In this chapter I have described the theory of postcolonial feminist hermeneutics, and located it within four broad areas of academic inquiry. These were postcolonial studies; biblical criticism;
feminist hermeneutics and African feminist and other liberation hermeneutics. To conclude, I will establish the significance of postcolonial feminist hermeneutics as a theoretical framework for my study.
Postcolonial feminist hermeneutics is significant for my study because I see colonialism and imperialism as heavily implicated and inevitably playing a key role in my text of focus (1 Cor 11:1-16). Postcolonial feminist hermeneutics concerns itself with knowing how imperialism impacted the production of canonical texts, their interpretation and their interpreters. This theory will enable me to scrutinize and analyze how the Roman imperial context informed Paul as he wrote, and how the imperially and patriarchally coded text which created unequal gender power relations was enforced in the history of the Christian tradition through a lineage of interpretations
leading up to my church (the Anglican Church of Kenya) in the colonial era and after. This theory has for example made visible, in chapter five, six and seven, ways in which modern reading of this and similar texts colluded with Victorian interests of domesticity of womanhood, resulting in subordination of women, not only in the church but also in society. This British imperial construction of woman was transported to the Kenyan church and society through colonialism and missionary Christianity and reinforced the Kenyan patriarchal system in which a woman was already a subordinate.
In this case, a postcolonial optic will reveal how a text that was born in the church to serve the interests of the Roman Empire (i.e. to maintain Roman imperial family structures), has been appropriated by the church (Church of England), to serve the interests of the British Empire. In other words, 1 Cor 11:1-16 is imperialistic both at the level of its production and at the level of its appropriation. Postcolonial feminist hermeneutics will therefore help to reveal the collusion between the church and the empire in the subordination of women in the history of the Christian tradition. In my study, I will confine the scope to the period of modern European imperialism and its aftermath, but I will use postcolonial theories to illuminate the Roman historical period, as Kwok (2005:79) would propose.31
To conclude the discussions in this chapter, we have found that the proliferation of the new modes of interpreting the Bible has been forcefully brought about by the current political and
I argue that, since most of the New Testament was written during the Roman imperial period and responds to the concerns of that period, either by way of resistance or collaboration, Christianity, whether early, modern or postcolonial Christianity (which is a direct product of European colonialism), needs a postcolonial approach to scrutinize it for imperial and colonial ideologies. It is evident that the imperially coded biblical texts continue to influence the lives of Christians, right from the time of their writing to date. As such, it is my contention that Christianity continues to promote, sustain and transmit gender-biased imperially coded ideologies from one generation to another.
31 Kwok (2005:79) argues that, just as modern theories have been implored to illuminate ancient societies, so can postcolonial criticism be used to illuminate ancient texts. In other words, we can use postcolonial imagination to shed light to the imperial world of biblical texts, without necessarily regarding the “imperial/colonial experiences (as) similar across time and culture, though there may be resemblances.”
cultural shifts which have created new experiences, necessitating new ways of reading the Bible since the old ones no longer work. As far as my study is concerned, I have shown that, although I will draw on most established methods and theories, such as historical and literary criticism, liberation theology, and African feminist hermeneutics, none of them is better suited than postcolonial feminist hermeneutics.32
32 However, one point where I depart from postcolonial theory is that, while the postcolonial reading practice reconsiders the biblical narratives “not as a series of divinely guided incidents or reports about divine-human encounters, but as emanating from colonial contacts” (Sugirtharajah 2001:251), in my application of the postcolonial theory to the Bible, I will not treat the Bible as any other colonial text. Rather, I will regard it as a sacred text that contains the inspired Word of God, intended to liberate human beings from all forms of oppression (Lk 4:18-19) and to enable them to have life in all its fullness (Jn 10:10). Anything else short of liberation and life-affirmation in the Bible, whether in the process of its production, canonization, interpretation and appropriation, can only be attributed, not to God but to human beings in their fallen nature through whom the inspired message was/is mediated. As such, the Bible warrants a critical reading without depriving it of any aspects of its sacredness.
My thesis addresses a context in which woman has been relegated to a subservient status, not only by the interpretation of a biblical text (1 Cor 11:1-16), but by the text itself, in its patriarchal and imperial context. Such a text calls for postcolonial feminist hermeneutical theories to interrogate its context and to appropriate it to my postcolonial Kenyan church context in a way that offers tools which can liberate women.