decolonizing religion

I start with the notion of the violent imposition of a hetero-patriachal class system that racialized those who were conquered. The Church enabled this conquest, and must bear responsibility for the imposition of hetero-patriachy — with its land lords and class oppression, its violence against all creation; the women, the children, the poor and the vulnerable especially.

I reject the notion that the Church is divided into parts; Roman Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Liberal. Christianity came to this continent accompanying conquest. And that scandal is shared by the whole Church. Thus for Protestants to argue that it was the Catholics is an evasion. For the Unitarian Universalists to claim the Puritans as their “spiritual ancestors” and to love their covenantal tradition and their congregationalism and not own their heritage in the conquest of America is an evasion. Such evasion perpetuates their role as sanctifiers of genocide, a role that can only be overcome and rejected by making a choice, a choice of decolonization. The Church justified conquest, and genocide and in process became part of the problem. The Church is colonized, it must decolonized.

The Church must choose if stands with conquerors or the conquered. The Church must choose where it stands relative to the make believe about the "Traditional Family " which is just the hetero-patriachy giving itself a pedigree. We need a creation story based on the reality that human beings formed loving families in loving societies and we need to show that human beings create oppressive families in oppressive societies. Societies that foster violence reproduce violent people through violence including violence in the family. Since the essence of the imposed order is violence, decolonizing religion must be about love concretized as resistance though non-violence.