Table Of ContentActivist Hermeneutics of
Liberation and the Bible
Inspired by the current political moment around the globe in which upris-
ings, protests, revolutions, and movements are on the rise, this book
examines the intersections between the Bible and activism. It does this
by showcasing intersectional readings of the Bible as an activist act and a
tool for activism; historicizing the uses of the Bible within activist/freedom
movements around the globe; and offering activist approaches to teaching
the Bible. Each chapter in this volume provides a critical and substantive
response from the discipline of Biblical Studies to global political trends.
International in scope, with contributors from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean,
Europe, Latin America, Oceania, South Africa, and the United States, they
address themes such as gender politics, racial injustices, violence toward
women, political resistance, and activist hermeneutics and pedagogies.
Together they harness the intellectual energies of minoritized Biblical schol-
ars in a nonessentialist manner to reflect on the Bible as a tool for liberating
social and political change. Reflecting on the activist potential of the Bible,
this book will be of keen interest to scholars in Biblical Studies, Political
Theology, and Religious Studies.
Jin Young Choi is a professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at
Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, USA.
Gregory L. Cuéllar is an associate professor of Old Testament at Austin
Presbyterian Theological Seminary, USA.
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African Churches Ministering ‘to and with’ Persons with Disabilities
Perspectives from Zimbabwe
Nomatter Sande
The Fathers on the Bible
Edited by Nicu Dumitraşcu
The Theological Imperative to Authenticity
Christy M. Capper
The Political Theology of Pope Francis
Understanding the Latin American Pope
Ole Jakob Løland
Transhumanism, Ethics and the Therapeutic Revolution
Agents of Change
Stephen Goundrey-Smith
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Activist Hermeneutics of
Liberation and the Bible
A Global Intersectional Perspective
Edited by
Jin Young Choi and
Gregory L. Cuéllar
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Jin Young Choi and Gregory
L. Cuéllar; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Jin Young Choi and Gregory L. Cuéllar to be identified
as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their
individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
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or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 9780367544966 (hbk)
ISBN: 9780367616335 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003090274 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003090274
Typeset in Sabon
by codeMantra
Contents
List of contributors vii
Acknowledgments ix
Activist Hermeneutics of Liberation and the Bible 1
JIN YOUNG CHOI AND GREGORY L. CUÉLLAR
PART I
The Bible and Activist Movements 23
1 My Light Is Darkness: Reading (the Bible) with
Baldwin for #BLM 25
ADAM F. BRAUN
2 The Colonies Strike Back: How Latin-American
Liberation Theology Saved Christianity in Post-
Dictatorial Spain 41
LUIS MENÉNDEZ-ANTUÑA
3 Intersectionality in Biblical Studies: A Tool Toward
Social Justice Activism? 60
MÓNICA ISABEL REY
4 Social Movements in Hong Kong and the Bible 83
SONIA KWOK WONG
vi Contents
PART II
Empowering Activists with the Bible 107
5 Qohelet and Jaiba Politics: Ecclesiastes and Activist
Resistance from a Puerto Rican Perspective 109
LYDIA HERNÁNDEZ-MARCIAL
6 Name of the Nameless: An Intercultural Reading of the
Significance of Naming the Children in Hosea 1:2–9 123
ROYCE M. VICTOR
PART III
Activist Teachers of the Bible 139
7 “I Am No Longer a Professor”: A Pedagogy of Living
Word Becoming Flesh 141
MELANIE A. DUGUID-MAY
8 Stuff the Bible: Psalm 137 154
JIONE HAVEA
9 #MeToo #BibleToo: Teaching Ethics of Sex with the
Bible for Justice 165
KEUN-JOO CHRISTINE PAE
10 Epilogue: The Embodied Cost of Knowledge Activism 183
SAROJINI NADAR
Index 191
Contributors
Adam F. Braun is a lecturer in New Testament and Theology at Pacific
Lutheran Theological Seminary, USA.
Jin Young Choi is a professor of New Testament and Christian Origins and
the Baptist Missionary Training School Professorial Chair in Biblical
Studies at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, USA.
Gregory L. Cuéllar is an associate professor of Old Testament at Austin
Presbyterian Theological Seminary, USA.
Melanie A. Duguid-May is a professor of Theology at Colgate Rochester
Crozer Divinity School, USA.
Jione Havea is a research fellow in Religious Studies at Trinity Methodist
Theological College, Aotearoa New Zealand, and at Center for Christi-
anity and Culture, Chares Sturt University, Australia.
Lydia Hernández-Marcial is an assistant professor of Old Testament and
Biblical Hebrew at Seminario Evangélico de Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico.
LuisMenéndez-Antuña is an assistant professor of New Testament at
Boston University School of Theology, USA.
Sarojini Nadar holds the Desmond Tutu South African Research Chair in
Religion and Social Justice at the University of the Western Cape, South
Africa.
Keun-joo Christine Pae is an associate professor and Chair of Religion at
Denison University, USA.
Mónica Isabel Rey is a PhD candidate at Boston University, USA.
Royce M. Victor is the bishop of the Diocese of Malabar of the Church of
South India, India.
Sonia Kwok Wong is an assistant professor at the Divinity School of Chung
Chi College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Acknowledgments
This book project was initiated in 2017 when we, as minoritized biblical
scholars, felt compelled to respond to a US political climate in which the
pervasive mode of interpretation inspired racial hatred and polarized com-
munities. Some of the labor in the earlier stages of this project was done
within our base interpretive community, the Minoritized Criticism and Bib-
lical Interpretation (MCBI) program unit of the Society of Biblical Litera-
ture. Since the beginning, our intentions for this project have been to retool
and even recalibrate the biblical interpretive enterprise with a social activ-
ist impulse. As the editors and co-chairs of the MCBI steering committee,
we are grateful to our colleagues (and co-conspirators) Margaret Aymer,
Jacqueline M. Hidalgo, Uriah Y. Kim, and Eric A. Thomas. Very special
thanks and acknowledgment to our former co-chairs, Fernando F. Segovia
and Tat-siong Benny Liew. Their scholarly legacy, generous support, and
continued friendship have been a source of inspiration. We also want to
offer special thanks to Abraham Smith and Paul Myhre for their valuable
feedback on early drafts of some chapters.
Many people have helped us realize this collection of essays, and we are
grateful for all of them. We started with 20 contributors from Africa, the
Middle East, Asia, Oceania, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, and
the United States. But as racialized minority communities were dispropor-
tionately impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, almost half of them faced
such unprecedented hardships that they had to withdraw from the project.
We especially commemorate the life and dedication of Alease A. Brown at
the University of the Western Cape, who was enthusiastic about her writing
on South Africa’s history of radical resistance, and who passed away at the
peak of the pandemic. We sincerely appreciate our present contributors not
just for their exhilarating scholarship but, more importantly, for how their
scholarly writing constitutes an activist practice. For all of us tied to this
project, activism is, indeed, engaging in healing work.
Much of what this book is about stems from the activist witness of several
liberationist social movements in general and Black Lives Matter in par-
ticular. We appreciate their role in shaping what this book has become. The
systemic oppression and racism that the global pandemic made glaringly
