Ep64. Spirit Outside the Gate, Oscar García-Johnson

I sat down with Oscar García-Johnson to talk about Spirit Outside the Gate: Decolonial Pneumatologies of the American Global South (IVP Academic, 2019). We discuss doing theology in the colonial difference and centring indigenous practices, values, and ideas; we talk about Transoccidentality and how it repositions Christian identity toward a community-in-movement (and the implication of this in conversations around migrants and migration). We also go deep on pneumatology, discussing his view of the Spirit as Decolonial Healer and his response to one of the book’s central question: “What are Christians to make of the Holy Spirit’s occasional encounters with cultures and religions of the America’s before the European conquest?”

Oscar García-Johnson, Academic Dean for the Center for the Study of Hispanic Church and Community and Associate Professor of Theology and Latino/a Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary. Prior to joining the Fuller faculty in 2008, he taught for ten years as an adjunct faculty member at Fuller. He also served as a regional minister with the American Baptist Churches of Los Angeles for 11 years and planted four new churches in Southern California.

Oscar García-Johnson teaches in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. His research methodology interlaces de/postcolonial studies, classical theologies, and US Latino/Latin American studies into a critical hermeneutic he calls Transoccidentality. His writings include Spirit Outside the Gate: Decolonial Pneumatologies of the American Global South (IVP Academic, 2019), Conversaciones Teológicas del Sur Global Americano (coedited, Puertas Abiertas/Wipf & Stock, 2016), Theology without Borders: Introduction to Global Conversations, coauthored with William Dyrness (Baker Academic, 2015), ¡Jesús, Hazme Como tú! 40 Maneras de Imitar a Cristo (Wipf & Stock, 2014), The Mestizo/a Community of the Spirit: A Latino/a Postmodern Ecclesiology (Pickwick, 2009), and chapters in The Spirit Over the Earth: Pneumatology in the Majority World (Eerdmanns, 2016), The Gospel after Christendom: New Voices, New Cultures, New Expressions (Baker Academic, 2012), Vivir y servir en el exilio: Lecturas teológicas de la experiencia latina en los Estados Unidos (Kairos, 2008), and Pasando la Antorcha (Kerigma, 2005).

In addition to teaching courses at Fuller, García-Johnson is a social activist involved in faith-rooted holistic justice with Matthew 25 of Southern California, LA RED, and CCDA. He offers conferences on leadership development and ministry across the Americas (US included), Asia, and Africa. Cofounder of Omega Geñeration project, he is committed to facilitating thriving ministry environments for Latinx millennials and Latina women.

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