Shattering the Ceilings of Power Like the Syrophoenician Woman

Abstract

In this paper, we revisit three hallmarks of coloniality of power – control, influence, and access to resources – and their interplay in shaping and framing Anglican witness and presence in the world today. We contend that, although the growth of Anglicanism in the global South, particularly in Africa, represents a notable demographic shift within the Anglican Communion, it does not translate to shifts in control, influence, and access to resources. As a result, colonial legacies of Anglican witness that conferred power to whiteness and maleness and assigned powerlessness and ‘otherness’ to lives and faith experience outside the categories of whiteness and maleness still pervade relationships within the communion. With reference to the “decolonial” encounter of Jesus with the Syrophoenician woman in the gospels (Mark 7:24-30 and Matt. 15:21-28), we reimagine Anglican witness as with-ness. This is a kenotic praxis and a decolonial alternative that would enable theologies of decentralization of power, a polycentric system of control, and an ethic of kenotic accompaniment, acceptance, and inclusion of lives and faith experiences outside the frames of whiteness and maleness in the Anglican Communion.