Spirit and Resistance: Political Theology and American Indian Liberation

by George E. Tinker

Overview

Writing from a Native American perspective, theologian George Tinker probes American Indian culture, its vast religious and cultural legacy, and its ambiguous relationship to the tradition-historic Christianity-that colonized and converted it.

After five hundred years of conquest and social destruction, he says, any useful reflection must come to terms with the political state of Indian affairs and the political hopes and visions for recovering the health and well-being of Indian communities. Does Christian theology have a positive role to play? Tinker's work offers an overview of contemporary native American culture and its perilous state. Critical of recent liberal and New Age co-opting of Native spiritual practices, Tinker also offers a critical corrective to liberation theology. He shows how Native insights into the Sacred Other and sacred space helpfully reconfigure traditional ideas of God, Jesus' notion of the reign of God, and our relation to the earth. From this basis he offers novel proposals about cultural survival and identity, sustainability, and the endangered health of Native Americans.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780800636814
Publisher:	1517 Media
Publication date:	09/15/2004
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.25(d)

About the Author

George E. ''Tink'' Tinker is Professor of American Indian Cultures and Religious Traditions at Iliff School of Theology, Denver, Colorado. He is an enrolled member of the Osage Nation. Among his many publications are Missionary Conquest (Fortress Press, 1993) and Native American Theology (co-authored, 2001).

Table of Contents

	Preface: In the Spirit of Big Soldier: Defending American Indian Cultures and Religious Values	ix
1	Liberation and Sustainability: Prolegomenon to an American Indian Theology	1
2	Indianness and Cultural Alterity	28
3	American Indian Religious Identity and Advanced Colonial Malignancy	37
4	American Indian Religious Traditions, Colonialism, Resistance, and Liberation: That the People May Live!	55
5	Fools and Fools Crow: The Colonialism of Thomas Mails's Fools Crow: Wisdom and Power	73
6	Thunderbeings and Anthropologists: A Lakota Primer	79
7	Indian Culture and Interpreting the Christian Bible	88
8	Spirituality, Native American Personhood, Sovereignty, and Solidarity: Liberation Theology and Socialism	100
	Notes	116
	Index	138