Christianity, Empire and the Spirit

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Dr. Neomi De Anda talks to Dr. Néstor Medina about his book on (re)configuring faith and the cultural

Statue by sculptor Antonio Castellanos Basich representing Spanish Dominican friar Antonio de Montesinos, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 2019. The 50-foot statue was donated by Mexico to the Dominican people in 1982. Known as the first European to publicly denounce the horrific treatment of indigenous peoples on the island, Fray Montesinos traveled throughout the Americas on a crusade for human rights during the 1500s. He influenced Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas and the first set of international laws concerning universal humanity. Photo: Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz

Statue by sculptor Antonio Castellanos Basich representing Spanish Dominican friar Antonio de Montesinos, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 2019. The 50-foot statue was donated by Mexico to the Dominican people in 1982. Known as the first European to publicly denounce the horrific treatment of indigenous peoples on the island, Fray Montesinos traveled throughout the Americas on a crusade for human rights during the 1500s. He influenced Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas and the first set of international laws concerning universal humanity. Photo: Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz

 
 

Tejana scholar/activist Dr. Neomi De Anda talks to Guatemalan-Canadian scholar Dr. Néstor Medina about his book Christianity, Empire and the Spirit: (Re)Configuring Faith and the Cultural (Brill, 2018), a timely work in light of our turbulent and divisive political age, the resurgence of white supremacy, and impinging cultural conflict. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, Dr. Medina explores Protestant and Catholic history and theology in order to arrive at an understanding of culture and of the cultural. He invites us to rethink the phenomena of cultural and cultural processes in their multiple concrete expressions of faith without following inherited Eurocentric theological frames that draw a wedge between human material existence and the reality of the divine. The book is part of Brill’s Theology and Mission in World Christianity book series, which “treats theology, mission, and the interface between them in view of the development of world Christianity.”

 
 
 

This is a timely book in light of our turbulent political age embroiled in demagoguery, a resurgence of white supremacy, and impinging cultural conflict in a multicultural society. Medina examines the presuppositions embedded in the idea of culture and seeks to establish a just relationality in the world.

—Daniel Orlando Álvarez (Pentecostal Theological Seminary) in
Perspectivas: The Journal of the Hispanic Theological Initiative

 
 
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Neomi De Anda

Dr. Neomi De Anda is Executive Director of International Marian Research Institute (IMRI) at the University of Dayton, where she served as a Human Rights Center Research Associate and is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies. She teaches courses in religion, languages and cultures, Latinx studies, race and ethnic studies, and women and gender studies.  Dr. De Anda holds a PhD in Constructive Theology from Loyola University Chicago, and Master’s degrees in Theology (Oblate School of Theology) and Educational Leadership (St. Mary’s University, San Antonio).  Her research interests include LatinoXa Christology; theology and breast milk; chisme; Marianist Catholic Higher Education; the intersection of race and migrations, in conjunction with the Marianist Social Justice Collaborative Immigrant Justice Team; and partnering with the Hope Border Institute on a border theology at the intersections of the environment, migrations, labor, and women. Dr. De Anda is the most recent past president for the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS). Her honors include: the 2021 University of Dayton University Award for Faculty Teaching; the 2021 University of Dayton College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Service Award for faculty; recognition as a Courageous Woman's Voice at the University of Dayton (2020) and an outstanding faculty member in the State of Ohio by Ohio Magazine (2019). Dr. De Anda has also received various grants from the Hispanic Theological Initiative, the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Religion and Theology, the Association of Marianist Universities, and the Louisville Institute, where she now serves as a member of the board. 

Featured
Néstor Medina

Dr. Néstor Medina is Assistant Professor of Religious Ethics at Emmanuel College, University of Toronto. He engages ethics from contextual, liberationist, intercultural, and post/decolonial perspectives. Dr. Medina explores the ethical implications of religious/theological debates, and how these shape concrete social structures and notions of ethnoracial and cultural identity. He also studies how lived religious experiences shape/transform people’s understandings of ethics on the ground, especially reflecting from Latina/o/x (Canadian and USA), Latin American, and Latina/o/x Pentecostal perspectives. Dr. Medina is the author of Mestizaje: (Re)Mapping ‘Race,’ Culture, and Faith in Latina/o Catholicism (Orbis, 2009), the commissioned booklet On the Doctrine of Discovery (Canadian Council of Churches, 2017), and Christianity, Empire and the Spirit (Brill, 2018).

 
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