Abstract
Christian ethical imagination was always tempered by various social prejudices prevalent in local contexts. Particularly during modernity and subsequently through colonial expansion, the role of race and caste became central to the expansion of Christianity through missionary activity. A closer scrutiny of colonial missionary Christianity clearly suggests the significance of racialised worldview shaping theological and ethical paradigms. In particular contexts, such racialised imagination underpinned and gave credence to other forms of social prejudices, such as caste in South Asia. Through a post-colonial lens, I examine the role of race and caste in shaping Christian ethical frameworks and articulate the rationale for ‘decolonising’ the modern foundations of Christian ethics in pursuit of racial justice in our contemporary society.
Colonialism, Imperialism, and Post-Colonial Lens
Christianity and colonialism share a chequered history. Within this context any effort to understand ‘modern’ Christian expansion needs to take into account the complex relationship between ‘modern’ colonial institutions and diverse socio-cultural practices in the occupied colonies. Specifically, social exclusion within human communities manifests itself in different ways, such as race in the Euro-American context and caste in the South Asian context. Christianity continues to have a troubled relationship with race and caste categories globally. In this context, I propose to explore three aspects in this article: firstly, to unpack the notion of the racialised worldview and how it impacted/shaped other forms of prejudice; secondly, to examine the process of colonisation and Christianisation as a simultaneously occurring phenomenon with a shared ethical framework and outline its implications for global Christianity; thirdly, to offer four ethical paradigms for a shared just future.
Post-Colonial Lens
A post-colonial enquiry of race, caste and Christianity uses coloniality as a lens to critically analyse and highlight the underlying foundations of empire and its power. It is important to acknowledge that colonialism is not only physical but ideological and philosophical, providing a worldview to dominate and rule. Primarily, colonialism became a vehicle to enforce the self-conceptualisation of European superiority on to the exotic Orientals. 1 It was a colonisation of geography and economics as well as minds and bodies, which are hardwired into the system and difficult to transcend. Imperialism as the ambition of an empire is often mapped on to government policies, trading priorities, defence strategies, literature, curricula and sermons to obtain preeminent power and control. Therefore, colonialism occupies not only physical space but cultural, religious, political, educational and intellectual spaces. In this context decolonisation as a process is the critical element that challenges and, in some cases, ends colonisation. Postcolonialism strives to develop emancipatory perspectives from the subjugation of colonial and imperial powers. It is also weary of neo-colonialism, which strives to extend imperialism and colonialism but with a local flavour. Often neo-colonialism assumes power by reactivating entrenched structures of discrimination and prejudice, such as race and caste, legitimised by Christianity. A post-colonial enquiry of race, caste and Christianity uses coloniality as a lens to critically analyse and highlight the underlying foundations of empire and its power. It is in this context that I situate my analysis of race and caste within colonial Christianity, especially from my perspective as a former colonial subject from South India now living in England.
Colonialism and Race
The social phenomenon I refer to as ‘race’ is not a biological distinction that inheres in people themselves. It is a way, a power-inscribed way of reading or establishing difference, and finding a long-lasting means for reproducing such readings, organization, and practice.
2
One significant misconception about race and ethnicity is that they are products of the body or blood-inherent qualities that are present and unchangeable inside a person from birth. Yet race and ethnicity are anything but natural. Rather than permanent, immutable characteristics of a person, specific races and ethnicities are organisational categories that have been created by humans over time as a way of orienting themselves in the world.
3
As Europe embarked on the conquering trail around the world, while meeting new people and land, it is argued that they collectively renamed, remapped and reordered into intentional hierarchy of races, colours, religions and cultures. Moreover, colonial taxonomies linked racialised bodies with racialised territories, cultures and practices, making associational links with white and non-white bodies and related practices.
4
Racialised worldview is rooted in the colonial logic of discovering the ‘new world’ beyond the European context. Human beings within this framework are graded in comparison to Europeans, as the apex of humanity. Therefore, even though the new lands were already occupied, the inhabitants were considered as subhuman and in need of civilisation. The ontological difference provided substance to the development of Race as a category within the colonial worldview. Reason and autonomy of thought, the virtues of enlightenment thinking, became the defining features of humanity, in the process creating a graded, racialised worldview of humanity. 8 The problem with such a racialised worldview, and later in forms of racism, is that some subjects are not worthy enough to be considered as human, therefore less than human or sub-human. Such a worldview allows itself to be the fountainhead of social prejudice, easily lending itself to any context or situation.
