Article Review #2:

Decolonizing the Language of Lutheran Theology: Confessions, Missions, Indians, and the Globalization
of Hybridity
by George Tinker J(wazhazhe, Osage Nation)

A. Reflecting on Hybridity

Tinker is ideally placed for this reflection as he is an Indian/Osage on his fathers side and, as he says a
lutheran pastor (144) on his mothers. Being a lutheran defines his mothers ethnicity as northern
european, german, or scandinavian.

Personally, he has struggled to maintain fathers spiritual and cultural traditions and his mothers,
lutheran faith, and in this article, he is exploring what it means to live with two-ness (145), what it
means to live valuing two cultures and two disparate sets of values, simultaneously(145). This, he says,
is the condition of any indigenous person who has been converted into Christianityhe or she will have
to struggle with the notion of hybridity (145), of balancing two distinct notions of self.

B. Mission in a Postmodern Culture

Tinker asserts that culture is not distinctly separated blocks of language or behaviour patterns (145)
but instead it is made up of interconnected blocks and to pull out one block would threaten the culture
entirely.

Changing one cultural value inevitably means shifting the whole set of values practiced by a people,
many of which may be unintentional shifts initiated by missionary imposition on the target community
and its native culture. My assertion here has huge implications for our analysis of hybridity process.
(145)

It is easy enoughto claim respect for anothers religious beliefs even as one argues the centrality of
ones own theological system for ones own life.

Big Questions:
1. But how, in the final analysis, are we to engage the other in meaningful dialogue and at the same time
maintain the sacral universality of ones own religious traditions, in this case the Lutheran Confessions?

2. What are we to do in the postmoderntwenty-first century with notions of missionand global

mission in particular?

C. Privileging Indian Cultural Values

argued that drawing from Indian cultural traditions, values, spirituality was the only legitimate way for
Indian peoples to express their faithfulness to God. 145

challenge, from an Indian perspective, Lutherstheology of justification.we began to critique the

relatively new european notion of individualism that leapt out of the european renaissance, burst into
Luthers reinterpretation of the notion of justification in...Romans, and then was codified forever in the
mental musings of Ren Descartes. 145

euro-westernINDIVIDUAL
American Indians: community the starting point and the goal of religious faith, intellectual thought,
morality and ethics. For us, salvation of the person must give way to salvation and healing of the whole
community first of all, and ultimately to the healing of the whole earth (145)

Instead of trying to make Christianity blend with Indian cultures, why not flip it up the other way: Why can
we not conceive of Indian cultural values of balance functioning as a corrective to the colonizers world of
values and language, thus reshaping that very notion of salvation (146)

eg. the woman who responded to Tinkers text: I thought there was something wrong with me 146

This womans struggle with double-consciousness as an Indian and a lutheran, like my own struggle, has
been largely unnoticed by most other lutherans in the U.S., but it is something to which all theologians,
should pay attention because it has import for their own articulation of their faith (146).

D. A Contemporary Reformation

As we attend to the questions of hybridity and colonialism in the context of global mission, especially
with attention to ethnic and cultural diversitylutheran folk need to reflect deeply and rethink
themselves (146)

move beyond a simplistic verbal bondage to their historical rootedness in the european church
reformation and its sixteenth century german language 146

open up the question: what was so appealing about the lutheral expression of Christianity? WHAT WAS
SO COMPELLING ABOUT THE GERMANIC LANGUAGING OF THE GOSPEL? 146

Understanding the underlying philosophical substratum of their lutheranism needs to be

challengedradical rethinking and contemporary reformation

147: What we need today is a whole new critical analysis that will enable us to see much more clearly
how our lutheran foundational thinking has been part of the euro-colonial past, and continues to be a
culpable part of the ever-expanding imperialism of the globalization movement

Tinker continues 147 to believe/appreciate sola gratia and sola fideijustification by faith in spite of
his critique of its inherent euro-individualism 147 This might be something to come back toId like to
know more about how he sees the work of Christ in his life! How do you move from a generous
compassionate Creator to the cross?
Indigenous communities might not use the same language to describe salvation by faith as Luther, but
they would find common ground in the idea that the Creator intends good for the earth and all its
inhabitants 147

the lingering problem with the lutheran doctrine is that it continues to find its most frequent
articulation in the late medieval languages 147

I must also insist on the validity of traditional American Indian ways of seeing the world and relating to
what euro-westerners call god or God. 147 How can we make room for those traditional native voices
in a world that has been so tightly boundaried by the traditional eurolutheran language and worldview
(and culture) inherent in the Confessions (147)

E. Rethinking the Role of the Confessions

1. time to challenge the primacy of lutheran Confessions as a universal and normative interpretation of
the gospel; see the Confessions as a historical document but not a universal statement of truth

2. accept the role of the Confessions in maintaining euro-privileging it is the theological centre of
lutheran witness and the hermeneutical centre of gospel interpretation privileges those who have
inherent attachment to the historic languages of lutheranism

F. The Example of Lord

148: Whether the ideas are indeed universal or not, the people who have lived these ideas daily over
generations have long infused the language with special meaning come quite naturally to think that
everyonewill see the world the way they see it. In this way, the Confessions provide euro lutherans
with a basis for a perceived universal understanding of their faith, which, in their minds, easily can be
moved across all cultural and historical boundaries.

F. 1: Universally Normative Truth Claims

eg of confident sense of lutheran identity in Timothy J. Wengerts essay on the Book of Concord letting
others understand the truth of the gospel of Christ 148

149:Wengert calls the Book of Concord a confession of faith but then goes on to describe it as a handy
training manual for congregational members who wish to share their faith.

