Postcolonial Roundtable Event

OCTOBER 19–22, 2010
Gordon College, Wenham, Massachusetts

Keynote Speakers: Mabiala Kenzo and Brian McLaren

"The Post-Colonial Conversation: Why it Matters to Evangelicals in the Global North and South"
Thursday, October 21, 7 p.m., Ken Olsen Science Center

Co-hosts:
Judith Oleson, Gordon College; Joe Duggan, Postcolonial Theology Network; Dan Russ, Director of the Center for Christian Studies at Gordon College

Members of the Postcolonial Roundtable Advisory Team:
Dan Hawk, Professor of Old Testament, Ashland Theological Seminary
Kathryn J. Smith, Professor of Biblical Studies, Azusa Pacific University
Steve Hu, Academic Secretary to the Postcolonial Roundtable

Cosponsored by the Center for Christian Studies, the Postcolonial Theology Network and the Boston Theological Institute

Meeting Facilitators

Judith Oleson is an Associate Professor in the Sociology/Social Work Department at Gordon College. Judith earned an MSW from the School of Social Development at the University of Minnesota. She was awarded a Leadership Fellowship to attend the Kennedy School of Government where she earned a Masters in Public Administration with an emphasis in mediation and leadership. She completed a Doctorate of Ministry at the Episcopal Divinity School. Judith is a member of the Society of Organizational Learning, the Peace and Justice Studies Association, and the Post-Colonial Theology Network (PTN). Judith’s interest in Post-Colonial Theology stems from the residue of colonialism still evident in the Church’s relationship to native communities, gender issues and in conflicts within diverse religious communities around the world. She has presented papers at the first PTN conference at the University of Manchester, and more recently at United Theological College in Bangalore.

Joe Duggan is an Episcopal priest finishing a Ph.D. at the University of Manchester, England in postcolonial ecclesiologies and founder of the Postcolonial Theology Network (PTN) affiliated with the Lincoln Theological Institute at the University of Manchester, England. The PTN with over 1500 members around the world is fostering an unprecedented global discussion on postcolonial theology from many different lenses.

Daniel Russ is the Director of the Center for Christian Studies at Gordon College as well as the interim Academic Dean. From 2002-2003 he was the Executive Director of Christians in the Visual Arts, an international arts organization that is housed at Gordon College. He holds a B.A. in English from the University of Evansville, a M.A. in Biblical Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary, a M.A. in English from the University of Dallas, and a Ph.D. in Literature and Psychology from the University of Dallas.

Steve Hu is a leadership coach at Rutgers Community Christian Church in Somerset, New Jersey where he trains and develops leadership teams for effective ministry. He received B.A.'s in Journalism and English from Rutgers University and also M.A.'s in Old Testament and Missional Theology from Biblical Seminary (Hatfield, Pennsylvania) where he is also an adjunct instructor. Steve has presented papers at the Evangelical Theological Society, Trinity Consultation on Post-Christianity Spiritualities, and at United Theological College in Bangalore. His research interests include Asian American theology, global evangelicalism, transnationalism, postcolonial discourse, and race and ethnicity.

Postcolonial Roundtable

The Postcolonial Roundtable responds to a growing evangelical interest in the postcolonial as manifested by the work of Rev. Dr. Mabiala Kenzo at Ambrose University in Canada, the Amahoro annual meeting in Africa for pastors and a growing interest on blogs. Author and speaker Brian McLaren has given credit to Dr. Kenzo for raising his postcolonial awareness. One of the most significant segments of membership on the Postcolonial Theology Network on Facebook are evangelical graduate students and faculty from around the world but especially in the United States and India. Apart from this growing interest in the postcolonial, there appears to be very few evangelical theologians contributing scholarly works through academic publishing that specifically name postcolonial theorists or other theologians writing in this area. Postcolonial work has been done to critique neo-colonial empire, for example, the October 2008 book, Evangelicals and Empire: Christian Alternatives to the Political Status Quo; but much less scholarship is available that offers self-critical evaluation and revisioning the relationship between evangelical theology and mission.

The Postcolonial Roundtable, co-sponsored by the Gordon College Center for Christian Studies and the Postcolonial Theology Network, is intended to be a first step towards fostering scholarship in this literature gap area of theological reflection, research and teaching. It is the hope of the organizers that The Postcolonial Roundtable will foster individual and collaborative publications and a conference in the next three to five years. Our end goal for this meeting is to articulate an evangelical specific postcolonial theological direction for future research based on shared questions, definitions and concerns.

Greg Carmer, Dean of Chapel, Gordon College

John Franke, Lester and Kay Clemens Professor of Missional Theology at Biblical Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, Manifest Witness: The Plurality of Truth (Abingdon Press, 2009), Due out in October 2009

L. Daniel Hawk, Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew, Ashland Theological Seminary
United Methodist clergyman and author of Joshua in 3-D: A Commentary on Biblical Conquest and Manifest Destiny

Mabiala Kenzo, Professor of Systematic Theology at Ambrose University College in Ottowa, Canada
Co-author with John Franke, The Future of Evangelical Theology in an Age of Empire: Postfoundational and Postcolonial in Evangelicals and Empire

Jaychitra Lalitha, Lecturer in New Testament at Tamilnadu Theological Seminary, Madurai, India
Author of A Postcolonial Feminist Biblical Interpretation: Mary Magdalene and Canonization in Bangalore Theological Forum, Vol. XXXVIII, No.1 (June, 2006)

Malcolm Reid, Anglican priest, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Gordon College
Board Member of the Ugandan Christian University

Kurt Anders Richardson, Professor in the Faculty of Theology McMaster University
Author of Reading Karl Barth and Political Complexities of Pneuma and Imperia in Evangelicals and Empire

Nicholas Rowe, Head, School of Humanities and Education
St Augustine College of South Africa

Kathryn J. Smith, Professor of Biblical Studies and Chair of the department at Azusa Pacific University
Author of the following papers:
“Why Transformative Diversity Escapes Christian Institutions” Paper presented at the Christians on Diversity in the Academy Conference, Pomona, CA, April 24, 2008
“Postcolonialism and the Confessional Institution” Paper presented at the Annual Summer Division of Religion & Philosophy Colloquium. Corona del Mar, CA, June 11, 2007
“Teaching Postcolonialism in a Colonial Environment” Paper presented at the Institute for Signifying Scriptures. Claremont, CA, February 8, 2007

Mitzi J. Smith, Associate Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity
Ashland Theological Seminary/Detroit

Christian T. Collins Winn, Associate Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Bethel University in St. Paul, MN Author of “Jesus is Victor!” The Significance of the Blumhardts for the Theology of Karl Barth (2008) and co-author of “Jesus the Jew in the Americas: The Promise of Post-Colonial Barthianism,” Princeton Theological Review 15/2 (Fall 2009), 7-20

Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts, is among the top Christian colleges in the nation and the only nondenominational Christian college in New England. Gordon is committed to excellence in liberal arts education, spiritual development and academic freedom informed by a framework of faith.