Transoccidentalism

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Written By Open Plaza

Dr. Oscar García-Johnson and Dr. Kay Higuera Smith look beyond the west-side story

The Hieroglyphic Stairway of Copán, Honduras. Carved with over 2200 hieroglyphs that relate the history of Copán’s 12 rulers, the temple staircase is considered the longest Mayan text ever found. Photo: José Porras

The Hieroglyphic Stairway of Copán, Honduras. Carved with over 2200 hieroglyphs that relate the history of Copán’s 12 rulers, the temple staircase is considered the longest Mayan text ever found. Photo: José Porras

 
 

What might be a new grammar for the study of theology and Christianity, particularly in today’s American Global South? Ask Dr. Oscar García-Johnson, who coined the term “transoccidentality”. He tells Dr. Kay Higuera Smith that part of his motivation to write Spirit Outside the Gate: Decolonial Pneumatologies of the American Global South (InterVarsity Press, 2019) was to offer other approaches to theology and the church. Born in Honduras, Dr. García-Johnson hopes to change the terms of the conversation—“disrupting the power dynamic of language and representation”—where even the “minoritized of the minoritized” have a seat at the table.

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Oscar García-Johnson

Rev. Dr. Oscar García-Johnson is Associate Professor of Theology and Latinx Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he is also Assistant Provost for the Center for the Study of Hispanic Church and Community (Centro Latino). He holds a BA from University of La Verne, and MA and PhD degrees from the Fuller Theological Seminary. Formerly, he served as a regional minister with the American Baptist Churches of Los Angeles for 11 years and planted four new churches in Southern California. An activist scholar, his research methodology interlaces de/postcolonial studies, indigenous theologies, and US Latino/Latin American studies into a critical hermeneutic he calls “Transoccidentalism”. His writings include Spirit Outside the Gate: Decolonial Pneumatologies of the American Global South (IVP Academic, 2019); Conversaciones Teológicas del Sur Global Americano (coedited, Puertas Abiertas/Wipf & Stock, 2016); Theology without Borders: Introduction to Global Conversations, co-authored with William Dyrness (Baker Academic, 2015); ¡Jesús, Hazme Como tú! 40 Maneras de Imitar a Cristo (Wipf & Stock, 2014); and The Mestizo/a Community of the Spirit: A Latino/a Postmodern Ecclesiology (Pickwick, 2009).

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Kay Higuera Smith

Dr. Kay Higuera Smith is Professor of Biblical and Religious Studies and Program Director of the Religious Studies Minor program at Azusa Pacific University. She writes about social justice issues as they relate to Critical Gender Theory, Postcoloniality and Evangelicalism. In her most recent publication, she was Editor-in-Chief of Postcolonial Evangelical Conversations: Global Awakenings in Theology and Praxis (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014). She currently has two books under contract, one on the historical figure of Mary of Nazareth, and another on Latinx Biblical Hermeneutics.

 
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