In Indigenous and Christian Perspectives in Dialogue, Allen G. Jorgenson asks what Christian theologians might learn from Indigenous spiritualties and worldviews. Jorgenson argues that theology in North America has been captive to colonial conceits and has lost sight of key resources in a post-Christendom context. The volume is especially concerned with the loss of a sense of place, evident in theologies written without attention to context. Using a comparative theology methodology, wherein more than one faith tradition is engaged in dialogical exploration, Jorgenson uses insights from Indigenous understandings of place to illumine forgotten or obstructed themes in Christianity. In this constructive theological project, “kairotic” places are named as those that are kenotic, harmonic, poetic and especially enlightening at the margins, where we meet the religious other.
Allen G. Jorgenson is assistant dean, professor of systematic theology, and the William D. Huras chair in ecclesiology and church history at Martin Luther University College at Wilfrid Laurier University.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter One: Indigenous InsightsChapter Two: Luther And Kenotic SpaceChapter Three: Schleiermacher and Harmonic PlaceChapter Four: The Poetic Potency of PlaceChapter Five: Place at the Margins, Hope, and Living InterfaithfullyBibliographyIndex
Jorgenson is a theologian and a poet who has listened and studied at the feet of his Indigenous mentors. He is aware of the horrors that Christianity allied with empire caused—and continue to cause—in North America. His project of recovering the importance of place for non-Indigenous Christian theology is a major contribution toward healing Christian theology and practice in this place. It deserves to be heard by as wide an audience as possible.