Significantly, racialised worldview became embedded within European Christianity and its ethical thinking, in its conceptualisation of body and flesh, and the supremacy of European being. Christian ethics was subordinated to colonial Christian ambitions. The ideas around ‘heathen’ and ‘pagans’, ‘white’ and ‘black’, were shaped by the European biblical cartography and geography that allowed for accepting human difference and subordination. 9 This paved the way for European Christianity to accept slavery as an economic activity, making it more secure and regulated. The prevailing belief within society for decades was that slavery, Christianity and profits could co-exist on its plantations and many of its supporters thought that exhibiting this to other masters was of circum-Atlantic importance.
As history teaches us, it is hard to isolate colonial practice from the social norms of England in the Middle Ages. In other words, much of the colonial attitudes towards other cultures and peoples were deeply embedded in the British social worldview. Moreover, some would argue that it is this perspective that gave rise to colonial enterprise, to conquer and civilise the heathen cultures and bring them to the fold of Christianity. In all these developments, the church, through its theology and doctrine, was intensely involved in legitimising such adventures.
England was a fertile ground to absorb racial prejudices and stereotypes into its own pre-existing class-ridden society. 10 The hierarchical class-based social organisation of landlords, gentry and the poor landless labourers was an accepted social norm and a religiously rightful practice. The foremost identity in England in the sixteenth century was Christian identity and, more precisely, the church and chapel they attended classified their social status. It was not only a class indicator but also a signifier of their human nature. 11 It was not difficult for racial prejudices and discriminations to map on to that moral landscape.
For instance, imperial Anglicanism and transatlantic slavery cannot be understood in isolation. The first-generation missionary supporters envisioned the Church of England as a global institution, a supranational church with a reach commensurate with England's expanding power. Transatlantic Anglicanism's goal of making colonial societies more orderly played an important role in holding the view that slavery and conversion to Christianity were not only compatible but could indeed be beneficial. In some cases, missionaries thought that helping the slaves through Christianisation would lead them to be civilised. Hence, they supported the colonial establishment in providing support for managing slave communities.
Many of the Anglican leadership provided support for justification for slavery, such as Bishop Richard Kidder (1694) Bishop of Bath and Wells and Bishop Simon Patrick (1695) Bishop of Ely. Going further Philip Bisse, the Bishop of Hereford (1713) suggested that European colonialism and African enslavement were divinely ordained, and saw Atlantic chattel slavery as compelling world evidence of God's plan in taking possession of the New World.
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The providential nature of the British colonial empire was established through its self-understanding as God ordained to rule the world. Most mission organisations such as the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts (SPG, 1701) and the Church Missionary Society (1799) were either directly or indirectly involved in transatlantic slavery. Their Christian view was certainly influenced by the idea that the heathen people in the new world needed to be civilised, because they were less than human, a core principle of the racialised worldview. According to church historian Brian Stanley, a missionary magazine in 1830 reported: There can be little dispute that for the most of the nineteenth century, British Christians believed that the missionary was called to propagate the imagined benefits of Western civilisation alongside the Christian Message. It was assumed that the poor, benighted 'heathen' were in a condition of massive cultural deprivation, which the gospel alone could remedy.
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Christianity as practised by people in England across the board accepted the racial inferiority of non-whites, and the need for them to be treated as such permeated every aspect of society. ‘Christianity, commerce, and civilization’ became a ‘divinely commissioned’ position, which supported colonial domination of African countries in order to reap economic gains. If slavery was the backbone of British colonialism, Christianity was the moral compass. The larger point I am trying to make here is by cooperating with colonial authorities and explorers, missionaries are perceived to have acted as agents of imperialism through their theology and ecclesiology. During the height of colonial activities, the churches and clergy in England also benefited from the slave trade. More specifically, many of the clergy owned slaves and some of the biggest cathedrals were built by generous donations from slave masters. 16 While Victorian England was enjoying the benefits of slavery, the missionaries were also working tirelessly to convert the ‘heathens’ and civilise them by bringing the religion of Christianity to them.
