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Worship in a Mar Thoma church in Kerala has no roots in the West. It’s a high-church experience most similar to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Worship in a Presbyterian church up north, in contrast, is noticeably Western: the church buildings, pulpit, and sanctuaries are Western. Hymns are often sung in English, or have been translated from English to the local language. Local drums or dance may be incorporated, but much in the service (including some of the theology) bears clear markers of the British missionaries who brought it here only a few generations back.
In my Systematic Theology class at Princeton Theological Seminary, our weekly readings were divided into three categories:
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Classic traditional voices (most often European men)
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Reading from John Calvin’s Institutes (Presbyterian)
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Recent theologians and scholars who write from a postcolonial, feminist/womanist, or liberation theological perspective
From Kwok Pui-Lan to R. S. Sugirtharajah, postcolonial theologians seek to explore the way their identity and theological views (as Christians raised in a country that was colonized by a foreign power) have been impacted by the values of the colonizing country and conditioned to believe in the inherent supremacy of the Western colonizer.
In the 70 years since India gained independence after 200 years of British rule, theologians and scholars in India -- like Sugirtharajah -- have done substantial work to see where Western values and priorities are ingrained in their theology, beliefs, and worldview, and Christians have internalized implicit (or explicit) messages of white supremacy and dominance that devalue their own identities, values, and theological contributions.
By Beth Douglass
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