A starting place for
Postcolonial Feminist Theologies
I first began to study feminist theology after my experience of working with oppressed and exploited women around the globe as a missionary after I observed that the more patriarchal a culture was, the more women were oppressed. It was through working with these women that I realized all the ways that I, as part of white conservative Christianity, was complicit in harm as well.
Areas of study
At first, my journey was primarily centered on feminism. But I quickly realized that I needed to be intersectional in my approach, as historically, in women’s suffrage movements, white women still discriminated against black women. This led me to see the importance of studying a postcolonial and intersectional feminism. The bulk of this page has been sourced and developed through a class called Postcolonial Feminist Theologies I took from the Iliff School of Theology with Professor Boyung Lee.
Feminism is simply the advocacy of equity among sex/gender, leading to equal rights and opportunities. Feminism strives to end sexism and discrimination, leading to a more just and equitable society.
Postcoloniality studies the ongoing effects and results of colonialism on societies long after the formal end of colonial rule. Like feminism and intersectionality, it works to remove discrimination and create an equitable society for all.
Intersectionality, a term coined by Kimberle Crenshaw. is a framework to understand how social identities such as legal status, gender, gender identity, race, class, disability, and more result in unique levels of privilege and discrimination.
Critical questions addressed by Postcolonial Feminist Theologies
When the frameworks of intersectionality, postcolonialism, and feminism are combined, they ask some essential questions.
- Whose Knowledge Counts? Because of Colonialism, one way of knowing and being in the world has been valued above all else, and that is the knowledge of white men. Postcolonial feminist theologians work to challenge the assumption that there is one way to see the world. Even feminist theology, which resists patriarchal knowledge as the only way of knowing, is complicit in valuing white Western voices over marginalized ways of knowing. Postcolonial feminist theologians seek to value voices historically silenced by patriarchy, empire, and white supremacy. By lifting the nuanced struggle of many voices, postcolonial feminist theologians seek to dismantle structures that value only one way of being and work in interdependence with all identities and values.
- How are theology, colonialism, and capitalism intertwined? Postcolonial feminist theologies work to expose the deep ties between Christianity, colonialism, and capitalism. It highlights how colonialism and Christianity worked together in the Doctrine of Discovery to remove native Americans from their land, leading to a genocide of 94% of the Native American population being wiped out. It demonstrates how capitalism and Christianity work towards the Earth’s destruction today by recklessly extracting resources from the earth, creating a climate in crisis. Postcolonial Feminist Theologians refuse to cede the Bible and Christian theology to colonialism and capitalism and work with scripture and Christian traditions to build a theology that resists empire and creates a flourishing world for all.
- How are gender, sexuality, and politics of the body formed? Postcolonial feminist theologians work to understand how colonialism has worked with Christian theology to police gender, sexuality, and body politics, causing harm to bodies that did not fit a white, male, heteronormative mold. Theologians such as Rita Brock even work to challenge atonement theology, seeking to show how such theology has justified the suffering of women and queer bodies.
- How is our relationship with the Earth formed? Capitalism and colonialism have worked together with Christian theology to teach the idea that only human life matters. Postcolonial feminist theologians maintain that equity and justice must also include all parts of creation, challenging us to rethink stewardship and move beyond a ruling mindset to one of interdependence and kinship with the earth and its more-than-human inhabitants.
Postcolonial Feminist Theologians
The below is not an extensive list. For an annotated Bibliography of more postcolonial feminist scholars, please click here.
Kwok Pui-Lan
Hong Kong-born Kwok Pui-Lan is seminal in the field of postcolonial feminist theologies. Kwok argues that an essential task of Christian theology is to decolonize the mind, exploring pluralism, creation, and Christology.
Her works include:
Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology
Hope Abundant: Third World and Indigenous Women’s Theology
Postcolonial Politics and Theology: Unraveling Empire For a Global World
Postcolonialism, Feminism, and Religious Discourse
She has recently started a podcast called Kwok N Roll and a substack.
Musa Dube
A Bostwanian postcolonial feminist theologian, she focuses on gender, postcolonialism, translation, and HIV and AIDS studies.