What was happening in the colonies in terms of Christian mission and anti-slavery movements did make an impact on the host country; however, Ruth Watts captures that ‘anti-slavery and missionary activities could arouse humanitarian sympathies and sentiments of brotherhood and sisterhood, but this generally was within a framework of acceptance of the superiority of white people, their “civilization” and religion’. 17 In other words, life in England during the colonial period continued as it did before, reinforcing class and racial bias within the church and beyond. 18 The Church of England as the established church is embedded in this historical legacy and it is no surprise that such racial prejudices are deeply entrenched and are manifest in current structures. 19
Racialised Casteism
Similar to the geographical diversity in the Indian subcontinent, the region is also divided on the lines of language, ethnicity, culture, religion and caste, constructing a distinct system of social organisation. The caste system forms the distinct backbone of Hindu social order and as such has a significant presence in South Asian society. 20 The social structure and ideology of the caste system is a possible combination of the Varna 21 and the Jati (birth) divisions, 22 further underpinned by notions of purity and pollution. This social and religio-cultural practice continues to have a stronghold in South Asian society.
Within this ancient Vedic system the Untouchables are Outcastes, due to the nature of their traditionally prescribed professions involving polluted things, making them polluted people and pollutants in turn. Undoubtedly the caste system has a far-reaching impact and consequences in the Indian subcontinent. However, the term ‘caste’ is Portuguese in origin, derived from the Latin castus (chaste, the unadulterated, pure breed), and came into common usage during Portuguese colonial rule. Caste, as an expression, was used by the colonial authorities to designate the complex social system, as it did not fit into the early classifications of the European anthropologists. 23 The designation became consolidated during British colonial rule of the Indian subcontinent in which racialised ethnography was used as a tool to classify the complex caste system during several censuses. During the early colonial period the Portuguese and later the British not only introduced new terms of discourse on caste but effected changes in the system itself. It is important to observe that the missionaries within the auspices of the British East India Company subscribed to that view. If we look at the national census carried out during the colonial administration in the nineteenth century, caste was unambiguously defined by racial categories within colonial discourse that mapped onto the Brahmanical order in categorising people, which continues to date excluding more than 25 per cent of its population as Untouchables 24 and Dalits. 25
Colonised Christian Mission in South Asia
In the fifteenth century South Asia experienced massive expansion by European colonial rule coupled with the advent of missionary Christianity. The Indian subcontinent is no stranger to Christianity, as attested to by the existence of a vibrant Christian community in the Malabar Coast and Ceylon in the tradition of St. Thomas since the first century AD. 26 The Catholic missionaries accompanying the Portuguese colonial power were the first to arrive on the shores of South Asia, and upon their arrival they were confronted by the caste reality and its deep-rootedness in Indian society. They were unable to comprehend this complicated and foreign phenomenon. Instead of getting embroiled in the conflict, they rather adopted a safer method, to not have a confrontational attitude to the caste system. 27 Keeping in line with the colonial official policy the missionaries adapted an accommodative evangelisation approach, which did not threaten or undermine the caste system and was firmly embedded by people such as Roberto De Nobili. 28
Unlike the class and racial struggle that manifested in the doctrinal and denominational division in Europe, the fertile mission fields of South Asia provided a different role for the denominational identity. 29 Although some of the missionary societies were interdenominational on an organisational level, the majority of the missionary societies had a strong denominational identity, such as the Danish-Halle Mission (Lutheran), the Baptist Missionary Society, the Church Missionary Society (Anglican), USPG, 30 the Wesleyan Methodist, the Scottish and American Reformed and Presbyterians. As a reflection of the denominational and doctrinal divisions back in Europe and as an outcome of the inner missionary struggle for domination and control in India, missionaries belonging to various churches and mission bodies during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries agreed to work and concentrate within particular territories and caste communities. 31 This process of exclusive mission fields gave impetus to each denominational missionary organisation and churches assuming distinct geographical and spatial identities. 32 In the South Asian context these geographical boundaries 33 came to signify certain caste groups from which the majority of Christian converts were drawn. 34 Thus, a confused identity with the denominational heritage and caste at their roots emerged, replicating class association of denominations in England which also tacitly practised racial prejudices within the colonial framework.
