Indigenous and Christian Perspectives in Dialogue: Kairotic Place and Borders(Religion and Borders)

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.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: Indigenous Insights Chapter Two: Luther And Kenotic Space Chapter Three: Schleiermacher and Harmonic Place Chapter Four: The Poetic Potency of Place Chapter Five: Place at the Margins, Hope, and Living Interfaithfully Bibliography Index

About the Author :
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.

Review :
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. Allen Jorgenson’s scholarly book, Indigenous and Christian Perspectives in Dialogue: Kairotic Place and Borders will lead you on an important journey, filled with many new discoveries about yourself and your theology. The journey is one in which he has sacrificed the comforts that attend the presumption that European-based theology is normative theology. This realization leads one towards, not just a better understanding of Indigenous theologies, but a better understanding of God. Take the journey! Comparing Indigenous and Christian Perspectives is a pioneering, constructive work of Christian theology that moves interreligious understanding and comparative theology forward into the long delayed, urgently required Christian encounter with the Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island, North America. Challenged and purified by facing up to the horrific history of the Indigenous-Christian relationship, interreligious learning can now open in fresh encounters that from the start honor the dignity and voice of Indigenous Peoples and thereby begin to re-balance the whole of interreligious learning. Jorgenson weaves all this together out of personal experience and pastoral practice, theological learning and humble communion with the Indigenous Peoples. A must-read for those interested in Christian theology, the wider comparative theology, and a more just and more spiritual community on this continent in the 21st century.