Again, the implicit assumption is the typical imperialist european colonialist notion of universality

the mere thought that anyone would think they might translate so easily into a Two-thirds World
cultural context is fraught with quite another problematic. Namely, bringing American Indians or other
Fourth World peoples to Christ must be perceived as relatively simple once we can get those disparate
(primitive, underdeveloped, racially or at least culturally inferior) communities to think like 16th
century Germans (149)
 F.2: The Deep Structure of Language--149
the girl hit the boy with the bat

language is complex and deeply cultural, social, habitual

The Confessions presuppose a common understanding of the world and how it works, an understanding
that non-european peoples may not share at allconfessional theology is an intellectual exercise and, as
such, requires a common language, mutual understandings, and shared beliefs to have real meaning
(149)

F.3: Problems for Evangelism

How do you evangelize people of different cultures who do not share your language, values?

Current model is of lutherans is to mandate the imposition of new beliefs, not just the message of the
cross! 150

a conversion to Christianitiy involves a cultural conversion that mandates a whole new

worldviewwhich turns the American Indian world upside down, and posits a separation of self from
God that had never before been experienced by Indian peoples prior to missionary colonization 150

for eg: sacred # for Indian communities is 4, not 3 (150) Forcing Indian peoples into the trinitarian mold
of euro-western Christianity forces a collapse of a whole tetradic worldview and begins the process of
crowding out the value system that is predicated on this tetradic worldview (150)

G. Fall-and-Redemption Theology

is at the root of german and swiss reformationand it fails Indian peoples

a. American Indian cultures have no concept or word comparable to euro-christian notions of

sin the source of social imbalance and disharmony lies in the community rather than the individual
(150)

and ceremonial acts to restore harmony are done for sake of the whole!

b. American Indian cultures see world as infused with the sacred; no dichotomy between divine grace
and human sinits too rigid a vision of the world

G.1: Problems with Law and Gospel

American Indian have been so oppressed that their self esteem is low and all they hear is the
proclamation of sin, not the good news (151)

G. 2: A Different Starting Point

do not start with sin and fallenness (151); For American Indian creation itself is the genesis for the
spiritual and cultural imagination and the only logical place to begin 151

before . American Indian can be converted they must come to acknowledge their own sinfulness
151this is a message controlled by the european missionary!

H. Indian Ways of Knowing

they do not believe in spirits residing in everythingthey know It is the colonialist mind that relegates
our experiences to belief because the science of the colonizer is unable to replicate our experiences in his
laboratory (152).

H.1: Continuing Relationships with Ancestors

they do not worship ancestorsthey have an ongoing relationshipvision quests help to give direction;
very personal experiences but this challenges the notion of sola scriptura

I. Challenging Sola Scriptura

3 lutheran notions: sola gratia, sola fidei, sola scriptura; but any lutheran Indian person would feel the
need to choose between living her or his traditional culture and being lutheral (153)

need to remember that sola scriptura was a specific doctrine in 16th century Germany as Luther was
struggling against the Catholic and the ex cathedra proclamations of the pope. Luther believed theyd
replaced the authority of the scriptures
Just as the American Indian resort to sacred personal and anti-authoritarian sources of information
imparted from spirits in the rite of vigil makes sense (153)

As the lutheran church became an established institution in its own rightthe doctrine took on a
different contextual force.to help maintain control of the faithful (153)

who is interpreting the Biblebecoming more specialized.even clergy are not trained to authoritatively
interpretso how do indigenous people, not trained in the languages of historic lutheranism?

I. 1. One down
. American Indian not native speakers or educated in greek, hebrew, latinalways dependent on
professional interpretations (154) and those who do learn all the these languages tend to become
acculturated assimilated

as a result, we seem invariably to internalize our own colonized status, finally affirming the normativity
of the colonizer worldview and eventually the normalty of hybridity (154)

and as for historyChristians embraced their Jewish rootsnot naturalappropriating a foreign history
(154 bottom)
I. 2 Whose History?
for . American Indian it means denial of important aspects of their own history to affirm not ony Israelite
history but euro-Christian history

this becomes especially important as we begin to understand the particularity of the history of christian
theology that is essentially European history, and must always fail the test of universality (154)

for American Indiansaffirming Israelite history means ultimately affirming precisely the historical
narrative that has been used consistently by our euro-colonizer to validate the theft of our property and
murder of our ancestors (154)

Net result: self-disavowel and even subtle forms of self-hatred on the part of the . American Indian
peoples who are converted (as one disavows the importance of ones own history in order to elevate
someone elses history). It must lead the perceptive and sensitive observer to wonder whether any
appropriation of the euro-christian gospel can be liberative for the . American Indians

for Indian peoples the message only becomes more difficult since it is conveyed through the clear
inference that Gods love (in the Jesus event) was denied Indian peoples until Godsent White people to
kill us, lie to us, steal our land, and proclaim the saving gospel to us (155)

J. New Social Imaginary

My argument is certainly not to discourage any disregarding of the scriptures... Rather, it is time to
reevaluate the insider coded messages embedded in the doctrine, and to distance ourselves from any
lingering sense of scriptural universality (155)

we must engage in an interreligious dialogue that genuinely respects the scriptures (both written and
oral) of other folk, and at least begin to understand that there are whole cultures that stand to be
destroyed by the simplistic imposition of one folks scripture on another (155)

the call to lutherans:

a. realize that limiting themselves to institutional goals of conversion must separate native peoples from
their historic and millenia old convenants with God to and to destroy the relatioships with creation these
covenants have nurtured in order to replace those ancient covenants with anew set of promises that
forever will be controlled by northern lutherans as colonial masters and stewards of the message (155)

b. reflect: thin line between holding on to what is particular and creative in lutheran identity and
codifying the world with that particular language of discourse in such a way to impose amer-european
lutheran self,..on the global Other 155