Religion, Theology, and Class: Fresh Engagements after
Long Silence edited by Jeorg Rieger has just been published by Palgrave
Macmillan. The book wants to re-emphasize class as a critical category in
theology and ethics, because people tend to focus more on gender, race, and
sexuality issues in North America. Divided into three parts, the book presents
new definitions of class, situates religion and class in the context of early
Christianity and the United States, and examines the relation between class,
poverty, gender and race.
Gary J. Dorrien, Stephanie Mitchem, Santiago H. Slabodsky,
Susan B. Thistlethwaite, and I reviewed the book at the annual meeting of the
American Academy of Religion on November 24, 2013 at Baltimore, Maryland. My
review used a postcolonial perspective to examine the contribution of the book.
Postcolonial theorists have criticized the limits of the
concept of class in classical Marxist theory, based as it was on the
development of industrialized and capitalist societies. It is less useful to
study pre-industrialized societies and other forms of oppression in society.
They have also pointed out the Orientalist biases in Marxist writings.
In this book, the contributors seek to bring the concept of
class up to date in the context of global capitalism. The nuanced and
pluralistic approach is most helpful and it points to the difficulties of
formulating a generally accepted theory of class. Less is said in the book,
however, about the vision or shape of an alternative global economic system and
the role religion and theology will take part in it.
While the poor are often mentioned, they are discussed in
the context of Marxist or other theories. The Occupy Movement is mentioned in
several chapters and offered as a clear example of people rising against the
transnational capitalist class. In addition, Vítor Westhelle speaks briefly
about the transgression and resistance of migrant people, while Pamela K.
Brubaker refers to the factory workers in Mexico, who struggle to live out
according to the values of sustenance economy in relation to transnational
production. Toward the end of her chapter, Brubaker also mentions Vandana
Shiva’s work on sustenance economy and nature’s economy to contest the dominant
market economy.
Corey D. B. Walker’s chapter presents a sustained reflection on
class from a subaltern perspective by offering an account of “thinking
blackness” in the work of black religious scholars and theologians. He
challenges us to work for “a categorical infusion of an/other logic the opens
up onto new and that in/forms novel conceptual intelligibility as well as the
orientation of human life.” Walker finds Walter Mignolo’s concept of “colonial
difference” and Anibal Quijano’s concept of “coloniality of power” valuable for
his project.
Edward P. Antonio’s important essay on “Black Theology and
Postcolonial Discourse” in the Cambridge Companion to Black Theology has
brought to my attention the often unexplored overlapping concerns of black and
postcolonial theologies and possibilities for mutual learning.
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| Joerg Rieger |
I would like to see the following areas articulated in
future discussion about religion, theology, and class. Postcolonial theorists
discuss the intimate relationship between the colonizers and the colonized,
such as mutual inscription, collaboration, attraction, and repulsion. The book
often presents stark contrast between the rich and the poor and toward the end,
Rieger says that dualism is necessary to articulate the realities of class
struggle. But class in today’s global capitalism must be seen as more fluid and
multifaceted, and indeed in relational terms.
While the exploitation by the transnational capitalist
elites should be criticized, we need to investigate the role of the poor and
the middle class in collaborating with or sustaining the global economic
system. This is not to blame the victims, but to see how global capitalism
interpellates different kinds of subjects through its ideologies and practices.
Without articulating how and why the poor are absorbed, coopted, and bought
into the system and become the instrument of their own oppression, we cannot
see through the maze to propose alternatives and mobilize resistance.
I hope that gender and sexuality will feature more
prominently in future discussion of religion, theology, and class. Except for
Brubaker’s chapter, other chapters have either left these categories out or
mentioned them only in passing. The work of Marcella Althaus-Reid has
convincingly shown the intersection between heterosexism and colonialism and
empire building. We need to investigate for example how gender is racialized
and has a class dimension, how race is genderized, and inflected by class, and
how class intersects with race and gender especially in the consumerist culture.
Finally, I would like to see
contributions from China, Vietnam, and Eastern Europe as their move from
Communism to adopting capitalist measures will offer another perspective to
look at how religion and theology is inflected by class and economic injustice
in these rapidly changing societies. I
hope the publication of the book and this panel will stimulate further
interdisciplinary research and conversation.