Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 37:3 (Summer 2023)
Article: Book Review: "Indigenous Theology And The Western Worldview" By Randy S. Woodley (Baker Academic, 2022)
Author: William David Spencer

PP 37:3 (Summer 2023) p. 29

Book Review:
Indigenous Theology And The Western Worldview By Randy S. Woodley (Baker Academic, 2022)

William David Spencer

William David Spencer, who inherited mixed-blood Leni Lenape descent, is Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Theology and the Arts at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Boston Campus. A former Priscilla Papers editor (2004–2014), the latest books among his 300+ publications are Christian Egalitarian Leadership: Empowering the Whole Church according to the Scriptures, co-edited with his wife, Aída Besançon Spencer, (House of Prisca & Aquila Series, Wipf and Stock, 2020, reviewed here: https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/christian-egalitarian-leadership-empowering-whole-churchaccording-scriptures-2/), Three in One: Analogies for the Trinity (Kregel Academic, 2022, reviewed here: https://cbeinternational.org/resource/book-review-threein-one-analogies-for-the-trinity/), and the novel he and Aída coauthored, Cave of Little Faces (House of Prisca and Aquila, 2018), the adventures of a female First Nations Taino pastor pressed into tribal leadership on the tense Dominican-Haitian border.

This is a remarkable book that, surprising as it may sound from its title, will be of pertinent interest to Priscilla Papers readers. Seeking an alternate way to communicate besides the propositional tools of colonial culture, the author has drawn on First Nations’ “narrative theology” (xi), interpreting personal experiences and traditional stories to contrast Western and Indigenous thinking. Opening and closing interviews serve as explanatory bookends for three chapters, “The Myth of History and Progressive Civilizations,” “Comparing Western Indigenous Worldviews,” and “Decolonizing Western Christian Theology,” each chapter followed by “Questions and Response” designed to unpack and emphasize what the author is communicating. A final, helpful index completes this engaging and insightful 141-page comparative analysis.

The author, Randy S. Woodley, is Distinguished Professor of Faith and Culture and Director of Intercultural and Indigenous Studies at Portland Seminary of George Fox University (Oregon). A Cherokee elder who cohosts a podcast called Peacing It All Together, he balances academics with the practical, co-administrating with his wife, Edith Woodley, the Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice along with Eloheh Farm and Seeds company. Eloheh “is a Cherokee Indian word meaning harmony, wholeness, abundance and peace.”1

The book targets what Dr. Woodley views as the majority, primarily male, “Western worldview,” which he characterizes as a fix-it mentality: “European minds fir...