From the preceding observations it is obvious that this racialised theological worldview of colonial mission allowed caste in its respective contexts to reinforce and legitimate dominant power interests, while also in some places generating resistance to dominant power. Crucially this process leaves dominated groups with little social power. However varied the paths of ‘race’ and ‘caste’ are, they are but systems of subjugation and exploitation, primarily expressed through inferiority of the other. When we speak of racial and caste injustice, we need to delve into this legacy of how social categorisations, legitimised by theological and ethical frameworks, became colonial instruments of domination, exclusion and in some cases extermination. What I wish to do now is to explore further this process especially from the perspective of Christian ethics.
Decoloniality, Christian Ethics and Racial Justice
Duncan Forrester in Truthful Action suggests, ‘theology and ethics are both together ultimately concerned with discerning God's activity in the world and learning how to respond faithfully and well’. 35
If Christian theology is faith seeking understanding, then Christian ethics is faith seeking authentic living. Hence Christian ethics begins in an encounter with the divine and moves to reflect on the implications of this new horizon for living. Much of the foundations of ethical discussion can be traced back to two ways of thinking: firstly, unfolding truth, that is, ultimately unknowable and founded on experience as much as on reason. Secondly, revealed truth—that is, knowable by way of the intellect and reason. These two streams of ethical framing continue to play a significant role in shaping Christian ethical thinking. For instance, one could see that the resurrection is the starting point of a Christian approach to ethics because it tells us of God's vindication of his creation and so of our created life. The original telos of the created order, its fundamental goodness and harmony, is reaffirmed by the being of God uniquely embodied in the material creation in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. 36 In other words, as Michael Northcott puts it, the relational alienation between God and humanity, between persons, between humans and non-humans, and between non-humans, which issues from the Fall is transformed and redeemed by the restoration of created order, which is foretold in the resurrection of Jesus Christ who Christians came to see, was indeed God incarnate, God in a human body, transforming from within the disorder of fallen creation. 37 The overarching idea is that there are no naïve Christian solutions to complex moral problems. However, the ethos shown by Christians through their relationship and worship in a community becomes the location and architecture of ethical commitments. A survey of Christian ethical imagination over the centuries clearly suggests that Christian morality is generated through community and identity, through Christian narrative and memory, history and politics, lived experiences of people in a diverse context, expressed, shared and shaped. 38
What I am interested in is how this particular ethical imagination also contained within it the graded view of humanity through its Eurocentric anthropology and supremacy of a particular race as evidenced earlier through the historical overview of colonialism and Christian expansion. The understanding of natural law through the perspective of enlightenment offers a particular legitimacy to the adventures of discovery, colonisation, civilisation and Christianisation. 39
As explained earlier, colonialism and imperialism fostered a long process of continued domination of the West over the rest of the world and cultural, economic and political domination still characterise global politics. The practice of European white supremacy and its legacy through colonisation and Christianisation contributed to the degradation of racially inferior people in order to control, economically exploit, politically oppress, and culturally degrade them.
In this context postcolonialism examines the experience of societies and peoples in the formerly colonised regions of the world. Walter Mignolo captures this process: ‘By decolonizing Western epistemology I understand as an analytic task. The analytic decolonial task consists in unveiling beliefs and assumptions, anchored in common sense, that naturalizes the world as we have been taught to see it’. 40 Therefore, it is a process of learning to unlearn in order to relearn and to rebuild. Put simply, decoloniality is a way for us to re-learn, recover and reactivate the knowledge that has been pushed aside, forgotten, buried or discredited by the forces of modernity, colonialism, and capitalism. It is also a process of profoundly altering knowledge production, reshaping the value systems that govern epistemological foundations, and finally, ascertaining agency to the colonised subjects.
