A Puerto Rican Decolonial Theology

This book explores the themes of identity, suffering, and hope in the stories of Puerto Rican people to surface the anthropology, soteriology, and eschatology of a Puerto Rican decolonial theology.  Using an interdisciplinary methodology of dialogue between literature and theology, this study reveals the oppression, resistance, and theological vision of the Puerto Rican community. It demonstrates how Puerto Rican literature and Puerto Rican theology are prophetic voices calling out for the liberation of a suffering people, on the island and in the Puerto Rican Diaspora, while employing personal Puerto Rican family/community stories as an authoritative contextual reference point. This work stands within the continuum of contextual theology and diasporic studies of religion in the United States, as well as research in the interdisciplinary field of decolonial and post-colonial studies.

“A Prophesy Freedom is a courageous challenge to the silences of theology. Delgado’s distinctive Puerto Rican Decolonial Theology denounces the pernicious effects in the continuity of 21st century Western colonialism. Employing a provocative interdisciplinary approach and masterfully juxtaposing global colonial experiences, she illuminates histories of resistance and offers cutting-edge tools to build grounded hopes for a future beyond injustice and domination. This book is a must read for anyone interested in decolonial studies, politics in the Americas, liberation theologies, and intercultural conversations.” (Santiago Slabodsky, Author of Decolonial Judaism  (2017 Frantz Fanon Outstanding Book Award by the Caribbean Philosophical Association), and Florence and Robert Kaufman Chair, Dept. of Religion, Hofstra University, USA)

“This an important academic contribution that takes into careful consideration contemporary developmentsof decolonial theology in dialogue with a critical reading of meaningful segments of Puerto Rican literature. 'Can the subaltern speak?' Prof. Teresa Delgado demonstrates that certainly she, a subaltern diasporic member of a colonized nation - Puerto Rico, can not only speak, but also write in a poignant, bright, and elegant way. This book should be read by every person with interest in critical, innovative, and liberating ways of doing and writing theology.” (Luis N. Rivera-Pagán, Henry Winters Luce Professor in Ecumenics Emeritus, Princeton Theological Seminary, USA)

“Delgado’s study makes a strong case for the significance of a specific Puerto Rican theology as a contribution to the larger scope of U.S. Latinx theology. A contemporary colonial territory under the oversight and control of the U.S. Congress and with a large diaspora of arguably “second class” (and worse than second class) U.S. citizens in the state side U.S., close attention to the Puerto Rican case is very much welcome. This is an important contribution in the effort to formulate decolonial theologies today.” (Nelson Ladonado-Torres, Rutgers University, USA)

“Bottom line, this is a book that moves beyond the narrowly conscripted focus of liberation theology (where contextualized notions of freedom are not equivocations of liberation, for when the oppressed prophesied freedom they did not always have in mind, revolutionary mode of consciousness, as anti-colonialist theorists of the diaspora theorized); but many post-colonial theorists understood what Delgado’s underlining critique of Puerto Rican consciousness admits: there is no advancement in freedom without a ‘de-colonizing’ of the colonial consciousness in the lived experience of those who suffer colonizing power. This book makes a superb case study in contextual theology.” (Victor Anderson, Vanderbilt University, USA)

Teresa Delgado is Director of the Peace and Justice Studies Program and Associate Professor and Department Chairperson of Religious Studies at Iona College. Her more recent publications include Augustine and Social Justice, co-edited with John Doody and Kim Paffenroth (2015), and contributions to Queer Christianities: Lived Religion in Transgressive Forms  (2014), Reinterpreting Virtues and Values in the U.S. Public Sphere (2013), and More Than a Monologue: Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church, Volume 1 (2013). Delgado serves on the Board of Directors for WESPAC Foundation (Westchester Peace Action Coalition) and lives in Mount Vernon, NY with her husband and their four children.