The task of dimperialization of theology might have to begin with the deimperialization of anthropology. Almost all theology is anthropocentric that puts man at the center of the universe and the scheme of salvation. Humanities were also developed within this anthropocentric background. Perhaps, even the contestation of Galielo’s heliocentrism or Darwinian theory of evolution is certainly rooted in an anthropocentric theology. Modernity and its humanism put forth man as the measure of everything. Imperializing of man seems to be behind colonization and its ills. We can certainly trace it in the destruction of ecology produced by industrial revolution. Hence, there have been efforts to deanthromorphize humans. We have some kind of anti-humanism in the thought of Gills Deleuze and Guattari and can trace a proposal of posthumanities in the philosophy of Michele Serres.
Indian anthropology, although entirely disincarnated, has a common soul that inhabits all animals or life forms. Hence, we might trace a rudimentary form of posthuman orientation within it. But the fact that it hierarchically grades the atman and souls and set them into a cycle of redemption based on the law of karma and the belief of transmigration still remained brahmino-anthropocentric as one has to be reborn as a brahmin in order to get out of cycle of rebirth. This suggests that Indian anthropology is still anthropocentric as well as disincarnated and other worldly. Hence, does not offer much help to produce a deimperialized anthropology for a new way of thinking theology and world affairs . In an age of synodality when we have the challenge to listen to the cry of the plant earth, we have to deimperialize anthropology and see humans a servants of all life forms and our plant earth. Gone are the days of the triumphant anthropology that produced theologies that saved only humans and set them as masters of the earth and its resources. In fact, we may have entered the era of the capitalocene on its wings.
Our exclusively human anthropologies have produced all humanities. Thus, sociology only deals with human social life and forgets that humans can build a society alongside animals and trees. Our economics only concerns the resources that we need to manage human life and does not care about plant and animal life. This is why several thinkers think of the need of posthumanities that ask the big questions that can integrat human life with the created order. Within this context, while we may find several post-anthropologists , the work of Brazilian anthropologist, Edwardo Vieveros Castro appears to provide a way of deanthropomorphizing and hence render possibilities of deimperialization of anthropology. His Book Cannibal Metaphysic pictures a world that is far removed from modern world that seems to be our natural home.
Given our reigning anthropologies, we have almost always viewed others, especially the tribal as lacking beings. We see people, animals and even vegetative life as lacking what we human have. We see some people as lacking reason , culture, history, skills of writing etc., with reference to us. This has produced racialized, patriarchal, religio-centric or casteist anthropologies. Culture to them proves thinker than blood. These anthropologies think that there is only one nature but think that culture is plural. They also think that human knowledge is representative and hence can copy that one nature accurately. Mononaturalism is given for these anthropologies and multiculturalism is then accepted as flowing or growing out mono-naturalism. Mono-naturalism also provides possibilities of seeing how one humanity then lack several aspects that are thought to be natural to humans and makes room for the western man an honor of realizing all those aspects while others in the world were still to realize them. This is why colonization, Christianization, nationalization or Hinduisation ( in contemporary India) is thought to be a mode of civilization.
Vieveros Castro indicates that Amerindian anthropology presents that everything is primarily human. This position seems to take us the cosmotheandric intuition of Raimundo Panikkar. It opens us to post-human anthropologies that integrate humans into the cosmos and living world with the divine. It is natural for us that the common condition that we share with everyone is animality. It is our animality that unites us with the cosmos and the living world. The Amerindian anthropology thinks that it is humanity that unites the entire created other. We mind say that when we domesticate animals we do humanize them to some extent but the Amerindians think that animals are humans first. For the animals and the humans there is no one world or the thing- in-itself ( no mono-naturalism). This means there is no one mono-nature which then can become a marker of lack. Animals and human belong together in the multi-natural world. This means a multi-natural world leads to mono-culture of integration like the cosmotheandric intuition of Panikkar.
While it is difficult to exactly understand the anthropology of Amerindians within our anthropological schemes, it is clear they do not think with our mononaturalism through which we order humanity hierarchically on basis of a lack that we construe. Amerindian Anthropology is already a post-anthropology and as such it can become a great resource to deimperialize reigning anthropologies and thus, deimperialize reigning theologies. This means Amerindian anthropology is not a singular mononatural anthropology. It is plural and is based on difference that is rooted in multi-naturalism. This means all of us are differently human and animals are also differently humans. It is difficult to order hierarchy when we are differently humans and cannot share common-ness . This unshare-ability is what we same and hence our unsahre-ability unite us. Therefore, paradoxically we are united by our difference. Mononaturalism donuts anthropology and renders it empty at the core. By affirming multi-naturalism as expression of true anthropologies, we can debunk monarchical anthropologies that have invented difference as lack in comparison to a mononaturalism. Multi-naturalism of Amerindian anthropologies can enable us to produce theologies that are integral and integrating with the created order. God in Jesus Christ saves the entire humanity and the entire creation. A plurinatural or multi-natural anthropology might save the dogma of universal Christology as within the incarnation we will see not merely mononatural anthropology but a multi-natural anthropology and cosmic order in one Christ made flesh for all humanity and the entire creation. I have proposed simply this new anthropology as a hypothesis to deimperialize both anthropology as well as theology.
It may become a great resource that might produce a great reversal and thus become a new way of doing theology that may enable us to experience the presence of Christ in the Church, humanity and the created Order. This new theology is perhaps needed so that we remain humans as we may be to tempted by our reining anthropology to progress from the animals that to intelligent machines that the world of AI and Cyborgs is offering us. To remain human, we have to deimperialize the racialized, patriarchal, casteist and capitalo-centric anthropology ruling us today. We still may have to gather courage to mark our distance from the cannibal metaphysics of the machine that is waiting to eat us. The mononatural anthropology thinks that humanity came out of animality through reason, language, culture, law, history etc. We are now made ready to jump to the next stage out of our animality into transhumanism by such anthropologies. This jump may also be a jump out our humanity. This is why we need multinatural anthropologies that will problematize singularization of plural destinies of humanities at least on this side of the grave.
