Decolonial Theology in the North Atlantic World - Paperback

by Joseph Drexler-Dreis (Author)

This essay develops a response to the historical situation of the North Atlantic world in general and the United States in particular through theological reflection. It offers an overview of some decolonial perspectives with which theologians can engage, and argues for a general perspective for a decolonial theology as a possible response to modern/colonial structures and relations of power, particularly in the United States. Decolonial theory holds together a set of critical perspectives that seek the end of the modern/colonial world-system and not merely a democratization of its benefits. A decolonial theology, Joseph Drexler-Dreis argues, critiques how the confinement of knowledge to European traditions has closed possibilities for understanding historical encounters with divinity, and thus possibilities of critical reflection. A decolonial theology reflects critically on a historical situation in light of faith in a divine reality, the understanding of which is liberated from the monopoly of modern/colonial ways of knowing, in order to catalyze social transformation.

Author Biography

Joseph Drexler-Dreis, Ph.D. (2015), KU Leuven, is Assistant Professor of Theology at Xavier University of Louisiana. His publications include Decolonial Love: Salvation in Colonial Modernity (Fordham UP, 2019) and the co-edited Beyond the Doctrine of Man: Decolonial Visions of the Human (Fordham UP, 2020).