Constructing Theologies in Oceania
A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444). This special issue belongs to the section "Religions and Theologies".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 2217
Special Issue Editor
Interests: intercultural theology; contextual theologies; indigenous theologies; theology in Oceania; missio Dei; intercultural ecumenical hermeneutics
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Typical treatments of Christianity within Oceania focus on "arrival narratives" (Christianity as identified with Western colonial movements) or on "ecclesial bodies" (Christianity as identified with the transplantation of traditions developed within Europe). This approach distorts the forms of the Christian faith in the region by retaining Western narratives as the key interpretive frameworks. It also manifestly overlooks the volume of constructive work already produced for decades through the region.
More than this, however, even the critical development of world Christianity as a methodological framework intended to account for the diversity of Christian expression omits the questions local to Oceania from its remit. Frans Verstraelen’s 1996 caution remains relevant: “Oceania is peripheral to many studies on global Christianity in that they hardly pay any attention to the Pacific world or, worse, completely ignore it.” (Frans J. Verstraelen, Christianity in a New Key: New Voices and Vistas Through Intercontinental Communication, (Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1996), 147.)
This is an invitation to break free from these established agendas and approaches, as well as the limits they seek to impose. This Special Issue in Religion encourages a local reframing of the Christian faith as it appears through Oceania. Its purpose is to identify those questions, not simply imported, but important here. It is interested in theologies of land, water, spirits, ancestors, law and custom, settler culture, Christian and Indigenous spiritualities, cartographies, dreams/dreaming, time and place, along with methodological concerns, such as critical treatments of contextualisation and ecumenism.
The point is to name and make visible and accessible the concerns and constructive approaches within Oceania. There is no restriction on the methodologies used, the authorities cited, the criticisms made, or conclusions reached. The intent here is to platform the complex regional theological concerns and discourses without the need to conform to the framing expectations assumed by supposedly “world” and ecumenical discourses.
Prof. Dr. John G. Flett
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
- Māori
- Pasifika
- land
- water
- reconciliation
- hermeneutics
- post-colonial
- settler culture
- contextualisation
- Talanoa
- Oceania
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