Her works include:
Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible
Postcolonial Perspectives in African Biblical Interpretations
Rita Nakashima Brock
Born in Japan, Brock is a postcolonial feminist theologian, activist, and non-profit organization leader. She explores Christology, critiquing atonement theory and attempting to reclaim the Love of Christ.
Her works include:
Journeys By Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power
Saving Paradise: Recovering Christianity’s Forgotten Love For This Earth
Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire
Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering and the Search For What Saves us
Casting Stones: Prostitution and Liberation in Asia and the United States
Eleanor Tiplady Higgs
An interdisciplinary feminist scholar studying the social, political, and cultural significance of Christianity from a postcolonial feminist perspective. Areas of interest are narrative, everyday ethics, institutional ethnography, coloniality and race/racism, and the Young Women’s Christian Association.
Her works include:
Narrative, Identity, and Ethics in Postcolonial Kenya
Christianity, Coloniality, and social change: Everyday Ethics of the two YWCAs of South Africa
May 13, 2025 · 10am – 2pm
Laura E. Donaldson
Postcolonial feminist scholar Laura E. Donaldson works to explore the nuance and seemingly oppositional nature between first-world and third-world feminism to work more constructively. Her focus areas are American Indian women, Postcolonial Studies, Gender, race, and law, and religion and literature.
Her works include:
Decolonizing Feminisms: Race, Gender, and Empire-Building
Semeia 75: Postcolonialism and Scriptural Reading
Mayra Rivera
Rivera is Andrew W. Mellon, Professor of Religion and Latinx studies at Harvard. She works at the intersections between the philosophy of religion, literature, and theories of coloniality, race, and gender. Some of her notable work speaks on God’s transcendence within.
Her works include:
Planetary Loves: Spivak, Postcoloniality, and Theology
Marcella Althaus-Reid
Most well known for her work in Indedent Theology, Althaus-Reid argues that sex has been constructed by a patriarchal worldview which underpins great atrocities in the world. She speaks of an “indecent Christ” of a self-emptying God who is embodied in Christ and human sexuality.
Her works include:
From Feminist Theology to Indecent Theology: Readings on Poverty, Sexual Identity and God
HyeRan Kim-Cragg
An interdisciplinary postcolonial feminist theologian, Kim-Cragg explores biblical interpretation, postcolonial theories, feminist homiletics and liturgy, migration, decolonizing practices, and the climate crisis and preaching.
Her works include:
Practical Theology Amid Environmental Crisis
Postcolonial preaching: Creating a Ripple Effect
Interdependence: A Postcolonial Feminist Practical Theology
Story and Song: A Postcolonial Interplay Between Christian Education
EarthBound Preaching: Engaging Scripture, Context, and Indigenous Wisdom
Gloria Anzaldua
Anzaldua is a postcolonial feminist theology that focuses on nepantilism (meaning in the middle), coining the term “nepantiera” to categorize threshold people who move among multiple and often conflicting worlds. She also focuses on spirituality, language, health, and body trauma, sexuality, feminism, and mestiza culture.
Her works include:
The Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
and Children’s books including:
Prietita Has A Friend
Six Steps for Praxis
01
Resist
Resist colonialism, patriarchy, racism, capitalism, and empire. Use your voice, march, vote, and use every method available.
02
Rest
Trica Hersey, a theologian known for the “nap ministry,” reminds us that “Rest is Resistance.” By prioritizing rest, we can build lasting and sustainable change.
03
Find Joy
Colonialism, Patriarchy, racism, and capitalism create systems where those on the margins struggle to survive. Therefore, every act of joy and thriving is resistance to a system that only privileges a few.
04
Practice Wonder and Curiosity
Valarie Kaur, who calls us to practice revolutionary love at these times, coined the phrase, “You are part of me that I do not yet know.” This phrase can help us to get curious about others instead of treating them with animosity.
05
Practice Interdependence
We get free together. The truth is that we need each other. As any ecosystem will show, there is a complex interplay between many species. If just one of those species goes missing, the ecosystem can collapse.
06
Connect
We have to connect to sustain the work going forward. Whenever I feel overwhelmed with the world, I make sure to find connection– whether with a partner, friend, family member, the earth, an animal, or the sky above me.