Decoloniality then, is to recover and transform the very foundations of knowledge and faith. Here, methodologically, boundary crossings and transgressions are central to decolonising. Returning to my positionality as a post-colonial subject who endured caste discrimination and is now embedded in an institutional church that was/is part of the colonial fabric, these two realms of prejudice converge. Colonisation is a process of ideological, philosophical and spatial domination that permeates every aspect of human life. Postcolonialism is concerned with developing perspectives from the point of emancipation from the subjugation of colonial and imperial powers. It is also weary of neo-colonialism, which strives to extend imperialism and colonialism but with a local flavour. Often neo-colonialism assumes power by reactivating entrenched structures of discrimination and prejudice, such as race and caste, legitimised by Christianity. It is in this context that we need to situate my analysis of race and caste within colonial Christianity and examine the Christian ethical framework that accompanied by colonial expansion became a tool of imperialism. As explained earlier, Christian mission activities on several occasions colluded in colonial expansion by accommodating a racialised worldview. Let me suggest three different points of convergence between race and caste, especially from a post-colonial perspective. They are: (a) legitimising a worldview of graded humanity, (b) enabling mechanisms of dehumanisation, alienation and subordination, and (c) institutionalising prejudice. Further, what we observe especially through the British Empire is that the colonial rulers were able to use both race and caste categories to subjugate and exploit vast communities through slavery and colonisation. Interestingly, it is in the colonial experience that race and caste share a platform through multivalent and multi-layered meanings, almost giving rise to racialised casteism. Although race and caste as systems of prejudice, subjugation and exploitation share certain commonalities, they diverge in several areas making them unique.
Christian Ethics and Racial Justice
Next, I will try to offer my re-articulation and recovering of Christian ethical imagination, which sharply provides a primer in decolonial Christian ethics. While biblically locating Jesus, one cannot but discuss God beyond a sympathising God, but also as an intervening God who acts on behalf of the oppressed, as demonstrated in the lives of Israelites under Egyptian bondage, and who enters the history of humankind through the Incarnation of Jesus. This God of the Old Testament and the prophets is a God of love, justice and righteousness who demands radical egalitarianism. 41 The ethical requirement of knowing God and doing justice is very clear in the Old Testament and in the lives of Israelites as proclaimed by the prophets. As an outcome of this knowledge of God, Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God, which stands in opposition to the existing oppressive structures. Justice and equality, as divine ethical values, are essentially linked with love and compassion. Jesus’ affirmative ethical actions are fundamentally rooted in the knowledge of God. In this regard, Jesus demands a communitarian life and a fellowship among his followers as an expression of shared love through which his presence can be experienced. In other words, ethical living in a community is not just following a set of moral rules and loving God but is integrally connected to strengthening inter- and intra-personal relationships on the basis of shared love and mutual respect which assures the wellbeing of every individual in a community. 42
Therefore, Jesus places before all the challenge to lead an ethical life that reflects unconditional relationships devoid of discrimination and prejudice. This liberative principle can only be liberative when it is actualised within the Christian community in particular and society in general. 43 Hence, time and again Jesus affirmed the imminent nature of the Kingdom of God and emphasised the praxiological dimension of it. 44 It is not just theology but ‘God consciousness’, which directs the social life of human beings in its totality. To underline the ethical idea of Jesus, Crossan writes, ‘for Jesus Justice is always about bodies and lives, not just about words and ideas’. 45 Jesus would not negotiate and collaborate with the oppressive structures but invites humanity into a new transformed relationship with God. Jesus strives to strengthen the broken communities and inspire their lives to experience the incarnate God of justice and righteousness and live out the essential principles of love, justice, freedom, equality, and dignity. With this in mind, let me suggest four ethical paradigms.
