Religion has power structures that require and justify its existence, spread its influence, and mask its collaboration with other power structures. Power, like religion, is in collaboration. Along this line, this book affirms that one could see and study the power structures and power relations of a religion in and through the missions of empires. Empires rise and roam with the blessings and protections of religious power structures (e.g., scriptures, theologies, interpretations, traditions) that in return carry, propagate and justify imperial agendas. Thus, to understand the relation between religion and power requires one to also study the relation between religion and empires. Christianity is the religion that receives the most deliberation in this book, with some attention to power structures and power relations in Hinduism and Buddhism. The cross-cultural and inter-national contributors share the conviction that something within each religion resists and subverts its power structures and collaborations. The authors discern and interrogate the involvements of religion with empires past and present, political and ideological, economic and customary, systemic and local. The upshot is that the book troubles religious teachings and practices that sustain, as well as profit from, empires.
Foreword Collin Cowan 1. Stand Down, Sit Up, and Talanoa Jione Havea Part One: Dare to Discern 2. Rescuing Christian Faith Traditions from Empire Deenabandhu Manchala 3. Transforming Discipleship: Faith, Love, and Hope after Empire Jooseop Keum 4. Turn to the World: A Mandate for Orthodox Theology Eleni Kasselouri-Hatzivassiliadi 5. Appropriation of Religious Symbols as Political Capital M. P. Joseph 6. Empire, Deep Solidarity, and the Future of Resistance Joerg Rieger Part Two: Dare to Disturb 7. Chanting Down the Shitstem-Resistance with Anansi and Rastafari Optics Michael Jagessar 8. The Chicano Student Movement as Religious and The Spiritual Plan of Aztlan as Scriptural and Utopian Jacqueline M. Hidalgo 9. Religion as the Ethico-Political Practice of Justice: Ambedkar as Guide Y.T. Vinayaraj 10. Babblers to the Rabble, Prophets to the Powerful: Mission in the Context of Empire Allan Aubrey Boesak 11. (Global) Climate Crisis and (Detroit) Water Struggle: "Re-Schooling" Christianity through Indigenous Challenge James W. Perkinson 12. Redeeming Country: Indigenous Peoples under Empires and Nation States Mark G. Brett
