Abstract
The colonial period of Christian expansion was plagued by practices and systems that exploited non-European indigenous populations for the endgame interests of enriching the treasuries of European imperial powers and promoting Eurocentrism. Anderson Jeremiah has written an important paper that explains how the concepts of race and the caste system in South Asia functioned in the context of colonial Christian expansion, and argues that postcolonial Christian actors should prioritise intentionally replacing dehumanising forms of missional activity with the four ethically decolonising paradigms of radical resistance, solidarity, hospitality, and joy in service of promoting racial justice in future global society. My response focuses on Jeremiah's ethical paradigm of hospitality, and engages with the challenge of applying this paradigm. In order for this hospitality paradigm to be applied in ways that lead to optimal missional outcomes, it must answer several questions, especially those linked to the existence of contesting hospitality-focussed frameworks and sociocultural attitudes endorsed by contemporary Christian agents and communities whose norms of hospitality appear radically different.
Anderson Jeremiah's paper, ‘Race, Caste and Christian Ethics: A Decolonial Proposal’, explains how colonial Christian missionary activity complicity supported rather than challenged the dehumanising and subjugating practices of leveraging race and the caste system as means to advance the religious expansionary interests of colonial Christian agents. I begin my analysis by critically engaging with Jeremiah's interrogating of colonial Christianity's interfacing with the issue of race before turning to the issue of the caste system in South Asia. Jeremiah explains how Christianity provided an important framework by which to implement visions linked to European colonial enterprises, and later goes on to argue that the concept of a racialised worldview has roots in a European colonial logic that dichotomised Europeans and non-Europeans in ways that understood these parties as the apex of humankind and a subhuman race of beings in need of ‘civilising’, respectively. For Jeremiah, the concept of race emerged as a tool used to distinguish between people groups in the mindset driving colonialism. The racialised worldview Jeremiah points to explicitly juxtaposed Europeans and non-Europeans (e.g., Africans, Asians, etc.), the latter being in need of ‘civilising’. In the context of this colonially self-appointed ‘civilising framework’, Christianity served as a socio-ethical instrument of individual and collective reform.
Jeremiah shows how colonial Christian agents often evangelistically operated in contexts dominated by imperial actors, such as the British East India Company, where strict policies of non-interference compelled missionary actors not to challenge practices like the caste system in India as well as other local societal practices they deemed incompatible or incongruous with the Christian socioreligious worldview. In adhering to policies of non-interference required by these companies, who understood non-interference in local sociocultural ways of living as a path to ensure the maximisation of extractive economic profit and the continuity of their political hegemony, colonial missionary actors acted as agents of imperialism. Colonial companies forbade missionaries from meddling in broader Indian sociocultural society in ways that would undermine the former's authority. Ignoring this policy would initiate the process of company authorities ending their relationships with missionary bodies. The power dynamic in place at this time was abundantly clear: the imperial company was in charge and missionary activity could proceed as long as it reinforced and did not undermine European colonial supremacy.
This colonial-era dynamic speaks to a broader, timely discourse about the always-evolving nature of church-state relations and, in particular, lessons from the colonial period that apply to how the modern Christian church can most effectively engage beyond itself with the wider world. In his paper, Jeremiah calls for decolonizing Christian mission as well as the wider Christian church altogether; this process can take place by committing to challenge neocolonial tendencies that manifest via discrimination, among other actions. Jeremiah establishes pivotal links between the Christian church practically instead of merely rhetorically working for justice in everyday society and being able to maintain what it understands as its positioning as the embodied Kingdom of God. At this stage of my response, a key question I would like to pose to Jeremiah is not about the relationship between decolonisation, Christian mission, and knowledge production, but more broadly, about how to develop a unified Christian ethical community working to combat oppressive and marginalising forces out of the 2.3 billion Christians living today represented by hundreds of distinctive denominations, each with their own theologies of justice. Jeremiah's paper should be appreciated as a valuable, experientially-rooted contribution to scholarship interested in how decolonisation relates to modern Christian mission. However, it seems to homogenise Christianity by stopping short of acknowledging the huge doctrinal, Christological, and sociopolitical diversity in Christianity, the world's largest religion, and how this diversity might complicate the Jesus-centred concept that Jeremiah places at the core of his call for the development of a renewed landscape of Christian mission whose social and political norms do not mirror the discriminatory dynamics entrenched in secular society.
For Jeremiah, the answer to the problem of Christian mission not recommitting the same mistakes it made during the colonial and imperial eras noted earlier in this response paper can be found in the four ethical paradigms of radical resistance, solidarity, hospitality, and joy. The concept of Christian ethics driving Jeremiah's argument envisions these principles playing a vital role in decolonisation practice. In particular, the principle of hospitality has much to offer mission-related decolonisation discourses. Jeremiah's vision of hospitality prioritises pragmatic actions demonstrating generosity, love, and compassion in everyday life; these actions would provide a powerful witness of God's nature and Christianly maturity and virtuousness. This argument is compelling, but Jeremiah should contextualise this concept of hospitality among contemporary global Christianity. Questions Jeremiah might answer include: To what extent should moving toward a singular vision of hospitality serve as the end goal of Christian mission in a global Christian landscape marked by huge theological and praxeological diversity? What happens when Christian visions of hospitality compete with each other as evidenced by the potentially unreconcilable dichotomy that exists between Western-originating, pro-capitalism Pentecostal prosperity theologies and majority world-originating liberation theologies deeply critical of capitalism? And to what extent do you understand concepts of historical as well as contemporary Christian and biblical hierarchies as reconcilable with the paradigm of hospitality outlined in your paper and its critique of the caste system in India and other dehumanising hierarchies that continue to exist globally? These represent just a few of the many questions whose answering will enhance the sociopolitical and theological effectiveness of contemporary Christian missions globally.