Radical Resistance
Within the religious and cultural unrest of his time, Jesus’ teachings and ministry had significant social and political overtones so as to inspire other resistance movements. It would be historically naïve to think that Jesus of Nazareth had no interest in the political establishment of his time. 46 Historical research captures the complexity of Judean society under occupation and consolidation of hierarchy alongside notions of ritual purity 47 which classified and excluded, making social relationships between people and communities highly brokered and mediated. It is in this context that Jesus, as a carpenter, resisted such a socio-economic and political system by advocating a God-centred societal reversal. He recognised and gave the rightful place to children, including all those who were excluded from the community into his kingdom (Mt. 25:31-46; Lk. 14:21-24). He took a bold step to cleanse the temple (Lk. 19:45-46), exposing the unethical praxis of their corrupt lives. He also unmasked the shallowness of the rituals and policies of the temple authorities due to their failure to love and show mercy to the people (Mt. 23:23-24; Lk. 11:37-40, 44). He traversed the social boundaries between the Jews and Samaritans. 48 Jesus had a different conception of authority. In the dialogue with Pilate, Jesus fundamentally differed with the Roman colonial authorities subverting their claims to sovereignty and subordinating their power to that of God. 49 He threw open the access to God that had been resolutely guarded. Jesus emphasised that God consciousness should permeate every realm of society. The ideas of Jesus such as radical egalitarianism, brokerless relationships, open commensality and free healing have significant economic and political dimensions. These ideas underline the impossibility of new life for the excluded within an oppressive and exploitative structure without political participation. By advocating these liberative principles, Jesus of Nazareth challenges and subverts the establishment and resisted domination, disrupting the basis of colonial authorities. 50 In the midst of social untouchability, economic deprivation and political non-representation, Jesus’ idea of a new world order, a Kingdom of God which is not confined to any particular geographical location or race, promises equal distribution of spiritual and material resources irrespective of caste, colour, occupation and gender discriminations. The brokerless relationship offers hope in the midst of often exploited labour of people within the new economic policies and special economic zones. This Kingdom of God has a strong immanent dimension without undermining the idea that the eschatological kingdom should challenge and critique the present social order. By proposing an alternative and egalitarian society which breaks the norms of categorisation, stratification and marginalisation, Jesus stands fundamentally in contrast to the existing oppressive power structures. In the context of unjust and exploitative economics and politics, this ethical perspective becomes meaningful and pertinent to emulate. Jesus explores the innate potential in ministry for current political participation in order to bring about a change in the daily lives of people. Jesus primarily proposed a counterculture that challenges any oppressive, exploitative and discriminatory socio-economic and political institution. Essentially, Jesus advocated human rights in order to restore the broken image of God by redeeming dignity and respect for all human beings. 51 This ethical paradigm should function as a means of liberation for all, for both the oppressed and the oppressor. Nothing changes unless there is a reciprocal change in the attitude of the oppressor. Jesus empowers the oppressed and awakens the social conscience of the oppressor, paving the way for experiencing the fullness of life that God provides within an inclusive society. This liberative ethical praxis should take central place in the community of Christ's followers, the Church, and only then can it challenge the neo-colonial exploitative socio-economic-political systems. Jesus’ ethical paradigm radically resists and challenges us to move out of our habituated subordinated and subordinating socio-political situations to resist the marginalising and dehumanising forces of this world.
Solidarity
We live in a world of insiders and outsiders, a world where some are welcome, and others are permanently shunned. We build barriers because of ethnic, gender, caste and racial differences. We build barriers based on economic, social, or political differences. Barriers pop up when differences of gender, physical or mental ability, education, or religion makes us hostile and inhospitable. Or we hide behind barriers on account of prejudice, grudges, unhealed hurts, or painful memories. Instead of nurturing friendship and intimacy, we foster indifference, disconnection and estrangement. We are experts at exclusion because we prefer the comfortable and familiar neighbour to the ‘stranger’ whose presence may not only challenge us, but also completely remake our world. I have lived through it and Christian communities are not immune to such. We have mental walls that shut people out. We may not consciously construct these walls; in fact, we are probably hardly aware of them, but they are there. Most communities tend to be fairly homogeneous. We feel comfortable only to talk to people we know, not the stranger. We prefer our ‘bubbles’. If we carefully consider Jesus’ teachings on human identity and the dignity of all beings, it is fundamentally shaped by the shared nature of their created-ness with the creator; his shared nature is essentially an embodied one. We cannot conceive the worth of human beings in a vacuum but only in the recognition of the divine in other living beings situated within the environment. So fundamental is the imago dei as an element of creation that it ought to be the supreme value that shapes our identity and therefore our belonging to one another, because we all share in that ineffable love as the source of our being. Such theological framing gives a spiritual approach to racial justice, which seeks to reimagine an alternative to economic life, coming from our moral commitment to God and to one another, to recover the fundamental principles of radical love, compassionate care, and hospitality to offer an alternative in this world.
