Smi Nature-Centered Christianity in the European Arctic: Indigenous Theology beyond Hierarchical Worldmaking

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In Smi Nature-Centered Christianity in the European Arctic: Indigenous Theology beyond Hierarchical Worldmaking, Tore Johnsen unpacks the theological significance of North Smi indigenous Christianity, demonstrating how the tension between Smi nature-centered Christianity and official Norwegian Lutheranism has broad theological relevance. Focusing on Christian cosmological orientation, the author argues that this is not fully given within the Christian faith itself. It is partly shaped by the religio-philosophical frameworks that various historical receptions of Christianity were filtered through. The author substantiates that two different types of Christian cosmological orientation are negotiated in the North Smi Christian experience: one reflecting a Smi historical reception of Christianity primarily filtered through the egalitarian world intuition of the Smi indigenous tradition; another reflecting official Norwegian Lutheranism, primarily filtered through a Greek hierarchical world construct passed down among European intellectual elites.

The argument is developed through thick description of local everyday Christianity among reindeer herding, river, and sea Smi communities in Finnmark, Norway; through critical engagement with historical and contemporary Lutheranism; and through constructive dialogue with African and Native American theologies. The author suggests that the egalitarian, multi-relational logic of Smi nature-centered Christianity points beyond the hierarchical binaries delimiting much of the theological imagination of dominant Christian theologies.

Reviews

Christians have often held that humans are God-ordained to have dominion or stewardship over creation. Johnsen argues that this has roots in Augustine's and Luther's view of a hierarchically structured world, which is at odds with the lived theology of Smi Christian cosmology. Based on rich interviews and in conversation with African and Native American theological writings, the implications of this work are profound--it reimagines the doctrines of God and creation, and ecotheology, and it challenges a mindset that legitimizes the colonization of nature and of other peoples. This is an immensely important and provocative work.

--Alexander Chow, University of Edinburgh

Globally, religious studies and theological education continue to be one of the last institutional bastions of hegemonic colonial dominance. Slowly but surely, subaltern voices crying out for the liberatory presence of a just, inclusive, life-giving God are rightly disrupting long held academic and intellectual privilege. Indigenous voices, courageous, compelling, compassionate voices such as that of Tore Johnsen are now calling us all to notice the extent to which such historically embedded dominance has supressed and silenced the God given wisdom, insight, vision, and critical knowledge of indigenous peoples. Tore's work is an exemplary act of both literary defiance and of deep indigenous grace.

--Jenny Te Paa-Daniel, Otago University

Johnsen's work is the first major contribution to the academic articulation of Smi theology. It builds on a careful and detailed analysis of Smi cosmology while retaining a clear insider perspective. Johnsen does Smi constructive contextual theology that is deeply rooted in the everyday Christianity in the Nordic Arctic. Yet, his work is in intense dialogue with decolonial theories and African as well as Native American theologies with the effect of relevance beyond the Smi circles. This is globally one of the most important contributions to contextual theology after the turn of the millennium.

--Mika Vhkangas, Polin Institute of bo Akademi University

This eye-opener of a text succeeds in being both critical and creative. Tore Johnsen not only claims the obvious right to formulate indigenous and decolonial answers to central questions of human existence, but also shows how indispensable these answers are and why. The approach may be theological and the empirical example Smi, but the range of the analysis is much wider. It convincingly demonstrates the advantage of using reasonings of so-called ordinary people as building-blocks in the formulation of a non-hierarchical philosophies, be they religious (as in this case) or secular.

--Hkan Rydving, University of Bergen

Tore Johnsen's book is an exquisite and path-breaking contribution to the evolving fields of religion and ecology, Indigenous methodology, decolonial theology, and Lutheran theology and ethics. Johnsen's intellectual acumen and practiced indigenous methodology bear rich fruit. They bring North Sami Christian tradition out of colonial intellectual captivity, and they offer the broader Western theological imagination a path out of captivity to the hierarchical dualism that has shaped it. The nature-centered cosmological orientation of North Sami lived Christianity offers a vitally important re-orientation of Christian theology and practice away from hierarchical assumptions and worldmaking toward far more egalitarian and Earth-honoring ways of living and practicing faith. Through Johnsen's astute theological inquiry rooted in Sami land and culture, indigenous Christians of the Arctic North offer an alternative ontological premise for human perception of and engagement in the world. This volume is a life-giving and brilliant gift to Lutheranism, the larger church, and the world.

--Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and Graduate Theological Union

Author Bio

Smi theologian Rev. Dr. Tore Johnsen is associate proffesor at KUN/VID Troms, Faculty of Theology, Diaconia and Leadership Studies, VID Specialized University, Norway.