Rhizomatic Reflections: Discourses on Religion and Theology

Fecund philosophical reflections on the conceptual metaphor rhizome invite us to reformulate the theological engagements today with a renewed spirit. Notably the subaltern theological engagements make use of this new move in gleaning the fruits of heterogeneity multiple origins horizontality interconnections and intersectionality. This conscious rhizomatic move is exemplified as a constructive post-colonial move and a useful tool for meaningful subaltern resistance. This move takes us beyond the entrapment of western binary opposites to the challenging cultural and political spaces of hybridity and liminality. Uncovering the underrated cultural and political spaces of subaltern religious experience is an apocalyptic/eschatological activity. Such an apocalyptic activity demands deep theological meditation and committed attention toward the multiple and heterogeneous themes like Casteism Vedic taxonomy Dalit spatial discourses sacred grove ecological crisis racism globalization neoliberalism infinite debt resistance etc. Such trans-disciplinary reflections contribute to the larger body of subaltern theopoetics. As a rhizome connects any point to any other point these themes are interconnected and intertwined rhizomatically! Rhizomatic Reflections discloses the multifarious subject positions in which the Dalits in India inhabit and resist to seek for a counter subjectivity. Dalits in India as the author Baiju Markose explores live in the margins of established religions and theologies. It is an excellent piece of work that attests the marginal religiosity of Dalits by which they try to find out their survival in the midst of marginalization and oppression. --Y.T. Vinayaraj Author of Dalit Theology after Continental Philosophy This collection of essays is a manifesto by an emerging voice. The brilliant and clear enunciations of a subaltern spoken by a subaltern Dalit insightfully engage western contemporary thinkers in a planetary stage. Baiju Markose is loyal to his heritage and yet speaks a word of truth that the West can understand be confronted by and passionately moved. --Vitor Westhelle Professor of Systematic Theology Baiju Markose is a PhD research scholar at Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago. He is an ordained minister of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar and the author of Ritual and Rhythm of Life (2015) and Treasuring the Scars in Our Hands (2006). He is the winner of American Academy of Religion (AAR/Midwest Region) Marion McFarland Award and Best Graduate Paper Award for the year 2017.