Friday, November 18, 2005

"pomo" to "poco"?

i love theological shorthand. it seems like the further in you get to any topic, the more abbreviations people create that are only understandable if you've read widely in that area and have regular conversations with other people who think about the same stuff.

anyway, author and pastor brian mclaren recently spoke at fuller seminary where he presented the draft of paper arguing that the "church emerging" conversation ought to shift from discussing postmodernity to post-colonialism, in order to decrease the amount of "academic rooms where westernerns talk to other westerners about western things and ultimately reinforce western domination" (brian's words) and increase the discussion of practical concerns like violence, domination, injustice, and the misuse of power, a discussion best conducted not among westerners but collaborately with those in the global south in order to work out the implications of our faith in the context of a post-colonial world (wherein we must face the facts of how our colonialist mindset has made the west rich in resources gained primarily at the expense of the rest of the world). you can listen to the whole presentation (and the response of some seminary faculty) here.

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