New book responds to local and global challenges

Practical theologian Prof Johann Meylahn’s new book, Trans-fictional praxis: A Christ poiesis of imagining non-colonial worlds emerging from the shadows of global villages, attempts to respond to some of the global and local challenges that the world is facing, for example the rise in populism globally and the demise or at least cracks appearing in numerous democratic systems, as well as in the global capitalist system.

These global crises form the backdrop of the book, whilst the particular call for decolonial education in the local South African universities was the concrete context of the book, and it is within these contexts that it seeks to develop a trans-fictional praxis.

The research for the book was made possible through funding of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and a research stay at the Humboldt University of Berlin over the past few years. The book, published by Lit Verlag in the series Studies in Religion and Culture, is an attempt to respond to some of the global and local challenges that the world is facing, for example the rise in populism globally and the demise or at least cracks appearing in numerous democratic systems, as well as in the global capitalist system. These global crises form the backdrop of the book, whilst the particular call for decolonial education in the local South African universities was the concrete context of the book, and it is within these contexts that it seeks to develop a trans-fictional praxis.

The frustration with responding to these challenges is that the two dominant options, fundamentalist responses and/or politically correct liberal responses, are not very convincing, and nor are they helpful. The book argues that these two options are in a certain sense the same, and the result is antagonism between these two false polarities. Likewise, the polarity between fundamentalism and relativity or pluralism is not very helpful. A trans-fictional praxis creates a space to move beyond these antagonisms towards agonistic spaces.

The book begins with a conversation between trans-fictional praxis and Andrew Root’s Christo-Praxis, Pete Rollins’ Ortho-praxis based on his a/theology and Richard Kearney’s  Anatheism, whilst bringing these thoughts into conversation with contemporary continental philosophy influenced by the linguistic turn in Heidegger’s thought, and what has been termed Post-structuralism in the thoughts of Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, and in the work of Badiou, Levinas, Laruelle, Laclau, Mouffe, Agamben, Nancy and Žižek. In this book Meylahn developed a trans-fictional praxis that seeks to find a way of being, and even being in community – between fundamentalism and relativity, between political correctness and populism, between orthodoxy or ortho-praxis and nihilism.

It hereby responds to the desire of the book series within which this book appears, Studies in Religion and Culture, by figuring out, in the literal sense of figuring (creating, constructing) the role of religion, more specifically Christianity, in the context of some of the major or dominant social, political, cultural and economic phenomena of the contemporary global villages. The author tries to engage these phenomena, not necessarily from a religious perspective but bringing religion into the conversation.

In the final chapters the book engages with colonialism, anti-colonialism, postcolonialism and decolonialism. One soon realises that thought is essentially colonial, or thought is violent, and it is in this context that non-colonial thought is explored, or the possibility of thought-spaces, which become possible if the violence and the colonialism of thought is acknowledged. Can one move towards non-colonial spaces without these spaces being colonised by political correctness, or cheap forms of relativity or pluralism in the various politically correct expressions of multi-culturalism?

The book finally turns towards Christ-poiēsis as a possible expression of trans-fictional praxis. Christianity and the Jewish-Christian texts/tradition have played a dominant role in the global villages. Christianity was part of the imperialism and colonialism of the West, but likewise it has also always been part of the anti-imperialism and post-colonial movements either directly through various forms of liberation theology, Black Theology, African Theology, Feminist Theology, Womanist Theology and even various expressions of Eco-Theology, but also less directly through many of the thinkers who have impacted post-colonial thoughts, such as Levinas (Jewish) who has had a tremendous influence on decolonial though emerging from Latin America, or Marx and his Jewish-Christian background and the influence his thought has had on the various liberation movements.  

One can argue that the Christian text is on both sides of these colonial and imperial carried out global villages. Therefore, it is difficult to ignore the Christian Text or Christian tradition, and it could even be argued that to ignore, repress, or deny the Christian Text will have as consequence that it returns as an ugly symptom. For example, could Christian fundamentalism, as expressed in the evangelical right in the USA which has had an impact beyond the border of the USA, not be interpreted as the symptom of the repression of the Christian Text by liberal theology?  One cannot ignore or repress the Christian Text, but it needs to be thought through and Christ-poiēsis is such an attempt: to think through the Christian Text, rather than to avoid, deny and thereby repress it.

View the publication here: http://www.lit-verlag.de/isbn/3-643-91068-4