Jesus offers an ethical paradigm of connected spirituality, which provides space for solidarity, which is life affirming and underpinned by the interdependence of all creation as God intended. Such solidarity also results in the realisation that what affects others affects us, because our lives are intertwined. From a post-colonial perspective, solidarity could be understood as radical shared interest that leads to shared action. Therefore, solidarity is resisting any force that destroys the God intended interdependence and balance. In other words, we are bound to one another and with the creation in God. If we undermine the intertwined and interdependent nature of our being, we become less than human, less than God intended.
Hospitality
From solidarity stems the ethical virtue of hospitality. As an Anglican one of my favourite prayers is Nunc Dimittis, sung each night in the daily prayer of the church. Imagine hearing those certain words of Simeon, ‘Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation…’ What we see in this encounter is Simeon and Anna capture God's generous hospitality extended towards humanity in Jesus Christ. Simeon rejoices in God's hospitality that God is still speaking, God is still with us, God is still responding to human needs and human cries and the groans of this world. Now imagine for a moment, as a Christian ethicist in this room, saying the words of Simeon, ‘my eyes have seen the glory of God’ especially if a stranger walks into our midst?
Solidarity helps us to convert hostility to hospitality, exclusion to embrace, witnessing and embodying hope, which truly reflects God. In a world that has grown frighteningly guarded and harsh, we are called to imitate God's hospitality in the world, modelled in the life and ministry of Jesus. Jesus gladly sat down at table with anyone, sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes, and they were all welcome there. Hospitality is the most important Christian calling for our times, but it is one we easily neglect. Jesus in his ministry explicitly invites us to think about hospitality to the stranger. Jesus comes anonymously, we do not know the ones in whom Christ will come to us. By coming to us hidden in the persons of a destitute, a refugee, a prisoner, and a stranger, Jesus tests our attitude towards others in general. His body, the church, must live with an open door and an open heart, because that is where Christ meets it. The spirit moves freely beyond our shallow boundaries and constantly gathers new people in. Jesus makes it clear that only by an act of limitless and unconditional hospitality can we enjoy Jesus’ particular presence. But the very thought of Jesus coming to us as an anonymous stranger, as an illegal immigrant, a victim of knife crime, as an abused person, a refugee, as a vulnerable child, as a prisoner, as an outcast, as a despised minority—even as our enemy—can terrify us. How can we welcome such a Jesus? Here Jesus connects the test of hospitality with divine judgment. The true character of the righteous is shaped by the act of unreserved hospitality extended to a stranger.
Within Christian ethics, hospitality is not an occasional gesture but a whole way of being. It is not an interruption to our normal way of life but a habit, practice, or virtue that ought consistently to characterise our lives. Hospitality becomes the vehicle through which we proclaim the glory and redemption possible in Jesus Christ. Hospitality is the vocation of every Christian because it is through hospitality that we offer the most compelling witness of who God is, who we are called to be, and what the world through God's grace can become. Hospitality is the mark of a Church because it is the practice by which we continue to bring the generosity, love, and compassion of God to life in the world. God's hospitality stems from an understanding that we share in a common identity with God in whose image we are created, we share the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, we belong to Christ and to one another. There are no more profane or unclean, no more circumcised or uncircumcised or even someone who needs to be purified after childbirth. All are welcome into the house of God, where we encounter God. Resistance, Solidarity and Hospitality are an eschatological vision that transforms and revolutionises our present. These theological virtues are essentially opposed to colonial tendencies to dominate, isolate, exclude and exterminate. Therefore, Christian ethics demands that we embody these virtues as decolonial practice.
