A brown man's burden: critiquing an American restorationist discourse
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Scott Mágkachi Sabóy
Abstract
The American-born Stone-Campbell Movement, particularly its ecclesiastical offshoot, the Church/es of Christ, is one of the religious projects which were exported to the Philippines along with the U.S.A.'s colonial mission in Asia. Operating on a “restorationist” theological framework, it seeks a return to a “New Testament Christianity” uncorrupted by denominationalism. This article proposes that the Church of Christ version of restorationism demonstrates the nature of discourse, in the Foucauldian sense – i.e., totalizing and regulative set of pronouncements and practices which provides for its own subversion and overthrow. It attempts to show how, in its interface with the culture of the Igorots of Northern Philippines, it assumes a form of cultural imperialism which marginalizes the indigenous while spelling its own alienation with its West-centric orientation and ecclesiocentric language. The study is framed not only by its appropriation of Foucault's notion of discourse and of several Filipino missiologists' concept of “indigenized/contextualized theology,” but also by the author's former subjection to the religious discourse under question. It joins the call for a continuous interrogation of Western religious discourses imposed upon or co-opted by Philippine and other Asian societies with the end view of fostering interethnic dialogue and understanding between and among Asian and non-Asian cultures.
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- Accounts of religio-cultural identity in Singapore and Malaysia
- Language and Islam in Malaysian political speeches
- Language choice and religious identities in three Singaporean madrasahs
- A brown man's burden: critiquing an American restorationist discourse
- A pragmatic analysis of Lord Shiva's dance
- The meaning of death in Kenkō Yoshida's Tsurezuregusa [Essays in idleness]
- The construction of meanings in relation to language and religion: a study into the Mahabharata
- Book review
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- Accounts of religio-cultural identity in Singapore and Malaysia
- Language and Islam in Malaysian political speeches
- Language choice and religious identities in three Singaporean madrasahs
- A brown man's burden: critiquing an American restorationist discourse
- A pragmatic analysis of Lord Shiva's dance
- The meaning of death in Kenkō Yoshida's Tsurezuregusa [Essays in idleness]
- The construction of meanings in relation to language and religion: a study into the Mahabharata
- Book review
