Scripture and Resistance

The Bible, as scripture, calls for resistance against unjust cultures and imperial powers. Scripture and Resistance applies the multiple views or perspectives in the Bible about empire and resistance to a variety of concerns, including the colonial legacies of the Bible and the subjugation of indigenous peoples.

This book invites the reader to embark on a journey of re-discovery, and also by implication points to interpretations yet undiscovered.

In a collection of engaging and provocative essays, authors from diverse locations from the Global South explore the different ways of rereading and resisting the biblical text written under the umbrella of empire.

Scripture and Resistance continues the paradigm shift in the self-understanding of Biblical Studies by bringing to bear the theoretical perspectives of the margins on the hegemonic center. An international group of scholars explores the Bible as a site of struggle in these Neo-liberal times. I highly recommend this excellent work!

In this provocative collection of essays, interpreters of diverse backgrounds and perspectives explore how the Bible has been used mainly to support— but sometimes to subvert— empire. Although voices of resistance were submerged in biblical texts, many of those texts portray a continuing struggle between people and imperial subjugation and exploitation. But Bible-bearing colonialists, with the collusion of established biblical studies, claimed authority to invade people's lives and to expropriate their lands. These essays call for a more honest acknowledgment of the Bible's (and biblical studies') historic and contemporary role in empire, and a more candid reading of the ambiguity, at best, of scriptural texts.

While the biblical scriptures have so often been marshalled to justify forms of dispossession, colonialism, and imperialism, these same scriptures continue to provide the inspiration for resistance to, if not the overthrow of, such oppression. The insights expertly gathered in Scripture and Resistance, from many parts of the globe that have experienced colonial dispossession in the not too distant past, indicate clearly that the Bible is not always a solace to the peddlers of empire.

Scripture and Resistance is a very fine collection of essays, not least on account of the impressive international line-up of scholars associated with it. And with the consistent focus of the essays on this world (not the otherworldly) and on our fraught time (not text-constructed ancient-world moments) and the varied forms of violence, conflicts, and creative engagements appertaining thereto, the collection is compelling and sorely needed as part of critical discourse and politics.

Scripture and Resistance—the second title from Lexington Books’ Theology in the Age of Empire series—brings together yet another collection of radical engagements with, and resistance to, empire from internationally acclaimed authors. Whereas in the first volume, Religion and Power, contributors attempted to discern and disturb the collaboration of religion and empire, Jione Havea, in this volume, has again masterfully woven together several strands of global voices that seek not only to reread scripture as a site of struggle, but also to resist any scriptural traces of, and textual alliance with, empire. The works in this volume are both challenging and prophetic, and it is highly recommended for resistant and discerning readers in academic, ecclesial, and public settings alike.

Jione Havea is a native Methodist pastor from Tonga, and research fellow at Trinity Theological College (Aotearora, New Zealand) and the Public and Contextual Theology Research Centre of Charles Sturt University (Australia).