How are we to theologize in a polarised India ? The binary framework that seems to have become main stream in our country constrains and narrows our imagination. It has marked out a space where only the story of the majority community can be legitimately told. There appears to be no room for the other stories of the minorities, the marginalised and the otherized. While the administrative colonialism or the colonial power has ended, the coloniality of power is still growing. Although, we do not need any assistance to discern the working of coloniality of power, Anibal Quijano’s notion , colonial difference might offer deeper insight into the workings of neo-colonialism. Colonial difference is based on binary polarization and is always on the side that is privileged colonizer. Within this politics of knowledge, how are we to theologize today? How are we to listen to the voice / cry of the voiceless and make is an important coordinate of our theologizing?
The synodal paradigm is indeed timely and the challenge to listen to everyone especially those that are silenced is relevant. We therefore, have an important task to theologize in the alphabets of the invisibilised people whose stories and histories remain untold. This tasks appears to challenge us to deimperialize theology. Deimperialization has the challenge to debunk divide and rule policy of the British in our country. Polarization, follows the politics of divide and rule. Theologizing in the context of polarisation has to be guided by the principle that we may call de-divide. De-divide as a principle is profoundly synodal. De-divide is affirmative and its embrace is wider. It assists us to avoid monadic and monolithic unity. Deimperialization , therefore, has to embrace de-divide as its guiding principle.
I try to avoid the word decolonizing theology in favour of deimperialization of theology to make space for theologies of the colonial west. West itself is not a monolith but is amorphously plural. It also frees us from getting trapped in the pain and burden of colonization and thus getting locked in the logic of binary polarization. This might assist us to keep us free from creating our own colonialities of power. Perhaps, walking with everyone in the synodal spirit also entails listening to and walking with all theologies while critically or prophetically discerning the orthodox character of theologies that we appropriate.
Synodality has changed the way we belong to the Church and the World. Our Being-with is challenged to be fully transformed and our theologizing has to manifest the presence of Christ among us and thus, spark hope in all people. Deimperializing theology , therefore, has to give up triumphalism and infantalisation (silencing of other voices). Perhaps, the parable of the fishing net (Mt 13: 47-52) is the best model of deimperializing theology. It is only after the act of fishing that the good fish is separated from the rest. We in Goa also can take inspiration from the structure of our ancestral sluice gate which opens and takes water from the river under high tide and then let the water out during low tide leaving the fish behind. Deimperialization of theology, thus, has to stay within inclusive embrace and prophetic discernment of synodality.
This does not mean that we are forget the memory of colonization. The anamnesis of Jesus can enable us to cope with the painful and traumatic memories of the past. Memoria Passionis is redemptive. Synodality has space for this painful past. The theology of dangerous memories developed by Johann-Baptist Mertz can be one inspiration that can be a powerful model that we may follow to produce emancipative, therapeutic and salutary responses to the traumatic past. The past of the India is complexly pain ridden with caste oppression, invasions as well as colonial experiences inter-crossing each other. We are yet to see a theology that responds to the trauma of the past. Hence, within the push of the synodal thrust, perhaps we have gift and task to cast our theologizing in the deeps and address the trauma that is haunting our people.
We need a theology after theology, an anatheology to address this condition in our country as theology so far seems to have remained helplessly voiceless in this regard. St. Augustine of Hippo can also provide another model to address a broken past. Augustine in his book, confession manifests how a sinful past needs a grace of God’s forgiveness. We need a theology of anamnesis for our country and for Goa in the age of synodality otherwise we might be in danger of repeating the same trauma in search of healing.
Perhaps, the main challenge that theologians face in our country is to make pilgrimage as the locus theologicus of their theologizing. Every theologian is a peregrinatur of faith. Being a peregrinatur he/she is challenged to embrace humility and liminality and work to produce theologies that will be light/salt and leaven in our society. Indeed, the theology of the Way has to be always on the way. This means we theologies cannot embody lust to dominate, which St. Augustine calls libido dominandi. Church in India is very much a Church on the peripheries and hence, needs a non-dominandi theologies . Hence, deimperialization of theology in the spirit of synodality will respond to the signs of our times . It may provide a framework to respond to the various kinds of dehumanizations around us producing praxis of emancipation. The theologizing in the spirit of synodality is perhaps our best response to the culture of polarization growing in our country by the day. Indeed, the theology of synodality has the power to respond to the solidarities of sinodalities ( sinful structures) that may have come to embed the Church as well as our society.
