INTERROGATING AND REDEFINING POWER
Consultation of Younger Theologians from the South
Chiang Mai, Thailand, February 23-28, 2004

Group Reflection on Power and Alternative Actions

1. From the South: Our starting point

We, the younger theologians from Asia, Africa, Pacific, the Caribbean, and Latin America, have looked at the world from the perspective of the underside, marginalized, and the struggling people. Informed by the Indonesian word apakala that means “What time is it?” we call ourselves AAPACALA, an acronym that does not only express our social locations, but also highlights the kairotic turning point for us to create new history from the South. We seek to make life flourish, and so, we, as collective subjects, define South as that primary point of reference and as the geopolitical line of resistance to the empire. We recognize the concrete situation of the South, and we acknowledge that there are elements in the North that have also radically questioned the empire. In the light of this, we strive to build solidarity with such initiatives.

2. Reading of the Bible from the South: Redefining interpretation as a tool of power and seeing Jesus as one from the South

The Bible has been appropriated by the powerful to dominate the powerless and the weak. We, therefore, call for the interrogation, deconstruction, demystification, and unlearning of the inherited hermeneutics that disempowered our people. In so doing, we re-appropriate the Bible as God’s word from the perspective of AAPACALA. We read the Bible alongside texts of other established religions and indigenous traditions. We visualize Jesus as a symbol of resistance to oppressive power and a point of encounter where differences are valued. We have witnessed the pervasiveness of death in the South, and the death of Jesus on the Cross points to God’s sobra na, tama na ( from Spanish and Tagalog meaning, “enough is enough”).

3. Interrogating and redefining power

AAPACALA’s ecumenical initiatives “revolve under the shadow of the empire” but denies the claims of the empire to shape life and the destiny of the marginalised. Therefore, AAPACALA denounces empire`s alleged empowerment, which actually disempowers the weak and turns them into objects that renders them vulnerable to the manipulation of the powerful. AAPACALA resists the domestication of religion by dominant political and economic interest groups.

4. Lines of engagement and actions

• We recognize ourselves as individual and as collective actors who are God’s partners.
• Since in ubuntu/botho concept, “a human being is a human being only in relation to other human beings” (from South Africa`s African languages) and by implication in communion with creation, the distortion of power tampers with the humanness of the powerful.
• Weaving is AAPACALA’s icon of creative, non-dominant power relationship.
• We propose an ethic of solidarity in the face of victimization, and an ethic of resistance in the face of abusive power.
• Inter-religious engagement is a key ecumenical agenda to overcome structures of dominance.
• AAPACALA does not close its eyes to the oppression of Christianity in regions where it is a minority religion. Being a minority puts Christianity in a position to engage in subject building from below.
• Our methodologies will endeavour to use immersion in real life situations of the people as our site of theologising.
• Since the Bible is God’s gift to all people, AAPACALA’s reading of the Bible recognizes the truth in other religions, discerns its own specific faith values, deconstructs the oppressive and lifts up the liberating.
• We celebrate the plurality of the South and combat subject defacing uniformity.

Adopted

Friday, 27 February 2004