting you during un-occupy i was encouraged about ur spirituality and ur ability to turn love in to action!

  • JP

    Derek, I am so encouraged and challenged by your essay or article, as a seminary student studying the Hebrew text and New Testament from a liberation, feminist theology I see many of your parallels, I would love to comment further once I have some time, but I found this article very encouraging and in line with why I am going to seminary and why I want to devote my life to ministry. Your final lines of the article are exactly where you should continue your search for the reasons Jesus wept for the city. He was very aware of the colonial oppression to his people through Rome, the awful truth is that after Jesus died the world missed the message. We never truly “got it” and we were so easily lead away thanks to Paul. I’ll explain later and I completely agree with you. a great resource I’m reading is called The Politics of Jesus by Obery M. Hendricks very good, very academic. I love yOU!!!!

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