ABSTRACT
The American-born Stone-Campbell Movement, particularly its ecclesiastical offshoot, the Church/es of Christ, is one of the religious projects which were exported to the Philippines along with the U.S.A.’s colonial mission in Asia. Operating on a “restorationist” theological framework, it seeks a return to a “New Testament Christianity” uncorrupted by denominationalism. This article proposes that the Church of Christ version of restorationism demonstrates the nature of discourse, in the Foucauldian sense – i.e., totalizing and regulative set of pronouncements and practices which provides for its own subversion and overthrow. It attempts to show how, in its interface with the culture of the Igorots of Northern Philippines, it assumes a form of cultural imperialism which marginalizes the indigenous while spelling its own alienation with its West-centric orientation and ecclesiocentric language. The study is framed not only by its appropriation of Foucault’s notion of discourse and of several Filipino missiologists’ concept of “indigenized/contextualized theology,” but also by the author’s former subjection to the religious discourse under question. It joins the call for a continuous interrogation of Western religious discourses imposed upon or coopted by Philippine and other Asian societies with the end view of fostering interethnic dialogue and understanding between and among Asian and non-Asian cultures.
Keywords: restorationism, Churches of Christ, discourse, ecclesiology, American exceptionalism
DOI 10.1515/ijsl-2014-0018 [SCOPUS]
A Brown Man's Burden:
Critiquing an American Restorationist Discourse
BIBLIOGRAPHIC ENTRY: Saboy, Scott Magkachi. 2014. "A Brown Man's Burden: Critiquing an American Restorationist Discourse". International Journal of the Sociology of Language. 229: 67-94.