Reading and listening to voices from outside our own race, gender and politics can challenge our thinking, encourage us to consider new ideas and viewpoints, and enable us to understand issues from a broader perspective. It can also help us to recognise our own blind spots and identify some of the implicit biases that shape our understandings of the world. This LibGuide aims to assist anyone that wants to engage with a more diverse range of theological voices.
Resources highlighted include publications by majority world authors and writers from different marginalised communities. Included are publications by women scholars, writers from the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) and LGBTQI+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, and Intersex) communities. The scholars featured in this guide therefore provide a balance to the predominantly white, male and western voices cited in most University reading lists and bibliographies.
Valuing alternative voices and being able to empathise with the struggles of others, can contribute to the development of our own voice and to the discovery of the unique contribution that each of us can make to the broader theological conversation.
The mark of a civilised person is to recognise that for a long time what we understood to be history - and theology - was history of the few written by the few, and that the voices and experiences of women, the disabled, the poor, the discriminated against, the queer, the black, the colonised and the 'other' have been seen through the eyes that never understood what it was like to walk in their shoes, or dance in their bodies, or fight to be free from prejudice. (Dr Julia Baird, 2020)
Please email library@divinity.edu.au if you would like to suggest additional content.