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In the globalization era, justice-seeking feminist theologies are challenged to sharpen and reposition themselves to speak to the issues of the time by adopting new methods, topics, and frameworks. Consequently, “the boundaries of theology need to be redrawn in the light of the creation of new global cultures” and “crucial to the task of rewriting the story of feminist theology in the light of globalization is reflecting on the nature of a theological perspective it makes.” This chapter explores the interrelations of globalization, a world scripture (the Bible), and the vision of feminist theologies.

This paper investigates how native languages were used by colonizers to subordi nate the colonized. The paper uses an example from the Setswana language of Botswana to investigate the colonial translations of the Bible and compilation of the first dictionaries and to show how they were informed by their time. It focuses on the translation of Badimo (Ancestral Spirits) and other related words to show how the Setswana language was employed for imperial ends in colonial times. The paper also examines how the subsequent versions of the Setswana Bible and dictionaries reflect the growing spirit of decolonization as colonized subjects became involved in writing their own languages. Given that colonial translations remained in circulation beyond the period of colonization, this paper also documents how native readers developed strategies of resistance by reading the Bible as a divining text to get in touch with Badimo, thereby subverting the colonial translations that equated the latter with evil powers.

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This article is an amalgam of four talks given over several days at The Community of Women and Men in Mission Conference. The overall title 'Who do you say that I am?' covers the subjects of Jesus the Liberator, The Healer, The One Who Empowers, and The One Who Sends Us. The author explores these issues in the context of Africa and opens a very illuminating set of questions.