Anupama Ranawana

In this article, we argue that public theologians have a rich tradition from which to argue for the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. In particular, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s resistance to the co-opting of Christianity by the Nazi regime is frequently cited in theological circles as an exemplar. Yet, we find major public figures and theological societies, such as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the United Kingdom’s Society for the Study of Theology (SST) to be wanting in this regard. From an examination of Welby’s comments on the Israeli bombardment in Gaza, and the SST’s response to our open letter and the lament from Palestinian Christians, we argue that theologians are failing. We draw on Palestinian liberation theology and anti- colonial theologies to argue that the work of liberation is the raison d’être of theology and requires political activism. We conclude, therefore, that theological silence is com- plicity in injustice.

This article responds to ongoing conversations on the decolonisation of international development, with special reference to faith-based, Christian international organisations. This article argues the case for such INGOs to draw from anticolonial thought and anticolonial theological spaces in order to dismantle their foundational colonial and institutional logics. The title of the paper is taken from a sentiment articulated by the Brazilian ecofeminist theologian Ivone Gebara who argues that in order to dismantle such logics, we have to take on a critical political posture that is anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-elitist. What does it mean for Christian INGOs to take on this pose? I argue that we can draw from the broader concepts of anticolonial thinking and theology to provide guidance. In particular, the paper argues that faith-based INGOs can shift to be more explicitly social movements than international organisations, that they draw from a multi-centric knowledge base, centring techniques of storytelling, and also look to embrace and learn from liberation movements of the past. There is, of course, no specific toolkit or blueprint, but doing this work of dismantling necessitates a commitment to a complex and nuanced process, encompassing relationality, sharing, reciprocity, collective responsibility, mutual interdependence, community building, ethics, responsibility, and accountability.

This article explores the ethics of rage, positing how this is and needs to be a point of ecotheological ethics. In particular, it argues that understanding rage as an epistemological and ontological position for communities most affected by the climate crisis should be a point of intervention for faith-based development, particularly for international development organizations (INGOs) that wish to do more to structure their direct implementation work within a framework of justice. As an example, the article highlights one form of climate-based programming often used by INGOs—anticipatory action. The particular case discussed draws from programming completed by the faith-based INGO Christian Aid, a program in which the author was involved as a research evaluator. The article critiques such programming to stress the importance of rage as a point of justice-focused ethics, particularly for an organization that structures its interventions around justice-based theology. The article understands rage in many ways but is particularly tied to the kind of multilateralism “from below” that demands a different moral order.