Joy
Flowing from resistance, solidarity, and hospitality is joy. In the world today, joy is often superficially understood and equated with happiness. Joy is more than simply moral emotion, and joy is not self-absorbed or purely aesthetic. Joy is not something innate as some new age gurus teach us. The Greek word for joy is chara; it is not simply a satisfied state of being. It is beyond individual and deeply communal, a more ecstatic understanding of agency than ‘happiness’ typically allows. According to the Hebrew Bible, God gives us joy and peace and becomes the source of our strength (Neh. 8:10). It is not static; it transforms and regenerates us. In the Gospel of John, Jesus said to his disciples ‘I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete’ (Jn 15:11). Joy is an invitation to abide in the teachings of Jesus, to pursue the core vocation of love. The joy that Jesus speaks about is innately communal. When we reflect further, the joy that Jesus calls for deconstructs the fictious self-sufficient independent subject. It draws our attention to relationality, solidarity, which constitutes life in community. It is a joy that resists aggression and coercion, and the violence that stems from it. In contrast to the immanence of happiness, Jesus speaks immediately of transcendence, of what is outside. For Jesus, joy is an exuberant and rich life that stems from our action and responsiveness to others, a communion with others. Joy sheds light on our habituation and transient state that points to beyond itself. It is not defined by strict adherence to doctrinal dogmas. Abiding in Jesus is soul crafting, a sacramental dialectic, that allows us to live out the proleptic, not yet, in our quotidian world.
Theologically, the logic of joy is that it shapes our being. Joy is not delusional but habitual, thus political, because it seeks to live out an alternative community. The disciples learned that the cultivation of joy speaks of a reality that is not purely passive, happening to us, nor simply active, something we do; but partaking of both receptivity and dynamism. Similarly, we must learn the capacity to be joyful, which must be developed. That is why Paul writes in Galatians that joy is a ‘fruit of the Spirit’ (Gal. 5:22). For Paul, joy seen as a virtue seeks what is ultimately good and develops a response to knowing, feeling and doing what matters. Moreover, such an approach reinforces that joy as a virtue is the antidote to envy, desire and greed. It is a positive affective response to an objective external good. The emphasis here does not claim that joy is determined by what one is becoming, contributing, or following, but rather how one is becoming, contributing, or following. In Christian discipleship, joy occurs when we are attuned to the needs of others. It can only be lived out in relationality to one another. Because we encounter God and transcendence through joy, experienced in the communion with others, it certainly becomes an ethical paradigm. It is a joy that is unselfish and vicarious, which takes delight in the good fortune of others. Far from the shallow transient happiness, the joy we encounter in the life of Jesus is a deep, sustaining joy, which has a transformational nature and a healing power. As we learn from the lives of the disciples, it is this joy that sustained them through trials, tribulations, and sorrow. Joy, through the grace of God, is the transfiguration of suffering into endurance; it is endurance that produces character, which in turn produces hope, and this hope which becomes our joy will not disappoint us unlike the shallow happiness this world promises in abundance.
As a post-colonial ethical tactic, the joy practised by Jesus resists aggression and violence through sacrificial love, works towards peace, nurtures equity and inclusion, builds an alternative community of hope through solidarity. The Christian ethic of joy is embodied in resistance, solidarity, and hospitality.
Conclusion
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
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That is why for Martin Luther King Jr, racial justice is rooted in love and recognition; it is through love that equity and dignity could be redeemed. In a world of discrimination and hate it is love that swings the gate wide open and makes room for everyone, black and white and all in between. James Baldwin makes it even more clear: Love takes off the mask that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word love here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or state of grace, not in the infantile sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.
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Focusing on racial justice stresses the need to embody the God of hope and hospitality, so that the structures of injustice may be dismantled and the people, particularly, who are dehumanised, exploited and have been in the wilderness can say that they have experienced the mercy of God, that they may have joy and life, life in all its fullness. In the context of disfiguration of human dignity perpetrated by racism and similar prejudice, the ethical paradigms of Jesus invite through transfiguration to reframe our perspectives through redeeming human dignity.
Racial justice within Christian ethics exhorts us to reimagine an alternative reality that offers hope and comfort to those who are hurting.
I end with these words of Martin Luther King Jr: I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
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