Fellow of Redcliffe College, Gloucester

My big area of interest is Postcolonialism and mission, and I would be interested to know – with a view to further discussion – whether there were others working in this field. I have recently published a book titled Beyond Empire, the main thrust of which is described by the following – I quote from the introductory information.

Postcolonial thought has devoted itself to understanding the colonial past and describing its ongoing effects. In other words – given that Western colonialism has until quite recently ’filled the world’ – it is rewriting the universal history of our times. Because its perspective is that of history’s losers and the justice they require, it has everything to do with the mission of the church.

I find that many Christians from the global south resonate with this. They feel that we Westerners have quickly forgotten the colonial past, including the relationship between world mission and colonialism, and are still perpetuating forms of neo-colonialism. I suspect that colonial attitudes are often ’the elephant in the room’ – a huge issue which we don’t want to mention.  

At the very least postcolonialism throws up a whole raft of vital mission topics: partnership, migration and diaspora, rich and poor, contextualisation and so on.